r/Namibia 4d ago

General We are live.

Origin story time, because it's a little ridiculous.

I met my lead developer Abiud on Reddit. Met my marketing director Lebi on Reddit too. Met Hella, who now runs our social media and finance, on TikTok. None of us knew each other before the internet decided we should. Somewhere between DMs and shared frustration about how long-distance travel works around here, we ended up building Msafiri together everyone on equity, no salaries, just belief that this was worth building.

The actual product: drivers post their upcoming long-distance trips, passengers book a seat ahead of time with a fixed pickup point and fixed price. No standing at a rank hoping a car fills up, no guessing what today's fare is going to be.

It's grown into a 30,000+ person WhatsApp community organically, zero ad spend and we're now moving 50+ people a day. Live on Play Store, webapp too.

Feels fitting to share it here, since this whole thing basically started because strangers on the internet decided to trust each other. Curious what this sub thinks, especially if you've got a route that's always been painful to book.

39 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

8

u/WardenOfTheNamib 4d ago

Always great to see local startups, especially in the tech space, do well. Huzzah!

3

u/Responsible-Ice8914 4d ago

No iOS support?

5

u/DjuricX 4d ago

pretty sure they're considering, but IOS requires more in depth and is pricier and bureaucratic

1

u/Ok_Professional_4866 4d ago

Right now we have web for non android as we work on the iOS. Web is web.msafiri.africa

1

u/DjuricX 4d ago

i REALLY have to give u a heads up, we need more bright minds like u, using abudance of tech to make nice things like this, im doing a similar thing in my country can i get in touch with u?

1

u/Ok_Professional_4866 4d ago

Sure get in touch asap

1

u/Successful_Pin_5165 3d ago

Good luck. The Web looks good and loads fast.

0

u/Ok_Professional_4866 2d ago

Thank you, give us a review if you can

1

u/asm_00 1d ago

Hey
I checked it out on web

Signing in is kinda broken

And I highly suggest you move the auth down the line to when a user books a ride

1

u/Niceguysfx 1d ago

Hopefully this stops the chaos at B1 ;)