Startup business models and challenges for East African mAgriculture innovations

An increasing number of mobile phone-based innovations are emerging from East Africa to address the range of difficulties faced by local small-stakeholder farmers. These tools attempt to address supply-chain inefficiencies; information on market prices, weather, and inputs; and agricultural advice, to name a few. Nevertheless, these startups face issues of marketing their products to farmers, finding funding to scale their products, and ensuring they are properly meeting the needs of their end users. There is currently little documentation of such East African mobile Agriculture (m-Agric) start-ups and the common challenges faced. Through in-depth interviews with co-founders and a review of the online literature, we found that challenges faced by the start-ups include finding funding, and creating awareness and uptake among users, among others. As a result of the noted challenges, we recommend that new mAgriculture initiatives in East Africa look at impact investing as a potential avenue for gaining early funding to lock in their competitive first-mover advantage. We also recommend startups constantly use agile and lean methodologies to work out their best business model.