Wikipedia Draft:VUKAPLUS

Brief History
Vukaplus is Kenyan online listing service for vehicles, businesses, properties and job listings based in Nairobi Kenya under a flagship company named Vukaplus Technologies Limited.

It was founded by Teddy Kimani alongside his former high school mate Japheth Mutai and later on his cousin Francis Kimani Ngugi who joined the board as an investor. The founder of Vukaplus initially decided to design and develop an online listing and e-commerce platform based on escrow model in 2016 but later dropped e-commerce after forecasting expansion in  logistical challenges that would arise in setting up an escrow infrastructure in each country that expansion would take place.

Since March 2021 any individual or organization has been allowed to advertise properties, vehicles, businesses or services and vacant jobs on vukaplus with priority advertising and vukaplus auto recruit agency marketing set to be introduced later in the year.

Vukaplus can be accessed from devices with internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After signing up users who wish to create listings can create a profile to reveal information about themselves or their organization. They can post details about their listings such as location, description contact information and prices where applicable, this is information is shared with users or the public who may not necessarily need to create accounts with vukaplus. The aim is to serve as a digital bridge to connect people to information they seek about properties, jobs, vehicles, businesses and services to give them as many credible options as users supply while on the other hand Transform Businesses.

Vukaplus was initially known as Tedfield but changed its name to vukaplus in 2021 after realizing Tedfield.com domain had already been bought in the USA around 2014. Vuka means cross over in Swahili and plus simply means more. Vukaplus was coined from a Swahili word and an English word, therefore vukaplus is a very unique name and can be argued to mean cross over and more.

2015-2020 design and development of Tedfield
Teddy first designed Tedfield to be both e-commerce and listing website while still working as an insurance sales manager at Jubilee Insurance and Liberty life insurance. The e-commerce section had been designed on escrow model where users would create online/virtual shops, deliveries would be handled by a courier network, and buyers would buy goods without meeting the seller through Tedfield as an intermediary for a percentage commission.

Teddy’s main problem was lack of resources to develop the platform and create the digital infrastructure required for a fully interactive e-commerce website not to mention finances that would be required to market such an undertaking. Having it difficult to balance less than one thousand dollars salary to pay bills and pay for development of the website he sort for finances from investors who did not come through because “Kenyans or Africans do not deeply understand technology especially the older generation, a huge size of the population are mostly consumers of technology not producers, they therefore falsely believe technology should come from outside” Teddy says because of this reason most investors are up to now not willing to put their money in technology because they do not understand it also because it is not tangible like property, an iPhone or a vehicle. Also no investment firm would invest in a concept without a prototype. In May 2016 Teddy met Timothy Mabuka who claimed to be able to develop the website in a few months in exchange for equity. The two registered Tedfield Twineglobal Limited in May 2016. After a few months however Timothy did not even start developing and failed to communicate, he later admitted he was in over his head but he refused to officially resign as director of Tedfield Twineglobal Limited despite having contributed nothing to Tedfield, Teddy and Timothy have not been in contact since then. By the end of 2016 Tedfield had not been developed since even software engineers in Nairobi would rather get paid to build the software than accept equity as payment, they simply did not believe in the potential. Teddy’s family friend a local business man called Benjamin Maina and Andrew Kamau who each had separately promised to invest KES 5,000,000 in Tedfield in exchange for shares all bailed last minute. Even accomplished entrepreneurs like Gina Din kariuki and Chris Kirubi refused to invest in it. The only thing that had been done was Tedfield logo which had been designed by then Teddy’s girlfriend.

In the beginning 2017 Teddy met his former high school mate one class behind him called Japheth Mutai. Japheth is a software engineer who studied at Kenyatta University. Japheth agreed to develop the website in exchange for 33.3% of the company. They decided to drop e-commerce part for the moment due to escrow logistical hurdles that would present themselves during scaling and expansion, an undertaking that would be carried out in the future. Soon after even Japheth acknowledged magnitude of the project and advised to change the deal to a paid for development. Teddy did not have the funds then so development was postponed after unsuccessfully tried to develop the project with a self-taught programmer.

In 2018 Teddy got a new job as a real estate salesman for a local property developer, he was occasionally able to raise thousands of dollars Japheth required to develop Tedfield. The two had an agreement and Japheth begun to develop the software, it took longer than expected and towards the end of 2019 the prototype was complete. At this point they both realized the software will always continue to be developed as more features would be added in the long-run so Japheth was offered 10% of the company to mitigate accumulative cost of development. Teddy had planned to finance digital infrastructure required and marketing of Tedfield using commissions he had earned from his sales job but in 2020 Teddy was conned about USD 13,000 by in a vehicle purchase deal which had planned to sale to finance Tedfield.

By the end of 2020 the setback coupled with covid19 pandemic and disappointments from local investors unable to commit funds to software project despite clear demonstrations of viability with the prototype, made Teddy desperate to move forward to the next step. Teddy quit employment end of October 2020, in December jobless and almost being kicked out of his small studio for unpaid rent, he was invited to Christmas holiday by his cousin at his home in Nairobi with his brother and many other cousins were invited, his host cousin name was Francis Ngugi. A sales man is he is Teddy could not resist pitching the business idea to his well off Cousin Francis. Francis listened keenly and promised a follow up meeting early the following month.

Registration and launch of Vukaplus.
On 9th January 2021 Teddy, Japheth and Francis met at a mall in Nairobi, after viewing the prototype Francis decided to invest about USD 10,000 in exchange for 41% of the business. The three gentlemen therefore agreed to move forward with rolling out the platform but the name had to be changed mainly because domain name www.tedfield.com had already been bought and protected by someone in the use so it was not available to be acquired. Teddy insisted on a unique name short but easy to remember and vukaplus was born. The three gentlemen registered Vukaplus Technologies Limited with Teddy owning 49 percent majority, Francis 41% and Japheth 10%. Teddy became the CEO and Chief Technology Officer for the foreseeable future, Francis became Managing Director for the foreseeable future and Japheth became the Head of Information Technology.

Vukaplus acquired www.vukaplus.com and www.vukaplus.co.ke domains and begun online testing in March 2021. Vukaplus.com is hosted by Microsoft azure. In April same year marketing and advertisement begun in google ads ,Facebook, Instagram, twitter and influencers. Advertisement are focused on Kenya despite getting some hits from china, Germany, united kingdom, Netherlands, Nigeria, Ghana and the USA. Vukaplus is planning to begin global expansion by early 2022 after they create their own custom made front end, geo-localize content using location, translate to international languages and create vukaplus agency code that will enable marketers to recruit themselves on the site and work anywhere anytime for a 25% commission per each listing uploaded with their vukaplus Agency Code (VAC). VAC is projected to solve unemployment in an epic scale. Vukaplus as of April 2021 has 4 employees, more than 3,000 users a month and increasing. Vukaplus charges monthly as follows 30 dollars for each normal listings, 200 dollars for featured listings, 75 dollars for agency listings (12 slots) and to be announced soon 1,000 dollars a day for priority advertisers at the website homepage.