The 8 Business Lessons we've learned from running Tini Express
In March 2023 we launched Tini Express, our most recent business venture. In this post, we expand on the 8 lessons that we’ve learned so far while running this business.
What is Tini Express?
Tini Express is a service that allows consumers in Eswatini to purchase items from their favorite online stores based outside of the country. We handle the ordering, the shipping, the border post customs administration, and delivery within Eswatini. Hence our slogan: from Store to Door!
Why did we start Tini Express?
The Kingdom of Eswatini is a small country located in Southern Africa with a population of around 1.2 million people. The country is completely landlocked and is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique.
eSwatini in relation to South Africa and Mozambique.
Despite the fact that we have a growing middle class with an ever-increasing amount of disposable income, the number and variety of stores that we have within the country are minimal and this can be very frustrating for consumers. As a result of this, Eswatini-based consumers often find themselves depending on South African-based stores and popular overseas stores for items such as clothing, electronics, furniture, and beauty products, to name a few.
However, when these consumers buy items from these international stores, the cost and the logistics of getting the items into the country can be a bit of a nightmare for the following reasons:
Cross-border courier costs are ridiculously high.
Customs/Tax admin at the border post can be confusing.
The payment methods provided by the stores can be a hurdle for certain customers (some Swazi bank cards are not enabled for online payments).
Traveling between Eswatini and South Africa just to shop at these stores/collect your order requires time (to drive across the border) and money (petrol, toll gates, etc.).
As one can imagine, these administrative issues can be a nightmare for consumers, but as Dennis Waitley once said: “Opportunities are problems in search of solutions”. Thus, in March 2023, we started Tini Express.
It has been an extremely interesting journey so far and we have learned some valuable lessons along the way.
The Lessons Learnt From Running Tini Express
Solve Your Own Problem
Tini Express does not solve a problem for a hypothetical customer based on a hypothetical persona with theoretical needs. No, Tini Express solves our own problem, and solving our own problem means that we don’t need to hypothesize about situations, people, feelings, budgets, or interests.
Worst case, even if we didn’t have any customers or any revenue, we at least figured out a way to solve a problem that we, ourselves, had been experiencing for years.
One of the benefits of solving our own problem is that it made the market research and validation aspects a lot easier. It also made running the business much more interesting, fun, real, and meaningful.
2. Collect as Much Data as Possible
Despite the fact that we were solving our own problem, we didn’t want to start a whole business completely siloed off from the needs and wants of potential customers. We are also well aware that we do not represent the average Swazi consumer, so to counter this we made sure to gather as many insights from our target market as possible.
Before launching Tini Express we ran an online survey for two weeks which gathered vital information from Swazi consumers. We asked questions about their shopping habits, their shopping interests, and how much they have spent or are willing to spend to courier items into the country. It was very interesting to see the wide range of answers that our survey respondents provided.
Over and above everything else what this also showed us was that there was a real problem that people were experiencing and this gave us even more motivation to provide a solution.
3. Don’t Rush into Building a Bespoke Technical Solution
As a software engineer by trade and as a techie by heart, my initial instinct is always to build, build, build, and we could have easily built something bespoke as part of our initial service offering but we didn’t because we didn’t need to.
Our main aim with Tini Express was to provide a low-priced, convenient service to our customers, and focussing on anything other than that, especially in the initial stages of running the business would have just been a complete waste of time.
So instead of building something bespoke, we opted to make use of existing online tools and services. As it stands, the Tini Express “tech stack” currently consists of a Squarespace website, Google Forms for surveys, Google Docs for invoicing, Google Sheets for financial records, and Email/WhatsApp for customer communication.
The Tini Express Tech Stack
4. Do Things That Don’t Scale
Our current process is very manual. For each order that a customer places on the Tini Express website we do the following:
Shop for the items online
Calculate the shipping costs
Create an invoice
Message the customer via their preferred medium of communication (either email or Whatsapp)
Ask which day and time they will be available for us to deliver their packages
Create a custom “thank you” card which we give the customer on delivery
We also provide discounts to repeat customers on an ad-hoc basis.
Does this scale? Not at all. Does it get the job done? Yes, it does.
The “Thank You” Cards We Print for Each of Our Customers
Our theory was that Swazi consumers wanted a convenient way to do online shopping and that they were willing to pay for this service. Our initial aim when we launched the business was to test if this hypothesis was correct and we are more than willing to spend extra time, resources, and effort while attempting to prove or disprove this theory, without optimizing prematurely.
Only once we have finally found our sweet spot will we focus on optimizing our many processes. And if we don’t ever find this sweet spot, then we move swiftly along to the next business venture.
5. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment
One of the core tenets that we have taken into this business is that absolutely everything is an experiment. The business in and of itself is just one big prolonged experiment in the bigger scheme of things. What this perspective allows us to do is to take risks and to be comfortable with failure.
We approach every idea that we have with the mindset that it may or may not work, and either way, it's okay. We have taken this experimental approach when it comes to:
Pricing - by testing out different pricing models.
Advertising - by running ads on different platforms.
Marketing - by trialing different competitions and rewards programs with customers, and
Suppliers and logistics - by trying out different approaches to bringing our items across the border and delivering them to customers.
As soon as we have an idea, we plan it out, we try it out, and we assess the results. If it works we continue, if it fails, we move on. When running these experiments we always make sure to measure the results and to time-box everything. Without these two factors, you can end up chasing your tail for a very long time, which we definitely cannot afford to do.
6. Always Put The Customers First
Eswatini is a country that is known for many things. We are ruled by a King (King Mswati III), we are one of the leading sugar exporters in Africa, and we are home to Sibebe, the second-largest monolith in the world. However, despite our many claims to fame, providing excellent customer service through businesses is not something that our beloved Kingdom is well known for.
Over the years, when dealing with businesses in the country, whether it is big corporates or small informal establishments, we have had frequent experiences of poor communication, sub-par service delivery, and lackluster support. As a result of this PTSD, we wanted to build a business that really prioritizes the customer and provides them with a quality end-to-end experience.
Examples of Tini Express Customer Support Chats
When we launched Tini Express we knew that by simply valuing efficient, timely communication and by providing quality customer service, we would already be leaps and bounds ahead of not just the competitors in our industry, but the rest of the businesses in the country.
7. Branding is Everything
Since starting Tini Express we have made a conscious effort to build a brand with a coherent voice and consistent messaging that our target market can relate to and trust.
Whether it is our Website, our Emails, our Whatsapp messages, or our online adverts, we try our best to ensure that our unique Tini Express personality permeates throughout.
We believe that the brand we have built is what instills trust and confidence in new customers who continue to land on our website and place orders on our platform, despite the fact that they have never interacted with Tini Express before.
Development of the Tini Express Logo
8. You Don’t Need To Know It All
When we started Tini Express we knew nothing about the courier industry, the intricacies of customs tax, or the Swazi e-commerce landscape but we learned what we needed to learn. We have definitely made some mistakes along the way and will undoubtedly continue to do so, but that is all part of the journey.
One of the joys of running a business in an industry that is non-adjacent to your field of study and expertise is that it makes you realize that you can upskill on absolutely anything, all you need is a decent amount of time, a healthy amount of dedication, and a lot of patience.
Final Thoughts
Alright there you have it, the 8 lessons that we have learned so far from running Tini Express. We hope you found this post useful and insightful.
In our next post, we will share some interesting graphs and charts as we delve into some insights based on aggregated Tini Express shopping behavior from the past few months.
More from the authors
Aside from Tini Express, we also run the following companies:
Mmari Productions - A design agency
Simplimantis - A software consultancy
When we are not running companies or solving Eswatini’s e-commerce problems, we are writing and self-publishing books. Philosophical Suicide is a book we recently self-published about life, work, relationships, meaning, purpose, and everything in between, check it out.