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With a combined decade of unique experiences in building technology platforms, export sales, and marketing, Sarah and Cynthia are forces to be reckoned with. Now, they are teaming up to build the ultimate B2B African marketplace.
Cynthia holds a Bachelor’s in business administration from the University of Benin, is an International Visitor Leadership Program Fellow, was the TEF Laurette, and African Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum Award winner. Cynthia is a multi-award winning textile designer, with a successful African hand-dyed textile company that exports to over 16 countries under her belt. She has a strong background in international sales and marketing.
Sarah has a Bachelor’s in engineering from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, as well as a full-stack engineering degree. Sarah is an experienced full stack developer with a specialty in e-commerce companies. She has worked with and helped grow companies that achieved $1M+ in revenue. Sarah is dedicated to building world-class, modern web applications and crafting high performance web experiences for customers.
Sarah and Cynthia have known each other for three years now. They met on a career thread on Twitter and discovered that they both had the same passion to scale technologies, with impact being at the core of what they do. Their work relationship has been superb, with their complementary styles and skills.
About Craftmerce: An African Marketplace
Craftmerce is an online B2B African marketplace platform that holds no inventory, but provides African brands with access to sell their products to international retailers and wholesalers. Craftmerce also provides access for international retailers to shop wholesale from one centralized platform, cutting their time spent searching for inventory and purchases by over 50%.
As of writing this, Craftmerce has 672 brands from 13 African countries, lists 1120 retail stores, with a waitlist of nearly 3000 additional stores.
In their initial testing phase, they tested their product and services with 20 brands and 100 retail stores. The response was great. With the feedback they received, Sarah and Cynthia have gone through multiple iterations and improvements to accommodate the demands of the users (brands and retail stores).
Craftmerce is also currently being backed by On Deck Accelerator.
How You Can Help
Craftmerce is looking for retailers and independent boutiques who are looking to purchase handmade African products for their stores. They are also looking for investors who are interested in marketplace startups.
Head over to their website to learn more.
Advice to Fellow Founders
"Always think of your North Star, and remember to do things that don’t scale in the beginning." – Cynthia Asije, Co-Founder of Craftmerce
Please support our Founders by sharing their story.
Follow Craftmerce on their socials: twitter | instagram | facebook
Congrats to Craftmerce for being featured on StartupStage, a platform to showcase your startup and compete for features across our channels.
