Understanding the Business model of Ukweli

1. What are the technological, social, economic, and political trends that will impact (help or hurt) your ventures?

Technological: Anything that can be connected will be connected thanks to the growing interest and use of the internet in LICs. This will make collecting data for our team easier. We are currently trying to figure out how to efficiently get the data collected by our Distribution Managers as it is inconsistent and unreliable. 

Social: It is socially unacceptable for women of Sierra Leone to ride motorbikes, which is how we get our test strips to women of Sierra Leone. The spread of feminism in African Countries will hopefully make hiring women as Distribution Managers easy and convenient as they are more connected to the women.

Economics:Globalization, organizations will be operating on an international scale, this is good news for ukweli test strips because our partners such as WHI(which is already a global organization) can help us expand to other countries that might need to use our product

Political Trends: governments throughout sub-saharan Africa have or are trying to make healthcare free and/or accessible to their citizens. This will make distribution and accessibility of our test strips easy if we do plan to target other countries like Sierra leone.

 

 

2. What is the Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market for your product or service? What are your customer segments?

The Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market will target the following:

1. Sierra Leonean women in age range from teenagers to adults who are most likely married and pregnant. 
2. Women in rural countries who do not have direct access to the healthcare system or it is difficult to get treatment, if need be, due to geographic or economic barriers.
3. Community Health Workers at Peripheral Health Units in both rural and urban settings will purchase the test strips and sell them to the women.

Our customer segment is very similar to our market given that our product targets a diversified market; pregnant women in Sierra Leone who are subject to UTIs and preeclampsia. Our product is only beneficial to women in this target group and the community health workers/peripheral health units that purchase the test strips from the distribution managers to further sell to the women. Our product is currently used by the women of Sierra Leone but the test strips can be implemented in other countries as well such as Liberia and South Sudan(countries with high maternal mortality rates).

Because of the simplicity and affordability of our product, the Ukweli test strips, can also be used by clinics in rural areas in low-income countries as well as clinics in slums. Our product is a medical device that can be used in hospitals to diagnose for UTIs and Preeclampsia i.e. it has a diverse market  

 

3. What are your initial value propositions (using the format in the slides)?

• For women of Sierra Leone who are pregnant and in need of antenatal care, Ukweli Test Strips are two cent urinalysis test strips that will test for UTIs and preeclampsia for early intervention to decrease maternal mortality.
• We help the women of Sierra Leone reduce their risk of maternal mortality rate by selling urinalysis test strips to test for UTIs and preeclampsia at $0.02.