My Guest today is Minuifuong Nghombombong. Minuifuong is the founder of Bongalo,  an online marketplace for short to medium-term homestay.

During this episode, we do a deep dive into Bongalo and how the company is being positioned as an African native travel platform and differentiating itself by using various strategies adapted for the African market. We also spoke about travel as a category and Minuifuong’s motivations behind building in the travel industry. We explored topics including the relationships between companies like Airbnb, Bogalo, and the broader hotel industry. We ended our conversation by speaking about funding, future plans, and expansion.

Hope you enjoy this great conversation with Minuiuong!

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(2:00) – How Bongalo disrupts the hoteling industry

(8:35) – Bongalo’s founding story   

(13:12) – Bongalo’s pricing

(15:07) – Onboarding the buyer and seller side

(18:50) – Building for experiences

(24:05) – Building for scale

(28:23) – Expansion plan

(33:42) – Dealing with the Covid – 19 pandemic

(38:42) – Product Marketing

(42:21) –  Competing with Airbnb 

(45:08) – Using mobile money as a competitive advantage

(50:15) – Regulatory risk in running Bongalo

(52:02) – Raising money from Google

(53:32) – Quick fire questions

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Companies discussed: Bongalo, AirBnB, and Google.
Please email paul.agbaje@whatittakesafrica.com for any comments or feedback.