#TW #TECHTUESDAY DEAD SPACE MEETS TECHNOLOGY= SPACEBA
Taiwo Akinseye is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Spaceba. He’s spent the past 10 years building a career in software development, project management and business development. Spaceba is an online booking platform which connects those who need spaces (for meeting, events, work) to those who have spaces. “We make the hard work of finding and booking spaces effortless.” Through spaceba, space owners enjoy more revenue for standard spaces and new revenue stream from dead or untapped spaces.
Every startup is born from a need in the market. What informed the need for spaceba?
At some point in my life, I had to plan a wedding with my fiancé. When we got to the hall searching bit, we spent countless hours, fuel and energy going from one event space viewing to another. At the end of the day, we settled for an event space very close to my fiance’s house after spending days going through several halls far and near. At that point, I thought to myself, “I wish we had a website that collates several types of spaces for a vast amount of use/events., This way people like me could save hours, energy and resources by searching for spaces we like from the comforts of our homes and visiting only the ones that suit our requirements.” This was how Spaceba was born.
How did you start?
We actually started with a website called Venhop. The Idea was to solve the event planning problem from the very top, acquiring the right vendors. We later discovered that was overly ambitious and decided to take a fragment of the problem and focus on that. We started off just visiting space owners and telling them what we do, but along the way, we discovered we can do much more than that. We discovered lots of space owners assumed the market basically wanted wedding halls, training halls,and meeting rooms. Very few really catered to the customers who wanted small spaces for events, quiet work areas or 2-10 man meeting spaces for few hours, or yoga classes, art exhibitions , photo shootspots etc. These markets were not fully considered and these space owners had what we call “dead spaces” that could meet the needs of these selected market areas. This is how we expanded beyond just getting customers halls, to consulting for space owners on how to revamp relegated spaces and satisfy a unique market segment. This formed our unique selling point, and its what has made spaceba what it is today.
What contributions does spaceba bring to the tech space?
Well, technology is really about accessing everyday needs much more efficiently and conveniently. In a way we are further improving the ways technology makes our lives easy when it comes to looking for affordable spaces for variety of use . But more importantly we are helping Nigeria grow to meet up with the world . Almost 75{54d2fcdcd494adb6982253be6fe8d5492e5f586157f419110131714f9092ec60} of daily activities in more developed countries are handled via technology and our goal is to ensure Nigerians have access to ways of leveraging technology in handling daily activities.
Is spaceba a virtual service, how do clients connect with you?
Yes we are virtual. You can access our services via our website www.spaceba.com,
How long has the website been running?
4 months
What challenges have you faced so far?
Go-to-market has been a bit challenging. Finding the perfect business model that will assist your products growth has also been dauting. Finally, finding talents that are passionate about working with startups is the most dauting of all.
What are the challenges facing the Nigeria tech and start-up space?
For the tech space, I believe a few will agree that quality is a major challenge. We have such lofty ideas, but transforming these ideas into reality needs a group of skilled tech executors. To find such skilled executors in Nigeria can be a challenge. Furthermore, an Idea starts up well, but along the way, websites start to hang, products start to fail etc. This is because technology creators and executors are too focused on making money than offering value. For the start-up space?? where do I start..lol. Getting affordable but reliable people to work with, not getting duped by scammers who promise a service, take your money and run, finding strategic ways to deal with vendors who find strategic ways of cutting you out of deals, dealing with foreign competition who trump young growing Nigerian businesses with money, experience and popularity, its an endless list.
What is in store for spaceba, what are your plans?
We want to launch in major cities in emerging markets.
A word of advice for upcoming tech startups?
Its tough out there, I know, I’m in the eye of the storm, but what seperates the success stories from the failures is tenacity. Take the blows but never fall down, never give up.
SPACEBA’s UNIQUE FEATURES
-Get exclusive discounts for spaces
– Search for spaces within your location
– In depth space details
– Easily find spaces for a variety of uses such as events, meeting, conference, work ,art exhibition, photoshoot , exercise training etc
-Get Instant quote for spaces you are interested in
-Get spaces that fit your budget
TARGET AUDIENCE
-Enterpreneurs and Startups
-SMES
-Business Tourist
-Event Organizers
SERVICES
Space booking and deals
Space Consulting
For more information on space visit www.spaceba.com