A mobile social network focused on emerging markets, where users chat and share photos with friends and family; meet new people and chat and play games in chat rooms.
What's made you successful?
2go's success lies in its simple intuitive user interface, nimble and highly scalable platform, and support for over 800 feature phones (which still dominate handset penetration in Africa).
Our core focus is on building for mobile first, especially for users in emerging markets who (i) mostly own feature phones and (ii) are price sensitive to data costs.
We have built a lightweight application with an intuitive user experience that works across hundreds of feature phones. The application has been custom designed to ensure that our users consume as little data as possible when they use the app.
How is 2go different from other social networks/IM platforms?
We are not only about enabling users to message friends and family, but we also create a unique platform for users to meet, socialize and play games.
The app is built specifically with feature phone users in mind. We've developed custom technology to keep the application lightweight and data/resource efficient.
Our application design and the user experience we provide for people to connect with each other is unique. We spend a lot of time thinking about and developing ways to improve our UX.
Understanding what our users want and constantly incorporating their feedback into the app.
2go numbers
2go has over 20m registered users across SA, Kenya and Nigeria of which 9m are active in Nigeria and 1.5m in South Africa. 2go version 3.5 was released in mid December 2012 and achieved over 1 million downloads in its first month.
Over 6 billion messages sent over our network every month.
Infrastructure/Servers. Scaled infrastructure in a lean and efficient manner; able to support our large user base with just over 50 servers.
Future growth path / what's the next step?
We're just getting started!
We will continue to focus on our core social offering; continuously improve the user experience and add more features (constantly investigating ways to better design our app for our target consumer base).
This also means evolving with our users as they shift from feature to smart phones. We are currently focused on developing native Android and Blackberry apps.
We will continue to focus on emerging markets in Africa and beyond in countries like India and Brazil.
Considering that Nigeria alone has a population of 160m there is still plenty of opportunity for growth. [NOTE: A report from Nigerian Communication Commission earlier this year stated that that Nigeria's telephone penetration hit 69% by the end of February 2012; and mobile users were approximately 96 million people at the end of February].
We currently sell content and will evolve these and other offerings. There are also other opportunities such as mobile payments.
How does 2go make money?
A combination of charging users to message each other and play games in our themed chat rooms; together with advertising and selling text based content.
2go's mobile currency, GoCredits, enables users to buy content, play games and message each other in in chat rooms.
Advertising.
The company has spent a lot of energy building an advertising platform and thinking how we can help brands engage with users in a targeted but non-invasive way.
The company recently launched the 2go Ad Platform and 2go Market Research. The 2go Ad Platform enables brands and advertising agencies to target and engage with 2go's growing base of young savvy users. 2go Market Research leverages the power of the 2go community to conduct real-time surveys and polls that deliver actionable insights with immediate value to clients.
Our most successful advertising unit is our premium full-screen clickable splash screen ad. The experience for a user is much more engaging than a normal banner or text based ad.
"The splash ad is more akin to seeing an advert in a cinema, where it is high quality and the user is highly engaged in the experience, rather than a small banner or text based ad, which is more of a distraction or afterthought for users".
We have had some nice brands on our platforms, including McDonalds, Vodacom, KFC and Standard Bank (Stanbic Nigeria).
The team
Team has also been kept very lean to date, and grown the product with less than 8 people, but hiring aggressively now.
The 2go team has deep technical and market expertise regarding mobile and social media in developing and developed markets and have applied that same knowhow to the development of 2go. Below is a brief summary of key members of the executive team.
Alan Wolff (Co-Founder). BSC Computer Science, University of Witwatersrand. Alan co-founded 2go Interactive while at university in 2006. He is an entrepreneur who has been interested in online social media for over ten years and has enjoyed designing and engineering of software from an early age. Together with his co-founder, Alan has been responsible for developing much of the 2go and Friendura code and in formulating product strategy for mass market adoption of the applications.
Ashley Peter. (Co-Founder). BSC Computer Science, University of Witwatersrand. Ashley co-founded 2go Interactive while at university in 2006. Ashley has a sharp skillset for solving hard technical problems and has over five years' experience designing and building mobile applications. Together with his co-founder, Ashley has been responsible for developing much of the 2go and Friendura code, as well as business development and strategy for 2go Interactive.
Peter Lockhart.BSC Computer Science, UNISA. MBA, University of Stellenbosch. Following a degree in Computer Science and Psychology, Peter started his career at South African Internet Service Providers, DiData, Internet Solutions and MWEB where he specialised in Internet Security and Enterprise Architecture. He went on to study an MBA at the University Of Stellenbosch with a focus on strategic management.
Peter has applied his numerous skills to the successful growth of 2go Interactive, including UI and UX design, software architecture and business development and strategy. He has been with the company since 2010.
Marc Herson.BA Economics. LLB, University of Witwatersrand. MBA, INSEAD Marc has over 15 years of operational and management experience in the US, Europe, Asia and Africa, focused primarily in telecoms and digital media. He recently returned from the USA, where he was an executive at Softbank Capital, a US$250 million venture capital firm based in New York and Boston.
Prior to that Marc was with SONY BMG and Bertelsmann AG in New York and Munich as Senior Vice President of New Ventures & Strategy and Director of Corporate Development. He was part of the team that orchestrated the global merger of Sony Music and BMG and started the Global Digital Business. At SONY BMG, he was responsible for growing the ex-USA business to >US$300 million and oversaw several ventures, including a US$80 million mobile content business. Marc began his career as an attorney at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs.
