Building Africa's fastest and widest reaching market research platform
Executive summary
Yazi is a market research platform designed for agencies conducting qualitative research in emerging markets, especially Africa. By integrating WhatsApp bots, Yazi provides unparalleled reach and engagement.
The platform solves key pain points faced by traditional digital research methods:
Captures more representative data by leveraging WhatsApp's 90%+ penetration rate in Africa
Drives higher response rates (3-10x over email/SMS) through real-time engagement
Enables more affordable data collection due to WhatsApp's low data costs
Allows flexibility in data types (text, images, video, voice notes) for deeper qualitative insights
Yazi is well-positioned to capitalize on the $700M market research industry in Africa, which is poised for rapid digitization. With strong early traction and a clear path to $5M+ revenue, Yazi presents a compelling investment opportunity.
💊 Current pain-point
Reaching people digitally in emerging markets is extraordinarily hard, especially when it comes to Qualitative Research.
Inadequate Engagement with Traditional Digital Methods:
Email-based surveys suffer from low response rates and fail to reach a significant portion of the population who lack email access.
Digital tools often miss lower-income consumers due to digital unfamiliarity and concerns over high data usage.
Challenges in Media-Rich and Multi-Day Studies:
Participants struggle with uploading media content and frequently forget to return for multi-day diary studies, leading to incomplete data collection.
Limited Reach and Non-Representative Sampling in Emerging Markets:
Current digital methods are ineffective in engaging a diverse demographic, particularly in emerging markets, resulting in non-representative samples and low overall response rates.
Inefficiencies in Diary Study and Focus Group Execution:
Participants often neglect diary entries due to lack of reminders and the inconvenience of app-based surveys.
Manual moderation of WhatsApp focus groups and diary studies is time-consuming, data-heavy, and leads to frustrating delays due to dependency on moderator availability and response times.
Benefits of Yazi and WhatsApp Integration:
Unparalleled Reach and Engagement:
WhatsApp's penetration rate exceeds 90% in many African countries, offering a broader reach and significantly higher response rates (3x-10x) than traditional methods.
Efficiency and Real-Time Insights:
Streamlines the research process for client and participant, allowing for bulk messaging and custom link generation for participant recruitment in a single channel.
Flexibility and Depth in Data Collection:
Supports various question types and media. WhatsApp enables greater access to qual data which is more insightful than quant and can be turned into quantifiable insights with AI.
Accessibility Across Socioeconomic Strata:
Low data costs associated with WhatsApp ensure broader participation in data-sensitive markets.
📊 Product
Yazi’s market research platform runs surveys, focus groups, and diary studies through WhatsApp, allowing for a much larger segment, faster insights, and personalised engagement.
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📋 Features
💬 Form builder
Create multiple types of questions, use question routing, automatically generates survey in WhatsApp after launch
📈 Insights / Reporting
Interactive results dashboard, live connection
⛔️ Dynamic Access to Participants
Select qualification criteria in app, Survey shown dynamically in Menu (based on qualification), Send Template message invites, Retarget and notify
🔍 Participant Tracking
Pass/Fail participants, manage incentives and payments
🔥 Outcomes
Increase representativeness of sample, leading to more accurate data.
👉 Research more frequently: Cheaper & Faster turnaround time
👉 Reach your target audience: Bigger reach on WhatsApp
👉 Better decisions: Representative audience & accurate data
Timeline
1
Roadmap list: Focused on Qual Research
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💳 Business Model
R15k
Once-off Setup fee
WhatsApp number setup with custom messaging and onboarding
R1.5k - R3.2k
Monthly pricing
Tiered based on conversation volumes. Full access to Bulk message, Reporting, Interviewing
R2k - R12k
Research project pricing
Project setup, testing, data cleaning. Additionally: Incentive management, survey design
🚀 Customer Acquisition & Growth Strategy
Who is our customer target?
🕋 Market research agencies
💼 11 - 200 employees
🌎 Based in Africa, India, UK, UAE or global with presence in Emerging Markets
🔬 Do qualitative or quantitative 1st party data acquisition research
💊 Struggle with completion rates and data accuracy in emerging markets
🧭 Current way: Use WhatsApp group for focus group and run manually OR use digital link tools like Dscout, Indeemo, Recollective
Because of this, traditional online research techniques used to access consumers don’t work. Don’t take my word for it though....
👇
😭 Market research in Africa is broken...
→
Yazi is a market research platform that enables market research agencies to reach a representative sample in emerging markets. Yazi lets you target and retarget a consumer segment that is typically slow and expensive to reach. All through WhatsApp.
Access → WhatsApp is the app with the highest penetration in Africa (~96% of internet users in Kenya, SA, Nigeria). (
A 20 question survey typically uses $0.01 of cell data to complete. Often free → subscribe to monthly WhatsApp bundle.
Many Africans possess a distrusting perception of software and online-earning activities. WhatsApp means; no need to go somewhere foreign on the internet or download a new app.
WhatsApp is sticky, allows frictionless onboarding and refer-ability → don’t need to learn new software and fits into an existing behaviour (comfortable) → fast response speed.
History of previous conversation → build trust with respondent and enrich consumer profiles overtime.
📈 Why now ??
LLM Developments enabling sophisticated analysis of qualitative data (open text, voice note and video) leading to increased spend on qualitative research.
60% of the population in Africa will be under 24 by 2025, and will be home to 1 in 3 youths (aged 15 to 35) globally by 2050
→Growth in work population and digital adoption. (