#MyStartUpStory: 23-yr-old Runsewe, founder, Mobile Coldroom

My name is Opeoluwa Runsewe, a 23-year-old visionary entrepreneur. I am the founder and managing director of online frozen food vendor/supplier mobile coldroom, with a Bsc. in banking and Finance from Babcock university, Nigeria.

I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I’ve always wanted to see my numerous business ideas come to light. As a result of my background in finance and on the journey of self development to ensure I was well equipped for the business world, I came across an investment strategy called Necessary Focused Investment which is investing in market areas that provide required goods and services essential for daily living especially in adverse financial times. This strategy also encourages you as an entrepreneur to ensure you’re constantly solving a problem not selling a product.

So, my team and I decided to go with food as the essential commodity in which we’ll be investing in. We decided to solve the problems of logistic costs, time spent and other inconveniences caused by having to travel long distances to purchase food items and also solve storage related issues, that is space to keep food produce and maintaining the conditions of the food produce which is rather difficult for food services and households as a result of the power supply situation in the country

We also decided to take advantage of the convenience which the use of technology provides consumers through our online order system and also payment features and also add my quota to increasing the use of technology in Africa which has its numerous benefits.

That is why we started Mobile Coldroom. Mobile Coldroom is a food service and business initiative established to supply a variety of frozen foods to various food service organisations. Some of these organisations include restaurants, hotels, schools, catering services, healthcare institutions, non-governmental organisations, grocery stores and so on.

The Mobile coldroom is not only aimed at supplying the best of products at discounted rates but also solving various social and economic problems. This business is aimed at encouraging the use of tech not only by food service organisations but by the retailers who are mostly uneducated. These retailers serve as the larger population of the clientele of the traditional frozen food wholesaler i.e. physical walk in purchase sites as they are more consistent day to day bulk buyers and serve most end buyers (mostly households and smaller food vendors and kiosks).

This initiative was created to curb the inherent difficulties and discomfort that many buyers face in the bid to purchase these commodities such as having to travel over long distances to purchase frozen food supplies as well as storage and power outage difficulties. Mobile Cold room is a business that provides clients with the opportunity to purchase their frozen foods online and have it delivered at their doorsteps.

Part of our strategies is to educate retailers popularly known as “market women” on the use of the internet and tech devices, and also provide incentives such as huge discounts on online purchases, workshops, raffle draws and so on aimed at encouraging them to order through our online platforms (we all know the advantages of encouraging more Africans to use tech and the effect  it has on the continent as a whole as well as the social impact of educating more people on the use of smartphones and computers.

Our hope for the next five years is to scale and grow in every aspect of the business. Our hope is to build a strong foundation for a business empire that will run through generations yet to come not only in the food, logistics and tech industries, among others.