2. Bevan Ducasse
Vital Stats:
- Business: WI Group
- Industry: Fintech
- Business est: 2007
- Website: WIgroupinternational.com
Bevan Ducasse’s stint at a consulting firm inspired him to start his own business, which he did in 2007. A year later its first product, a mobile wallet, went live but because of the recession the product failed. It was back to the drawing board for this young entrepreneur. Not many businesses can survive the failure of their first product and a recession, but WI Group did.
10 years later, and Ducasse’s business is successfully operating in more than 65 000 till-lanes across Southern Africa and the rest of Africa with a focus on business-to-business transactions.
Now offering mCommerce: technology that allows customers to order items from retailers, using Loyalty and Rewards, providing ease of digital vouchers, coupons, loyalty value and payments in one transaction.
“We’ve set clear profit goals. We’ve grown 50% in the last 12 months and we plan on growing just under that for the next three-to-five years. Also important is to keep the culture and passion of the company alive, which is often hard to do as companies expand” says Ducasse.