Cargo-Plug is a two-female-founder startup boasting ten years of providing freight and cargo services between Nigeria and the world. We met up with co-founders Kikelomo Fola Oguniya and Ujama Apata to discuss their story and learn a few lessons from such a successful business.
Kikelomo told us that she and Ama had met at a party. “I had been in Law School with Ama’s boyfriend(now husband) and she had come to throw him a surprise party which I attended but the click did not happen at that party at which I also met my current husband”.
Kikelomo and Ama would later come to work at the same organization where dating two friends drew them closer together and a friendship emerged.
Whilst working together, they both shared the same problem. Having schooled in the United Kingdom but working in Nigeria, Kikelomo and Ama would always enquire if someone was returning from ”jand” to help bring their shopping from the UK down to Nigeria. It was not long before they realized that this was a problem that also existed among the masses and set out to solve it. The initial name ”Jand2Gidi” was coined with Jand meaning the UK and Gidi loosely signifying Nigeria.
As the brand grew and its services expanded, the need for a rebrand was imminent, but Kikelomo and Ama were very hesitant. ”We had built a powerful brand around the name and seeing it go seemed too big of a risk,” said Ama. It became very clear soon after that the rebranding wasn’t only imminent, it was also crucial. Jand2Gidi had evolved from sending to and from just the UK to places all around the world. The name change positioned them not only as a platform individuals could use but as one other organizations could benefit from, which was the up-scaling the business needed.
The early stages of Cargo-Plug saw Kikelomo and Ama still working in paid employment, which didn’t leave much time to work on their side business. Their processes were very manual and sometimes they had to handle deliveries all by themselves. ”Our offices were in the boot of our cars and we struggled with the scarcity of delivery services at the time” said Kikelomo. The word spread fast about the new cool business that had come to solve the UK-Nigeria delivery problem, so the business grew very fast.
One major achievement for Cargo-Plug was being featured on CNN Inside Africa in September 2022. ”It was a very exciting experience, from receiving the email recognising the work we were doing to going through all the processes and then the interview. It felt good to see all our hard work being recognised, which was something we had always dreamt of, ‘’ said Ama.
A downturn in events saw us asking Kikelomo and Ama about any problems they might have faced whilst running Cargo Plug that could be attributed to them both being female founders. They had a lot to say on the matter. Ama highlighted that firstly, it was very easy for them to be overlooked and not taken seriously because they were women talking about logistics which wasn’t very ”female-like” of them or so people in such spaces thought. Secondly, statistical evidence has proved that female founders raise a significantly lower percentage than their male counterparts, and Ama pointed out that this bias has also affected them and their fundraising efforts.
Kikelomo stated that people tended to doubt their capabilities, wondering if they truly could bring in containers of equipment whereas as she said ”Containers do not care if we are male or female, it just has to be where it has to be”.
According to both founders, having a female co-founder makes them both much better founders. ”Our Skills and personalities balance each other out,” said Kikelomo. Ama also stated that both founders being females helps them to have similar views and shared struggles and experiences.
The theme for IWD this year is “Invest in women: accelerate progress”. Both founders felt that organizations needed to invest in the biases that only affect women. From offering them support during pregnancy to allowing flexible hours or hybrid work during childcare. Seeing Women as persons and knowing that there are ways to speak to people or interact with them in the workplace regardless of their gender was a big challenge for both founders. They emphasized the significance of not underrating female education and empowerment, as these would lead to the progress of not just the organization but also the country and possibly even the entire world.
When asked if there was anything they would do differently, both founders initially spoke on picking a more inclusive name for their brand but later changed their stance because they believed that starting in that manner had facilitated the initial growth of the business and in Kikelomo’s words” The battle scars are a show of where we are coming from”.
Cargo Plug is currently in the middle of a raise and is raising 500k USD dollars in a SAFE round. Ama put out a call to all investors who would be looking to invest in two female founders who have grown and sustained their business for the past ten years, generating revenue and delivering packages, beating all odds, and coming out strong.
Kikelomo ended the interview by stating that Cargo-plug is available to render delivery services to high-growth businesses that rely heavily on logistics from air freight to sea freight in places like Canada, China, the US, the UK, and everywhere. As she said,” What Cargo-Plug cannot do does not exist”.