How Moniepoint (Formerly TeamApt) Grew to be the Mammoth we know today – My Perspective Olatunde Victor Adeoluwa

How Moniepoint (Formerly TeamApt) Grew to be the Mammoth we know today – My Perspective Olatunde Victor Adeoluwa

So, I read a nice post from Nathaniel Disu (on Facebook) with this screenshot from Nairametrics publication, asking what the brand Moniepoint had done differently… which more or less makes them appear to have “come out of nowhere” to rule the space… the post generated a good thread

… I wrote a comment on the post and I’ll share a bit more here

This is also important to share especially as I had to recently comment on a post that likened Moniepoint’s sponsorship of BBN (Big Brother Nigeria) to that of Patricia and placed the wrong attribution to the moniepoint brand.

It’s obvious that their rebranding and recent PR efforts make them appear as new in the market.
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So, long before now, I had an interesting conversation with Edidiong the Vice President, Marketing for the Moniepoint Group, in a community of ours, PBN around their growth and how they spread that wide. I’ll share a little bit of it as an unofficial contribution in this piece.

Aside from this… when we launched Extramileafrica in December 2018 and I led marketing to nooks and crannies of southwest and northern Nigeria circa 2019/2020 something baffled me… I always saw Team Apt on almost every PoS receipt I got.

To the extent that I had to ask the PoS agents how they got these PoS and how they got support

And so, here is my explanation of how they grew… from my own perspective

Firstly – TeamApt (now moniepoint) started operations in 2015

Which means they are about 8 years old today and

“TeamApt was borne from a desire to create financial happiness, building solutions and tools for business and individuals to happily manage money” according to Tosin Eniolorunda, the CEO… we can hence see how exactly how the brand has grown to become exactly this.

So, it’s safe to say that Moniepoint didn’t “come out of Nowhere” sort of – they did the first 3-5 years in the trenches to create the largest BoPs / street-loved brand.

TeamApt penetrated the informal markets first – before the online PR. But that’s not all.

THE TRUST BUILDING PROCESS

At the time FirstBank(the most renowned at the time) and others were creating agents with “Kiosks”… TeamApt actually got other banks’ agents to work with them without kiosks and leveraged the existing network, providing a “different and better option” to the same agents

They didn’t have to expend a whole lot on Branding. That was not the goal.

The goal was to drive product and community-led growth even in the informal market – a very “crazy” feat I’ll say is one of the most important to attain in the informal markets.

TeamApt’s first goal was to build trust and get people to depend on them so much that, if a transaction failed, the agents were so sure it was not TeamApt (now Moniepoint), it was likely the other bank or receiving end.

And as a Finance player myself, I’ll tell you that Trust is the biggest currency in the informal markets and Moniepoint was able to “buy” that trust with exceptional service and great support.

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Again, that’s not all

TeamApt they diversified further from Just agents to merchants

DISTRIBUTION – THE CORE OF THE WORK

So when banks were still gathering POS agents, and establishing new kiosks, Moniepoint was making shops, restaurants, etc. using TeamApt POS

I encountered these a lot of times as I activated different locations across the country trying to drive credit in these informal markets

Moniepoint grew to have one of the largest networks of Agents and Merchants (the next comparable would be Opay)

Everyone in manufacturing understands one salient truth – your product (while important) is just as important as your Distribution. And this is where many banks fail when it comes to driving financial inclusion. The infrastructure created isn’t often met with an effective distribution and follow-up system.

While having that casual conversation (not an Interview… hence this isn’t an official statement from her) … I remember Edidiong mentioned a certain “NURTW” model (which I can’t explain here) adopted in accessing the informal markets … it’s a bit different from the FMCG / Territories / Telecoms distribution model that Opay Used – but it’s very close, rather having a cluster element.

That caters for the distribution however, we can’t leave out the amazing product built by Moniepoint.

So, to crown it all… Moniepoint developed a product “No One Can Say No to”

THE PRODUCT NO ONE CAN SAY “NO” TO

Moniepoint has one of the fastest transfers in the industry, only comparable to Opay which I’ll say are arguably at the same speed… and both are the most reliable

If Moniepoint says the transfer is successful… be sure it won’t be reversed.

Aside from the very great UI, the experience even for the less educated people, the group support, etc. made even the malam who sells sugarcane or the old woman who sells fish in the market, be able to use the solutions seamlessly.

Their customers became their ambassadors. And you’ll see shop owners ask you to send to them from Moniepoint

I must confess… I also got bitten by the Moniepoint bug recently. We had to open a Moniepoint account.

One last part of these factors that caused their growth would be the Innovation arm

INNOVATION — YOUR PHONE NUMBER AS ACCOUNT NUMBER

They cracked the usual norm of having to go to a bank to open an account

They were one of the first to commercialize the use of phone numbers to create your account – that alone is a crazy game-changer

They only rebranded TeamApt to Moniepoint – which is the name of just one of the products… but the one mostly known… and that was Strategic because the name itself is a strong brand name

Now, there is more to write … but I’ll pause here

However, I’ll pick out a few things from the story of moniepoint.

This is a brand that didn’t start with the noise and the clout but rather started with the great product…

At some point, I personally wondered why Tosin wasn’t on the front page of newspapers or appearing at several events… it appears that this wasn’t a business built to feature on TechCrunch for fundraising only… rather one that was built to serve the customers, grow, scale and Last.

I hope new generation founders can learn and build right.

My sincere desire for the Moniepoint brand is that it gets to be one of the largest banks in the continent in the coming years while it retains that same “Happiness”’ it set out to put in the hearts of the users

I’ll write about other great brands maybe:

But till then

Let’s all keep winning.

I’m Olatunde Victor Adeoluwa
Founder at RevGrowth Network, by Salesplat