Citylife Business

By Edward Tsumele: Editor-In-Chief

Imagine the trauma of being at home and you are about to leave on a road trip and suddenly you realize that you have forgotten to fill up your tank.  Or that you are hungry and you have ordered food from one of the top restaurants through an App, but at the same time you feel missing the popular township burger, the popular Kota and you do not want to go out into the streets to look for  a place that sells a kota.

Both these scenarios are no longer a big deal, and thanks to a new APP called FULA, developed by serial entrepreneur and technology enthusiast Lubabalo Nojiwa . This App, which was launched last year is increasingly becoming popular with both top class restaurants and township based eateries, including those specialising in non-conventional food such as Kota and Shisanyamas.

And the FULA Mobile App can also be used to  order fuel, which can be delivered  by electric motor cycles belonging to  service agents that are part of the Fula ecosystem.

Currently operational in Gauteng, and spreading to other provinces including in Durban and Cape Town, some of the customers use the APP to have necessities as medicine, delivered at home. Increasingly the APP is also being used to deliver skin care products alongside food as well.

“I worked on this App for quite sometime including going back to the drawing board before coming up with the current one, developing various prototypes and doing research. In fact the current App is the fifth that I have come up with before eventually launching it in the market. The App has restaurants and feeling stations as customers. What we are planning to do, and what we will do in the next few months is to market the product into the townships across the country to make sure that even the smallest player in the food service industry, such as those selling quarter s are not left out, including the Shisanyamas,” the businessman said in an interview. CITYLIFE/ARTS conducted the interview with the enterprising businessman at the uprmarket Signature Restaurant at Morningside Shopping Centre in Sandton lasyt year when the App was launched. From the reception he got from staff as he joined me, the businessman appeared to be a regular at this swanky restaurant where the wealthy and the influential in the northern suburbs and from far away places dine and wine.

As If reading my mind, he answered my curiosity.  “My offices happen to be nearby, and so I often come here to have a cup of coffee.”

The entrepreneur revealed to CITYLIFE/ARTS that his team was working hard to upgrade the APP into a fully-fledged e=commerce platform to cater for other sectors of the economy.

“We are excited about launching Fula 2.0, which is an upgrade of  Fula 1.0 and this time around it will be a platform where one can buy anything from clothes to art, a fully-fledged e-commerce platform. We are launching it in two months’ time and it is going to change the game in e-commerce in the country,” he said at the time of the interview without releasing the full details of Fula 2.0.

The company founder and Chief Executive officer (CEO), developer and entrepreneur, Nojiwa was born in Vosloorus, on the East Rand, and grew up in Soweto, Dobsonville. But by roots, he is originally from the Eastern Cape in Nqamakwe. He has architectural skills from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Nojiwa is now a businessman and the founder of Fula Mobile App yet his first job was a humble beginning as a store packer.

The Fula Mobile App is now accessible outside of Gauteng and it can be found in the coastal areas as of South Africa.

“I went into business when I was young, 24 years old. For example I started a construction company which was part of a BEE deal, a mining supplies company which was also part of a BEE partnership, but the technology bug did not leave me alone.

When I l felt formal employment, life was tough for me. I had no job and had just married. It is then that I though carefully about what it was that I liked most and technology is actually what I like. I therefore started an App for job seekers and it became a success. I sold the company and was unemployed again. Started another tech company, which was essentially an upgrade of the company I had sold. I sold it again when it was going well. And now I am here with FULA Mobile APP and my team and I are planning to take it to places. What is good about this APP is that customers, such as restaurants can register online and to get paid for orders they do it online. No hustles and no stress. The customers are in full control of their deliveries and payment. They do not have to wait for anyone to get paid,” he emphasised.

And to get onto the APP customers apply online and according to Nojiwa the response time from his team as to whether the application is successful or not takes 24 hours. It is as simple as that,” he explained.