The Inspiring Story Of How 3 Friends Are Building Africa’s Most Promising Software Company.

There’s a popular quote which says; ‘If your dreams don’t scare you, then they are not big enough’, and after hearing the strikingly awesome story of these three boys, who are making a big difference in Ghana, I have decided to tell their story here on Ghbase.com, so it can inspire you to also achieve more and guide you.

 

Nii Osae Osae Dade,Kofi Genfi and David Letsa are the close friends I am about to talk about. Their friendship started right from their days in secondary school in 2008  at the Presec-Legon Boys Secondary School, where they all read science and sat in the same class.

The Founders Of MAZZUMA: Kofi Genfi (Left) Nii Osae Osae Dade,(Middle)and David Letsa (Right)

 

When they met in their 1st year, they didn’t know they were going to do something together until they got to 3rd year, and the idea of starting a business started blustering in them. These boys had gained some knowledge about computer programming and had learned all of that on their own by reading programming books from their library while in boarding school.

 

 

Realising that there was no operating system tailor made for the African market, these 3 guys decided to create Africa’s first mobile operating system called ‘INGINY’ while they were in their final year of high school. After working on that project for about 3 years, they learnt that the current market trends and rapid change in technology wouldn’t give chance to that idea at present time but that didn’t not burst their bubble.

 

The spirit of determination to excel and achieve something still revolved in them. While in their usual innovative state of mind, they realised Ghana lacked a unique payment system that would leverage on local systems to meet the needs of the average citizen using Mobile Money.

 

In light of this, they founded their company, CYST (Creative Young Smart Technologies) -An Artificial Intelligence Software Company, to be the parent company, their new idea would be labeled under.

 

After months of hard work and negotiation with the nation’s telecommunication companies, they launched their payment system, Mazzuma which was received by the general public with amazement and great interest due to its innovation, simplicity and ease of use.

So What Really Is Mazzuma?

Mazzuma is a payments app that works primarily with mobile money.  The name was derived from the English word ‘Mazuma’ which means money (you can look that up). Mazzuma can be used to pay bills, buy airtime and send money. When it comes to sending money with it, you can easily send money from your MTN  Mobile Money account to someone on Airtel Money, Tigo Cash or Vodafone Cash and it can be the other way round as well. Same applies to buying airtime. You can buy airtime for friends on Tigo, even when you are on MTN, without walking to the streets to buy that scratch card. Talk of paying bills, you can pay your DSTV bills, GOtv, Surfline bundle and more.

 

What’s even more exciting is the fact that, you can perform all of these payments right on Facebook Messenger with their automated mobile money agent they created with Artificial Intelligence. YEAH, I would drop the links at the end of the article.

The creators of this amazing product completed their first degree in 2016. Nii studied Computer Science at University of Ghana, Legon while Kofi studied Business Administration at Ashesi University. David is studying Medicine at Semmelweis University in Hungary.

 

Throughout my interview with them, I was dazzled with the things they told me. With such a great business idea, I asked them if they ever tried raising funds from Investors but they told me, they never did and relied on their own personal savings, grants from friends and family and paid projects from clients to develop, their first flagship app, which is Mazzuma.

 

From what I gathered, they just decided to stay away from investors because they didn’t want anyone to interfere with how they want to shape their company and wanted to stick to their vision without any pressure from investors.

 

Combining school and work was one of their toughest challenges but they still managed to sail through and are now working full time. I was curious to find out how they’ve managed to come this far as friends and the response was obvious—Loyalty, trust and commitment to what they do.

 

When I asked them what advise they would give to someone who also has an idea but is lost and loosing hope, they all gave the response: ‘Perseverance, Perseverance, Perseverance, Never Give Up, Keep Pushing’.

 

I would follow their trail and bring you more updates on what they will be doing next but I am confident these guys are going to be in the list of young millionaires in the country and even the world very soon.

These boys have a focus and know what they are about.

 

I enjoyed every bit of the interview I had with them and was very impressed with what they’ve achieved. Maybe, I would post a video from their office at East Legon soon. It’s very exhilarating to know that there are some great young achievers in this country. Kudos, Team CYST.

 

Maybe you would want to find out more about their app, MAZZUMA, so I would drop some links below for you, so you take a look at it. Let me know what you think.

 

Download MAZZUMA on App Store

Download MAZZUMA on Playstore for Android Users

Use MAZZUMA on Facebook Messenger HERE

 

For more details or to contact the founders on how  to integrate it into your website, Visit : https://mazzuma.teamcyst.com/