Nigerian Startup CDcare Lets You Buy Appliances with Zero Interest Loans

Since its launch in February of last year by co-founders Ayodeji Farohun and Oluwatobi Odukoya, the bootstrapped CDcare has delivered over 1,000 products across 20 Nigerian states.

Odukoya told Disrupt Africa, “Deji and I were classmates at university. Our friendship started when he patronised the loan-a-laptop scheme that I created in the university. He later became the operations manager of the scheme,”

“Together, we built Computer Doctor, which is the first mobile computer repair workshop in Africa. We fixed more than 10,000 units of computers within two years for firms and people in Nigeria, amongst which are Paystack, Flutterwave, Cowrywise and Aella Credit. Deji was in charge of the Computer Doctor’s operations while I was the lead technician. We also trained more than 100 Nigerians to become computer technicians.”

Now, the pair are applying themselves to CDcare, believing they have identified a significant problem that can be fixed by combining elements of both savings and lending platforms.

Solving a Crucial Problem in Nigeria

The duo is bringing their experience to CDcare, with the resolve to fix a significant problem in Nigeria by combining the services of both savings and lending platform.

“Salaries are paid monthly in Africa. It is a problem that there is no way for Africans to buy items and pay in instalments as it exists in other countries,” said Odukoya.

“What exists are loan platforms that are either difficult to access or have very high interest rates that people cannot usually afford to pay back. Many Africans have had to either settle for less or buy substandard products because they can’t afford to pay one lump sum for things that they want.”

Before now people had to settle for high-interest purchase deals, interest-charging loans, or simply waiting until they have saved the full price of the product. According to Odukoya CDcare’s solution, a payment plan that lets buyers save half and get the other half as a zero-interest loan is an entirely new option.

The Revenue Model

“I built our MVP within two weeks,” he said. “Having sold gadgets and appliances for many years in Nigeria, it wasn’t hard to get the major distributors of appliances in Nigeria to partner with us.”

The business, which plans to open offices in Ghana and Kenya in early 2022, has a unique revenue model.

“We make a profit of at least 10 per cent of the total cost of every item delivered on CDcare. Since we only loan our users half of the item’s value, we make an interest of 20 per cent on our capital,” Odukoya said.

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