I am a confirmed foodie! I love me a good food, from a well prepared Ikokore made in Ijebu to the Chicken Burger made in San Francisco. As long as it’s good food, you will find me there. So, aside from my interests in finance, strategy, business intelligence, photography and entrepreneurship, I am a confirmed “food hunter”.
My love for food has taken me to several restaurants (both locally and abroad) and to several grocery stores and supermarkets. There is hardly any good restaurant in Lagos or Ibadan or Abuja that I cannot talk about 🤔 with confidence and facts. Same with the popular grocery stores and supermarkets. The only challenge is that I hate spending long hours in traffic just because I want to have a good meal with my family. I don’t like stress and I like to pay for convenience, I think many people do to. Problem no dey finish , make we try to enjoy!
I have tried many restaurant delivery options, they try the best they can but most of them are overwhelmed, especially because logistics is tough in Nigeria, apart from the fact that isn’t the core operation of these restaurants, supermarkets and grocery stores. One day , my early lunch order arrived at 8:30pm from the restaurant (within 10km from my office) after several follow up calls. My wife had also waited many times for a grocery order to arrive.
If you pay attention to customers’ feedbacks on social media, you will find several complaints about the services of some of the popular Nigerian e-commerce platforms with several branches across Africa and with huge investor funding.
The truth is that a disgruntled customer is never happy, whereas a happy customer is the joy of a business owner. I had a special moment of “this can be fixed”. As a confirmed member of awon “ebi elebi” (foodie ) association, I said to myself that “Agba ko le wa loja, ki ori omo tuntun wo”. If you don’t understand Yoruba, I’ll explain that proverb in details.
Translation:
I promised myself to pursue the possible solution(s) to some of these issues. You will agree that the past few months have been hectic for everyone. As the COVID19 pandemic was ravaging through the country, along with its accompanying social, economic, psychological and emotional issues, the lockdown opened up an opportunity for me and my business partners to build a new start-up whose primary focus is making sure that Nigerians, especially Lagosians, spend less time worrying about when their food and grocery will be delivered to them.
Today, I feel extremely proud to introduce InstaDash to you.
InstaDash is an on-demand concierge shopping service delivering groceries, food, essential items and thousands of everyday lifestyle products, with delivery starting within an hour or a scheduled time of your choice.
From the mobile app (not yet released to the public), customers would be able to buy their groceries or food items from their chosen store, and then have it delivered from within an hour or at a future scheduled time that suits the customer.
We plan to start our commercial operations in Lagos (Nigeria) later in the year, by the third quarter (3Q). By the time we would be starting our commercial operations, we would have many of the leading popular retailers (grocery stores, supermarkets and restaurants) that are close to your different locations on the platform. Omowunmi Afolabi is the founding CMO of InstaDash and she will be leading our efforts into the Nigerian market, along with our technology, operations and customer service leadership teams.
At InstaDash, we deliver more than food to you. Our goal is to deliver happiness to you. So, welcome to the journey into the world of happiness.