Episode 90: Formalizing & digitizing the back room market in South Africa

In today’s podcast episode, we talk to Teko Mothlabi, founder and CEO of Roomsta, a digital marketplace (web-based) that connects tenants to back room rentals.

 

Teko started this business after seeing that almost every house in the location or Black neighborhoods in South Africa had a back room and that most young people felt under pressure to move into the suburbs and pay higher rent the moment they started working.

He noticed that the market had changed - young people no longer see the suburbs as the only option and don’t mind renting back rooms as they move from different provinces for work purposes.

 

At the same time, most back rooms have changed and have become way nicer, which makes them more attractive.

 

This is where Roomsta comes in - no one caters to this market, no one connects the tenants and landlords and the landlords run their real estate business in an informal manner so they’re not able to qualify for funding and get money from the banks to buy more property.

 

In this episode, Teko shares with us how he was able to grow this business and some of the challenges of building this platform and getting people to use it.

 

Click to listen to the podcast and leave us a comment in the comments section below.