MEET THE FOUNDER : Amr Fawzi from Goodsmart, Egypt

TechInAfrica – Meet Amr , the Goodsmart founder – Goodsmart is a premium household shopping app that revamped the hectic grocery shopping process and transformed it into an effortless experience through 4 convenient features:

First of all, can you pitch us your company in just a few sentences?

GoodsMart is the smartest and easiest household online shopping experience with unattended delivery.

GoodsMart aims to facilitate having a valuable and meaningful life shared with your beloved ones by stepping away from time consuming daily errands and enjoying fresh and high-quality products while saving your money and effort.

GoodsMart offers its clients the accessibility to order from a wide variety of products covering most of the categories needed by any household through its smart application. GoodsMart also provides innovative unattended & reliable daily delivery solutions for its clients while ensuring safety through GoodsMart Box.

GoodsMart main goal is to cater for clients evolving household needs through a hassle-free solution saving their efforts & time, hence improving their wellbeing.

Can you tell us more about yourself, your personal background, your experience and how you went to this journey?

Founder and CEO Amr Fawzi, graduated with a bachelor degree in Mechanical engineering. coming from a corporate background, in which I used to be the regional technical manager at a company based in UK where I conducted different technical consultations to companies. I’ve always had the idea of GoodsMart in the back of my head, as I believed the solution, we are offering is solving one of the greatest pains people face every day. Accordingly, one day I’ve decided to quit my job to focus on GoodsMart and kick it off.

Can you tell us more about Egypt? Why this market?

Egypt is one of the most growing markets when it comes to grocery shopping, Egypt spends almost 12 B$/ year on groceries. On another hand, consumers face a real pain when it comes to grocery shopping as they face different problems such us long commutes to reach multi vendors to get a variety of household goods, delivery waiting times, unexpectedly running out of goods and others. Accordingly, GoodsMart solution was the perfect fit for the market for 2 main reasons, facilitating peoples’ lives as well as pioneering in the E-commerce grocery shopping for all household needs.

What are the main issues you have been facing Egypt?

Egypt is like the majority of the Arab markets that has a great appetite for household shopping taking the biggest share of their monthly budget, yet consumers have two main barriers for online grocery. Consumers appreciate the quality and the type of products they purchase for their household and are quite reluctant to let someone else go do it for them. Example buying fresh products. Consumers also are reluctant to share or do online purchases and use cash instead.

At GoodsMart We are very proud with the quality of our goods having been able to grow capitalizing on positive word of mouth highlighting our products quality and reliable unattended delivery.

Who are your main competitors around? And outside of the country, who are your inspiration?

GoodsMart doesn’t have a direct competition when it comes to the solution it offers, the box which is the core of the business. However, there are a lot of online grocers and among all the players, GoodsMart is strategically positioned to deliver the best in class customer experience.

We are inspired by any startup/organization world wide that takes disruptive innovation as a way for growth and continue challenging the status co of how things are done trying to improve them and offering better hassle-free solution for their clients

What is your point of view, as a startup founder, about Egypt? What is your perspective for the next years on Egypt and more regionally on Africa?

Currently the ecosystem in Egypt is emerging and this is shown by having both sides of the equation, a lot of people are willing and having the grit to start their own businesses. And on the other hand, currently there are a lot of supporting organizations that help ease the process, spread awareness and promote entrepreneurship through different programs and initiatives.

Is it hard to find investors there?

It is not hard to find an investor, at the time being a lot of investors are willing to invest and actually put money in successful startups. However, like any investor anywhere else, for them to pitch in they need to see how serious are the founders of the startup as well as the growth potentials and sustainability.

What do you think is lacking to Egypt to develop it more? What are the main barriers to develop a startup there?

What is lacking Egypt currently is the entrepreneurial education and the mindset. Although, there are a lot of initiatives and programs promoting entrepreneurship and supporting entrepreneurs in starring their businesses but I believe this should be tackled in a younger age. I wish part of the curricula given in schools should include more entrepreneurial awareness and education. Changing the mindset and promoting the idea of each one can start their own business instead of waiting for a job will make a huge difference in the employment scene in Egypt.

As you know, we are always on the look of great startups, new products and amazing entrepreneurs, could you name a few locally or regionally in Egypt?

Nowadays, a lot of startups are offering new innovative products and services. We can see a huge potential in the market as well as entrepreneurs who are trying to make a difference and shape the future. If I would name one specific startup, I would mention Wuzzuf, I am a big fan with the business model of the startup and how they solve a huge gap in the market and turned the online job search into a very easy process as well as promoting employability. Such startups that tackles a real pain and turn in into a great opportunity should be appreciated. Nevertheless, I have to mention that it all goes back to the passion and dedication shown by Wuzzuf’s CEO and co-founder Ameer Sherif.