Burro Promise Gains Traction

In less than three weeks of operation, Burro has five agents trained and selling. More than forty clients have signed on. More than 120 batteries have been rented. All indicators are rapidly improving. Interviews with clients suggest high satisfaction and a high likelihood of renewal. Almost without exception, agent performance has exceeded expectations with agents highly enthusiastic and highly satisfied.

Our most recent training just yesterday brought on board Nurudini, shown below with Jan and his ten first batteries for new cutomers. Nurudini hails from Tin Kon, a small town on the main road about 14 kilometers south of Koforidua. Tin Kon has electricity, but battery usage is still high for a number of reason. Nurudini runs a small shop in the town with his sister. He sold out these ten first batteries in his first day before taking public transportation back to Koforidua today to refill his stock with us.

Eric also signed up yesterday as an agent operating within a large suburb of Koforidua. He too sold all of his first ten batteries in his first day on the job and returned to Burro HQ for new stock today.

Jan has done a great job of calibrating our growth plan to our current capacity. While we could go much faster, we've decided to add a new agent about every other week for now. We'll have strong representation in three critically different types of service areas: more remote villages, smaller towns on main roads, and the heart of our larger city, Koforidua. We're focused on supporting existing agents and clients at 110% to ensure that by 15 November we understand all critical parameters related to the ongoing success, sustainability, and scalability of the business. If all signs are as positive then as we now expect, we will be dropping our second, major order for additional batteries.

Being a bit of a carto geek, we of course have a giant, large-scale map mosaic plastered on the wall to help us plot our expansion. Here's a tiny section of it over the heart of the region. The pink dot is Burro HQ. The green dots are our two agents who are currently working "Kof Town". Yellow dots show areas we believe should support a new agent. The larger map over the entire region hosts about 40 yellow dots.

It is still very early, but Burro's future is looking brighter with every battery rented…

Jan Leads First Burro Agent Training

Barely 48 hours after touching down in Accra from JFK, Jan Watson, Burro partner and ops wizard, was leading Burro's first ever agent training session. Here she is with Burro partner, Tim, answering questions from Agnes and Hayford who are covering the half-dozen or so villages along the Adawso - Mangoase road about 10 miles south of Koforidua. They already have 17 clients between them and haven't even yet begun any real sales effort.

Beatrice, Francis, and Victor Azagro are kicking off coverage within the city of Koforidua beginning tomorrow.

This is a huge milestone for Burro. Welcome, Jan!

Gbolokofi Goes for Burro

What began as an informal market study trip this weekend to Gbolokofi (a village not far from Burro HQ in Koforidua) quickly turned into a sales event as enthusiastic word spread among the villagers who seemed very pleased with Burro's new way to buy battery power.

These two gentlemen , cash in hand, were eager to sign up for four batteries each.

Tim (Burro partner playing agent here) was soon taking down orders as quickly as he could write. In less than 30 minutes we sold out of all the batteries we had on hand, securing nine additional Burro clients with many more eager to sign up when we return next week.

Broadband 4U Burro

Ghana Telecom came through with flying colors this week, as promised. Yesterday they installed the Burro land line telephone (+233.81.222.05) and today, our fabulous "Broadband4U" ADSL "broadband" connection (with its screaming 256Kbps download, 64Kbps upload speeds). It doesn't get much better than that, folks -- at least not on a startup budget.

Here's our groovy configuration. (Can you tell that the furniture makers are a touch behind schedule?) The DSL modem supplied by Ghana Telecom seems a little flaky -- we are dropping the Internet side from time to time -- but they promise to dial it in over the next few days. It is certainly serviceable already, particularly through our very racy DLink gigabit/wireless N router that was hand-carried from Seattle by yours truly.

Notice my laptop online and open to burrobrand.blogspot.com. (Please don't tell me if you haven't made the Burro blog your home page just yet.)

We've Got the Power

Following two weeks of daily bureaucratic battles, Burro today finally got electricity at its worldwide headquarters. This is a critical milestone for a company that will effectively be reselling electricity. The delays made me appreciate the utility of our offering even more.

This groovy smart-card is the new, breakthrough way to sell power in poorer markets. They've adopted the cell phone "pay as you go" model. You simply load up the balance on your card at any of numerous pay points around town, then insert your card into your meter to receive credit. There are many smart protections and customer service options built into the card and meter. It's a pretty slick system really. Once it's installed...

This has further whet my appetite for innovative, enabling info tech aimed at the Burro market opportunity. We'll be evaluating optimal Stage 2 tech requirements as soon as we start to see viable demand for the core offering.

Brand Identity Work Round 2

Maria and Tatianna at Creable did an amazing job integrating Michael's Round One feedback. We'll be working on feedback to the second round ovewr the next several days. Your comments are welcome too.

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Burro's First Customer

On 22 September 2008, Mr. Stephen Acquah became Burro's first customer with the payment of his first month's rent on four batteries for his radio.