Young man in Sh24 trillion dream

Mr Eric Mutta demonstrates to a customer, Ms Emmy Davidson, how the Minishop software works at a meeting in his Sinza office in Dar es Salaam. The computer, he says, is his main tool of work.
Dar es Salaam. A year ago, Eric Mutta won Sh24 million ($15,000) for his software innovation, and told The Citizen on Saturday that his dream was to make Sh24 trillion ($15bn) in 15 years.

That journey, it would appear, has just started for the 30-year old who early this month clinched Sh540 million ($328,000) in a major programme sponsorship.

Mr Mutta won the millions, courtesy of the SME Finance Innovation Challenge Fund (ICF) funded by Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSDT).

“This half billion shilling is more than 20 times of what I scooped last year. I am happy, but the hard work to where I want to be in 15 years has just begun,” said Mutta. “I am thinking and working hard to add more zeros in whatever I earn through my innovations.”

His software dubbed Grainy Bunch, a food management and monitoring system won him the first award sponsored by the US department of State Bureau of African Affairs.

Mutta developed Mini Shop, an improvement of the Grainy Bunch as a platform to help small scale and medium entrepreneurs to keep records of stock, sales, purchases and expenses.

The software has since been upgraded to an “automated accountant”, which can help banks for risk analysis and management to enable customers to access finance—which remains the biggest challenge for struggling traders.

“The traders I target are struggling Tanzanians, they strive to give their families good education and good life in general. They are in Mwenge, Kariakoo, Manzese to name but a few, and in their pursuit of business they encounter enormous challenges, however, with this software they can count their problems solved,” he explained in an interview.

Among challenges he is facing in effecting Mini Shop is illiteracy, both in business and computer skills.

“The people I am targeting basically do business to meet the ends”. He said their modus operandi is business as usual. “Some are afraid of the risks in securing loans; but some are fed up with the bureaucracy in the pursuit of loans.”

To exploit Mini Shop, one needs to get access to a computer. “There lies a big challenge; this is a computerized platform, when you speak of using computers, some traders start to think it is going to be difficult.”

The grant from FSDT is expected to address some of the challenges, including buying more laptops. “The money has just arrived in time. It is not necessary for them to own laptops; we can use the one that we will buy”.

Mini Shop currently manages 25 shops owned by ten entrepreneurs. He charges a nominal fee in consultation and for daily, weekly or monthly needs of the customers.

For Mutta, the road to success has been opened and now aims to quickly raise the number of clients to 500 small businesses by the end of this year. He also hopes to be working with five banks at the same timeline.

“I am receiving requests from a number of banks wanting to learn more on how Mini Shop is working. At the end they too want to do business with small traders without many setbacks,” he said.

The beginning

Mutta was inspired by a 1995 Hollywood film- Hackers. As a young boy then, he wanted to become like the leading character in the movie, who used his computer to shut down systems and do whatever he wanted.

In 1997 he designed a programme about tectonic plates. It was two lines moving towards each other and when they met they crashed.

He learnt about the plate tectonic theory at school, and one of the reactions when the plates meet is earthquakes.

“I wanted to show my geography teacher this demo, so he could see how much I was following the subject,” he said.

After years of school in Tanzania and Kenya, he went to UK for further education in advanced programming.

Problem Solved!

In 2008, then aged 25, he started his own company, Problem Solved Ltd. Until last year when he won the Grainy Bunch award, he was the only staff of his company. He had just returned from the UK and was subsequently employed as a programmer at TISCAN, which performed tax assessment for imported goods at the port of Dar-es-salaam.

There, he designed the Import Declaration Form (IDF), his first major achievement in software innovation, and it helped reduce congestion at the Dar es Salaam Port. Importers now spend only a few minutes to fill and clear the forms when that exercise could take up to 48 hours using the old system.

“The problem was solved!” he said. “That helped in boosting confidence and I knew I could come up with other innovations that would solve many other problems in the country. That’s how I got the name of my company.

Today, the company has grown to five staff, including a general manager who incidentally was the first client of Mini Shop, Zephania Mgonella. He expects to hire two more people, “I need one engineer, like me. It’s hard and expensive to get one. But hopefully I will have one soon,” he said.

A word to aspiring programmers

“Invest much of your time in software engineering. You don’t just have to do it, make sure you become the best at it.”

To Eric, one can’t make it to the world of innovation if he is just doing it to earn a salary at the end of the month or for getting good grades at the university.

“You need to have that burning passion for programming in your heart, that will drive you and you will enjoy what you are doing, and money will definitely come.”

During his first months when he returned to the country, Eric was tempted to return overseas, “ I encountered a number of challenges as a programmer, power cuts and weak market and a poor working environment made me rethink about settling down here.”

Eric later decided to stay. “If I were abroad now I could have been one among millions, here my works can easily get noticed and appreciated,” he said.

“ To young programmers and other professionals I say don’t go overseas, the future is Africa, these challenges that we are facing are the ones that define who we are, let’s join hands to make sure this place becomes a better place to live and work in, no one can do that for us.”