Episode 4: Asset Efficiency is the New Black
Maad’s Journey to Scaling through a Single Market in B2B E-commerce
I read just about everything I could find on B2B e-commerce in Africa to prepare for The Trajectory Africa’s digital commerce and logistics series. (Shout out to TechCabal in general, and Abraham Augustine in particular, for creating a foundational layer of information on the sector.) Sifting through the content left me with questions on three different levels:
Macro: Can these models hold up under tough economic conditions?
Market: Does the logic behind the market opportunity make sense?
Model: What business model(s) work?
Most of what I’ve learned through talking to founders is about the latter two M’s, especially the last one. And within the realm of FMCG-focused business models, the elephant in the room is asset intensity. Do you take an asset light, augmentation-focused approach that adds value to everyone in the value chain using technology, or an asset-heavy, replacement-focused one that disintermediates “middle men”?
Well, in a triumph over oversimplification that would make Andile over at African Tech Roundup proud, my conversation with Sidy Niang and Jessica Long breaks through this dichotomy. Sidy and Jessica are Co-founders of Maad, a start up that provides digital services to small shops that sell food, beverages, and everyday household products in Francophone Africa. They share their approach to asset efficiency, a nuanced strategy that preferences the flexible deployment of hard-working assets. More about that, and other take-aways, below.
🔧 1. Tech alone doesn’t fix broken value chains.
Maad began as a SaaS tool for FMCG brands, but the founding team quickly learned that software couldn’t solve the fragmentation of informal retail. In a market where roads flood, addresses don’t exist, and trucks break down, pure software won’t cut it. To create real value, they had to own more of the chain—adding warehousing, logistics, and direct fulfillment to close the loop. In other words, bits meet atoms (because of course they do).
“We realized the software platform alone was not sufficient to solve the problem.”
🧑🤝🧑 2. Retailers are powerful—but only as a collective.
Individually, informal shopkeepers have little leverage. But if you digitize and connect them, you unlock collective power that can shift dynamics in the value chain. Maad helps retailers become visible, measurable, and rewardable—turning them into high-value partners for brands.
“If retailers were one entity, they'd be the most powerful player in the value chain.”
⚙️ 3. Asset efficiency splits the difference.
The choice of what assets to own isn’t binary. Maad owns enough trucks to meet demand with maximum utilization and leases capacity to flexibly respond to it. The goal isn’t to avoid assets, but to extract full value from them. Clearly, asset efficiency is a key element in controlling costs.
“As long as your assets operate at full capacity, they’re worth having around.”
📈 4. Scale deep before going wide.
Maad’s strategy is rooted in single market depth, not limited expansion across multiple countries. By going neighborhood-to-neighborhood in Dakar, they’ve achieved 50% penetration—and are building a case that fully scaling in one market before moving another is a credible strategy.
“We want to dominate Senegal before thinking of five countries.”
And, that’s a wrap, folks. As always, thanks for reading! Until next week…