LogsAndTabs is a technology company and lifestyle management platforms operator providing low to middle income consumers with aggregated digital tools, services, and products to efficiently organize and fulfill their lifestyle needs. In this interview, founder Kagiso Rantsha explains the startup's unique business model, its ambitions and much more!
In your own words, please tell us who Kagiso Rantsha is
Kagiso Rantsha is an inventor. That is everything I have ever wanted to be, and everything I am. I have been an inventor for as long as I can remember. The earliest thing I remember making was a flipbook machine that I made when I had an interest in creating my own animated movies as a kid. I think I was 8 or 9 at the time. Creating new devices and contraptions has always been a fascinating activity for me that I have always enjoyed. It offers an escape into the world of potential with ironically many unknowns. I think inventing is the best way to learn how to solve problems. Back then I was more interested in mechanical or industrial engineering and not software. The older I got the more advanced the things I wanted to create became.
After a little while I ran into some hurdles trying to create a free energy device that would have cost a lot, probably millions, maybe even billions of dollars to make, and I wasn’t aware of the implications at the time. Looking back, that was my first encounter with capital constraints that would help to develop my skills in business bootstrapping, although I had no interest in becoming a businessperson until much later. Everything changed when I got to high school, and I started to discover software. This was around the time social media was really gaining momentum in Africa and in Botswana. I got to understand that software was less resource intensive compared to hardware, and that’s when I decided I would go into software, and that’s where I have been ever since.
Briefly take us through your journey to a career in tech
Apart from my journey before business, I would say my journey in tech (as an industry) began around 2017 when I started prototyping what would later become the current version of Logsandtabs.com. I spent a couple of years before that trying to figure out what the best software related solution was for me to try and create. It soon became clear to me what was missing in the world, this new idea I had, a single platform that could help you navigate life’s challenges, identify opportunities to reach your goals, plan, and fulfill your needs.
I called this idea, A Lifestyle Management Platform. The concept is quite simple. It’s a solution to inefficiencies in our lives that arise due to being disorganized. How much money and time does one lose because they can’t align their actions, their spending, and their priorities, with their goals, and capabilities? A lot, so when I decided that I would build a tech startup, this is what I chose as it’s core product.
What stoked your interest in tech?
Besides being an avid inventor and product developer, it’s the freedom that comes with being able to create something new and not be bound by something old. Tech is exciting. I was always a top achiever in school but that was because I loved learning and arming myself with the knowledge that I’d need to invent. Having a job wasn’t something that I ever thought about. Although becoming a businessperson wasn’t the plan from the beginning, it quickly became the obvious avenue for me to realize my dreams of having the resources to develop my ideas and to create new technologies. That’s how I ended up becoming a tech founder.
Please tell us more about LogsAndTabs
We are a technology company and lifestyle management platforms operator providing low to middle income consumers with aggregated digital tools, services, and products to efficiently organize and fulfill their lifestyle needs. Our team is comprised of 5 youths including myself, and we have been operational for about 8 months.
Logsandtabs provides consumers with an array of digital services including e-commerce, social media, gaming, price comparison, loyalty programs, entertainment, charity, and income supplementing opportunities.
Limited purchasing power has always meant limited access. Low to middle income consumers have the least purchasing power and hence the least access to products and services that can enhance their quality of life.
We believe all human beings deserve equal access to products and services that can help them to live better lives, which is why we developed a platform that essentially gives low to middle income consumers a revenue share in our operations for the value that they can generate through specific positive interactions with our array of products and services.
Two examples of our revenue share arrangements with our users are our social media service, sentiments, where we pay our users for reactions to their posts. Sentiments encourage social media users to be mindful of the content that they post online, and they are incentivised for it. These incentives are paid for by monetizing this social media activity through relevant ads.
Our e-commerce solution employs what we call “preferential shopping” whereby users choose default/preferred sellers across different categories for their needs. By choosing a particular seller, users can gain high savings on products and services in various categories for their loyalty to their preferred buyer.
What was the motivation for starting LogsAndTabs?
It was a decision I made to allow me to fulfill my desire to create, and it was also the vessel through which I would channel my creativity into helping other people in a meaningful way. I mentioned that the concept behind Logsandtabs was that of organizing people’s lives in order to do away with inefficiencies. We realized that the most disorganized people tend to earn less, or to put it in another way, there is direct proportionality between income and organization at the individual level, and perhaps even at the household level and other levels, extrapolating from there. Therefore, we decided to focus on low to middle income consumers, considering that they make the least money. By helping them to do away with waste, and to become more aligned, we place them in much better positions to enhance the quality of their lives.
What challenges have you faced in scaling up LogsAndTabs?
Capital constraints have always been the biggest challenge for us. There is only so much that you can do without capital. It forces you to become creative. However, at some point you need cash to pay suppliers, to pay staff, to buy new equipment, for R&D, and many other things. Besides capital, it has been a challenge selling the idea of a lifestyle management platform because to some it sounds like a form of e-commerce that we seem to refuse to describe it as.
Logsandtabs has e-commerce elements, but essentially, it’s an organizing tool. It can help you organize your purchasing activities and then help fulfill those purchasing needs via e-commerce. So, selling that has been an issue. Either people don’t recognize how important and impactful being organized is or we haven’t been able to clearly articulate and communicate this idea, or both.
How have you been approaching those challenges?
We developed a couple of models to help us navigate our challenges. These models include our “Creativity vs Capital” model which describes the extent to which a company should rely on either one for solving a particular problem. Whenever we have a problem, we refer to this model and ask ourselves the question, can this problem be solved with creativity alone, or is it an absolute capital requirement. Or if it needs both, how far can you go with either one until the other approach is needed.
That’s just one of the models we use in bootstrapping. I should probably copyright it too (haha). We also have a communication problem which we have been working on solving. Basically, the problem is that we haven’t been able to articulate what the business does well enough for people to get it. So, communications optimization has become one of our priorities lately because we want everyone from our users to our suppliers, to potential investors to understand what we do.
What has been your proudest moment with LogsAndTabs so far?
Reaching 1500 users in late 2022 was a great moment. We officially started operations in April 2022, and we had a few users for a couple of months until last December when we ran a campaign to onboard users to our social media platform, Sentiments. We gained 1000 new users in less than a week. That was a testament to how fast we could scale with more resources put into expanding. The cost of acquisition was quite low. We spent exactly P300, and we got 1000 users. That was not only a proud moment, but also a eureka moment.
However, I wouldn’t say that was the proudest moment because we have had a few. We have so many products and services so perhaps we’ll be able to have another chat soon to talk about those. The proudest moment for me was when we delivered on our promise to our users with a few of our services including when a young musician called in to tell us how happy she was that her song was performing well on our charts and that our charts reignited her passion for music. That made me feel like we were on the right track.
What is your vision for LogsAndTabs in the next 3-5 years?
It’s interesting that you would ask that question because we have a 3–5-year plan that we follow religiously. It’s simply to fully validate the Lifestyle Management Platform locally, optimize our services, and to expand into the rest of Africa where there are millions of low to middle income consumers that could benefit from our platforms.
Are there any LogsAndTabs feature launches coming soon that you would like to share with our readers?
Yes, there are! Imagine this. An unknown person sends you a message online, let’s say through Facebook. You receive their message and you read it, and the message says “Hi. How are you?”. Most of the time people ignore such messages. Now consider a different scenario. The same person sends you a message but instead of a simple “Hi! How are you?”, they also add a message that reads, “I noticed through your posts that you have a passion for tech in Africa, and I wanted to share my donation to Mebala Youth Studio which helps young entrepreneurs like you. Here is a link to a digital token where you can execute your share of the donation. You can choose to donate to any other cause and not just Mebala. You’ll get an e-certificate that updates every time you donate as well. Glad to meet you, I’m Kagiso.”
With the first approach, that unknown person does nothing to build rapport with you, and you may decide to ignore their message. In the second approach they become a lot harder to ignore. This is how our new social tokens that we are going to add to Sentiments are going to work. Excited to see how they might impact social media and social interactions.
What advice can you give young people looking to get into tech entrepreneurship in Botswana?
My advice would be for them to identify their strengths early on. Once you know what you’re good at you should then develop that strength and leverage it. You don’t have to be great at everything. Just be good enough at a few things, and exceptional at one thing. Then find some talented and hardworking people that can complement your strengths and get going.
Lastly, please share your contacts with our readers who might be looking to get in touch with you
Email: kagiso@logsandtabs.com
Phone: +267 72630126
NB: Interview has been slightly edited for clarity