Grow For Me is an AgriTech startup from Accra, Ghana. It uses an online crowdfunding platform to support local farming efforts. This allows anyone, no matter where they are in the world, to donate for as little as $20.
The donations go to providing farmers with tools to sell commodities, receive instant payments, request loans, and access machinery like tractors. Grow For Me’s long-term aim is to become a pan-African company, available in every country across the continent.
However, like most early-stage tech startups, Grow For Me needs capital to scale its operation. There is a lot of demand in the agriculture industry, but not much investment, as most investors prefer putting their money into real estate.
The SkilledUp Life Advantage
To overcome this problem, Grow For Me subscribed to SkilledUp Life, an online platform that connects early-stage tech startups with limited resources to 52,000 skilled volunteers from around the world.
Incredibly, within a single day of posting a request for volunteers on SkilledUp Life, Grow For Me received 136 applications. Around 60 volunteers joined the AgriTech startup and communicated through a WhatsApp group. They were all given a single goal: to approach potential sponsors and encourage them to sign up.
“I’m very impressed with SkilledUp Life team. We had a total of about 60 people. That was great. Their tasks were simply to reach out to more sponsors and just get them to sign up. That’s it. Just sign up,” Nana Opoku Agyeman-Prempeh, Co-Founder & CEO, Grow For Me, told us.
These volunteers had a window of four to six months to reach their targets. Yet, to the surprise of Nana and the Grow For Me team, they achieved this goal in approximately one month.
Reflecting on this achievement, Nana remarked:
“I think the success story is really the sign-ups that they brought us within the time frame. What we noticed was the number of sign-ups that we were taking, I think four months or six months, it was done in one month. For me, that was epic.”
Conclusion
Grow For Me’s experience with SkilledUp Life showcases the value of tapping into skilled volunteer networks for cash-strapped tech startups looking to grow without a financial handicap.
Unfortunately, owing to a need to cover its server infrastructure costs, Grow For Me couldn’t renew with us. That said, Nana is open to returning to us in the future, once he and his team have improved their working capital.
When asked what advice he would give other tech startups about SkilledUp Life, Nana answered,
“I never thought about volunteerism, but startups should really consider it. It is really an amazing option that has never even been discussed. It’s been a great experience for me.
“Ready to start building your volunteer team? Register at www.skilledup.life today to gain access to a pool of 52,000+ volunteers from 139 countries.
Written By: Andrew Smyth, Head of Marketing.
