Asoriba is a Ghanaian word which means ‘church member.’ However, since September 2014, it has been synonymous with something else; a tech start-up adjudged Ghana’s best by Seedstars. The company, founded by four Christian students during their time at Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, provides a unique web and mobile application that enables effective church administration for leaders, and seamless engagement with members via mobile phones, while making it easy to pay tithes and offerings from your phone via mobile money and cards.

Although Asoriba seems to be a pioneer in religious technology, set to take on 2.6 million churches with half a billion church members across the African continent,  the company began without any seed funding. Find out how and more in this interview with Asoriba’s co-founder, Mr. Nana Prempeh.

By Laju Iren

LACK of funds in one reason why many tech start-ups are still at the idea stage across Africa. How is Asoriba funded?

So far, we have not taken funding, we have been running on our sales. Even though we have been presented with a couple of offers, we are yet to make a full decision. We are taking a closer look at them. Our office currently runs from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, MEST Incubator which trains, mentors, and invests in world-class tech entrepreneurs and African startups from Ghana & Nigeria.

Prempeh

What is the inspiration behind Asoriba?

As Christian students, we wanted to use technology as a tool to win more souls for Christ by empowering churches. We found that the church had a number of challenges it faced that could be solved with technology, and the church market was also a big one worth addressing. Four major gaps/problems were identified in church operations: Inefficient monitoring of member attendance and gathering of reports from multiple church branches; Ineffective engagement and communication in large congregation by busy and highly influential leaders; Difficulty in tracking financial contributions (books and excel sheets are still being used by many churches); High cost in creating, sharing   and tracking events/occasions.

What markets are you operating in currently?

We currently operate in Ghana and Nigeria, but we have a 5 year strategic plan that will make us market leaders in Africa and Latin America. Interestingly we have already made a sale in US. We also have an independent partner model that provides individuals and companies with the opportunity to be resellers and make commissions.

What difficulties have you encountered in launching Asoriba?

Currently we haven’t been faced with such challenges, especially with MEST Incubator support and that of the entire tech  and Christian community in Ghana. However, we find that payment providers in this region do not provide recurring payments, hence makes it a little difficult to get your moneys each month from the client.

What are your greatest achievements till date?

Having been able to trust in God whiles bootstrapping our company still date (25/02/2016), and being able to stand together as a team through the very hard times we faced along the way.