Hello Jibu friends!
We are so thankful for all the amazing encouragement, kind words and cheering on so many of you give us! We could not have made so much wonderful progress without you.
And it has been a quite eventful few months since my last email in June. Here are a few highlights:
- We are still very much on track to scale one new water franchise business per month in starting in January 2015. We will be doing this only in Uganda and Rwanda, not Congo. So 24 new businesses launched by locals in one year. Very cool. Very challenging.
- We have made significant progress on all fronts with the businesses. Growth of water sales ranges from about 10-20% per month in each country. We now have many thousands of loyal, grateful families who previously had no affordable access to safe drinking water.
- A significant pipeline of potential new franchisees who want to invest in a Jibu business has grown in both countries. The opportunity for real local ownership is one of our big unique differentiators and we have been amazed by the number of qualified candidates it has naturally drawn to us.
- Galen is now an ‘Unreasonable Fellow’ after a fantastic 5 weeks in the Unreasonable Institute’s social enterprise accelerator. Thanks for all of you who supported him in this!
- We continue to receive favor and help from amazing sources. Latest example: Dr. Ben Litalien is a franchise expert, practitioner and professor teaching franchising at Georgetown U who graciously offered to meet with us for a day to help us work through any kinks in our business model. During the conversation he said, ‘I have been looking for awhile for a social franchise economic model that can scale through organic profit which could be a pathfinder for others. Jibu just might be that company.’ Incredible affirmation from someone who dug into the details of our business from about the most credible source we could imagine.
You gotta see our new video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UekJy1V7XJ4 (Andy Berndt, a professional media developer with Community Blueprint, donated his time and talent to come to Africa to film this. We are extremely thankful Andy- thanks!)
Our two biggest challenges are operational readiness to scale and receiving the funding to scale by mid- November. Operational readiness is mostly Galen’s focus while living in Africa. Involves vetting our franchisee candidates, selecting 24 locations, working with governments, managing the existing franchises, etc. More than enough work to keep a team of horses busy. I don’t know how he does it so well. But thanks to our amazing partners on the ground, we should be ready to scale by the time we need to be in the next few months.
Receiving the funding to scale is mostly my focus here in the US. Because we are not scaling in Congo, we need to raise ‘only’ $2.5M now 😉 That funding will be used to hire the troops Galen desperately needs to actually pull off the scaling, buy the water filtration equipment and all the rest of the assets needed to grow the enterprise in these countries over the next two years. We are very hopeful this will be our first and last grant/equity money request because the business will then be able to generate enough organic profit to fuel future perpetual growth– that is one of the big ideas at the heart of our business model that Dr. Litalien affirmed.
As you may recall, we are in the final stages of negotiating a significant matching grant from USAID so we have a nice launch point for this raise. This is a great incentive because potentially all money that comes in gets added to by USAID proportionally as a supplemental grant. We are making encouraging progress against our ambitious funding goal. But we still need lots of help.
Now would be a great time if you have a desire to participate financially with us. There are a couple of ways you can do that:
1. Donate. We have a partnership with Overflow, a non profit 501c3 that offers typical US tax benefits. It is easy-peasy to do. Go to https://waterstone.org/make-a-gift/gift-form/ At the very top, click on the arrow called ‘Choose your Fund here’ and scroll down to ‘Overflow Fund’ and click. Then fill in the rest of the screen below. Click on Submit. That’s it. Or you can mail a check to: WaterStone, Attn.: Overflow, Inc. account, 10807 New Allegiance Dr., #24, Colorado Springs, CO 80921. You should receive a receipt in the mail within a few weeks in either case.
2. Invest in Jibu. You can actually own a part of Jibu! High financial return potential. Minimum investment is $25,000 and you have to be an ‘accredited investor’. Contact me if interested and I will send you all the details.
Thanks again for the many kind words, prayers and great feedback we get from so many of you. We are humbled and grateful.
Cheerfully,
Randy Welsch
