005: Building Nigeria's Uber for Tractors with Van Jones
Episode 005 of Young African Entrepreneur features Van Jones, co-founder and head of strategy of Hello Tractor.
You can connect with Van at @HelloTractor on Twitter.
I first learned about Van and Hello Tractor after chatting with my best friend who works at a multinational trading house. She told me there’s this innovative company working in Nigeria that is like the Uber for tractors. Smallholder farmers can request tractor services using a USSD code on a feature phone. The tractor owner comes over, performs the service. Boom. The farmer saves time and money and improves yields through mechanized plowing. The tractor owner is capitalizing his asset. Brilliant idea, right?
Van has a really cool story. In 2008, he graduated from college in Ohio and left for China to pursue his career staying for 4 years. In 2012, he returned to the US to complete an MBA at the University of Chicago.
Shortly thereafter, he connected with future cofounder Jehiel Oliver who had the idea of creating a tractor rental service app for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. They developed the business plan, won a prestigious competition for seed funding, and headed off to Nigeria to test their idea.
Only to find out it didn’t quite work the way they had thought in their business plan.
Hello Tractor is a really fascinating business, making a real difference with smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
It was great chatting with Van. We talked about his early career in China, how Hello Tractor accidentally fell into being a conventional tractor company and how they successfully pivoted to being a pure tech company, and why research and reciprocity are fundamental to networking.
Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Van Jones.