Upvote’s Vision for South Africa

When you’re looking for ‘romantic date night restaurants’, or the ‘best dermatologists’, or the ‘most affordable flexible offices’ in your city – where do you go to find this information? Google, Social Media, Friends, Community or Word-of-Mouth? Wouldn’t it be great if the answers to these were available in one place? Upvote, a local startup is working on it!

We want to create a place that everyone can turn to find what they’re looking for in South Africa. Similar to what Google or a business directory does? Yes and No.

Yes

• Our platform consists of business, product and service listings;
• Each listing is a subscription which is valid for one year;
• People can add their reviews, comments and feedback.

No

• We don’t just list different products, services, brands or businesses on our platform. We organize and curate these listings according to what our community looks for and what is in the public interest;
• We do our part to help drive more awareness and more engagement for the businesses that list on Upvote, to give them more exposure and to get more interaction from our community members;
• We work with businesses on our platform to give back to the community through special offers and competitions;
• We rank listings on our platform according to the votes they get from the community;
• We cover a broad range of unique topics that are organized into modern Collections;
• We engage the community to give us their feedback and opinion and which Collections they want to see on Upvote, and which businesses should listed be in the Collection;
• We use social media and other digital advertising channels to promote the Collections and businesses listed on Upvote;
• We work with Bloggers and Influencers to connect and collaborate with local businesses on our platform;
• We give back to businesses for their loyalty, collaboration and achievements through cash discounts and premium services.

As a local startup company – it is always a challenge to convince customers to buy into your vision.

“Is it going to be worth it? What can you do for me that I can’t do on my own? You don’t have enough social media followers. I don’t believe that online directories will work for us.”

These are just some of the responses we’ve received in the last 4 months since we started. And fair enough – these are valid questions and statements. Our only request is for local businesses to be able to give us the opportunity to show them what we can do for them. The small investment that they make gives them a 1-year listing on Upvote. In that time, we are able to deliver their return on investment and even more from our communities through our value-added services (as mentioned above).

It’s the buy in from local businesses that help us to drive our vision and build a unique and valuable platform, one that will serve to create greater opportunities for their business and our communities.