Tired of hiring a plumber or electrician, only to discover they haven’t the first clue of what they’re doing? Johannesburg- and Cape Town-based South African start-up Ledula hopes to change that.
Ledula is inviting consumers to sign up on its website using their Facebook credentials so that they can see which businesses their friends — or friends of their friends — have recommended or taken issue with. Ledula is effectively a peer-reviewed and localised classifieds service for the age of social media.
Founded and funded by brothers Atholl and Philip Tomlinson, both of whom work for large financial services companies, Ledula’s aim is to give homeowners a tool to find reliable tradesmen while helping small businesses to improve their marketing.
Though the web site was launched quietly in 2012, it has since been redesigned and was relaunched at the end of last month.
Gavin Welsh, sales partner for Ledula, says the company — which has a sales office in Cape Town and an office of programmers in Johannesburg — has worked hard to improve the functionality of the service.
“The premise of Ledula is to provide you with service providers your friends trust,” he says. “It makes it possible to find service providers without using the Yellow Pages or Google, and lists providers that people you actually know would recommend.”
Once someone reviews a service provider, Ledula creates a profile of that company. “Companies can then fill out additional information on their Ledula page, including contact information and other details users might value.”
Though the service is free for end users, service providers wanting to display anything more than a name and number have to subscribe. “If you want photos, testimonials or other information, it’s R249/month,” Welsh explains.
Subscribers can also create a widget for their own websites that displays their Ledula ratings. They can be listed in up to three categories on Ledula’s site and opt to have business cards that include a link to their Ledula profile printed at no cost. Companies are encouraged to give these cards to satisfied customers in the hopes that they’ll rate the service using the Ledula website.
Atholl Tomlinson says even though Ledula only recently began marketing itself, it has 850 listed service providers and 350 registered end users. Since February, it’s signed up 22 companies for its subscription service.
Ledula vets all companies that get referred to the service. “We’ll call them up, check they’re who they say they are, and that their details check out,” says Welsh. “If so, they’ll get a green tick next to their profile to indicate they’re a legitimate business.”
Initially, Ledula wants to build a substantial base of companies in Johannesburg and Cape Town. There are plans to take the service to other countries later. “We want to make sure it works well here first. But we’re also looking at other markets like Australia and the UK,” Welsh says.
Ledula is also working on mobile applications for Apple and BlackBerry devices, with other mobile operating systems to follow. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media