From delivering food using bicycles and WhatsApp to partnering with Temu and Shein in South Africa

What started as a food delivery business in Hammanskraal has now become a major logistics operation covering four provinces, partnering with e-commerce giants like Alibaba, Temu, and Shein.

This is the journey of last-mile delivery company, Delivery Ka Speed, which serves township residents in Gauteng, the Western Cape, and Limpopo.

Founder Godiragetse Fareed Mogajane said one motivation for starting the business was the lack of convenience in Hammanskraal.

“When I returned home to Hammanskraal after staying in Joburg, I realised that none of the popular delivery apps I had used in the city were available,” Mogajane told The Founder Files podcast.

“Secondly, I found it painful to see how life had turned out for my former classmates who did not have the privilege to go to university like me. The best way to solve those two problems was to start a business like Delivery Ka Speed.”

He said the company started doing food deliveries on bicycles in 2021, using a WhatsApp chatbot to allow customers to place orders.

This initial business model garnered a lot of hype, with Mogajane saying that he started appearing everywhere, from billboards to radio, because of the concept of facilitating last-mile delivery services in townships.

However, he noted that the business was not making any money despite all the attention.

“You get on stage and speak about the brand, and people’s faces light up. This is especially true for people in the townships who looked up to us,” Mogajane said.

“But when the months end comes around and you take a look at the numbers, it’s just not working.”

Fortunately, he said this was his second business venture, and he had the maturity to realise that “what was happening outside was not the business.”

The B2B pivot

The business has since pivoted into the business-to-business (B2B) space, delivering goods from major South African and international companies to spaza shops and township retailers.

These partners include Tiger Brands, Alibaba, AliExpress, Waltons, Shein, and Temu.

“It helps international companies see that we can deliver to remote areas where other logistics companies can’t provide services or charge too much to deliver there,” he says.

Delivery Ka Speed operates using a hybrid employment model, employing full-time drivers on payroll and contracting part-time drivers with their own vehicles.

He said he chose this model because it became apparent that, despite the company’s rapid growth, employing all drivers full-time would not be sustainable.

Mogajane added that hiring drivers on a subcontractual basis also allowed the business to have more drivers available.

“As a delivery business, you are only as big as the number of drivers you have on the ground and the amount of space you have in your warehouses,” he said.

The pivot also allowed the business to reach profitability after only three months, in December 2024.

Mogajane said that entering the B2B space also meant that the business was competing with established companies, the youngest of which has been in business for 30 years.

However, he said that being a startup in this space gave them a competitive advantage as they were more willing to be more flexible than their competitors.

“Every client has an account manager who is available 24/7 because that is how we operate our warehouses, and we have vehicles on the road 24/7,” Mogajane says.

“I think our clients appreciate the flexibility and agility we provide because we are a startup.”

The Delivery Ka Speed founder said that the change from a B2C to a B2B model was pivotal for the business and for him as an entrepreneur.

He said that when deciding to change his business model, he feared “the world was going to crash” when they stopped offering consumer services. 

However, a simple notice of when Delivery Ka Speed would end its services was enough to inform its customers. 

He said this taught him that paying customers are the most important people that you want to interact with as a business.

“If you can choose between meeting with your customers or going on a panel at a conference, always choose your customers because they are the ones keeping the lights on,” Mogajane added.

“I find that customers are also very understanding. If the weather is terrible and the delivery is late, when you communicate with the customer, they understand that we don’t live in a perfect world.”