Fundrr: Growth through Resourcefulness

Fundrr was a South Africa-based alternative funding business that launched in 2018. The business’s goal had been to disrupt the South African business lending landscape, specifically at the small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) level where the majority (about 71 per cent) of SMEs generated annual revenues of less than R200,000 and employed between two and five people. Reflecting on the company’s journey in October 2021, the company’s founders realized that Fundrr had weathered the COVID-19 storm and had grown 630 per cent between September 2020 and September 30, 2021. However, there was a discrepancy between their current client base and the founders’ vision for the company as a disruptive, innovative, entrepreneurship-friendly alternative funder seeking to offer financial backing options independent of those granted by traditional banking institutions. The typical Fundrr client was usually in their fifties and male. Operating on a continent with the youngest population in the world, what did this say about their marketing and brand positioning? How could they apply the same resourcefulness and relevance to position the business into the future?

This case is suitable for use in undergraduate, graduate, and executive courses on innovation, entrepreneurship, and decision-making. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<ul><li>Understand the meaning and significance of entrepreneurial hustle and the resourcefulness narrative for entrepreneurship;</li><li>Identify niche marketing and the factors which underpin its success; and</li><li>Explain the importance of differentiation and the use of bricolage philosophy (to create something from a diverse range of inputs to solve unique problems) to harness differentiation.</li></ul>

• Entrepreneurial resourcefulness