Named after the country’s currency “Kyat”, OneKyat operates a successful C2C marketplace in Myanmar. Hovering above 20,000 monthly active users, OneKyat is the brainchild of the recent repat Mrs. Aye Mar Lar Htun and her husband Mr. Thiha Ye Tint.
Mrs. Aye Mar Lar began working on the venture as a site and her husband aided her while working full time in Singapore. He soon grew to realize that Myanmar people aren’t your typical users to browse websites on their phones or PCs and urgently picked up Android development skills by self study from reading books and attending online courses to build the Android app.
“User experience is everything in Myanmar really because people are new to online platforms and a single hiccup will stop scores of users from trying out the platform” shares Thiha.
While many other regional players with deep pockets tried to enter the market, they didn’t understand the intricacy of Myanmar minds he claims. “Once I had a user who complained to me because he didn’t know how to choose a unique user name. After helping him create one, he became a loyal user of the app until now” an example from Thiha of how Myanmar users still need a lot of hand-holding in adopting a new technology.
The uptick in mobile penetration is helping the growth in his business, his application is found useful in trading everyday items with one another. Motorcycles and mobile phones top the list of items listed and sold, a sign that the deals are probably focused away from Yangon a city where motorcycles are banned within the city limits. This signals the rise of applications which target the bottom of the pyramid instead of the usual tech-savvy elite of the country.
In the space are the competitors of OneKyat; Peddle, Myanmar’s country nominee for Rice Bowl Startup Award, Kaymu, Rocket internet’s venture, Shoppe, a venture by Garena each having their own focus.