Brazilian Platform ‘GetNinjas’ Plans International Expansion

By Richard Mann, Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – GetNinjas, a leading platform for hiring services from self-employed professionals and small businesses, is preparing to embark on international expansion and is beginning to diversify its sources of revenue.

According to co-founder and CEO Eduardo L’Hotellier, GetNinja is growing by an average of 120 percent per year in indicators such as revenue and number of users.

The plans include the development of a mobile cell phone repair service and the sale of market intelligence to suppliers of all kinds of products used by professionals on the platform, says L’Hotellier.

According to L’Hotellier, the first countries in the globalization process will be Argentina and Mexico. Currently, GetNinjas is translating its platform into Spanish, and the foray should begin in the last quarter of this year.

The funds to complete globalization are almost entirely available, although a further US$2 (R$8) million is still lacking, says L’Hotellier, adding that for a company the size of GetNinja, which had raised R$40 (US$10) million in 2015, raising a small amount is more difficult than raising a large amount.

At the moment, the company is looking to determine its market value to define how much it will raise and the share it will have in return. The amount raised may vary from US$2 million to US$20 million, he says.

Today, GetNinjas’ main source of revenue is the sale of access to people interested in hiring services from self-employed professionals or small businesses.

To view the contact of a person who is looking for English lessons, for instance, a teacher needs to buy credits on the platform and use them to submit a quote. Each new service required on the platform allows for up to three professionals to apply.

According to L’Hotellier, this model has yielded approximately R$30 million in revenue annually, and now it should be boosted by several new services that GetNinjas is beginning to test in the market.

Late last year, for instance, the startup closed a deal with Diageo to test a new type of promotional campaign. The project provides that bartenders who buy branded beverages can submit a photo of the invoice to GetNinjas. As a result, they earn credits to use on the platform.

According to L’Hotellier, in addition to encouraging beverage sales, the campaign is a way for Diageo to dodge retailers who sell shelf space and access valuable market information, such as the final price of products in different micro-regions and the brand of other beverages that are displayed on the same invoice.

A further potential service, he adds, is the sale of research. Concerning bartenders, for instance, it would be possible to ask what other brands of beverage they use, for what purpose and how often they buy them, among other information.

The entrepreneur did not disclose the expected revenue from these new services, although he stated that the figure should already be significant in this year’s balance sheet. According to him, GetNinja is growing by an average of 120 percent a year in indicators such as revenue and number of users.

(Source: Globo)

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