The rise of video on demand (VOD) and online content has seen a number of players emerge both worldwide and in Africa.

However, Cape Town based start-up Wabona is seeking to stake a claim on this global market by bringing African television shows and films to the online streaming market on Wabona.com.

Wabona began offering their content in November 2012 and currently have over 600 hours of video available in their catalogue.

Wabona was by friends and co-founders Simukayi Mukuna and Simbarashe Mabasha.

Originally from Zimbabwe, but currently living in Cape Town, Mukuna and Mabasha began their project by creating their own production house known as African Dust.

“We were struggling to find a way to distribute our own content and so we discovered the game and the world had changed and that the internet is making it much easier for people to distribute and consume content. Simu realised that there was something to be done in the VOD space,” explains Mabasha who serves as Wabona’s chief executive officer.

Mukuna began his working career in private banking but joined forces with Mabasha in 2008 to create African Dust.

“We formed the first version of African Dust in 2008 and started working on some media projects. The whole idea was to try and get some stories out there, we tried a bunch of times to get television shows, magazine shows pitched to e.tv, DStv and others and met resistance so that’s when we decided to switch our focus and build our own platform. I left banking in May 2011 and worked on building Wabona into what it is now,” says Mukuna, director of services and operations for Wabona.

The aspiring media moguls began their foray into the VOD space by looking at the successful American Netflix model.

The pair says they then realised there was an opportunity in providing content aimed at the African Diaspora. So eager were they that Mukuna even went to the USA and tried to get a meeting with the executives at Netflix and while that never materialised the trip did have some positive outcomes.

“It was good because we could see what we had to do and where we had to change our thinking. Then we began a conversation with the SABC and they were quite cool and we pitched to them and they were interested and so we said we are going to build something like Netflix with African content and so we initially thought we could look at a wider audience but found it very difficult with Netflix driving up the price so we looked closer to home,” explains Mabasha.

Wabona realised that between the South African and Zimbabwean Diaspora and growing Tanzanian film industry, they needed to refine their focus.

“For instance, we realised that Tanzania has the fifth biggest by volume film production in the world and so we started very big and then became quite niche because while we have grand ideas on what African is we need to focus on home, the SADEC and East African region and what they need and so we moved away from the Netflix case,” continues Mabasha.

Once they had narrowed their focus and realigned their business plan, Mukuna and Mabasha began the hard slog of raising capital, sourcing free content and buying content. They then found an opportunity to join startup accelerator 88mph in the Woodstock district of Cape Town.

Initially Wabona was one of 400 applicants for the incubation program but after a series of online questionnaires and personal interviews, they were selected to be one of the ten startups currently in the space.

Mukuna says that two specific attributes set them apart from their rivals.

“88mph are looking for two types of companies that fall into different target markets, they either fix a uniquely African problem or businesses that are extremely scalable,” says Mukuna.

Mukuna believes that Wabona fulfils both requirements by targeting a specifically African market while also operating in an arena that is growing in value and size.

As the startup moves forward, their biggest challenge is creating awareness of the brand and its goals and not just in terms of viewers but also potential content providers.

“Some people don’t know or understand what it is we are actually attempting to do. It is trying to get them to understand that this is where video is going and there was some work in trying to get people to understand that this platform will work,” says Makuna.

While other media companies such as Buni TV in Kenya or iROKOtv in Nigeria have begun to stake their claims in the African VOD space, the men from Wabona remain positive that with the market in its infancy that there is more than enough room for all to operate.

They are also confident that their drive to succeed and mission of changing the way the world at large and Africans in specific see themselves will earn them a seat at the table.

“It’s not just about making money because we would have given up a long time ago if that was our sole motivation,” says Makuna.

“We want Africans to see themselves through creating a platform for people to see themselves and the rest of the world to see themselves. We need to start changing the conversations people have about Africa because the stories are now different and are being told by us,” Makuna concludes.