![[Startup Interview] George Kissinger Adem, CEO, House of Kissinger, Kenya](/assets/components/phpthumbof/cache/George%20Kissinger.8b9e9c238b4a37cc031afe849f0b91f7.jpg)
[Startup Interview] George Kissinger Adem, CEO, House of Kissinger, Kenya
George Kissinger Adem is the Founder and CEO of House of Kissinger (HOK) a Kenyan online lifestyle management platform that connects Tourists/VIPs/Expatriates to their favourite luxury and essential goods & services.
Kindly give us a brief introduction of your startup and what it does?
House of Kissinger is a lifestyle management platform that outsources personal tasks to notable firms and individuals. We work to give our clients the utmost quality, convenience, privacy and efficiency when undertaking personal tasks. HOK was founded in Nairobi, Kenya in 2018.
What challenges are House of Kissinger (HOK) trying to address?
The key challenge we are addressing is the difficulty in accessing top quality essential goods and services - this comes in ways, shapes and forms as unfamiliarity with that local market, lack of privacy, lack of sufficient time, hostile locals, member-only access restrictions, price and cultural biases.
How has the market responded to your products and services?
The response from clients and partners has been amazing, we realized from early on in our interactions with various stakeholders that HOK is an innovation many individuals and companies don’t know they need until they get to use it. We’ve had thousands of sign-ups with barely any marketing.
Your product is very unique, what’s the idea or story behind House of Kissinger (HOK)?
I conceptualized H O K when I realized the frustrations experienced by tourists, expatriates, celebrities & generally people caught up with work when trying to access some of the most essential products in their daily lives, as you can imagine, this immensely compromises their quality of life. There was a need for a marketplace that can sell both goods and services. So in 2018, I tasked a team of freelance developers to build on the idea and actualize the platform but got frustrated by their quality and pace of work, I opted to do the work myself instead and within weeks I had fully tested and developed the minimum viable product. From there I worked with top experts to add features, streamline the experience and generally ensure we have a healthy and robust system.
Lifestyle management is a challenge most people are always grappling with, how do you arrive at choosing the clients you work with?
We consider the partner’s quality of products, reputation, target market, ease to personalize products, product digitization, willingness to adopt new technology &and customer service.
What do you consider your greatest selling points?
Our clients have the flexibility to personalize products fully to their desire, priority shipping, service digitization, options from a pool of top talented specialists in various fields, HOK partners enjoy an all-round e-commerce solution including improved customer loyalty and operational efficiency.
What markets are you operating in currently? Any expansion plans?
We are currently seeking and making strategic partnerships in Kenya but we sell globally. Yes, most definitely – we are working on building more partnerships in select countries/cities and towns within Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and even the United States.
What are the ambitions of the company going forward?
We intend to add more interesting features and functionalities to HOK & we are working on getting our 1 millionth signup this year.
What is the latest news from your company?
You’ll see a lot more of HOK on your screens this year. We’re hiring!
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Africa Business Communities is conducting a series of interviews with startup businesses in Africa.
Are you a startup in Africa and interested in an interview? Great! Send an e-mail to bas@africabusinesscommunities.com
