Cape Town job app records more than 100K users

Two young entrepreneurs from Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain are ecstatic after the job-finding app they created recorded more than 100 000 users.

Senzo Masumpa, 25, and Allan van der Meulen, 24, created the data-free web app to help unemployed youth find small jobs in their areas. This could, in turn, count as work experience that would make them more employable in the process.

“It’s amazing to see people’s lives transformed by the work we do. It humbles me to know that I am making a difference in tough times,” Masumpa said.

Masumpa, from Khayelitsha and Van der Meulen, from Mitchells Plain, met through social enterprise non-profit organisation (NPO) RLabs, where Zlto started as a project and was later developed as a web-based app. Zlto currently runs in South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Once you’ve created a profile on Zlto, you can start signing up for jobs in your area. On completion, users must take a picture of the completed task, and once it is verified, they will earn Zlto points.

Some of the jobs listed include helping out at hospitals, spending time volunteering and going to the shop for someone.

Zlto points can be exchanged for food, electricity, clothing and airtime vouchers. As part of their essentials campaign, the Zlto team distributed around R10 million worth of these items to its members, for relief in the pandemic.

In 2020, the Zlto app started offering nano courses to its users.

“The courses include entrepreneurship, how to use Google Suite and how to prepare for a job interview, etc,” Masumpa said.

Masumpa said it was difficult to come up with a name despite us having 11 official languages. They chose the word Zlato from the Czech language, which means gold.

“To us, people are more valuable than gold, and that’s why we chose this name,” he said.

When the app was in its beta testing phase, the co-founders realised that users not having data bundles or storage space, could be a hurdle.

“This was why we made it a web-based application. This way it is accessible via the browser,” Masumpa said.

Next year, Zlto wants to create “Zlto for business” that will target entrepreneurs that want to start their own business.

“The mechanism of having to complete tasks will still apply but will be more detailed to what a business needs, like registering your business or getting a bank account,” Masumpa said.

He added: “The rewards are also more business-facing like building a website and setting up social media accounts for the entrepreneurs.”

Ncumisa Pinyana is a 29-year-old woman from Gauteng who is employed at an NPO and has been using Zlto for nearly two years.

“Although I have a job, I earn a minimum wage which is not enough to support my life. I am a single mother who has to take care of my child and still pay black tax back home,” she said.

Pinyana added: “I have not paid for electricity or airtime in the last 21 months because of Zlto. The Shoprite food vouchers have also been of great help to me.”