“Courage is like a muscle, we strengthen it with use”.
The above quote is by Ruth Gordon. I can’t remember exactly where I saw it, but it stuck with me all through July.
Our Courage (bravery/determination/grit/resolve/guts/fearlessness) are strengthened with use.
The more we show up and the more we push, the more fuel we get to push even harder; this is true for individuals and teams, and of course, for us at Stax.
We attained all-time highs in all of our metrics in July, and while blossoming in the euphoria of it, Jess — our Head of Product, said, “…a little over a year ago, we were trying to decide if we should build a consumer-facing app. Crazy!”.
Indeed, it is crazy how Stax is coming along. It is almost three months to the day since we came out of beta. Since then, the growth and reviews have blown our minds. One thing is clear; our resolve to help you move money without stress grows stronger every day.
With every new user, bug squashed and review, our determination to fulfil that promise is strengthened.
Here’s how July went down:
Product Update
We had two main product goals in July:
- Ramp up on the number of services we support (NB: we want you to have access to ALL the bank or MoMo account you use on Stax, so TBH, for a while, we will always have this goal)
- Make it easier for you to talk to us.
More Services on Stax
To achieve goal number 1, we published over 100 USSD flows for our money mappers to help map; this makes it easier for us to add new bank and mobile money services to Stax.
A testament to that is that we went live with ten new bank and mobile money services in July. In August, we will certainly add even more as the 100+ USSD flows get mapped.
What services did we add?
- In Uganda, we added MTN Mobile Money (*165#) and Absa Bank Hello Money (*233#)
- In Ethiopia, we added Awash Bank (*901), TeleBirr (*127#) and CBE Birr (*847#)
- In Kenya, we added Faulu (*339#), National Bank of Kenya (*625#), and KCB Mobile Banking (*522#)
- In Nigeria, we added Sun Trust Bank (*5230#), VBank (*5037#), PocketMoni (*389#), and Union Bank (*826#)
This brings the total number of bank/MoMo services available on Stax to 50.
Another cool fact is 37.35% of all transactions done on Stax is done offline, 30% of the current Staxxers use a Samsung device, 17% use Techno and 14% use Infinix.
In-app support.
We wrote about this in detail here. The crux of the matter is that Staxxers now have access to in-app support features to make it much easier to communicate with us and address any of your concerns promptly.
- In-app FAQs: Staxxers can now get immediate answers to questions like “Who builds Stax?”, “Does Stax take my money?”, “Is Stax safe?” etc. — directly on the app.
- In-app Email Support: Got any complaints or need more insight on an FAQ, send us an email directly from the app.
- In-app Feature Request: Staxxers can get redirected to our Nolt page to request, upvote or downvote new features.
User Reviews
Our userbase is growing, but the best part is the positive sentiment for Stax is also growing, so much that a Staxxer rained blessings on us recently.
However, my favourite review for the month is the one below because it exemplifies our determination to put you first. Yes, now and again, there might be few bugs, BUT we will keep iterating. We will keep improving and always work as fast as we can to resolve any issues.
… and there’s even more
Stax Research Participants
You know, we can’t build for users if we don’t know them; this is why research is an integral part of our product culture.
Our Senior UX Researcher, Wangu, has been conducting user interviews for weeks now, and she still has room to speak to more people. So this is an excellent opportunity to tell us first-hand what you think about Stax, how you use Stax and how you want us to build Stax.
You’d also have the opportunity to ask her any questions. These interviews are usually very insightful, and we often get reviews like this one we posted on Instagram.
However, the best part is that we’d pay you for the time you take out to speak to Wangu.
Sign up here to talk to Wangu 😁.
Stax Content
This week, Blessing Abeng, an exceptional brand and communications professional, joined the Stax team as our Senior Comms Manager. What this means is that our content and communications are about to 100x in quality.
I — Peace — am particularly excited to hand content off to someone who does it better than me; I hope you all are excited too.
What kind of content will you like to see Stax create in the coming months? What formats do you think we should explore? Would you please let us know? Comment on this article, send us a DM on Twitter (@joinstax), email me peace@usehover.com.
