Interview of Tunde Ademuyiwa, Wolfparc CEO : "the whole idea of pools is to breakdown economic barriers."

Past week, I published a post about Wolfparc, the new startup of Kiakiaprint founder. Tunde accepted my invite for an interview, and I’m very pleased to share with you his insights on the market.

 

Hi Tunde, thanks for accepting this interview. How do you feel today as you’ve just launched Wolfparc ?

Thank you Ludovic, it is a pleasure. Well i feel great and expectant. This has been in the works for a few months, so i am glad we have finally launched

 

Can you tell us a bit more about your background and your experience at KiaKiaprint ?

Well, first i am a Systems Engineer who found his way into the print industry by accident. (story for another day). I started kiakiaprint with my Co-founders in 2017, in Lagos, Nigeria. We decided to leverage technology to scale. This proved a bit difficult as we were more or less changing the way people ordered for print in Africa. We prevailed and decided to expand our operations. First to South Africa, and then the US

 

What decided you to launch Wolfparc, with such an innovative business model based on pool of orders ?

When we launched Kiakiaprint in the US. We tried to add flexible packaging to our product offerings, but we couldn't find very affordable flexible packaging for small businesses.  We believed the available options was a bit too expensive for small businesses, most especially for people trying to start their brands. We realized there was still a high barrier for many small CPG businesses trying to go to market, so we thought if no one is providing very affordable designs and flexible packaging, we might as well build it ourselves. So we pivoted and focused on building Wolfparc.

 

From our experience with printing we know fully well how difficult it is for print factories to produce flexible packaging in short runs. We also understand how difficult it is for small businesses to order for more than they need just because of minimum order quantities. So we decided to make two sets of people happy; Small businesses - by providing them affordable designs & packaging, and the print factories - by aggregating small orders and opening them up to a new market

 

Did the Covid crisis have an influence in your motivation for starting this business ?

Actually small CPG businesses had great numbers during the height of the Covid pandemic. Small Consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses grew as much as 15-20% last year. So this definitely encouraged us. Furthermore, there is a bit of consumer distrust with the big brands. Small-medium CPG brands are poised to take their own marketshare.

 

Wolfparc is focused today in the US market. Do you plan to expand it to other territories ?

Yes, as we grow we will definitely go to other territories, but we are focused on the US for now

 

I find the concept of pools extremely smart. Will you extend it in a near future to other packagings (carton for example) or printed material / promotional products ?

For us, the whole idea of pools is to breakdown economic barriers. Everyone needs to be able to startup their business with minimal expenses. So that's more of our focus as a company. Helping small businesses go to market and compete with the established brands. We will always be open to any way we can help in that regard

 

Final question : the print market is accelerating at a dramatic speed. As an entrepreneur, what is your vision of the trends of this market in a near future ?

As technology continues to evolve, i believe digital prints is the future, and mass customization will continue for a long long time

 

Thank you very much Tunde !