BrighterMonday, an online recruitment platform recently closed their Ugandan offices, together with its sister venture, an online car selling platform cheki.com. They were housed at The Space Hub on Bukoto Street in Kamwokya.
Although the website dedicated to the Ugandan market remains up and running, BrighterMonday has no single staff in Uganda. It is currently run by its team in Kenya.
When we contacted one of the individuals that were in close proximity with the venture, he was able to walk us from the point BrighterMonday's troubled times began - which is mid-2016.
There were rumors of downsizing at the venture mid-2016 which were confirmed towards the end of the year when the venture reduced its staff from double to single digits. This probably was pressure from investors to break even.
At the same time, BrighterMonday was contracted to run the ReadyToWork campaign by Barclays bank. But, this was short lived and later terminated early 2017 when Barclays bank decided they would run the program in-house.
This could have potentially escalated the troubles at the already troubled venture that was already struggling to keep hold of its clients as well as how to monetize its products which led to further downsizing.
Currently, the venture is only surviving by scraping jobs from other companies websites as well as job sites. However, one only wonders how far this will take the venture. It is also not clear whether they have plans to bounce back in the Ugandan market.
When we asked our source, who is familiar with both the recruitment space in Kenya and Uganda, why BrighterMonday struggled here, he hinted on the fact that the Kenyan market is ahead of the Ugandan one.
Yet, BrighterMonday failed to understand the difference and applied the same tactics that had made it successful in Kenya.
BrighterMonday is owned by One Africa Media group with interest in jobs, cars, property and travel space. Other ventures owned by the group include Cheki, Jobberman, PrivateProperty, BuyrentKenya, SafariNow and StayNow. Yet the group currently has no offices in Uganda.
With BrighterMonday's exit from the Ugandan market, it means Uganda Jobline, Jumia Jobs, Pro-Interns and New Vision Jobs as the main Job sites in the country.