By Salma Nkusi & Carmen Merab 

Across many West African countries, the informal service sector relies on traditional methods like word of mouth or small roadside signs to advertise their work. In this context, skilled artisans often struggle to secure decent jobs and consistent revenue due to the absence of appropriate channels to connect them with potential customers and communicate their experience and skill set. This poses a dilemma for households seeking repair, installation, or maintenance services, as the options for trusted and vetted artisans are limited. 

Mon Artisan, a skill-on-demand digital platform, is bridging this gap by seamlessly connecting artisans with work opportunities. Founded in 2019 in Cote d’Ivoire and expanded in 2022 to Burkina Faso, Mon Artisan is rooted in the experiences of a group of young men who grew up in artisan families witnessing the scarcity of job opportunities for their family members. Their blend of practical insights and technological knowledge helped them build a platform to bridge the divide between the supply and demand of artisans’ services.

Central to Mon Artisan’s success is its commitment to providing clients with a simple, high-quality, and secure user experience. The online platform allows customers to effortlessly book skilled, reliable artisans in various fields, such as plumbing, electricity, carpentry, painting, and more. Clients connect with artisans through a smartphone app, web interface, WhatsApp, and a dedicated phone hotline. Through the app, clients can swiftly book a service and expect to see an artisan at their doorstep within 90 to 120 minutes, creating both convenience and efficiency. This platform also encourages clients to provide ratings and feedback, promoting a cycle of continuous improvement and excellence.

The impact of Mon Artisan extends beyond a mere transactional platform. It addresses the inherent gap between the supply of skilled workers and the demand for trustworthy services. By creating a bridge between these two groups, the platform empowers craftsmen to expand their customer base and improve their livelihoods while providing them with soft and technical skills, pre-financing artisans’ small projects at a 0% interest rate using part of the credit line received from a local bank, and extending logistical support such as rent of equipment at preferential prices or payment plan facilities for tools such as ladders, drills, etc. 

Artisans onboarded on Mon Artisan undergo a stringent vetting process to ensure the delivery of quality service. The platform’s rigorous selection process involves interviews, practical tests, and reference checks, ultimately guaranteeing the quality of work. Moreover, customers can access services from artisans at very competitive prices.

With over 700 artisans currently onboarded and 500 active, the platform aims to become a leading digital job work platform for artisans in West Africa Francophone countries, with 3000 active artisans in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast by the end of 2025. They also intend to expand their current range of offerings on the platform and serve more corporate clients. While similar platforms (TaskRabbit, Kandua, Thumbtack, Ziada, Taskmoby, and Bisacte) exist in other regions, Mon Artisan has no direct competition in French-speaking West Africa.

The Jobtech Alliance will work closely with Mon Artisan in the coming months, focusing on key business areas. Together, they will identify critical operational challenges and fine-tune the platform’s model to create sustainable and recurring income opportunities for blue-collar workers across the West African market. Some key areas of focus already identified include but are not limited to data analytics and dashboards, business-to-business strategy, financial metrics, and product optimization. A field visit and engagement with key stakeholders will be conducted to understand better the challenges and opportunities in the market where Mon Artisan already operates. 

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The Jobtech Alliance is an ecosystem-building initiative around inclusive jobtech in Africa launched in late 2021. We’re interested in digital platforms which connect people to work opportunities that build livelihoods – this includes gigmatching platforms, job matching, e-commerce marketplaces, and more. The Jobtech Alliance helps jobtech platforms to grow and create more jobs.