#StartupStory: Could Peers24 be our very own social media network?

Developed in the backyard of South Africa, Peers24 is social media network that focuses on value-driven content and is the idea of Yandisa Mtyide, a passionate and dynamic driven entrepreneur with a mindset for growth and love for technology.
Yandisa Mtyide, founder of Peers24, shares his journey of the 6-year development that eventually went live in July 2019.

Can you tell us a bit about Peers24?

Peers24 is a social media platform targeted at web and mobile consumers that has been developed in our own backyard, South Africa. It is not your typical social media tool but mainly focuses on value-driven content.

Value-driven content is content or information shared by other connections that provides value to anyone that signs in or signs up on Peers24 such as trending jobs, movies, TV series, news, politics, business, technology, gardening, classifieds, noticeboard pins or posts, flights, documents, files, music, educational and entertainment videos and so much more.

Peers24 went live as a website in July 2019 and has progressed immensely through affiliations with massive entities such Travelstart.com, The New York Times, The Movie DB (TV & Movies Database) to provide our users more valuable content for everyday use and sharing their experiences with other peers or connections.

It is also valuable to note and learn that Peers24 is 100% bot free. Peers24 deals strictly with human interaction from sign up to sign in and sign out. Zero tolerance on bot activities – think advertisers.

When, how and why did you get started?

Peers24 was founded in a tiny room in a small town called Umtata in the Eastern Cape back in 2013 here after I decided to take a break from the industry to stay with my parents and just reflect.

I have a passion and love for research on trending technologies, web and mobile development and the thought came to mind that South Africa doesn’t really have a social media network that we could call our own; founded, brewed, developed with its entire core roots established in South Africa and most importantly, black-owned. How about that? Imagine!

Peers24 was personally funded (with little funds) from the beginning (initial stages) to the end (going live).

I have to give so much gratitude and respect to the Microsoft Bizspark programme, if it wasn’t for this programme there would be no Peers24 today. I was enrolled in the Bizspark programme (2014–2018) through an entrepreneurship programme offered by the Seed Academy – Seed Engine (Johannesburg, South Africa), a place for entrepreneurs. Through this programme, I received free software, access to Microsoft Azure and so much more that offered assistance to the foundation and development of Peers24 as there was no funding at that stage.

To do what you love and love what you do really inspired me to carry out this project to completion and not a day went by without giving it my all – real passion, this is after all my long-term investment.

What is the core function of Peers24?

The core function is to provide a social networking coherence (news, media, timeline posts, classifieds, and noticeboard), document sharing, flight bookings, free + paid advertising (campaigns) and search (jobs).

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