In a country where long queues and high unemployment are everyday realities, Q4ME is a mobile app that’s helping many South Africans avoid frustration.
With just a few taps, users can request the professional queue service to stand in line on their behalf.
It was founded by Vuledzani Mathavha, a chartered accountant who saw a gap in the market and used technology to fill it.
Available on both Android and IOS, the brand-new app is designed to make everyday tasks more convenient, while also creating income opportunities in the process.
The idea for Q4ME came from Mathavha’s own experience. Like many South Africans, he found himself spending hours in line at Home Affairs.
He noticed people asking others to hold their place or offering to pay someone to queue for them.
“I lost my ID during Covid -19, and at that time we were only allowed to apply for a temporary ID. It was very frustrating having to wake up at 4am, only to leave Home Affairs at 10am.
“I thought there had to be a better way. That’s when I realised we could bring innovation to this old concept, where people queue on your behalf and get paid,” said Mathavha.
According to Mathavha, the informal system of paying someone to stand in a queue already existed; it just needed structure and scale.
“I wanted to bring efficiency to an old problem,” he explained.
“Sometimes people avoid doing important tasks simply because of the hassle of long queues. With Q4ME, we take that hassle out of the process.”
He also saw the potential to address South Africa’s growing youth unemployment crisis.
“Many young people are not winning in this area of employment, so I came in with Q4ME to say how can we create large-scale employment and bring in a lot of youth in the process?”
Once a request is made on the app, a queuer will be dispatched to the location. Users will receive real-time updates and a notification when their turn is approaching, giving them time to arrive without waiting for hours.
For Mathavha, building the platform has not been easy.
One of the biggest challenges was developing the app — especially because his background was in accounting and not technology.
“My biggest challenge was getting the required skills to develop the app. This journey started in 2020, and from then until now, I’ve worked with more than five developers that I had to part ways with because they couldn’t fulfil their role,” he said.
While Q4ME is just a week old, the team is focused on recruiting and providing training to professional queuers to build a reliable and efficient network of service providers.
“We’re now a week old and we aren’t as big as you think, but the idea is to grow beyond. I think the main challenge now is to grow the user base. Currently, we’re in the recruitment phase of the app.”
By prioritising this foundation, Q4ME hopes to ensure a smooth user experience as it prepares to roll out its full booking and ticketing system in the coming days.
“We are recruiting young people, once that is done, we’ll go to the section where people will get to know about the tickets that are generated, and people will get to book, so this could be happening this week,” said Mathavha.
