Entrepreneur

Based: Cape Town

It’s been two years since University of Cape Town (UCT) alumnus Alexandria Procter made waves in the student accommodation space with her site. UCT News caught up with her to find out what’s been happening since that interview in June 2017.

“Right after the interview, a bunch of landlords and students contacted me, saying how excited they were for DigsConnect to launch and it felt like things were going great,” Procter recalled.

“A couple days later, it felt like everything was over.”

DigsConnect is an online platform connecting registered tertiary students to off-campus accommodation. Its entry into the market, the focus on safety as well as its response to the ongoing student accommodation crisis meant it was bound to make waves. And that it did but, as Procter mentioned, things soon began to fall apart.

The person she had been working with left, allegedly taking with him a fair share of their working capital and the technical know-how, which she lacked.

She didn’t give up, however.

“Technical knowledge can be learnt, and capital can be raised, but without resilience, determination and a can-do attitude, a start-up won’t get anywhere.”

Procter’s resilience and relationships at UCT paid off. Just a few weeks later, a friend from her Studentsʼ Representative Council (SRC) days, Greg Keal, joined her on the project. Keal was chair of the SRC’s entertainment and fundraising portfolio.

And a few months after that, another UCT alumnus, Brendan Ardagh, joined DigsConnect, to complete their founding team.