We are rebranding Moya Money to Bloo Money ??

After 3 years of existing as Moya Money. We are now officially changing our name to Bloo Money.?The name Moya means "air" or "cloud" in most South African languages. It gave us a sense of purpose. A purpose to make the flow of money simpler between businesses and freelancers in the Gig economy in Africa.

As we continue growing, we wanted to differentiate ourselves in the market. You might have heard of another company with a similar name. Also the?fintech industry has a reputation for seriousness and formality and we want to infuse?it with efficiency and play.?We wanted a name that?echoes the creative freelancing landscape across the continent. Even with the name change, we hope to maintain the essence of Moya?and carry it forward.

The name Bloo Money is a double entendre, meaning it’s a figure of speech or wording that has a double meaning. The first meaning is a metaphor which reflects how we connect businesses and freelancers in the new gig economy which is in constant motion, inspired by the natural elements. Blue can be associated with air, water, streams, oceans, clouds, the sky etc. The second meaning is more of a verb which further communicates the idea of motion but represented in the actions our customers take on our app and also how we want them to feel interacting with our product; such as “Thulani Bloo a payment to his co-founder Sabica”, or how we aim to “Bloo our customers away with an app that simplifies the work they do”.? We love puns and this could be fun.

How did we arrive at this name? Well we had been thinking about changing our name for a while, outside of the fact there is a business with a similar name, we were more driven by the desire to have a name that gave us a unique positioning in the market and was more reflective of our product. When we started exploring the idea of Moya Money in 2021, we were a startup focused on primarily assisting freelancers with financial management to solve the pain of inconsistent income and helping them get paid on time through an invoicing feature. We’ve evolved so much from then to becoming a startup which connects both businesses and freelancers to work together on a single platform.

I remember it was one of those meetings with Sabeeha Banubhai and Claire Keet , the team from our design partners at Jack Studios where we were all throwing out ideas for names after having some done some personal background research. I’ll admit as a Joburg-er being in Cape Town for a week, I was obsessed with the vast "blueness" of the ocean and clear stretch of the skies. It was such a tedious process, we were back and forth between options and we came up with Bloo Money. Spelt B-L-O-O as maybe one of the suggestions the previous day. We were playing with the idea of transforming money from green to blue, to reflect how our product transforms the way businesses and freelancers work together. It also worked with our existing brand colours. This was the first name that clicked with me as I said to my cofounder, what if our product streamlined payments in such a way that businesses could say "I blew you the payment". While Sabica Pardesi said she was feeling blue with the whole rebrand experience! It could really work ?? - Thulani Masebenza

The ocean connects every single one of us the same way money does. Even though money has different currencies, we’re connected by it in one single global economy the same way every stretch of land on Earth is connected to the endless blue ocean. This idea resonated rather than the actual name “blue” and led to some interesting questions along the beach. What if businesses ‘bloo’ payments across the clear blue skies to freelancers on the other side of the blue ocean? What if we could change those blue feelings as a freelancer when you’re waiting for a client to pay you while your rent is due. What if we could be bold enough to change how people think about money, it’s always been seen as green, what if we made it “Bloo”?

Naming your company after a colour sounds crazy. However, a wise man who named his company after a fruit once said “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do”. Ultimately when we made the decision to change our name we wanted one that would be unique, playful, resonate with many of our customers who are in the creative space and could be easily pronounceable by people worldwide.

Even though it is a bittersweet moment as we say goodbye, we are so excited for the opportunities ahead. ??