From a Student’s Problem to Utagy Home

By Yona Massawe, Founder of Utagy

My name is Yona Massawe, founder of Utagy, and the story of Utagy Home started with a problem that was very close to me: finding safe, affordable, and reliable accommodation as a student in Tanzania.

When students move to a new city for college or university, finding a place to live is often one of their biggest challenges. They have to worry about location, price, security, water, electricity, Wi-Fi, and whether the person offering the room can actually be trusted.

For many students, the easiest option is to ask around or contact local accommodation agents. But this process can sometimes become difficult. Some students receive misleading information, pay unnecessary agency fees, or travel long distances only to discover that the accommodation is not what they expected.

I became even more aware of this problem after a close friend experienced an accommodation scam. Seeing someone being taken advantage of simply because they were looking for a place to live made me question the whole process.

Why should finding accommodation be so complicated?

Later, when I personally faced the challenge of finding accommodation, I understood the problem from another perspective. I realized that this was not just my problem or my friend's problem. Thousands of students face similar challenges every year.

That was when the idea for Utagy Home started taking shape.

Starting at TIA

At the time, I was studying for my diploma at the Tanzania Institute of Accountancy (TIA). Instead of keeping the idea as just a thought, I decided to test it within my own student community.

TIA became the first environment where I could understand what students actually needed. I started looking at how students searched for rooms, what information they wanted before making a decision, and the difficulties they experienced when dealing with accommodation providers and agents.

The goal was simple: use technology to make the accommodation search easier, clearer, and more accessible.

Utagy Home was designed to help students discover available accommodation while making it easier for them to connect with property owners and understand what they are getting before making a decision.

More Than Just a Listing Platform

Utagy Home is not simply about putting rooms on a website.

The bigger problem is trust and access to information.

A student should be able to search based on their budget and preferred location, compare different options, and find important information about a property without having to depend completely on informal networks.

At the same time, property owners need a better way to reach students who are actually looking for accommodation.

This is the gap Utagy Home is trying to address.

From an Idea to a Company

What started as a personal experience and a simple idea during my time at TIA gradually became something much bigger.

I began by seeing a problem.

I experienced the problem myself.

I listened to other students.

Then I started building a solution.

Through testing and working with students, Utagy Home moved from an idea into a real product, and eventually became part of the bigger Utagy company.

There is still a lot to build and improve, but the mission remains simple:

To make finding accommodation easier and safer for students in Tanzania.

Because finding a place to live should be the beginning of a student's journey — not the first problem they have to fight.