Why rebrand something thats already a household name,and the money they have invested in the brand

not a good business move.This will one day make a good case study in business schools just like
kencell>> celtel>> zain >> airtel>>....

http://techloy.com/2012/06/14/dealfish-rebrand-olx/

"And in case you’re already wondering what OLX stands for, it is an acronym for ‘Online Exchange’, but has also been described as the ‘Oh Love Exchanging’ platform"

Was wondering about their change of look to olx's layout.

OLX is a global brand, not sure they have made dealsfish better even common searches functional earlier don't seem to be working now.

Things are moving too fast in this industry. Can one even make a five year plan?

Inmobi are winding up? eish..
They have a beautiful, smart Havard/Yale graduate lady of an MD...

The problem with both Dealfish and OLX was that they were startups trying to act like big corporates. Just because they were backed by some serious capital, they went all out with plush offices and high salaried staff.

But at the end of the day, despite all the capital, basic rules of finance still applied to them. Just as all startups take several years to stabilize, so did Dealfish and inmobi. But their high burn rate meant that they just couldn't afford to stay the course.

dealfish/olx had a good business plan infact that marketing strategy will go down in history as one of the best executed as within no time it was a household name.
their pricing strategy is where they got it all wrong that freemium model would never have worked in the long run. they should have capitalized on mpesa may be 1000 ksh per ad and would be making not less than a million per month

but as @alma said they offer vital lessons for future techprenuers

@madollar I beg to differ. Dealfish's marketing strategy was poorly executed, reason being that the force with which they entered the market was very inappropriate for the stage at which African internet is right now. The African online market is a developing one. You don't enter a developing market with such gusto when there is so much basic consumer education that needs to be done. Dealfish spent 100million KShs. on marketing alone across Kenya and Nigeria. That is hugely excessive for Africa's developing internet market.

The way to market an internet startup in Africa is organically. Right now, all the building blocks for big internet business are not yet in place, but we have a lot of people coming online for the first time, browsing around and learning how the net works. Now is the time for African internet companies to patiently position themselves for large future profits in the next five years or so.