Young African Entrepreneur

Dr. Lulu Gwagwa is CEO of Lereko Investments, a black-owned investment firm in South Africa. You can connect with Dr. Lulu at http://www.lulugwagwa.co.za. Born in a rural village in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr. Lulu came from a large family that included 25 family members. Growing up, she wanted to be a doctor, but there was no math teacher in her village, which halted her future medical career. She studied at University of Fort Hare, a historically important black university. Encouraged by a professor, Dr. Lulu completed her masters in urban planning at the University of Natal, a predominantly white higher education institution where she was one of a handful of black students. She qualified as the first black town and regional planner – a remarkable achievement in apartheid South Africa. In the late 1980s, Dr. Lulu left for London for further graduate studies; she graduated from the London School of Economics with a masters in social policy & planning and the University College London with a PhD. With the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa’s apartheid regime was no more. Dr. Lulu joined the government as a director in the national department of public works. For the next ten years, she worked in development, consulting, and research, notably for the World Bank. In the early 2000s, Dr. Lulu parlayed her diverse professional experiences into business. She set up Lereko Investments with partners and quickly established herself as a power player in South Africa’s corporate world. She’s also a non-executive director at FirstRand, Massmart, and Sun International. Dr. Lulu has built an extraordinary career. She’s achieved many firsts, academically and professionally. I was inspired by her story, which is a testament to her grit and spirit. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Dr Lulu Gwagwa.

Karan Singh is the founder and CEO of Yegomoto, Rwanda’s motorcycle taxi ride-hailing startup. You can connect with him @yegomotoafrica on Twitter. Karan is a successful entrepreneur who grew flourishing businesses in both India and Singapore. In 2015, he travelled to Rwanda on business and saw an opportunity to use tech to organize the informal motorcycle taxi sector, which is prone to road accidents and associated with theft and crime. The Rwandan government had even banned, albeit briefly, motorcycle taxis from Kigali around this time, but as the main means of transportation, they had to let them back onto the streets. He set up Yegomoto which mounts a IOT-enabled device with a point of sales terminal onto all of its bikes, which helps drivers, who are earning better wages and avoiding deadly accidents, and riders, who no longer have to haggle for fares and are safer. And the exciting part of Yegomoto’s business model is that it can use the reams of data on its bikes, including the speed, location, fare costs, for other businesses. In fact, Karan, who is quite the ambitious and forward-thinking entrepreneur, doesn’t see Yegomoto as just a platform play but rather an infrastructure play, which he explains in fascinating detail. We talked about Karan’s long-term vision for Yegomoto, why it’s different from other ride-hailing apps like Taxify and Uber, and the four questions he asks every aspiring entrepreneur. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Karan Singh.

Akin Sawyerr is the Managing Director of Feleman, an investments and consulting firm focused on payments systems, remittances, and blockchain solutions to catalyze growth in emerging markets. You can connect with him @akinsawyerr on Twitter. Akin is also the co-founder of RocRemit, a blockchain remittance company, and is a director of Splash Mobile Money, a mobile payments company in Sierra Leone. Akin is a fount of knowledge on mobile money and payments in Sub-Saharan Africa. We chatted about his early involvement in Splash, why blockchain will revolutionize remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the changing profile of the successful African startup founder. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Akin Sawyerr.

Leo Stiegeler is the general manger of Ringier Africa, publisher of the popular Pulse media brand. You can connect with him @LeonardStiegeler on Linkedin. Leo is passionate about Africa’s digital media and marketing. For the last five years, he has led the expansion of Ringier, a 200-year old Swiss media giant, into Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya’s booming digital media markets. Leo is quickly establishing Ringier as one of Africa’s leading digital media brands. In July, Ringier reached a total of 169 million users across its platforms. Before Ringier, Leo was at the forefront of Africa’s e-commerce as one of the co-founders of Jumia Nigeria. He later served as the CEO of Startup Partners Africa, a Lagos-based internet incubator. We talked about Leo’s early fascination with Sub-Saharan Africa, his experiences in Nigeria’s budding e-commerce market, and the vast potential of Africa’s digital media. He’s an adamant believer in local content and the power of video, saying if “a Nigerian is spending his/her last kobo, it will be on video.” Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Leo Stiegeler.

Mira Mehta is the founder and CEO of Tomato Jos, a tomato paste company based in Kaduna, Nigeria. You can connect with her @ShoutsAndMiras and @TeamTomatoJos on Twitter. Mira was born and raised in New England in the US. Fresh out of college, she landed her first job at BlackRock, a large asset manager. Driven and ambitious, Mira quickly realized that she’d never have a leadership role, as her department was just a “line item” in the company’s P&L. She was looking to make more of an impact and joined the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which sent her to Nigeria. While she was once driving to Kano in northern Nigeria, Mira saw a glut of tomatoes lining the side of the road. The quantity of rotting tomatoes was so great that the road resembled a red carpet. The image lingered with her. Why was Nigeria, which imports hundreds of millions of dollars of tomato paste per year, not able to manufacture tomato paste locally from its domestic tomato crop? After finishing her MBA at Harvard, Mira still couldn’t shake the tomato processing idea, and she decided to bite the bullet. In 2014, Mira moved to Nigeria to set up her tomato processing company, Tomato Jos. Mira talks candidly about the difficulties and challenges inherent to Nigeria’s agroprocessing sector, why profitable farming is the key to any successful processing project (and explains why Dangote’s tomato paste factory rests idle), the ins and outs of her outgrower program, and how she works with her investors. Plus, Mira gave one of the most thought-provoking answers to one of my favorite questions about where she’d travel in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve her business --- so don’t miss her response. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Mira Mehta.

Nnamdi Oranye is the founder of Disrupting Africa, an open platform promoting Africa’s innovators. You can connect with him @Nnamdi Oranye on Linkedin and @nnamdi_oranye on Twitter. Nnamdi is passionate about Africa’s tech innovation. He is the author of Disrupting Africa and Taking on Silicon Valley. Nnamdi is also the former host of a weekly show featuring African innovators on radio station PowerFM 98.7 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He’s a regular contributor on African tech innovation to the BBC, CNBC Africa, and Mail & Guardian. Nnamdi spent his early years between the UK and Nigeria before moving to Botswana with his family where he studied engineering at university. Itching to leave for the “first world”, he immigrated to Australia. But a bullish McKinsey report changed his perceptions on the opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa. When he was asked to lead the Africa expansion of an Australian mobile money company, he jumped at the chance, moving to South Africa. This experience in Africa’s fintech sector during the takeoff of mobile money dramatically shaped his perceptions on African innovators. He met many brilliant African innovators who struggled with getting visibility. When he joined PowerFM 98.7 as a contributor, he spoke with many African founders and innovators, which marked the beginning of his life mission to promote African innovation abroad. We chatted about Nnamdi’s early experiences in fintech, his fascination for all things digital payments, the one takeaway every African innovator should remember (hint, it’s about mindset), and 3 innovative African companies that he admires. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Nnamdi Oranye.

Manuel Koser is the co-founder of Silvertree Holdings, a South African investment firm. You can connect with him @ManuelKoser on Twitter. Originally from Germany, Manuel started his career as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group (BCG). During an assignment in South Africa, he fell in love with Cape Town. Looking to relocate there permanently, he left BCG and co-founded Zando, South Africa’s e-commerce fast fashion platform. After he stopped running the day-to-day operations at Zando, he helped to co-found Jumia Nigeria. In 2013, Manuel set up Silvertree Holdings, a holding company that invests and develops South African startups. Manuel was disenchanted with the large-scale, heavily capitalized, and massive valuation startup model that was epitomized by Jumia. He wanted to take a radically different approach to his investment model that provided patient capital and resources and mentorship to startup founders. We chatted about Manuel’s early days at Zando, his involvement with Jumia Nigeria, and why the Silicon Valley model isn’t a good fit for African startups. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Manuel Koser.

Joanna Bichsel is the CEO and co-founder of Kasha, East Africa’s leading e-commerce platform for women’s health and personal care products. You can connect with her @JoannaBichsel on Twitter. Born and raised in Canada, Joanna worked as a software developer at Microsoft in Seattle in the US. Disinterested in climbing the corporate ladder, she changed careers and moved into development. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she learned that women in Africa faced real challenges in buying sanitary pads and other basic health products. She thought, “Why not develop a e-commerce platform for women to buy affordable, high quality health products confidentially?” The idea for Kasha was born. In 2015, Joanna set up the company with her co-founder Amanda Arch in Rwanda and has recently launched in Kenya. While East Africa was the logical starting point, Joanna aims for Kasha to disrupt how women buy health products in emerging markets around the world. We chatted about Joanna’s move to Rwanda, how she finally got women to trust e-commerce, and why investors “don’t care about your idea.” Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Joanna Bichsel.

Addis Alemayehou is the founder of 251 Communications, Ethiopia’s leading communications and branding company. He’s also the co-founder of Kana TV, Ethiopia’s first TV station to dub international content into Amharic. You can connect with him @addisale on Twitter. Born in Ethiopia, Addis left when he was a child after the socialist Derg came to power. He grew up in Kenya and later moved to the US and Canada for his university studies and work. But, he always felt restless and out of place in North America. He itched to be where people wouldn’t ask him anymore, “Where are you from?” Against all advice, he moved to Addis Ababa in 2000, and after working for USAID for many years, he launched 251 Communications in 2011. The World Bank, Coca-Cola, and the Gates Foundation are just some of his clients. “You’re like a kid in a candy store when it comes to business in Ethiopia,” says Addis. Just like that proverbial kid, surrounded by candy, he couldn’t resist the allure of getting into broadcasting. In 2016, he and his co-founders launched Kana TV, which took Ethiopia by storm. Shortly after its launch, Kana TV established itself as a leader in broadcast. We chatted about how Addis comes up with his business ideas, why spending too much time on research is a bad idea, and why he’s scared of the Kenyans. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts. You can also find Young African Entrepreneur on Soundcloud, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Addis Alemayehou.

Bram Fudzulani is the co-founder of Angle Dimension, Malawi’s leading software developer. You can connect with him @ Bram Fudzulani on Linkedin. Bram is passionate about developing in-house software solutions to problems in Malawi’s finance and insurance sectors. Bram is passionate about developing in-house software solutions to problems in Malawi’s finance and insurance sectors. While he worked full-time at Malawi’s leading ISP, he and his co-founders would meet up in their spare time – after work, weekends and holidays – to work on their side hustle, building bespoke software solutions to local problems. After a big break – and check – from an insurance client, Bram and his co-founders decided to make a go at turning their side hustle into a full-fledged software development office. Angle Dimension was born. Over the years, Bram has developed B2B products for micro-finance institutions, commercial banks, and insurance companies. He’s just developed a platform for unbanked Malawians who organize into savings groups for disbursing loans. They’ll now be able to deposit and withdraw mobile money from the platform, facilitating the savings process. Bram is also the Vice President of Malawi’s ICT Association and is passionate about Internet governance and net neutrality. We chatted about the benefits of using tenders when you first start out, the cultural pushback he faced when pitching clients, his first product flop, and why everyone should be concerned about net neutrality in Africa. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Bram Fudzulani.

Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi are the co-founders of Orbitt Capital. You can connect with them @OrbittCapital on Twitter. Close friends since business school, Will and Lanre were well-seasoned Africa private equity professionals. For years, they crisscrossed the continent in search of great companies looking for capital from global investors. But, this matchmaking process was fraught with difficulties and inefficiencies. On occasion, they’d work on a transaction, which was on the verge of closing — only for the investor to walk away at the last minute. Or they noticed that the company didn’t interest the investor due to sector, geography, etc. The old-fashioned way of deal origination just wasn’t cutting it. Frustrated, they brainstormed how it could be done better — and the idea for Orbitt was born. Orbitt gathers all the players in Africa’s investment ecosystem onto a single platform, instantly connecting the buy-side (investors) with the sell-side (companies) as well as invaluable intermediaries, like brokers, corporate finance professionals and lawers. With Orbitt, Will and Lanre have expanded beyond private equity into private debt and trade finance — which is in hot demand among African commodity exporters. Will and Lanre speak candidly about the “penny-drop moment” when refining their business model for Orbitt, why VC is a noisy space within the African ecosystem, and what excites their investors in Africa at the moment. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Will Hunnam and Lanre Oloniniyi.

Florida Uzoaru is the founder/CEO of Slide Safe, Nigeria’s first STI self-testing kit delivery service. You can connect with her @dasexlady on Facebook and @slidesafeng on Twitter and Instagram. You can also find her on LinkedIn @Florida Uzoaru. Despite coming from a commercially minded Nigerian family, Florida grew up hating sales. For her, it was like begging. In her 20s, she entered the public health profession and became passionate about promoting safe sex in Nigeria. While Nigeria has one of the world’ highest rates of HIV infection, only 10% of the population actually gets tested. Frustrated with the approach of NGOs, which failed to tackle the problem on the ground, she came up with the idea for Slide Safe –an online service that delivers self-testing kits for HIV, hepatitis B, and other sexually transmitted infections as well as contraceptives. But, she was reluctant to publicly promote her business. She thought she could be a behind-the-scene founder. After all, she grew up hating sales. But, she finally told herself to “stop running away” from taking on a public role as founder of Slide Safe. Since then, Florida has become a fierce and vocal advocate of her business and adopting safe sex practices in Nigeria. Florida speaks candidly about her many pivots during her entrepreneurial journey as well as the difficulties she faced while refining the messaging of Slide Safe. (Its original name was Sex in a Box but that didn’t go down well in conservative Nigeria.) She also talks about her experiences at the CC Hub and Tony Elumelu accelerator programs, the nuanced challenges of being a female entrepreneur, and why subscription services just don’t work in Nigeria. Without further do, here’s my conversation with Florida Uzoaru.

Today’s guest is Henri Nyakarundi, the CEO of ARED Group. You can connect with him @henrinyakarundi on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram and at his website www.henrinyakarundi.com. Henri grew up in Burundi to Rwandese parents. A self-described indifferent and rebellious student, he was expelled twice from high school. Henri only stumbled upon the world of entrepreneurship after he moved to the US for university. He launched several businesses which all failed before he set up a successful trucking business. But, burnt out from the trucking business and reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, Henri packed his bags and returned to Africa. He moved to Rwanda to test the market for a solar-powered kiosk which would be used for charging phones and became the core product of ARED Group. The kiosk was a hit and has gone through multiple iterations to adapt to it bottom of the pyramid customer base. ARED Group sells multiple services on its kiosks, providing Internet connectivity, collecting data for NGO and corporate partners, in addition to offering its mainstay service of phone charging. Because as Henri stresses in our conversation, when you’re targeting customers with limited disposable income, you need multiple revenue streams. ARED Group has won the Siemens Empowerment Award, Africa Forum 100 Innovation for Sustainable Development Award, and the SEIF Social Entrepreneurship Award. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Henri who is a charismatic thought leader in developing social impact business for bottom of the pyramid customers. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Henri Nyakarundi.

Sam Gikandi is the CEO and co-founder of Africa’s Talking, a pan-African mobile technology company empowering developers across the continent. Prior to Africa’s Talking, Sam worked for Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, in the US and Hong Kong. In the Asia office, he helped build the high frequency trading platform and led a team trading hundreds of millions of dollars per day. In 2010, intrigued by the burgeoning tech scene in his home country of Kenya, he set up with a co-founder Africa’s Talking. While it started as a side hustle, two years later, Sam took on a full-time COO/CTO role in the company, developing the software developer-facing part of the business. As demand for business APIs in Kenya exploded with the strong growth of tech startups and mobile money payment solutions, Africa’s Talking software developer business took off. The company turned profitable after only 1 year of operations. Africa’s Talking helps the growing software developer community across the continent integrate into the telecoms infrastructure by simplifying the required processes and technologies. It offers APIs for short codes, payments, and communications, including bulk SMS, USSD, and voice. Africa’s Talking is in seven African markets with its hub based in Nairobi, Kenya. Last April, Sam and his team closed a $8.6mn fundraising round that was led by the IFC’s venture capital arm which Africa’s Talking will use to further its expansion, especially into Francophone West Africa. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Sam who’s a real thought leader in Africa’s tech space. Make sure you listen to our entire chat. He explains why he’s bullish on Ethiopia, why capital is overrated in the early stages of a startup, and why he advocates sharpening your toolkit before diving headfirst into entrepreneurship. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Sam Gikandi.

Gregory Rockson is the founder and CEO of mPharma, a digital healthcare company present in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe. You can connect with him @Rockson2 and @mPharmaHealth on Twitter. MPharma is a digital healthcare company that is helping Africans access high-quality medications. When Greg left for the US to study at university, he wanted to be a doctor. But he quickly realized that he could have a greater impact by studying the business of healthcare on the continent. How often have you gone to a pharmacy which didn’t have the drug that you needed? It’s a problem that is common across the continent and has a devastating impact on Africans, especially those who have illnesses requiring regular treatment, like diabetes, cancer or heart disease. Greg wanted to tackle this problem. Hence, mPharma was born. He built an e-prescription platform that would allow seamless communication between doctors and pharmacies so that patients could get their drugs on time. But he realized that this was the tip of the iceberg. The bigger issue was that Africans can’t afford drugs due to high costs. High quality drugs are expensive. What is mPharma bought the drugs, using its purchasing power to negotiate better prices from the pharmaceutical manufacturers? Partnering pharmacies could then buy the drugs on consignment, drastically lowering costs for consumers. Greg has taken it a step further, developing a product that allows consumers to buy drugs in installments. I love mPharma, which is incredibly innovative and driving real change in Africa’s healthcare sector. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Greg Rockson.

Neil Gordon is the founder and CEO of Global Agricultural Exchange (GAEX). You can connect with him @gaexcocoa on Twitter. GAEX is a Blockchain-enabled platform that provides liquidity to cocoa farmers in West Africa. Neil is a former bank having worked at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and KPMG. Neil is probably one of the most ambitious people I’ve met in a while. His goal to disrupt the Ivorian cocoa sector is a breathe of fresh air. It’s uplifting to meet someone who isn’t scared of dreaming big and masters the mechanics of how it’d work. Cynics — and the cocoa sector has a few — might say it’s pie in the sky. But, this is the wrong attitude. I survived a year and a half trading cocoa and I know that the sector does not lend itself to innovation. But, as margins for commodity traders get whittled down, traders need to boost efficiencies, which Blockchain can provide. However, Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa sector is known for its problematic supply chain. Whether right or wrong, it is synonymous with child labor and rampant deforestation, which has made chocolate companies more vigilant about their supply chains. All of this to say that a Blockchain-enabled solution that could solve the trust issue that plagues cocoa trading is much needed. Neil also had great actionable advice for dealing with VC investors, especially for startup founders of color. Make sure to check out the show notes for all his tips. If you’re interested in finance, trading, or curious about Blockchain, which Neil helps to demystify, this is the episode for you. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Neil Gordon.

Today’s episode is going to be a different from my usual long-form interview with an African entrepreneur. Today is a special “best of” episode where I’m going to highlight the top ten tips, advice, hacks for cultivating an entrepreneur mindset. Since the podcast launched, I’ve interviewed a dozen amazing entrepreneurs with thriving businesses in Africa. They’ve candidly shared advice, tips, and insights into how they persevere in the face of challenges. What’s remarkable is that all of these entrepreneurs share a common mindset that has been critical to their success. As renowned entrepreneur Tony Robbins said, success as an entrepreneur is 20% skills and 80% psychology, or mindset. You have to develop the right psychology to handle the emotional rollercoaster of being an African entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur anywhere is tough, but I’d argue that being an entrepreneur in Africa is even more difficult. When I looked through my notes from past episodes, it was incredible to see the similarities of these entrepreneurs. Whatever the subject was – whether it be networking, finding an idea for your business, or dealing with inevitable failure – these entrepreneurs had similar opinions and approaches. I thought it would be helpful to pick the top ten tips on cultivating an entrepreneur mindset from our past guests. I’m constantly pushing myself to experiment with the podcast because I want to make the best content for you, the YAE listener. Since I’m exploring with a new format, I’d love to get your feedback. Send me an email at victoria@yaepodcast.com or reach out on Twitter, @tori_crandall. Without further ado, here are the Top 10 Tips on Cultivating an Entrepreneur Mindset

Wiza Jalakasi is a serial entrepreneur and current head of international expansion at Africa is Talking. You can connect with him @wizaj on Twitter and via his website http://wiza.jalaka.si. By 16, Wiza had already founded his company, Mwtunes, an online music distribution platform that was ahead of its time in his home country of Malawi. At university in Nairobi, he and his cofounder set up Djuaji, Research, a market research company that paid survey participants via mobile money. It held a lot of promise. It was innovative, cost effective, and accurate. Early on, Djuaji raised seed capital from Savannah Fund and participated in its elite accelerator program. It all seemed to be going well. Until it wasn’t. Wiza and his cofounder were running out of cash and they weren’t close to figuring out how to make the business viable. He made a tough choice: He resigned and returned to Malawi. Shortly thereafter, he spoke with Sam Gikandi, founder of Africa is Talking, an API developer, who offered him a job to set up the Malawi office. Wiza had some reservations about working for someone else, but he quickly overcame those doubts and has never looked back. Africa is Talking recently raised $8.6mn for its expansion into new markets, including Cote d’Ivoire, which Wiza will be spearheading. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Wiza. He’s extremely eloquent and a fount of knowledge about the emotional roller coaster of being a young African tech entrepreneur. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Wiza Jalakasi.

Technologist. Blogger. TED fellow. Serial Entrepreneur. Passionate advocate and patron of Africa’s tech startups. Erik Hersman is a well-known elder of Kenya’s tech scene, having helped to found some of Kenya’s leading tech companies and ecosystem institutions. In response to the outbreak of post electoral violence in Kenya in 2008, he set up with three other co-founders Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing mapping tool deployed in crisis situations. In 2010, he founded the iHub, Nairobi’s innovation hub, which is the nexus for Kenya’s entrepreneurs, hackers, designers, researchers and investors. In 2014, he helped to set up BRCK, a manufacturer of a rugged Internet router for Africa and a provider of free Internet via its Moja service. He spends most of his time at BRCK these days where he’s CEO. He also helped to found Gearbox, a hub for hardware development, and is a principal at Savannah Fund, an African venture capital fund. He is the founder of the influential Africa technology blogs, The White African, and Afrigadget. Erik is also a Senior Ted Fellow and Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow. You can connect with Erik at @White_African on Twitter.

This episode is a slight departure from my normal YAE interview show. Episode 010 feels like a mini milestone. Young African Entrepreneur has been live for six weeks, but I’ve been preparing this show for six months! And, I thought it would be interesting to share some reflections on my podcasting journey, especially the difficulties of creating an Africa-focused podcast for an African audience. Podcasting is an exciting medium that has taken off in the US and Europe. But, Africans are new to the world of podcasting, which poses its own special challenges to marketing and distribution. Don't miss the show notes at: 

Sean Keough is the managing director of Ethiopia Investments and executive director of EQOS Global, Ethiopia’s first outsourcing company specializing in data entry, digitization and contact center solutions. Before that, Sean was an investment banker in San Francisco. On the verge of burnout, he decided to move to Ethiopia in 2014 where he worked as a volunteer for the NGO TechnoServe. Sean planned to take a 3-month sabbatical, but he ended up never leaving. In this episode, Sean shares how he leveraged Ethiopia’s low cost environment to constantly experiment and test new ideas as an entrepreneur. Over the span of four years, he has founded an advisory firm, set up an investment fund worth millions of US$, and is currently managing the day-to-day operations of a thriving outsourcing business. We chat about the growth hack that Sean used to develop his advisory business, why he avoids the 7-10 year financial model for his investment fund, and his thoughts on failing forward. Sean’s first book on financial modeling for entrepreneurs in frontier markets will be available via Amazon in June. Make sure you stay tuned for that. The show notes are live at yaepodcast.com. Check it out for links, resources, and actionable advice from Sean. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Sean Keough.

Daniel Yu is the founder of Sokowatch, Kenya’s fast growing supply chain management and fulfillment tech company. If you travelled anywhere throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, you will have noticed the tiny Mom and Pop shops that dot the continent’s large cities. Even though these informal shops represent well over 80% of African retail, the large wholesalers and distributors for major consumer goods companies aren’t interested in this fragmented and unorganized sector of retail. And, this is where Sokowatch steps in. Using a simple SMS app, duka shop owners – that’s what these informal shops are called in Kenya – can send a text ordering their maize flour, soap, cooking oil and other basic goods to Sokowatch which will deliver all goods for free. It’s a powerful B2B inventory management and ordering system that is seeing exploding growth. Daniel has a fascinating story. He’s a college drop out polyglot and self taught computer programmer who got the idea for the first iteration of his business while learning Arabic in rural Egypt. The backstory of the pivot from healthcare to consumer goods is even more fascinating. Daniel honestly recounts how difficult it was to realize that not only was his first business model not workable in the long-term but that he didn’t know what he’d pivot to. That was very tough to explain to his investors who had given him $600,000 for his first idea, which he knew, ultimately, was not going to work. I had a great time chatting with Daniel. We talked about why he dropped out of university, the challenges of pivoting from the health care to consumer goods sector, how he’s able to predict his deliveries with 95% accuracy using data, and why a bad decision is better than none at all. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Daniel Yu.

Today’s guest is Aboubakar Diaby, founder of Perform World, Côte d’Ivoire’s leading local cashew exporter. Today’s episode is a little different from my past conversations. Whereas most of my past chats have been with African technology entrepreneurs, Diaby -- Ivoirians tend to call each another by last names -- is archetypal of an old school entrepreneur. He’s a trader, and a trader of a very specific agricultural good – raw cashew nut. Côte d’Ivoire is best known for being the world’s largest cocoa producer. Less well known is the fact that over the last 20 years, Côte d’Ivoire came out of nowhere to become the world’s biggest cashew producer. The cashew crop is enormous at 800,000mt. And, Diaby was at the forefront of that explosive growth in the raw cashew nut trade. You might be thinking: why should I care about cashews? As much as African technology startups are dominating the conversation, old school businesses like commodity trading is still hugely important in African economies. Commodities generate a huge share of forex as well as represent the major source of cash in rural communities. And, traders like Diaby are key piece of the puzzle because they’re supplying the cash to pay for the cashew. It’s a risky and incredibly volatile business. I’m definitely going to geek out this episode since I started cashew trading last season. It was great chatting with Diaby. He has a really neat story. We talked about how he immigrated to the US and worked as a truck driver, why cashew is rife with defaults on contracts, and how he hedges against risk in trading. He also offered some excellent tips on high stakes negotiating. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Aboubakar Diaby.

Episode 006 of Young African Entrepreneur features Nivi Sharma,  Managing Director of BRCK and co-founder of eLimu. You can connect with Nivi at @AmkaKenya on Twitter “You can do hard things” is the motto painted on the main wall of the famed iHub in Nairobi, Kenya. And it’s a message that Nivi has taken to heart in her impassioned quest to use technology to improve education. She got the idea for her first edtech startup after bumping into a government official outside an elevator. He had just gotten back from India, which was rolling out affordable educational tablets for schools. And, why couldn’t Kenya do the same? He wondered. And that’s exactly what Nivi set off to do. In 2010, she and her partner Marie Githinji founded eLimu – which has become the leading digital educational content provider in East Africa. Five years later, Nivi stepped away from an active role in eLimu to join BRCK as president and managing director of its education division. BRCK is a hardware provider with a wonderfully audacious goal: connecting Africa to the Internet. I had a great conversation with Nivi.I had a great conversation with Nivi. We talked about her early days at the iHub, the critical importance of teacher engagement in any edtech company, and BRCK's "infrastructure as a service" approach. She also shares what she’s learned from iHub founder Erik Hersman who is an invaluable mentor. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Nivi Sharma.

Episode 005 of Young African Entrepreneur features Van Jones, co-founder and head of strategy of Hello Tractor. You can connect with Van at @HelloTractor on Twitter. I first learned about Van and Hello Tractor after chatting with my best friend who works at a multinational trading house. She told me there’s this innovative company working in Nigeria that is like the Uber for tractors. Smallholder farmers can request tractor services using a USSD code on a feature phone. The tractor owner comes over, performs the service. Boom. The farmer saves time and money and improves yields through mechanized plowing. The tractor owner is capitalizing his asset. Brilliant idea, right? Van has a really cool story. In 2008, he graduated from college in Ohio and left for China to pursue his career staying for 4 years. In 2012, he returned to the US to complete an MBA at the University of Chicago. Shortly thereafter, he connected with future cofounder Jehiel Oliver who had the idea of creating a tractor rental service app for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. They developed the business plan, won a prestigious competition for seed funding, and headed off to Nigeria to test their idea. Only to find out it didn’t quite work the way they had thought in their business plan. Hello Tractor is a really fascinating business, making a real difference with smallholder farmers in Nigeria. It was great chatting with Van. We talked about his early career in China, how Hello Tractor accidentally fell into being a conventional tractor company and how they successfully pivoted to being a pure tech company, and why research and reciprocity are fundamental to networking. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Van Jones.

Today's episode of Young African Entrepreneur features Henok Assefa, founder and CEO of Precise Consulting. You can connect with Henok at @PreciseConsult on Twitter. If I were investing into Ethiopia, the first person that I’d want to sit down with is Henok Assefa. No one is a better guide to Ethiopia’s private sector – and more passionate about it -- than Henok who is a consultant, investor and networker extraordinaire. As a Diaspora returnee, Henok has witnessed the extraordinary changes in Ethiopia’s private sector over the last +10 years. Henok left Ethiopia when he was 14 for New York City. At 30, he returned to Addis Ababa. His first major job was a World Bank project to design South Sudan’s private sector development. Donor funds topped $25mn. How did he handle the stress? Innocence, he replied, chuckling. A good mentor was key too. This experience made him realize that he had a knack for consulting. Shortly thereafter, he set up Precise Consulting, which has become Ethiopia’s leading consulting and advisory firm. Henok is also known for the Ethiopia CEOs Forum, the country’s seminal business event. I had a great conversation with Henok. We chatted about why he thinks he’s the strange product of his parents, his wide-ranging advice on networking, what surprised him about finding mentors, and the one principle to master about the Ethiopian economy. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Henok Assefa.

Episode 003 of Young African Entrepreneur features Patrick Muhire, founder and CEO of Vugapay. You can connect with him @patrickmuhi on Twitter. Born and raised in Rwanda, Patrick is a self-taught coder. In 2015, he created VugaPay, a mobile money platform, after two days of frenzied code writing with his business partner and brother. In three years, he’s secured seed funding at Kigali’s seminal Transform Africa pitch event; snagged a $150K investment from famed Silicon Valley investor, Tim Draper; and moved to San Francisco to challenge himself and grow his business. VugaPay has since expanded to over 8 countries across the continent and counts over 20,000 users. My conversation with Patrick was illuminating – and a lot of fun. We chatted about his important early influences, the accidental success of his 2nd app Rwanda TV, his counterintuitive secret to a strong pitch, and why he wishes he were Nigerian. There is much to learn from Patrick’s story, so I hope you enjoy our chat as much as I did.

Episode 002 features Daniel Maison, co-founder and CEO of Sky.Garden. Born and raised in Kenya, Daniel went to university in South Africa. After graduation, he landed a job at a local corporate incentives company, Uwin Iwin. This changed his life. He discovered a knack for sales and business development, not to mention a keen interest in consumer psychology. He returned to Kenya to set up the East Africa office. A fateful Skype call changed his life yet again. After sharing the vision of 2 Danes for an ecommerce platform targeting informal merchants, he joined the team of Sky.Garden as co-founder and CEO. As you will hear, Daniel is a fervent believer in the core mission of Sky.Garden: increasing the productivity of its merchants and improving their livelihoods. This conviction has translated into outstanding growth figures and scalability in interesting and unpredictable ways. I had a great time chatting with Daniel. We talked about his work in corporate incentives, why Sky.Garden puts informal merchants at the center of everything it does, the secret to building a great co-founder team, the unconventional advice that shaped his life, and his take on the adage “time is money.”

Episode 001 features Feleg Tsegaye, founder and CEO of Deliver Addis. You can connect with him at @fegul on Twitter. Feleg is a first-mover in Ethiopia’s tech and logistics sector. In 2012, he moved to Addis Ababa from the US to launch his first startup a SIM card rental agency, Arifmobile. It failed. But he used those lessons to springboard to his next business, Deliver Addis, which is now Addis Abba’s leading restaurant delivery service. Feleg is a World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Shaper, and has attended the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos. He was a member of the inaugural class of the eFounders Initiative – a partnership between UNCTAD (the UN trade agency) and Chinese e-commerce giant Ali Baba to train 1,000 African entrepreneurs over the next 5 years. I really enjoyed my conversation with Feleg. We chatted about growing up as the son of Ethiopian immigrants in suburban Colorado in the US, battling assumptions about your market and customers, how he got to proof of concept for Deliver Addis with minimal downside, what he did when the Ethiopian government shut down mobile internet, and the best advice he ever received for starting a business in Ethiopia. (Hint: Those wishing to make a quick buck will be disappointed.) 

Host Victoria Crandall explains why she created Young African Entrepreneur from her home away from home of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and her own foray into business and entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa.