Onyeka Akumah is the CEO and co-founder of Farmcrowdy, an agric-tech platform.   Farmcrowdy gives Nigerians the opportunity to participate in Agriculture by connecting farm sponsors with real farmers for the purpose of producing high-quality farm produce.   Onyeka returned to Nigeria from India in 2016 and has since then worked with business like Konga, Wakanow, Jumia and Deloitte before going ahead to start his first business, QuickGist.   Though QuickGist did not work out, Farmcrowdy is doing phenomenally well. In 2017, they raised a $1M round.   In this episode you’ll learn:   The importance of transparency  to your customers and investors when running a business Understanding the demand and supply side of the market at a macro level and how to use that to your business’s advantage Why starting small is important to the success of your business especially if you need to test your idea Farmcrowdy uses sponsors. What does it mean? How does it work? How can you implement it for your business Why you need four streams of income to be successful The challenge of replicating successful business models in other markets in the Nigerian market How to handle your public relations for a new product with a relatively low budget Onyeka left Wakanow to join Sabunta. When he did so, he took a 40% pay cut. Find out why About QuickGist, his first business, the triumphs, challenges and why it didn’t work out Why repeat founders are important for the African ecosystem Why did they go with a crowdfunding platform? And more   Selected links from this episode Travel beta Wakanow Jumia Konga British council Deloitte Tiger global Rocket internet Cregital Techstar   Selected book from this episode   How to sell your startup from the beginning Start with why Good to create

Akin Alabi is the founder of Nairabet, an online sports betting platform.   Akin grew up with the hopes of being rich.  According to him, he wasn’t too particular about his profession as long as it was legal and it made him rich.   He started his career by selling ebooks, CDSs, audio tapes and manuals. In 2009, he launched Nairabet.   Last year, he launched his book...Small Business, Big Money. A book that teaches how to start, grow and turn a small business into a “cash generating machine.”   Akin is the founder of Youth Enterprise Conference, an annual conference held in March every year where successful young experts and business people share their success stories with Nigerian youths .   In this episode you’ll learn:   How the business model of a sports betting company works How to understand and use to your advantage the effect and psychology of your customers buying power Why was Akin not interested in looking for a job after his HND? What is the most valuable pricing lesson Akin learnt has an entrepreneur? About the previous businesses he started before and failed at. And his determination to keep trying again What are the factors you need to consider if you are going into publishing? What are the lessons from Akin’s story? What is the disadvantage of selling your products for cheap? How does it affect upselling? There are many ways of building a minimum viable product. One of them was mentioned in this chat. Find out what it is Who should be your biggest investors? And how can you appeal to them? Akin is  a politician and intends to run for Federal House of Representatives. What is his motivation? How does he intend to innovate the process? And more Selected links from this episode   Selected books from this episode

Erik Osiakwan is an entrepreneur and an investor with 15 years of ICT industry leadership.   He is the manager partner in Chanzo Capital, a growth capital firm investing in Africa’s digital economy.   Erik is a consultant for the world bank. He has worked in 32 African countries setting up high-tech startups He serves on the board of Farmerline, Forhey, Teranga Solutions, Siqueries, Amp.it, SameLogic, eCampus, Bisa App, SeeSayDo and Wanjo Foods, - some of which are his investments.   Erik describes himself as a pan-African and is fully confident in the ability of African entrepreneurs.   In this episode you’ll learn:   The countries Erik described as the KINGS of Africa. Why does Erim think they will be at the forefront of developing the African ecosystem? Erik is currently an investor and has successfully created several businesses. How did he become an entrepreneur and an investor? What steps did he take? What was the main attraction of investment into the early African tech ecosystem? Africa has a lot of young people. Why does Erik see that as an advantage? The struggle to build mobile networks and how entrepreneurs made it work for Africa Africa is witnessing a lot of innovation today. What is the catalyst? According to Erik, the GSM evolution was started by entrepreneurs “The next 20 years will be a creativity era” What does Erik by this Why Africa is moving on from consuming content and why it’s time to create our own tech The emerging middle class to the African market and how the ecosystem can take advantage of it Selected links from this episode Selected book from this episode

Adeyinka Adewale is the co-founder  and CEO of Kudi.ai, a financial service provider that allows you pay people and businesses over messaging interfaces like Messenger, Skype ,Slack and Telegram.   He is a graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University.   Kudi.ai is not Yinka’s first foray into running a business, he was the co-founder and CEO of Sanwo Touch2pay, which started out as a payment platform for universities in Nigeria.   In 2014, he also co-founded clinicfy , a cloud based financial software for hospitals to track their revenues and invoices for both walk in patients and health insurance patient.   Kudi.ai is a graduate of the Y Combinator Winter 2017 batch. They raised an additional seed funding from a group of angel investors in the valley and in Nigeria.   For payments generally, trust is a key factor. Adeyinka discusses getting people to understand and trust Kudi.ai with their financial information.   In this episode you’ll learn:   In this podcast, you will learn:   What was the idea behind Sanwo? The business he co-founded as a student. How did he juggle being a final year student with running his business? Yinka takes the African tech ecosystem very seriously. He doesn’t think he has earned a place in the ecosystem yet. Why does he seem to think so? Building Getting people to make payments through their chat boxes is phenomenal. But Kudi.ai also has to contend with earning trust. How has the journey being so far? His previous business clinicfy was not running on a sustainable model and as such it had to close down. What was the model? There was a make-or-break challenge for the team when they were about to launch. They had help with one of the payment companies and solved that challenge in a week. What company is this? And more Selected links Selected book by Brad Stone

Raphael Afaedor is the CEO and co-founder of Supermart, an online store for groceries and basic home amenities.   Raphael describes himself as a pan-african entrepreneur. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and a former CEO at Jumia. Raphael was a co-founder and co-CEO of Jumia and he set up Supermart shortly after he resigned.   Supermart.ng is an online grocery delivery service that partners with local stores to upload their inventory online and deliver everyday items to customers. Supermart tries to tackle the problem of time wasting that people face while trying to shop for their homes.   Raphael’s story is one of hardwork and persistence coupled with good thinking and great planning. He tells us about his entrepreneurship journey and if you’re an entrepreneur or you’re planning to start a business you’ll surely find this podcast interesting.   In this podcast, you will learn: The skills he learnt to make him a pan african entrepreneur How his work experience prepared him for his entrepreneurship future. Why he chose to build his business in Lagos How he made the decision to go into e-commerce The limitations of his first business and what he learnt from them How Jumia came to be How he got a cofounder His beliefs on teams and the principles behind working together Why he left Jumia How Supermart works and is gradually being accepted How they have raised money And more Selected links Kluklu Dealfish Selected book by Michael Wolffe by Mark Manson

Fikayo Ogundipe is the CEO and cofounder of ToLet, a real estate company he founded with his friends while in the university.   ToLet is a web-based platform for property, rentals and sales.   The founders all made a monthly contribution of N20,000 to start the business. Interestingly, they had to hit the ground running as there was a competitor they needed to beat to the market.   Starting out involved a lot of ground work such as reaching out and getting landlords/agents listed on their platform.   In 2016, they raised $1.2million from Frontier Digital Ventures. A year later, they acquired Jumia House Nigeria in a bold and unexpected move.   In this episode, you’ll learn:   Their inspiration for running a business together. How have they managed to keep the team together? What are the dynamics involved? The importance of having  startup capital no matter how little. Fikayo and his co-founders all committed to contribute N20,000 every month to their business. They did this for a while before joined Spark Incubators and later raised $250,000 The importance of business models and how to find one that suits your business. What was ToLet’s previous business model? What were the challenges? What competition validated their market? How did they validate the market and why did ToLet accelerate their market launch. How they raised $1.2million. How many investors did they reach out to? How many got back to them? Why ToLet acquire JumiaHouse? What is the proposed outcome of this acquisition? And how has it helped them so far? Despite raising close to $1.5million, Fikayo says they are still not profitable. Why is this so? And more Selected Links   Selected book Peter Thiel

Franz Struwig is the cofounder of iKubu,   Franz started out as a lover of technology before going on to study Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria. He is a lover of technology, business and people.     He started with advising, consultancy, building products for others. Looking for interesting solutions to problems was the bane of the company. A totally random cycling day happened to give birth to a whole idea of helping cyclers prevent accidents.     Over time they developed their product and started working on taking it to the next level of marketing it and releasing it. In this phase, they learnt a lot of lessons as they had to keep on trying new methods as the old ones were developing hiccups. They eventually succeeded in selling not just the product but also the company.   If you are looking to start a business and learn about the various roles one can assume in achieving success, Franz’s story is one you’ll find captivating.   In this episode you’ll learn:   How he went from playing with technology to working in tech and then building his own company Initially, we were all over the place. We were building products that were complete failures. What did Franz mean by this? How did they turn the situation around? Franz and his team tried to raise funding and according to him “it was a complete waste of time” Why did he think so? What were the challenges? And how can the story help your business? Why big companies have less capacity to execute than small companies. How to take your product to market. That crowdfunding is not a way of getting money. Why does Franz think it’s going to cost you a lot more money than you are going to make? How to market and brand your product yourself. How can you take advantage of influencer marketing to help your business growth? And more Selected links from the episode Selected book from this episode By Adam Makos

Trevor Kimenye is the CEO of Ongair, a web based social CRM tool that enables businesses to interact and communicate with their customers on popular Instant messaging platforms from a single dashboard.   This  is a global solution built in Africa. Businesses, regardless of where they are stationed need to communicate with their customers. This is what Trevor and his team make happen.   The journey of Ongair is one that businesses should monitor and study closely, as it is one of the most successful ways of starting and running a business.   They had an idea and tested it using Whatsapp. Then they allowed  a business use their service for free, thereby validating their idea.   The next step was to build a landing page and see how many people wanted their service. And that's how the journey began.   If you are looking to start a business and validate your idea, Trevor’s story is one you’ll find interesting.   In this episode you’ll learn:   Trevor left a well-paying job in Australia to come back to Kenya and start his business. He was inspired by a lot of things. Find out what they were. He met his co-founder at a hackathon called Garage48, how did they move forward to starting a business together? What were the dynamics involved? The idea for Ongair was developed while having an off-day at work. How did they come about it? How do you build a CRM from Whatsapp? That’s exactly what they did. They started their business from Whatsapp. Find out why What is the importance of having an MVP? How did it help the business? Ongair made use of growth hacking. It is responsible for 35% of their customers.How can you take advantage of growth hacking? What should you learn from the relationship between Ongair and zendesk? Trevor looks forward to a good accelerator running in Africa. What were his reasons for this? What was their initial payment infrastructure like? What challenges did they have to deal with? And more Selected links from the episodeSelected book from this episode By Jake Knapp

Rasaq Ahmed is the co-founder and CEO of CowryWise, an automated savings platform.   CowryWise aims to make savings worthwhile for everyone by making it simple to do and highly rewarding.   Rasaq has one of the most interesting stories in the Nigerian ecosystem. His family narrowly escaped death while they were living in the northern part of Nigeria.   They relocated to the south and that gave him the opportunity to attend the university - something he probably wouldn’t have done if he had stayed in the north because he was learning to repair generators.   Rasaq graduated with a first class degree in Economics from Obafemi Awolowo University, and is also a CFA Charter holder.   In this episode, you’ll learn:   Why the definition of success should be relative and different. Success means different things to people. How do you define what success is to you? Getting caught in a tribal crisis as a 14 year old must be difficult. How did Rasaq deal with it? The best experience he had as a student in the university was outside the classroom. What did he mean by that? He was learning to repair generators while in secondary school. When he moved to the south, he decided to move to the university. What influenced him? “I felt very bad because I wasn’t very used to rejection” What did Rasaq mean by this? Why is it hard for FinTech companies to fit into the current regulatory framework? What is the solution? Corporate governance  is important to the longevity of businesses. Why? Trust is CowryWise’s biggest pain point. What does this mean for the business? What is your view about private universities and federal universities? Dotun and Razaq had a bit of discussion on the topic. Find out what they think in this episode And more Selected links from this episode