Building The Future with Dotun

On the podcast today, we have the CEO and Co-Founder of Paystack, Shola Akinlade. Paystack is a payments processing company which lets businesses accept payments via debit card or money transfer on their websites or mobile apps. Paystack was the very first Nigerian company to get into YC - which is no small feat!

Bob Collymore is the CEO of Safaricom one of the leading telco in Africa and pioneer of Mpesa, the world’s most developed mobile payment system. If there is any poster child of how innovative mobile technology is changing Africa, Mpesa will be a top contender. Bob was originally born in Guyana, but his work experience spans across diverse countries such as Japan, South Africa and the United Kingdom where he has held various senior roles in marketing, purchasing, retail and corporate affairs. It was such an honour speaking with Bob and I’m excited to share this deeply insightful episode with you.  He was more than glad to share his rather impressive reading list most of which I had to check out right after the podcast. We also talked about the future of technology and machine learning,industrialization creating jobs and using tech to solve real problems that people face in Africa In this episode, you’ll learn: How safaricom won in Kenya by making their product accessible and affordable to the ‘man on the street’ Why not to engage in price wars with your competitors. How Safaricom won as the No.1 telco in Kenya Mpesa success is attributed to the problem it’s solving The companies that start with purpose will do well Use tech to address problems in Africa, rather than bringing Silicon Valley type of solution… Disruption is going to happen. Better to disrupt your company than allow others to disrupt you There can be no alternative to learning. Why reading long form content will make you smarter Purpose, People and Profit   Selected Links in This Episode Airtel - Jerry Kaplan - Oliver Theobald - Olivia Fox Cabane and Judah Pollack - Paul Kalanithi

Our guest this week is Marek Zmyslowski

Marek is the cofounder of Jumia Travel (formerly Jovago) and HotelOga.

HotelOga is a hotel management system which enables hotels in Africa to have their own booking engine, websites and customer relationship management system.

Prior to starting HotelOga, Marek was the Managing Director at Jovago one of Rocket Internet companies in Africa

“In business, emotions should play a secondary role and logic a primary one” Deepankar Rustagi is the Co-Founder and CEO at Vconnect, Nigeria’s largest online business directory and local search engine. Vconnect was one of the first players in the Nigerian tech ecosystem and has been active since 2010. This episode is a lesson on how to get traction for your startup by focusing on ‘One Metric that Matters’! It is very tempting to do a lot of things at the same time as an entrepreneur. Deepankar had the same challenge. But he had a good advisor who told him to focus on one thing only. That focus on a single metric - the number of businesses added to Vconnect platform within a specific geography - was a major contributor to their early success. One of my biggest takeaway from this episode is this: ecommerce business is harder and more complex than people think it is from the outside. It’s one of the most difficult business to scale. And success is dependent on a lot of factors that is beyond the control of one company. Successful ecommerce companies are built on a lot of existing and continously innovated infrastructure, such as payment, logistics, stock management, consumer online behaviour, merchant education and trust. Stay humble, stay focussed, stay grounded. If you run a business that sells, or has a potential to sell via ecommerce platform, this episode is for you. On this episode, you'll learn: How he started Vconnect after an accident on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway Why he pursued a degree in software engineering as well as the jobs he did before starting vconnect. How to get traction by focusing on ‘One Metric the Matter’ and specific market segment. The advice given by a member of the Vconnect Advisory Board that significantly shaped the business. The conversation he had with his previous employers when he informed them that he was about to leave to start his business, and how they ended up funding his startup! How well-funded competition helped educate the market, and what they learn from them. How Vconnect tried to pivot  into ecommerce business model, why it failed and and the biggest takeaways from taking that experiment. Why you need to really care about unit metric of your startup The key things that matters before setting up an ecommerce business in Africa Why it is important to build around your core competencies as a businesses rather than do-it-all Why it is important to get your team to speak into significant changes you are making as as business. What Vconnect’s plan for the next few years is as well as an interesting add-on they've included in their directory services Why African tech ecosystem will be strengthened through collaboration Selected links from this episode This episode was brought to you by is a legal firm that specialise in working with early stage startups in Africa. They understand the peculiarities of business as a startup. They are trusted by many other startups including the likes of paystack, callbase, pass.ng, techcabal, printivo, wecyclers, and many others. To get free consultation as a listener of this podcast… fill out the form on is a ridiculously simple online accounting platform specifically designed for small and medium scale businesses in Africa. Accounteer simplifies your financial report, help you to create invoices, track your expenses and avoid overpaying taxes. It is integrated to local payment solutions such as PayStack in Nigeria and DusuPay in Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. To get an exclusive 75% off your first year subscription, sign up FREE at

Kola is the founder of Ventures Platform, an early stage fund and startup accelerator for founders across Africa. Within a year, Kola and his team have invested in over 20 startups through the programme. Kola bootstrapped his original business, Emerging Platform from idea to a significant success by mixing healthy dose of risks with grit. I met Kola last year, and we seem to immediately connect due to our shared belief in entrepreneurship as a viable way to accelerate growth potentials in Africa. He recently wrote . On the show,  we discussed his journey to entrepreneurship from grad school to running family business and starting Emerging Platforms. Kola also provides some insight into the kinds of businesses Ventures Platform would accept into its accelerator program.   On This Episode You’ll Learn: Important lessons about being a serial entrepreneur he learned from his father who took big risks  bootstrapping several businesses with a family in tow. How to sell your product to big clients through ‘proof-of-concept’ sales pitch Handing a family business over to another family member may not necessarily be the best thing for the business. How productising your service business can significant transform your revenue and make it more predictable. And much more   Selected links from this episode   This episode was brought to you by: is a legal firm that specialise in working with early stage startups in Africa. They understand the peculiarities of business as a startup. They are trusted by many other startups including the likes of paystack, callbase, pass.ng, techcabal, printivo, wecyclers, and many others. To get free consultation as a listener of this podcast… fill out the form on is a ridiculously simple online accounting platform specifically designed for small and medium scale businesses in Africa. Accounteer simplifies your financial report, help you to create invoices, track your expenses and avoid overpaying taxes. It is integrated to local payment solutions such as PayStack in Nigeria and DusuPay in Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. To get an exclusive 75% off your first year subscription, sign up FREE at

One of the major challenge for doing business in Africa is lack of data. It’s hard to get information about private businesses in the continent. There are lots of consultants and researchers scouting around the continent for every bit of data they can get on businesses.

Rob Withagen used to be one of those researchers. Until he got stucked in traffic in a sweaty taxi on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. And then he had the aha moment.

“Your product is only as good as its distribution channels” Mark Essien is the founder and CEO of hotels.ng an online hotel booking platform in Nigeria. With over 8000 hotels on the platform, hotels.ng is one of the largest online aggregator in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has raised over $2m from the likes of Spark, EchoVC and Omidyar Network. Mark is one of the most impressive founders I know. when I was planning to come to Nigeria in 2015 to get involved in the tech ecosystem, Mark dominated a lot of my research as someone I should meet. Since then we’ve met several times, and he was a speaker at the High Growth Africa Summit 2016 that I hosted in Lagos. There are so many gems in this episode for anyone trying to build a company or currently runs one in an emerging market. The first 25 minutes of this podcast is like a lesson in how to start a startup in  difficult places. We talked about he validated his idea, the grunt work done to gain traction in the early days. How he ran out of money, and yet was able to pull a winner. We discussed how to raise money and why founders should not take money from everyone. We talked about why focussing on developing talent will drive the growth of the startup ecosystem in Africa. In this episode, you’ll learn: A “formula” for building a company (in an emerging market) that your customers actually need About the earliest version of Hotels.ng’s, how it worked compared to how it works now. Building relationships that led to Hotels.ng very first investors The different business models that they tried to arrive at the model they currently use. Some thoughts on why Lagos is the place to be for businesses in Nigeria. How the ecosystem has changed between 2012 and now. Mark’s list of things you need to run a successful company as well as some predictions for how the ecosystem will change over time And much more Selected Resources Mentioned in this Episode Gnumm The Podcast is brought to you by?  is a legal firm that specialise in working with early stage startups in Africa. They understand the peculiarities of business as a startup. They are trusted by many other startups including the likes of paystack, callbase, pass.ng, techcabal, printivo, wecyclers, and many others. To get free consultation as a listener of this podcast… fill out the form on

Tayo Bamiduro is the co-founder of Max.ng. He is an interesting guy….  and I’ve got lots of time for him. I understand his business. My first startup was trying to solve similar problem. Max.ng is a hyperlocal, on-demand delivery service based in Lagos, Nigeria. Max.ng aims to tackle Lagos’ notorious logistics problem (traffic) using proprietary geotagging technology and also help reduce youth unemployment rate in the city. So about 50% of MAX’s Delivery Champions are below the age of 30. And they aim to create 500+ more jobs this year. Since launching in 2015, Tayo and his team have been up to a lot of good! They acquired food startup, Easy Appetite and also founded Max.Go, Nigeria’s first motorcycle transport app. The Max.ng team was the first African team to be admitted into the Techstars startup accelerator programme in New York, raised a funding round of almost US$1 million afterwards. They were  named runner-up at the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield event in London and named a “Top 12 Global Inclusive Growth Idea” by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Harvard Center for International Development. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to gather a team around your vision and product How Max.ng is solving a big problem and doing social good in the process by employing internally displaced people from Chibok Real hustlers… the founders learnt how to ride a motorbike in order to validate their business hypotheses Why they turned down Plug and Play accelerator programme in New York Raising money is not a walk in the park… Tayo pitched to over 100 investors and got less than 10 to invest and the kind of people they employ Innovative companies solving Africa’s deep-seated problems Notable quote “The way Africa will leapfrog into first-world status is using technology”   Resources/links mentioned in the podcast:

On this episode, I discuss waste, upcycling and making social impact with Wecyclers’ CEO, Bilikiss Abiola.   I met Bilikiss in 2015, and the first thing that struck me was her passion. Bilikiss is a force. And I have huge respect for her and what she is doing. It was a pleasure to sit down with her to have this interview in Lagos.   Wecyclers offers a convenient recycling service using a fleet of low-cost cargo bikes. In exchange for waste, low-income households earn redeemable points which can be used to buy food and other items.   In April, Wecyclers partnered with Lagos State Waste Management (LAWMA) for the #LagosIsRecycling Campaign in partnership with Unilever, DHL, Nigerian Bottling Company, UKAID, FCMB, and others. More recently, Bilikiss was awarded the prestigious 'International Grand Prize' at Le Monde's Smart Cities Innovation Awards for her work with Wecyclers.   In this episode, you’ll learn: how Wecyclers is disrupting and reshaping existing scavenger economy, and creating new job in the process How to convince your nin-Nigerian cofounder to move to Nigeria from MIT If you have a B2B product, learn how to write cold emails and hassle people to give you a meeting We are at ground zero of waste management in Africa. There are lots of money to unlock and lots of work to be done How to shape the future by building platforms that other people can build on

In this first episode of Building the Future podcast,I had a chat with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. He is a serial entrepreneur at a very young age, and was recently listed in Forbes 30 under 30 influencers in Africa. He was a co-founder at Andela, a talent accelerator startup which raised $24m from Mark Zuckerberg's foundation. He later left to start Flutterwave, a payment processing company which is growing really fast and had raised money from several other investors including Ycombinator.   We talked about how to build platforms that will enable the next generations of African entrepreneurs to build scalable business across the continent. In this show, we talked about Iyin’s previous businesses...why he initially wanted to be a taxi driver, how he sold his first business in his final year at University of Waterloo….what led to Andela...and why he jumped ship to start Flutterwave. But that's not all… we had in depth discussions on payment processing platforms such as Flutterwave obviously :), Paystack, Stripe, Amplify Pay among others. The point was to find out what works best, but as E says, “the game is aggregation.” In This Episode You’ll Learn, Government regulations and how significant impact innovation in the African tech space How to pivot from a struggling startup to a multinational company employing hundreds of people through Andela fellowship What is Andela business model and how you can apply it in other sectors even if you are not technical The growth of fintech companies in Africa, and why building payment infrastructure is super important for growth in the continent How to invest in people