The Salary Scramble With Lee Kasumba

"I was out of liquidity. I had two options: call a family member or figure it out myself."

Assem Skaiki sold his car two weeks before Nevo Coffee & Co. opened its doors. That money paid for stock. That money paid for staff salaries. That money kept the dream alive.

"I didn't want to make a call for a family member to send me money. I should figure it out myself."

That's the founder's mindset. No safety net. No backup plan. Just conviction and sacrifice.

Now he's built a system, every supplier has a payment date, every salary is planned for. But getting there? That cost him everything.

This is The Salary Scramble. Real founders. Real sacrifices. No filters.

Full episode with Assem Skaiki of Nevo Coffee & Co. out now.

In this episode of The Salary Scramble, we sit down with Assem Skaiki, the founder of Nevo Coffee & Co., one of Kampala's most exciting new players in the specialty coffee and dining scene.

What does it take to build a coffee brand in a market dominated by giants like Java House and Café Pap? How do you compete when the cost of doing business is rising, customer expectations are evolving, and the coffee culture in Uganda is still finding its footing?

Assem holds nothing back. From the personal sacrifices that nearly broke him to the financial red flags every new founder should watch for, this is a masterclass in resilience, strategy, and raw honesty.

Tshepiso Malema lost R50,000 in a single poultry season in Hammanskraal. Ayanda Chunda watched small farmers get wiped out by disease, cheap imports, and a system that never showed up. Instead of walking away, they built Flockify, an AI-powered platform using smart cameras and sensors to help small-scale farmers detect disease early, track compliance, and stay alive in one of South Africa's most brutal industries.

In this episode of The Salary Scramble, we go deep with two founders who went from raising chickens in the mud to pitching on stages in Russia and China. They unpack the real cost of building hardware in a load-shedding nation, the ugly truth about investor promises, and whether their technology is a lifeline or just a better view of the disaster.

New episode out now.

"If The Awesome Ice Cream Pot were a character in one of my books, what quest would it be on?"

That's just one of the questions we asked Kamogelo Modise, author, father, and founder of The Awesome Ice Cream Pot.

His answer? You'll have to listen.

This episode is a masterclass in building a business that is deeply personal, unapologetically African, and spiritually grounded.

From Tshia & the School Mission to Boikanyo & the African Ice Cream, Kamogelo's creative work and his business are one and the same: a celebration of identity, joy, and the magic of storytelling.

We dive into the scramble, the stable, and everything in between.

New episode out now. Link in bio.

From drafting buildings to designing bags. From Lagos to the world.

This week on The Salary Scramble, Lee Kasumba sits down with Omobolade Kolade Mayowa, the "Crochet Bag Architect" and founder of Hooked by Lade.

Lade is a trained architect from FUTA who turned a childhood skill into a global luxury brand. She launched in March 2021, left her 9-to-5, and has since shipped over 1,000 orders to more than 15 countries. Her work has been worn by Sola Sobowale, Mercy Johnson, and Veekee James.

In this episode, she opens up about merging architecture with fashion design, building a sustainable slow-fashion brand in a fast-paced world, the reality of running a global business from Nigeria, what celebrity endorsements really mean for a brand, and her journey from 800,000+ followers to a loyal community of "Hookies."

This conversation is for every creative, founder, and dreamer building something from the ground up.

Full episode out now.

She walked into an industry where no one looked like her. She built a company that keeps people alive.

Valerie Mpholle, founder of Consuweld. Her first major contract was back home in Lesotho. Today, she supplies oxygen to 11 hospitals across 8 African countries.

She's seen what happens when the cylinder is empty. She made sure that stopped.

Watch the montage from her raw, unfiltered conversation on The Salary Scramble with Lee Kasumba.

Catch the full episode in our playlist!

🎙️ Where glossy titles end and real founder stories begin.

She founded the business by herself.

But that didn't stop them from asking: "Is she fronting?"

Valerie Mpholle walked into an industry where the room was built for older white men with engineering degrees, people who had opportunities her relatives never could have dreamed of. She dropped out of science. She studied psychology for 11 years. And today, she runs Consuweld, a gas distribution company spanning 8 African countries, supplying oxygen to 11 hospitals, keeping people alive.

In this episode of The Salary Scramble, Valerie tells Lee Kasumba what it's like to be interviewed six times for funding because they couldn't believe a young Black woman could be running the show. She shares the grinding reality of fighting invoices from March while month-end looms, the sleepless nights, the burnout, and the quiet satisfaction of proving them all wrong.

Valerie opens up about the five years she paid herself almost nothing, the funders who questioned her credibility, and the weight of responsibility that comes with knowing an empty cylinder means a lost life. She gets real about the loneliness of leadership, the "duty feeling" that keeps her working till 4 AM, and what it really means to build a business in Africa when no one believes in you.

This isn't a story about "making it." It's about the scramble, the chaos, the doubt, the hustle, and the audacity to stay in a room that was never designed for you.

Where glossy titles end and real founder stories begin.

On this episode of The Salary Scramble, Sharna Darko from Kingston Kitchen GH joins us, and we went there.

She exploded an egg in the microwave as a kid. Now she's exploding queues at Green Butterfly Market. Jamaican, British, in Accra, selling patties and answering the question: is this just a meat pie with a yellow crust?

That's her chapter.

Sharna Darko from Kingston Kitchen GH joins us this week, and we went there.She started with just two dishes, jerk chicken and curry goat, pre-order only. No storefront. No grand plan. Just cooking and hoping someone would buy. Then word spread. Then queues started forming before the market even opened. One Saturday, someone in the crowd asked, "What is that lady selling?" and that's when she knew she was onto something.

But here's the thing she's Jamaican, cooking in Accra. And Ghanaians love their meat pies. So when Sharna started selling patties, people asked the obvious question: is this just a meat pie with a yellow crust?

We get into all of it, growing up Jamaican in the UK, learning to cook without culinary school, the pre-order hustle that turned into a movement, why she almost didn't add patties to the menu, what it actually costs to import ingredients versus substitute local, the economics of rolling dough and chasing paychecks in Accra's food scene, and why she's still here, British passport, corporate role, and all choosing to roll patties in Ghana instead of a "normal" job.

Jamaican food in Accra, is it a risk or a goldmine? She answered everything.

Sharna Darko from Kingston Kitchen GH joins us this week, and we went there. Rolling dough, chasing paychecks, she started with two dishes and a prayer. Now people are queuing at 9:30am before the market even opens. Is this the dream or just the beginning? She answered everything.

New Episode Out Tomorrow!