Author: Founder Africa
One of the fascinating things about most history makers is that they never set out to make history. When you read the stories of great men and women like Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, JD Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, and so on, you can see that in most cases they are driven by a deep sense of purpose to improve the world they live in, and making history is usually just an unintended by-product. Today, in Africa, a group of women is changing the narrative of history and breaking glass ceilings that only had small cracks until now. One such woman is…
The journey to building Selar started when Douglas Kendyson, the startup’s founder and CEO was a Customer Success Expert at Paystack, a Nigerian fintech startup. His role required that he worked daily with customers and while at it, he noticed a constant request from individuals who wanted to use the platform to sell their products. At the time, Paystack only worked with businesses and rarely with individuals. Trying to see if he could meet that need, Douglas Kendyson built an MVP for Selar in October 2016. However, the product remained in the semi-stealth mode for another two years. Eventually, Douglas…
The journey of Wave began when its co-founders, Drew Durbin (CEO) and Lincoln Quirk (Head of Product) met as hallmates during freshman year at Brown University, an ivy league private institution in Rhode Island, United States. Drew and Lincoln became friends because they shared a passion for creating simple products with a social impact. And with Wave, they believe they can make Africa the first cashless continent. However, they first built Sendwave in 2014, the money remittance company which was acquired by WorldRemit in 2020 for about $500 million in cash and stock. In 2020, Wave officially spun off from…
Twiga Foods is a Kenyan business-to-business marketplace platform that sources produce directly from farmers and delivers them to urban retailers. Founded by Grant Brooke and Peter Njonjo in 2014, Twiga Foods started with the aim to export bananas from Kenya. However, on their first day, no one ordered a single banana from them at the wholesale market. A certain ‘Mama Mboga’ took a chance on the company, placed an order, and became their first customer. After that first sale, they began to supply her and other fellow vendors on the front line which was a win for them, the vendors,…
Tesh Mbaabu is the Co-founder and CEO of MarketForce, a Kenyan-based B2B platform for the retail distribution of consumer goods and digital financial services in Africa. In this interview with Founder Africa, Tesh takes us through his journey, the challenges faced along the way, and some insight into fun facts about himself. How did you come about the idea for Marketforce? Since high school, I had always been curious about how tech platforms were built and so, after university, I was certain that I wanted to build African solutions to African problems by leveraging my tech background. So, we started…
Chipper Cash’s adventure began when the two founders, Ham Serunjogi, a Ugandan, and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled met in the US state of Iowa back in 2013. The two guys were in America to study and met at Grinnell College. On a road trip to California, as a podcast on fintech and cryptocurrencies flooded the air, Ham and Maijid talked about starting a project together and decided to launch a money transfer solution. “Not just sending money from Western countries, since it already exists, but also between African states,” Ham says. This fateful encounter sparked their interest to head to Silicon…
Africa’s startup ecosystem is structured in a way that allows you to get funding as long as you have a good idea. There will be people willing to invest and get you to a point where you can build and get your first 100 customers, probably 1000 customers, or make your first $100,000 or $1000000 in revenue. There is the build phase – At this stage, you’re building a product, getting your MVP, and product-market fit with a more defined target market, and you are beginning to make money. For example; you’re no longer working from home but from an…
As adults, we are familiar with the adage, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” However, kids do not understand the notion that money is a resource that must be earned and is not one that is easily acquired. A family friend’s daughter recently declared that she deserved a raise in her allowance — from $100 to a whopping $500 a month. Her parents asked her to put into writing her needs to justify such a hefty increase and why they should be committed to it. She would thereafter present this at a family dinner the following weekend. I found this rather…
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Founder of Flutterwave and Andela, and General Partner of The Fund for Africa’s Future speak with Founder Africa on his journey and views on entrepreneurship and angel investing. As one of the prolific entrepreneurs/angel investors on the continent, kindly give us a quick run-through of your journey up until now. Iyin: I ventured into entrepreneurship in 2010 when I co-founded Bookneto.com during my time at the University of Waterloo. From there, I grew through a series of failed enterprises to help build *** First Fora in 2012/2013 and ultimately Andela in 2014. After Andela, In 2016, I went…
The information contained in this article is not new to most founders, however, the perspective explored in this article is quite different. This article aims to help you erase any yellow flags, which some people might consider red flags. As you go down the safe route, this would help two groups of people; The group who are unaware of which one to do. This article will help you make up your mind. The other group already has their mind made up with the decision to go down the safe route. So what this does for them is that it shows…
