Mental Model Mondays: Big Thoughts
I saw a bit of a condescending post on twitter today, which despite its tone, delivered a powerful message. The picture that sums up the idea is below, and the gist of the tweet below that. 8/ There are…
Shipping Is Hard
Shipping is super hard. I think everyone in tech gets that. A shipped product is the culmination of so many different pieces of work, from legal to engineering. All of it needs to be completed, often in parallel as different…
Identity Is My Thesis
Earlier this year I was kicking around the idea of angel investing in some African start-ups. I asked my VC friends what I should do to prepare, and their advice was to firstly come up with a good thesis. Without a thesis,…
Neoliberal Predation
A colleague sent me some research on Microfinance last night. I’ve spent most of my career in the sector, moving from pure microfinance in my early twenties to tech-enabled microcredit and savings in my late twenties. The research I’ve read…
Mental Model Monday: Marketing
I’m a big fan of how the Heath brothers distilled marketing down into several easy to understand steps in their famous book “Made to Stick”. Their acronym – SUCCESs – stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Story. According to…
The MNO Business Model Trap
I touched briefly on this yesterday in my post. There’s a problem that inevitably faces many startups in Africa where a strategic decision must be made whether to work with an MNO or not. For most, that decision is closer to…
Can You Just Get Your CAC Up Please
Acquiring customers on a digital application in Africa is difficult. Consumers are in this weird place where they are leapfrogging a lot of crap services. However, they’re still in a very young industry and don’t have a lot of options.…
Mental Model Monday: Reasoning Backwards
This is another good one from that legendary pipe-smoking detective. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes often employed this technique and lamented that more people don’t employ it. The basic idea is that you start with the result you want, and…
JUMO Raises $52 Million by Goldman Sachs
The company I’ve worked at for 3 years just raised $52 million. I couldn’t be prouder of the current team and those that were here at the beginning. It’s a phenomenal achievement and big validation of our model. Go read…
Mental Model Monday: Sherlock Holmes
I’ve been reading “A Few Lessons From Sherlock Holmes” by Peter Bevellin and it’s stimulated some great thinking about mental models and critical thinking. Observation, in particular, is highlighted by Bevellin as one of Holmes’ best attributes. There’s one section…
Chart of The Week: Regulatory Ruin
Heavy off of my post yesterday about good regulation, here’s a chart showing the impact of bad regulation! MTN’s market value has dropped below Safaricom’s, despite MTN having over 100 million more subscribers than Safaricom. The hefty fines levied against…
Regulators Can Do Awesome Stuff
Buried half way down some Legislation from the European Union is a bank shattering piece of legislation that will change the banking landscape in the European Union. The legislation, dubbed PSD2, for Revised Payment Service Directive, opens the door to…