M-Shwari is a digital savings and loan product by Safaricom in Kenya. This is the company that was responsible for building M-Pesa. They were tremendously successful with that payment product, and have started moving out of the P2P (peer to…
I’m starting a new tradition here, after one of my role models – Fred Wilson. He used to write an MBA Monday section for his blog, AVC, which was great. I’ve decided to write about mental models, heuristics, and biases.…
My friend Mbwana told me this at dinner. We were at his favorite Indian restaurant in Nairobi, and I was discussing the fact that the mobile lending space was getting crowded with new entrants, all who are using android apps.…
Dave McClure has this pirate acronym (AARRR) which he uses to help founders remember five important pillars of growth for startups. They are: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue I’m a big fan of using it and have implemented it at…
In the rest of the world the majority of startups look at the internet as their primary distribution channel. If you build an app, and someone has internet, that person will get your app if they want it. In Africa, where…
Financial regulation in Africa is a hard problem for fintech startups and companies. Regulation is different across the countries in Africa, and different in difficult ways. I think that’s why fintech startups struggle to scale in Africa. They have to…
For hundreds of years banks have been secure from disruption. They’ve maintained economic moats that would make any company jealous, including their access to government liquidity, branch networks, favorable regulation, and credit expertise. Bar some near catastrophic disasters, they’ve managed the…
I’ve just finished Made to Stick by the Heath brothers, and I’m a big fan of how they’ve distilled marketing down into several easy to understand steps. Their acronym – SUCCESs – stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and…
I love the idea and application of blockchains. In Africa, there’s plenty of inefficiencies that can be addressed by implementing blockchain systems. I’m particularly interested on blockchains in financial lending and supply chains. Pharmaceutical companies and distributors across the continent…
I named this blog after a term in Stanley McChrystal’s book A Team of Teams. I’ve pasted below an excerpt from his book where he describes what blink points are. He is describing them in terms of how he sped…
Mobile phones are having a profound impact in Africa, and at the forefront of that is the idea that a phone is also a bank. The reason this is occuring is that the mobile network operators (MNOs) have built…
Hello World, Today is the launch of my new blog. I’m focusing on fintech, mobile, and Africa. There will be a lot of interesting bits and pieces surrounding that. I hope you all join me on what should be a…