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Seeding entrepreneurialism in emerging markets makes sense both altruistically and in return potential for an investor -- you're not competing in a saturated ma
by lyal 9y ago
Seeding entrepreneurialism in emerging markets makes sense both altruistically and in return potential for an investor -- you're not competing in a saturated market, like say seed investing in the valley, and costs are low. If you can solve the other side, such as access to capital, M&A opportunity, and potentially international customers, as Jorn is doing, you're in a great place.
The part about training for business conduct feels a bit iffy in tone from the level of detail it goes into. I bought a company in Germany a few years back, and my Canadian sensibilities certainly offended folks until I learned the rules of the local culture. Any cross border business interactions are fraught with this.
A few of my friends are currently investing/managing a company out of Ghana. Extremely low investment has yielded a great growth curve, and they're changing how sub-Saharan Africans manage their finances. They're some of the happiest investor/entrepreneurs I know.
- 0xbear 9y agoHow do you make money off of people who don’t have anything though?
- eganist 9y agoIt's about value creation. A band of enthusiasts in the middle of nowhere and with no resources to create anything will probably have a hard time bootstrapping a startup, especially when you consider the relative definitions of "no resources," but that's the point of starting an incubator: to help resource the enthusiasts. If they can take what they get and run with it in pursuit of the idea that got them the investment, they've now created value where none previously existed. Commence the theoretical positive cascade of investments and growth and having an exit strategy so that investors and entrepreneurs get back a return on what they invested. The part that's kinda taken on faith, though, is whether the value created will stay in the area. Unless there are huge incentives to stay local, I see the companies, exited founders, and investors all taking their funds and resources back into developed nations rather than staying local and perpetuating prosperity where they first laid their roots. There's hope that there'll be a will to stay local... but man, people tend to take whatever chance they can get to escape a bad place.
- taneq 9y ago> The part that's kinda taken on faith, though, is whether the value created will stay in the area. Unless there are huge incentives to stay local, I see the companies, exited founders, and investors all taking their funds and resources back into developed nations rather than staying local and perpetuating prosperity where they first laid their roots. Are you talking about the foreign investors or locals who've succeeded? I can see locals using their new wealth to escape, but if it's working that well for the foreign investors, I don't see why they'd leave (at least in the short term - over decades the brain drain effect would be real).
- frostymarvelous 9y agoEscape? Those who wished to escape took different paths, visa lotteries and the like. Those of us who've stayed back and are actively involved in tech entrepreneurship have little desire to leave. We would have already, we have the skills. Ghana might not have it the best, but every country started like this. It takes dedication from its citizens to grow and that mindset is catching on now. Not to detract from the rest of your answer though.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoOne could argue that monetization isn't actually a problem tackled by most SV companies...
- 0xbear 9y agoThat would be a really weak argument though. 100% of VCs are in it for the money.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoYes, but not exactly because they want the company to generate some but most of the cases so they can sell it off to one of the big players.
- lyal 9y agoThink it's probably wrong to say that they don't have anything -- they just have less on a GDP basis.
- 0xbear 9y agoAnything discretionary that is. Ghana’s per capita PPP GDP is $1381 and falling. That’s a bit over $100/mo
- gfredtech 9y agoGhana doesn't have a food and water problem. I'm not saying it doesn't exist here but then our real problems are undereducation and moving value around(because lots of people are unbanked)... people will pay for your product here like they would anywhere else, provided it solves their problem. I think that the reason why people outside the country invest here is because 1. there's a low risk and 2. your next customer could be someone who had his problem solved as a result of your investment. A typical example would be Zuckerberg investing in beaming internet across rural areas, cos in the end a lot of the new internet users will sign up for Facebook...
- msabalau 9y agoA number of sites put the nominal GDP at $1000 and change and PPP GDP at around $4000. Not sure who to believe, the World Bank, the IMF or the CIA.
- ErikVandeWater 9y agoTechnology-efficiency startups are the best bet - My startup reduces the cost of doing _blank_ by 100 times. You have to pay me 1/10th of what you currently pay to do _blank_.
- 0xbear 9y agoUnless your _blank_ is food or water, your startup will have a heck of a time in Ghana.
- mooreds 9y agoIn 2012, 1 in 5 Ghanaians spent between $4 and $20/day: https://www.ft.com/content/893ae814-486d-11e2-a6b3-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/893ae814-486d-11e2-a6b3-00144feab... Seems like there might be some money to be made there beyond food and water.
- narrator 9y agoRemittances from abroad too. This is one of the more practical use cases for cryptocurrency.
- rokhayakebe 9y agoHow do you make money off of people who don’t have anything though? Well these people pay rent, electricity, phone bills, buy clothes, food, education for the kids, have cars, etc... Surely you can make money from them.
- gfredtech 9y agoThat's right. Maybe he thinks we have very few smartphones here too. In fact, smartphone adoption(Android especially) is growing really fast here (I can't give figures though)
- mattbettinson 9y agoWhat Canadian sensibilities?
- ejanus 9y ago>>they're changing how sub-Saharan Africans manage their finances. Sub Sahara is not pretty backward that they can't manage their finances . When a startup is doing marketing pitch let them paint the real picture. I know we are not where we ought to be but we are not lacking in the area of innovation and creativity.
- ice109 9y agowhat percent of sub-Saharan Africa still participates in subsistence agriculture? I bet even you have a garden.