Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Startups

The Journal of an African Tech Startup Founder: Part 4- Bringing my A game

In previous articles, I shared my backstory, my biggest risk and the motivation behind everything I'm doing. In this article I'll talk more about my personal plan and roadmap towards the vision. First and foremost, I make apps- Android apps to be specific. My flagship app is called the Business Builder- Small Business Management Suite and I've made a more advanced version of it called Asaqè Business Pro . Which is the one I'm currently pushing and hoping will bring us the big bucks. Both apps are available on the Google Playstore and they are intended to help people especially in lower income economies to start and grow sustainable businesses. When most people think about apps, or software in general, they consider the technical functions... what does it do? What technology does it use and so on. I've since come to realize that there is more to it. To quote George Berkowski: It's not just an app, it's a business. Creating the software is the easy part. I'

My thoughts on the Zimbabwean start-up landscape

Did you know that since 2012 over US$3.4 trillion in venture capital (VC)has been invested around the globe? However less than 0.5% (as in half of 1%) has gone to African startups? The irony is that VC money is literally being thrown at Startups from everywhere. Here's how it works: Just to put things into context- large corporations like Google, Microsoft and Amazon are all on the lookout for new ideas. So they will fund as many ' seemingly good ' ideas and then rely on the probability that one of those ideas will be worth billions. For example- they can allocate a million dollars to 10 startups. That's $100k apiece. Out of those 10, not all will fail, and there's a chance that one could be worth 10x, 20x or even 100x as much within a year or two.  The key however, is that each of these investments should have the potential to recoup the cost of the the other 9 that fail and in addition, bring a profit. So even if 9 out of 10 investments fail, they know that one in

The journal of an African tech startup founder part 3: My motivation

Why do you do what you do? What motivates you? Well, I normally have two answers reserved for that question and both are true. One is glamorous, romanticized and maybe even dramatic. Revolutionizing an industry, inspiring people, changing the world and so on. The second is more personal, and you might even call it selfish. That's the one I'll be sharing in this article. Wish I could lie a bit, but I made a promise to myself and anyone who would read this, that I would be as genuine as I could. So this is my truth. We'll reserve the glamorous one for my Forbes feature someday. Deal? Great. Some years back, my country faced a devastating fuel shortage. It was hard to get transport to and from work, and so people would wait for hours just to get a ride home. Needless to say, there was always some shoving and pushing as people jostled to board the few vehicles that came by. As I stood in line at the bus terminus, I noticed a heavily pregnant woman. She was visibly weary, probab

The journal of an African tech startup founder part 2: My biggest risk

When people think of the risks associated with starting a business they think of losing money, low product demand, theft, loss or some other calamity befalling their enterprise. These are all pretty unfortunate events, but over the years my understanding of entrepreneurial risk has changed and in this article I'll explain why. Growing up, I wasn't one of those kids who had their path figured out. The most logical career path for me would have been a teacher like my dad, or a doctor(that's the response we gave to seem ambitious and impress whoever asked). However after cringing at the pictures of people with STIs during a sex education class, I was convinced I'd have to leave the medical profession to someone else. My first job was as a primary school teacher. I was 18, fresh out of high school and dating a girl 6 years my senior. Needless to say, our priorities at the time were much different. I was purely in love, and she was thinking of settling down. So she would alw

The journal of an African tech startup founder- Part 1: The backstory

This is it. My first article for the Journal of an African tech startup founder. I've had this idea for a while but I've been reluctant to start. The first reason is because I am still new to this. I feel I haven't yet built much of a resumè (no fundraising, no successful exit, no Forbes mention etc.), so I wonder if anyone would be interested in my story. Like, do I really have something significant to say? The second reason is fear. I've found myself thinking: "what if I invite everyone on this journey, and then I fail?" I wouldn't want the world to see me lying flat on my face in a pile of sh..ame. However, I've also asked myself why I want to do this in the first place. This article will give some background and add some context to my motivation for writing. Let's start with some background. My name's Likhwa and I am a self taught programmer. I got interested in programming around 2004. At the time, I was in my sophomore year at varsity. Af

Everything you need to know about startup funding

One of the major challenges that startups face is raising capital or acquiring funding to help them start or grow their business. Capital is often exchanged for equity and is used by businesses to build products, hire key staff and expand into new markets. In this article we will cover everything you need to know about startup funding and what you can do to position yourself to get funding. Table of contents i. Factors to consider ii. Sources of funding iii. Types of funding iv. Series funding v. What investors consider vi. Questions to ask yourself before seeking funding vii. Conclusion FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN SEEKING STARTUP FUNDING Every business goes through a number of stages during its lifecycle. Just like a baby first lives on milk, before they can handle solid meals, even small businesses need to start with simple funding models and then graduate to more complex ones. It is therefore important to understand the various stages in

My advice to local aspiring developers

Well, today I thought let me talk to fellow aspiring developers, particularly those in third world countries. This is just random advice... so you are free to ignore it if it suits you. Some weeks back I wrote an article talking about how there is an average of 2 companies achieving unicorn status [ a billion dollar valuation ] every day around the globe. These are companies from everywhere except Africa. Africa has only had a handful of unicorns and these only account for 0.5% of the global total. One of the reasons for that, is simply a matter of probabilities. If you have thousands of people all actively building something then you're more likely to stumble upon at least one great company. Then when that company grows it can nurture and reinvest in more companies of its own. I've met a lot of great developers with beautiful ideas, but they sit on those ideas and soon, years pass without anything being done. With this article I'm hoping to provide some insights and more