Mentor. Accelerate. InvestDeveloping tech entrepreneurs in subsaharan Africa

www.savannah.vc

7 Hard Truths on Africa Startups

@mbwana

@savannahfund

Savannah Fund Today

• 15 startups. Accelerator to Series A stage

• $2M revenue run rate, raised $8M, 100 full time jobs

• Connecting up the continent through Venture Capital.

• Accelerator, over 300 startups applied, 10 selected

E-commerce39%

Education11%

Entertainment10%

Financial Services10%

Logistics9%

Social/Mobile20%

Rest of World11%

Ghana19%

Kenya27%

Nigeria9%

South Africa24%

Uganda10%

Waterhole

• Resource to help bridge knowledge and experience gap in startups in Africa

• Fundraising in Africa

• UX/Design

• Product

• Engineering & Scaling

• Expats....

www.savannah.vc/waterhole

Venture Capital Course in Africa

• Reduce the VC process knowledge gap.

• $1,000 for corporates

• $350 for "qualifying startups"

• Savannah fund will sponsor 11 startups inc. Pivot East winners

#1You are nothing special, but have potential

• Startups are increasingly getting caught in the "Africa rising" hype

• High Valuations and availability of "soft money" lead to a distorted view

• We are seeing the rise of Nigeria and Ghana

#2 talent development, mentor networks

• Not enough experienced coders for growth. Especially on process.

• Investment in emerging platforms Facebook, Android, Web stack/Cloud

• Not enough awareness and utilization of product managers and UX

#3 Safaricom dependence is not healthy

• Safaricom (and every other mobile operator) wants to be the Alibaba of Kenya

• Startups want to reach Safaricom's mobile subscribers. Beware of Monopolistic behavior

• There needs a clearer strategy and options between "revenue vs growth". + Differentiation

#4 Need to Develop a Growth mindset

• Starts with deeply understanding your customers

• Expand competence and learning new skills

• Thinking multi country or multi product line expansion

#5 Hustle hard, otherwise it's 2 steps forward and 3 back

• Nothing gets done unless you do it yourself

• Especially business development. Knowing when to cut your losses.

• Find workarounds... There is always a way

#6 Relentless focus. not working on the same thing everyday

• .... Nor doing a million things at once

• Prioritization vs Distractions

• Clearly defined objectives and strategy to succeed.

• Dealing with Uncertainty

#7 problem is often you problem definition

• Bounding the problem taking with cultural contexts.

• You are often dealing with multifactorial problems.

• Unit economics and industry structure matter. Especially when you copy/clone from elsewhere to Africa

http://savannah.vc/2014/04/16/problem-definition-problem-in-africa-solutions-for-a-diverse-continent