Emeka Ajene โ๐ฝ
@eajene
Insights on business, tech, and leadership in Africa โข Co-founded @GozemTG & @AfridigestHQ โ http://afridigest.com/subscribe โข Words in @FT @NYTimes
In 2018, I moved to Togo & spent the next four years building Africa's super app, starting w/ Francophone Africa Today, Gozem operates across multiple verticals in ๐น๐ฌ, ๐ง๐ฏ, ๐ฌ๐ฆ, and ๐จ๐ฒ I recently transitioned away & had some time to reflect Here are 10 lessons I learned...
Nearly 60% of Africans live in either East or West Africa With the continent's demographic boom well underway, these dual economic gravity centers are concentrating talent & pulling investments into their orbit Here's a breakdown of Africa's population of ~1.5 billion by region
Francophone Africa may be the next frontier for fintech in Africa In this clip, fintech expert @Mat_Leopoldie breaks down payments in the region: "Neither strong banking nor strong mobile money infrastructure" Watch the full @AfridigestHQ webinar โ youtube.com/watch?v=WLERO8โฆ
This is the reality check most tech discussions about Africa skip. Building for the African market means understanding that 'nice to have' products are luxury items. The biggest opportunities are in making necessities more accessible, not creating new wants.
African markets aren't monolithic Different countries have different characteristics which require tailored approaches And that affects how payments will evolve across Africa by 2035 That's the subject of a new webinar from @AfridigestHQ Watch it here: youtube.com/watch?v=WLERO8โฆ
Couldn't say it better than you did! Integration is the only way for scalability.
'Africa' doesn't exist The continent's 1.5B+ consumers and $3T in GDP are deeply fragmented into mini-markets That creates: โข Duplicated costs โข Regulatory complexity โข Barriers to scale The most revolutionary act in African business isn't disruption โ it's integration ๐ก
The best kind of intelligence helps you understand what will happen tomorrow, not what happened yesterday.
๐ฅ Attendees gave this webinar 5 stars: "The best breakdown of payments in Africa I've seen" Missed our deep dive into Africa's payment future? Subscribe to @AfridigestHQ to get the full recording & exclusive insights directly in your inbox soon... โ afridigest.com/subscribe
โWe in the tech ecosystem need to do a better job of telling our own stories. When the narrative comes directly from us and we explain both our successes and failures clearly, that inspires a great deal of confidence and helps educate the local & global market.โ ๐ก โ Kyari Bukar
Why did Okra really shut down? That's one of the topics I got TLcom's Omobola Johnson to discuss during our panel at the US-NG Startup Investment Summit yesterday Plus Kyari Bukar shared untold stories about the birth of VC in ๐ณ๐ฌ Great insights from moderating this convo ๐๐ฝ
The future of payments in Africa is: โข Hybrid โ Consequences of market collisions โข Borderless โ African unification creates opportunities โข Inclusive โ New capabilities for new segments of society Download the report and let me know what you think bit.ly/FOPA2025
