Opera changed an important paradigm with African startups. Instead of waiting for the market, create the market. We keep thinking that if we build it they will come. They decided to take it to them and make them adopt it via the familiar. Business cases will be written on this.

I’ve always maintained that most startups in Africa are underfunded and most investors are clueless. I am an investor. One of the clueless. I am also entrepreneur, I know what the market requires. It is a lot of resources but we fell into the MVP/Lean mantra as universal panacea.

I have always believed in “Distribution first” approaches and encouraged startups to partner with incumbents who have distribution. Opera seems to have taken it further by modifying the distribution to suit their goals. The fast and furious approach with mobility is priceless!

Doing what they did requires a level of confidence that only money in the bank can give. The secret is that once you start executing with that kind of confidence, you may not even need that money eventually. Zero to $10m daily in transactions is a helluva momentum!

They can probably breakeven and stretch subsidies further at $50m daily. That way, they become truly deflationary and eliminate competition including incumbent transportation structures. This inevitable optimization needed to happen but could never have been predicted this way.

Instead of waiting for things to change by being the catalyst of change, Opera became the change by building a new version of the market. They did this by eliminating one word from their vocabulary “help” (thanks @tosinolaseinde), they are not helping but building their fate.

They are also not being helped, they are doing business. The typical African startup is stuck in the “help the market” paradigm borrowed from NGOs and impact investors. Opera is not helping Okadas riders and customers, they are creating value.

We have entered the value creation era. No more Mr. Nice Founder.