Every so often, this image floats on the internet. Twitter, in particular. It aggravates the hell out of me. Not because of what it represents but what it paints. It's such a piss on African and Kenyan enterprise - tech enterprise specifically. Thread:

This morning, this image was shared in a WhatsApp group. Clearly, No education, just training - @DavidNdii . Not sure what sort of regulation/policy fix is needed. Expropriation of VC funding without compensation?

Look, I am not saying diversity is not a problem in technology, particularly in funding. The Guardian did this piece that shed light on how difficult it is for non-white founders in Africa to raise capital to launch, grow, and scale their businesses. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/17/african-businesses-black-entrepreneurs-us-investors

There is a dichotomy between founding culture and funding inefficiency against African founded firms. Kenyans are INCREDIBLE founders! Right from birth, we have an outlined path. Birth - school - job - side hustle - side hustle replaces your job - get rich and buy a Toyota V8.

Second, what is a startup? If you use the academic sense of the word, then
@SportPesa
is by a large degree Kenya's first unicorn since M-Pesa. We do not speak enough about this company and how big of a success it was in less than 4 years. It was a locally founded
@KarauriR

Not to get confused, there are numerous examples of very successful tech companies taking into account exits, the scale of a problem being solved, and valuations. Africa's Talking , Pula , PesaPal, MODE, among many others and as seen in this image.

It takes more than money - human capital, product fit, customers to build. We seemingly have them all. So, If a jungu/Oyinbo lands from SF and solves a problem, in finance, why did we not do it first? See that is my problem.

Again, this space is so so small! The tech space barely scratches $1 Billion in contribution to the GDP of the country. There are less than 300 famed tech startups in Kenya with most of them likely locally founded. YET! Problems abound - real and apparent - tech can solve.

@docolumide thanks for giving me the idea to do this.

To sum it all up, there is NO founding problem in Kenya. There is clearly a Funding problem and a likely smaller press and publicity one. The solution? I have no idea. Tell your rich uncles to stop building malls, invest in startups and stop asking for 96% of the company for $20k

To sum it all up, there is NO founding problem in Kenya. There is clearly a Funding problem and a likely smaller press and publicity one. The solution? I have no idea. Tell your rich uncles to stop building malls, invest in startups and stop asking for 96% of the company for $20k