February 18, 2025 • 29 mins
Join hosts Maria and Yvonne on the Startup Leap Podcast as they dive deep into the inspiring journey of Olugbenga Agboola, popularly known as “GB” Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, Africa's leading fintech company making African payments seamless.
Discover how Flutterwave scaled to become one of Africa's most valued startups, operating in over 30 markets, processing over $31billion in transactions and serving almost a million businesses.
Learn about the challenges of navigating the regulatory landscape, building trust, and creating a seamless payment ecosystem across Africa. Hear personal anecdotes from GB, the importance of resilience, and the role of African entrepreneurs in solving local problems. Gain key insights into the future of payments in Africa and valuable advice for budding entrepreneurs.
00:00 Introduction to Flutterwave's Journey
00:56 The Vision and Scale of Flutterwave
02:16 Challenges and Solutions in African Payments
05:34 Building Trust and Regulatory Compliance
09:07 Fundraising and Storytelling
14:47 Personal Insights and Reflections
16:19 Team Allegiances and Soccer Fandom
16:36 Travel Tales and Company Leadership
17:46 Growing Up in Africa and Career Beginnings
18:46 The Drive Behind Entrepreneurship
20:44 Building Flutterwave: Challenges and Successes
26:19 Future of Payments in Africa
27:10 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Don’t miss this insightful conversation on African excellence, fintech and building a technology behemoth!
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Have questions, thoughts or comments? Drop them in the comments – we’d love to keep the conversation going!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Payment is a trust business.
(00:01):
A child will trust you to do their business.
Did you know this was the skill Flotao would get to?
The woman told me to be at this 10-year age age.
I was like, that's not true.
The operation of the 30 markets requires nine sisters in every market.
What did you do from the beginning?
I got an email on Monday morning, rejected.
Tuesday morning, I'm buying again.
And they were like, yo, what's going on here?
I'm ready for that rejection.
(00:22):
We're the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa right now.
Who is GB?
When I started this company, I had a full offer.
I'm just a...
Welcome to The Startup Leap, the number one podcast interviewing
startup founders who have taken the leap.
On The Startup Leap, we hear real, raw and relatable stories of how
(00:42):
they've navigated taking the leap.
We're your hosts.
I'm Yvonne.
And I'm Maria.
And this is The Startup Leap podcast.
Any statements made by Maria, Yvonne or The Startup Leap guests are
solely their view and are not advice.
Today, we have someone who founded one of Africa's largest
payments company.
(01:03):
Flutterwave is now one of the most valued African startups.
At 3 billion valuation, it serves almost a million businesses.
It touches over 30 African currencies.
And its goal is to enable payments for businesses and their
customers across Africa.
GB, we met almost nine years ago.
(01:25):
Did you know that this was the scale that Flutterwave would get to?
Was this your ambition or the law?
Let me start by saying thanks for inviting me into this podcast.
I recall when I was chasing you back in the day to use Flutterwave.
And I recall you giving me a lot of feedback.
And that was very instructive for us.
Going back in time, we did not know we'd be here today, to be very honest.
(01:49):
We're just thinking about doing what we love to do.
We want to make a product that people would like to use.
The problem we saw in the markets.
Quick background, I started my career with PayPal in the UK.
Worked for a bunch of companies across the world, from GT Bank to
Sonal Bank to Sterling Bank to Access Bank.
(02:12):
Started a company that did payments that was acquired by a bank.
This was my first rodeo.
But the problem we saw back then was the defragmentation of payment in Africa.
In every country in Africa you go to, payment works really well, to be honest.
Africa gets a badge rep for not being advanced.
(02:32):
We're one of the most advanced countries in payment.
Real-time transfers were available in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Kenya for decades.
And Pesa is fantastic.
In Nigeria today, where I went to somebody through NIPS,
they get the money instantly.
That is the Africa standard that everyone talks about a lot.
What we decided to do was to solve the probability of all these amazing payment types.
(02:58):
In Nigeria, NIPS works pretty well.
In Kenya, Pesa works amazingly well.
In Ghana, there's MTM UberMoney, HTM Money Rwanda.
The problem we're ready to solve for is if a business in Johannesburg wants to get paid by a customer in Lagos.
A better example, a business in Accra wants to get paid by a customer in Lagos.
(03:22):
Before Florida Wave, if they do a wire transfer, that money goes from Lagos to New York, New York to Accra.
It made no sense because money doesn't move, instruction moves.
If that merchant knows that their payment is confirmed, they will release goods.
That in day one or day two or day three, they will get paid.
That's what we're striving for.
We're striving for making Africa the payment hub of the world, the trade, which is a very tall ambition.
(03:48):
From my banking experience, large corporate who wanted to pay side of staff all over Africa, and it was hard to do.
How do we solve that problem and solve it well?
As Kenyans were from day one, our goal was not Nigeria or Kenya.
It was Africa.
We were trying to get it done.
But yes, we were not aware it would be like this today, but we knew the goal and we went ahead and we'll go.
(04:14):
When did you decide that you were going to go ahead to build Florida?
What was the decision?
When I couldn't solve it in a bank because I was an entrepreneur when I was working.
I worked for very amazing employers who gave me the room to innovate in my employment.
When I saw that the construct of my employers could not solve some problems, they all agreed with me and they've all supported it.
(04:41):
My employers are partners today of Florida Wave.
That is really amazing for me to see.
I recall a couple of months ago, I went with my board to see one of my employers in a bank.
When I got to their office, they had, welcome back on the wall.
Then they were showing some of my board members my seats.
I was like, oh, that's true.
(05:03):
You were in that corner.
Yes, I was in that corner.
It was amazing.
I had bosses like who of Sterling Bank, who is now the Memde of the Bank, amazing gentleman.
You know, Herbert of Bellet Memory.
And that was how we built this company.
We built this company on the back of our network and relationships at the beginning.
(05:24):
My co-founders, Leke and E, great, amazing guys.
We all brought what we knew how to do best at the table, to start this company and get it done properly.
I love how you set out with a thesis to make payments in Africa seamless, particularly across borders.
You set out to build a regulated product.
How did you go about building that product from zero to one?
Given the operating number 30 markets, you require licenses in every market.
(05:48):
What did you do from the very beginning, particularly being a regulatory product,
and how you thought about scale across borders with your customers?
That is why we have battle scars. Battle scars in reality, figuratively, mentally, emotionally.
Yes, it's really hard building from scratch.
It takes a lot from you.
(06:08):
When I started this company, I had a full afro.
Like when Barack Obama goes into the White House.
Like the change that comes with it.
Exactly. So I have a not-afro right now.
Yeah, so I think at first, most entrepreneurs, we also included, we thought the problem was technology.
(06:31):
It wasn't that. It was a trust business.
Technology is a trust enabler.
It was a trust business.
Payment is a trust business.
And people need to trust you.
Banks need to trust you to use their reals.
MyChamp will trust you to do their business.
It's not like SaaS where it's software.
What I see, what I get is different.
Even though we use software to enable payment,
(06:53):
but it's really a trust business.
And we learned that both the good and the hard way.
But in the last eight years, we've done pretty well.
We're the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa right now.
Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, Zambia.
(07:15):
We are licensed in all these countries and markets.
It is hard.
Each of them took a conscious effort.
In some countries, we have what I want.
For example, in Nigeria, we have a switching license,
payment license, remittance.
In Rwanda, we have EMI.
We are in the UK, we're licensed.
In the US, we have 30 state licenses.
Each application submitted differently.
(07:39):
We want to be here for the long term.
We also want to build a very sustainable business.
And to do so, we have to ensure we got the right approvers
to do what we do.
And so that's the journey.
We keep on trying to apply because beyond the application
itself, it gives us the trust that the third party regulator
has found you wealthy.
It's a privilege, frankly.
(07:59):
A license is a privilege.
You don't pay for it.
You apply.
You go through a process.
They find you wealthy, and then they give it to you.
And applying, getting granted, maintaining the licenses,
those are the things that we have to do to build that trust.
And I'm happy that we are constantly
proving that in our business.
What are our first year of challenges?
(08:20):
What's not we have to do?
We try to be resilient.
There was one license that we applied for, where
we applied like five times.
So what I used to do was that I would plan for a rejection.
And I would have it in my name, so I'd get it ready.
So I get an email on Monday morning, rejected.
Tuesday morning, I'm preparing again.
And they were like, yo, what's going on here?
They're just working it together already.
(08:41):
I was like, I'm ready for that rejection.
Mentally, I'm ready to be rejected.
It's crazy, but it's what it is.
Now that we've built that trust with them,
they give us the license.
So it's amazing to see that play out over time.
Tech doesn't make the companies the people.
Our secret sources of people that have worked there,
both in the past and now and working in the future,
are here right now.
(09:02):
People's payments are not personal.
People are requesting payments wherever they are in the world.
But people are somewhere making it happen.
And I think that is what makes everything work for us.
I want to go back a bit.
When you started, as you were pitching to potential partners,
either international or investors,
and trying to sell this vision,
what were the common things you heard at the time?
(09:22):
And how different are they to the reality now?
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To be honest, it was just intrigue.
(09:44):
There's not been a lot of education in Africa out there.
So the first thing we have to do was to first educate,
before you even pitch.
So in your pitch, you have to educate.
You have to let people understand the opportunity here
and the realistic arrow high that you can get,
and also the problems that we're solving for.
(10:07):
The issues we have in Africa
are the opportunities in Africa as well.
Depending on how you see it, that's where I see it.
If you can solve for that properly, that would be huge.
I spent time in China in 2018,
part of some e-founders program
that Alibaba Group organized.
And I saw first time how entrepreneurs solve problems
(10:28):
to help our community to grow and scale.
They solve the commerce payment, logistic intersection,
and that left China massively, right?
That's what we need to do in Africa.
We need to solve problems for ourselves.
We need African entrepreneurs to solve African problems.
Obviously, we might need outside capital,
which is where you have to be for best practice,
global excellence from day one.
(10:49):
I call it Africa in genuity, global excellence, right?
You have to bring the African nuances to the table
and then use that to build.
But again, shout out to my investors.
They've been folks who support the company,
who try to understand the context, the intent,
and intent matters a lot.
That's the difference between the reaction
you give to something.
(11:10):
If the intent is great, you're able to understand
the perspective.
It's really a function of having the right investors,
the right partners who have an interest in Africa.
That makes a difference.
And that is what has also helped us to today.
We've been very lucky and blessed as a company.
There's challenges, but those are the opportunities, right?
(11:31):
If you look at all the data, the demographics of Africa,
it definitely points to the future of being in Africa.
However, there's still this challenge
when it comes to fundraising today.
I know that you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs
on the continent.
And I think one thing that Flatwaver's done really well
is storytelling and sharing the story of the opportunity
on the continent, particularly when it comes to payments.
(11:52):
But I'm just curious, was that intentional?
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs
who are setting out to raise today,
where investors may not understand the local context
and so on?
How did you navigate that?
I think my team is actually very incredible.
All the way from the beginning, right?
From the first people we hired in marketing in Flatwaver,
even in as well, great storyteller, my co-founder,
(12:15):
Leke, we're all telling stories in multiple shapes or forms.
I always prefer to tell my story with product and technology.
Some people are great at doing these things differently.
We've been lucky to have a variety of people in the company
who have different skill sets to tell our stories properly.
And that has helped us a lot.
What is important right now is profitability,
building a proper business from day one.
(12:37):
I think for us in Africa,
Africa will benefit massively from a lot of small companies.
We hired 10, 130 people and they're doing pretty well.
I don't think the,
people should not chase a peer-to-peer company.
We would do a lot better if we have,
imagine having a million, 20 million dollar companies.
(12:57):
That would make a massive difference in Africa.
America is like that.
The country of entrepreneurs and small businesses,
because they have so many small businesses,
who are in their own small niche, small state or city,
employing people, doing really well.
My advice for body entrepreneurs is always look,
stay true to your goals, stay true to your not-star,
things will go wrong.
(13:18):
Especially for those, I would love to hear that,
especially for those who are experienced operators like you,
they've built, they're builders.
They have massive ambitions.
Because imagine you pitching this pitch like nine years ago,
saying, see, there's a world where there's a trust layer
and we want people to be able to trade with each other
as easily as people trade with each other across the world.
What would you say to them, that disjoint between what they see,
(13:40):
what the current market is, but what the opportunity could be?
I think people need to just forge on.
I think right now, thankfully in Africa,
there's a lot of African VCs who understand the content
that was in there before.
That's one of the reasons why I go to that,
to you Maria as well, because I saw the opportunity
in Africans funding Africa, because you know what not to fund
(14:04):
and what to fund, what's on the ground, the reality of things.
And I think you can find on Google that you would know,
because obviously you're in the market.
And that's why I think it's very good right now that's happening.
So I think that makes it easier to raise capital.
But African VCs will not fund a company
who is just trying to build something for business sake.
They want to see you build a proper business.
They want to see you have an impact.
(14:25):
You have to be for profit and for good at the same time.
Fortunately, it's the continent that we are in.
And that's why I think my advice would be just keep going in,
knowing that it is not easy to start.
But once you get started, it might be smoother.
But again, that's also a possibility.
You're not sure.
I encourage you to do what you want to do,
(14:46):
but build a small, profitable business.
That also works.
Yeah.
I would love to say going to you, Gibi.
We were just saying that you don't do that many podcasts.
I think that my own thesis is that because you're a builder,
you want to build.
Heads down.
And you said it earlier with the personalities
of the co-founder, you said everyone brings their skill sets
and expresses themselves differently.
(15:07):
I'd love to get a sense of who you are,
because I think entrepreneurs imprint themselves
into their businesses.
They bring the passion, the drive.
They bring the ambition.
Who is Gibi?
Give us something.
I'm just a builder, sort of engineer by ground.
I love to solve problems.
That's one of my core.
(15:29):
I think I've also been incredibly blessed
by the people around me in the sense that Florida Reef today
is a function of everybody that has contributed
to make it work, from my colleagues, to friends,
to family, to co-founders, to people
who have left amazing jobs to join me
in the mission of the company.
By the way, I did a podcast, I think, a year ago
(15:50):
with a professor from Georgetown.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That was available online.
So I think this is my second one.
But I think it's a trust thing.
I just want to talk to people that I trust and want to talk to.
And I think that's what I find here,
being able to just be myself around the microphone.
I think it's really interesting.
Yeah, I'm just, I like Formula One.
(16:12):
I like NBA.
Really?
Yes.
OK.
But you have been a Formula One driver, like a basketballer
in your previous life.
When I was younger, I had asthma.
So I couldn't have done that.
But I love NBA.
I'm team Steph Curry.
Really?
I'm team Lewis Hamilton.
I love soccer, obviously.
Who's your favorite football team?
Arsenal.
Goodness.
(16:33):
Arsenal.
Arsenal.
They're on the up.
They're doing well these days.
Where these days?
I used to love traveling, but not anymore.
I like to stay in one place.
I bet you also travel a lot for work.
I feel like you're about to say travel.
And then when you start traveling for work,
you're like, look, it's inconvenient.
There was one day I was flying from Atlanta to Lagos.
(16:53):
And I got to the Delta lounge.
And I said, welcome back.
I was like, what do you mean?
They recognized you.
You realize that you're a frequent flyer by everything.
You know your ginger here, right?
Yeah, I travel a lot.
It's ridiculous.
But that is getting better now.
At FloraWave, we're scaling.
We have amazing leaders in the company.
We have Mitesh, who just joined us recently from Citibank
(17:14):
as our CFO.
He's doing a lot of the travels right now.
We have Bridget, who looks after astrology at FloraWave.
I have oil expansion.
We have got Birch, engineering, our CTO.
We have a bunch of folks in the company today
who are incredible.
Bankole, Lusaveta, Liga, Regulatory Affairs,
more compliance, Amarach Risk.
(17:38):
So these leaders are taking a lot off my plate.
And they are forging on driving value in the company.
And of course, Wendy, if I don't mention her name,
that would be a problem.
OK, OK, fantastic.
So you grew up in Nigeria, Africa, right?
Yes, proper African boy.
The reason why I was saying is because you mentioned
something earlier that understanding
(17:59):
the nuance of the concept probably was very influential
in how you thought about what was possible.
Beyond growing up in Africa, I worked in Africa.
I suffered a lot in Africa.
You know, African corporate are my thing.
Africa is my child.
So, boom and butter, yes.
You lived in the UK.
For how long were you with PayPal?
Briefly.
Worked with them as an engineer when I left school.
(18:19):
This one working with PayPal.
So I'm trying to understand where in your upbringing
the resilience comes from.
Because to build something that has these many licenses,
these many obstacles, but on the flip side, opportunities.
Like you said, it's never one without the other.
Where do you think that comes from?
And maybe also, everyone romanticizes
(18:41):
like the idea of starting a business
and like building an ambitious company.
What's your thoughts on the justice too?
So resilience is an important word to me personally
because obviously I believe a lot in that.
My resilience comes from, I don't know, is it family?
Is it my upbringing?
(19:02):
It's a mixture of all of those things together in my opinion.
My drive comes from just wanting to be better.
I want to be better.
I want to build better solutions.
I want to solve problems.
I want to go from one to two to three to four to five.
I believe in incremental growth.
That has helped me a lot.
I think growing up also had an effect on that.
Having family that are constantly pushing you.
(19:25):
You get a grade from school.
They're asking you why didn't you get the next grade?
Why were you not the best?
Traditional African.
Typical African parents.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And then also seeing having families who are treblizers,
ad, haunties, cousins, who are amazing people.
(19:45):
You also know that at some point you would be an entrepreneur yourself.
I didn't start to be an entrepreneur.
Though it's always been there, to be honest.
I started, my first company was doing Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Really?
Yes.
I sold out to a lot of companies in the UK.
Yes, before I joined PayPal.
And also across South Africa as well.
(20:06):
So I think for me it's only just been,
if there's something I want to do and it's not available,
why can't I build it?
And that's why I like software engineering.
But I love coding, because of that I can build things that I don't see available.
And that I think has been one of the drivers for me as a person.
But I thought about building in safe spaces.
And that's why I work for companies and I enjoy working for them.
(20:28):
If I could solve the Florida Wave problem in a bank,
I would have done it in a bank, right?
But when I couldn't solve it in a bank,
then I felt like it could be an opportunity to do it in a non-bank setting.
And that was why Florida Wave was birthed, right?
But I think I just love to solve problems and to build a solution.
Just looking back, it's almost 10 years since Florida Wave started.
(20:52):
You know the funny thing, someone told me to be at least 10 years,
I was like, that's not true.
Two years I've been down with this thing, what's the big deal?
They were like, we told you,
you take at least 10 years to build a company that's sustainable.
At least 10 years.
I love that.
I'm like, you're right, sir.
Yeah, 10 years after.
Fun flies when you're having fun.
Looking back, what's the one thing that you're most proud of?
(21:14):
I'm proud of the impact we've made.
People thought it was impossible.
Now people know it's possible.
That impact, I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of seeing people who have passed through Florida Wave infrastructure
go out there and they start to shine.
Build businesses themselves even as well.
Build businesses.
Beyond that, we have people who have let us work for Google,
American Express, Meta, Netflix, RDA.
(21:38):
We have people that their career was shaped in Florida Wave
and they went out there and they excelled.
I love to see that.
People say, a lot of them are side companies, they've let you do this.
I'm like, well done, this is good.
I think that's interesting.
Now people know it's possible to start from scratch and go out there
and just lay all on the table and just get to work.
(22:01):
I think we've shown that it's possible.
Now we're also showing that you can also be resilient.
You can stumble.
You can also keep working, right?
You can see issues, you can solve them.
And it's not going to be easy.
Nobody promised easy.
I recall a verse in the Bible about nobody told you to be easy,
but to be what it is.
That's what we're trying to do.
And from the impact perspective, 16 billion dollars transacted.
(22:23):
I think sometimes it's numbers you can throw them,
but those are businesses.
Those are businesses that have moved money using your infrastructure.
Those are businesses that have been enabled.
What was more difficult than you predicted?
What was the thing you didn't expect?
I think for each phase we are in,
we have a unique set of challenges that we need to solve.
When we get that done, we turn that phase,
(22:43):
another set comes up and that's just the way it is.
I'm not surprised.
I recall one of the banks I worked in over the last 10 years
and they would tell me,
Gibi, you're just a year eight plus a further wave.
Remember that.
So don't think that you're going to build the year 100 capacity in 80 years.
(23:04):
It's not possible.
And whilst you compare our results with yours,
you should compare like for like.
Go back and compare year eight of this bank.
Then you'll see that you're actually not doing badly.
You're doing incredibly well actually.
You're doing very well.
Yeah, so you need to just keep going.
And when I speak to people that I've done before,
people like Herbert, people like Tony,
(23:27):
people that have built companies in emerging market,
they tell me, Gibi, just keep going.
It's not easy.
It was easy for us as well.
But it's like you need to build Africa, right?
You have to keep going.
You have to do this.
I think that is very encouraging to hear and to see amazing people like that
who have done this in a scale and they keep going as well.
(23:49):
Right? Yeah.
One thing that I found very interesting about Flutterwave
is the pace in which you ship out new products
and constantly bring out new features, new offerings.
I'd love you to talk a little bit about how after coming up to 10 years,
how that's still evolving and how the DNA within Flutterwave has enabled that.
I think we've evolved over the years now.
(24:11):
In recent years, we are still shipping,
but we're shipping responsibly, if that makes sense.
And we're also shipping with scale in mind.
There's a time when a tiny change is just a tiny change.
Now, a tiny change is a customer saying,
oh my gosh, my pay is not working anymore.
So many customers, so many impact.
(24:34):
We have to be careful how we ship.
I'm happy with the team that has evolved to that level right now.
And I see the maturity team over build.
Now we're shipping.
An example is SendUp, for example.
That is a very matured product.
And that's the Remixance app that was sent in.
Yeah, it allows Africans in diaspora to send money back home.
Anybody in the US, UK, to send money back home to Africa.
(24:55):
Very beautiful seamless product and it works seamlessly as well.
And that was a vitriol of our APIs where we allow.
Now APIs are much more robust, backward compatible.
We allow so many payment types to work on our platform right now
through one API.
And we've fixed a lot of issues that we had in the past on those APIs
(25:17):
as well.
But the point really is we're now in the mature stage of the company.
We're taking grown up language right now.
And that is important for us.
And that's why you see people like Des join us.
From Citi, people like Bamkoly, Xvisa, Jeff Lollowave, people like Bridget,
PayPal, a decade plus.
(25:37):
And that's because we are now at that stage where we're building for scale.
Right?
You've spoken about your ambitions to go public.
Our ambitions are really one, grow the venue, grow our margins,
make our OPEX make sense, and be cash or positive,
(25:57):
and keep on being cash or positive.
That's the goal I have right now.
My immediate goal is not to go public.
It's just the-
If that comes as an eventuality to-
Once I've cash or positive, which is the goal I have right now,
then I can have all the options available to me.
But the goal right now is just double down, go deeper,
know wider, be there for my customers, and then to go and expand the business.
(26:20):
Yeah.
What's your view of the future of payments in Africa?
African payments will keep evolving.
I see a future whereby contactless will be a big deal very soon.
I see a future whereby pay-rebound transfer, open banking will scale.
There's a lot for us to build in Africa still, right?
(26:41):
But I'm happy that things are shaping up right now, which is good.
For context, pay-rebound transfer as a payment type did not exist five years ago.
Yeah, I remember.
Yes.
Now it's one of the biggest payment type on the continent, right?
And that is incredible, right?
Non-card payments are on the rise massively.
(27:02):
Obviously, they have less fraud risk, easier to settle.
That is what we're going through as a context.
So I see that happening across-
I see tokenization of accompaniments also happening as well.
One of the things we like to do just as we wrap up the episode is go into more-
The idea is that we have people who are listening, who are builders, who are thinking,
who have problems they want to solve, but they want to learn from the best,
(27:24):
from people who've gone through the fires, where if you could go back to GB
and tell him something just as he started Flutterwave with your co-founders,
what would you say?
Ten seconds.
It doesn't have to change what you do now.
But what do you think you needed to hear at that point?
So I have never romanticized entrepreneurship.
(27:46):
People should not.
It's hard work.
If you can solve that problem within the confinement of a well-deserved organization,
please, that's also a privilege.
Please do it.
Let's be problem-solving focused.
Not really about the method.
You can go intra or entrepreneur.
(28:07):
It doesn't really matter.
That's very important.
It's hard work building it from scratch.
And I think it makes you appreciate your players a lot more when you do it by yourself.
You're like, oh my god, I understand why this, why that.
So I would say just because of the good you want to solve, not the process,
look for the best way to solve that problem and get it done.
At the end of the day, make sure you make an impact.
(28:28):
That's important.
Advocate needs that right now.
And what are some of the resources that helped you along the way,
whether it be books, podcasts that some of our listeners could potentially tap into as well?
I think experience helped me a lot.
Working for companies, going to the ranks helped me a lot to see how things actually work in real life.
Those are one of my biggest ones.
(28:48):
Also having mentors, people out there to just listen to you, whatever the issue is.
I just give you their own version of how you can solve the problem.
My co-founders helped.
The people that I work with in Florida with, they inspire me.
I learn from them every day, which is amazing.
So all of that helps to build my opinion where we are today as a company.
(29:10):
I guess you would recommend to come on the startup leap next.
Who would you recommend?
Does it matter the continent?
Okay, I would choose Africa.
And I would recommend Richmond of investment, Richmond and Yamu, gateway combo.
(29:30):
Thank you so much.
Thank you for spending time with us.
We enjoyed this.
Same here. Thanks for having me.
Leave a review.
Tell us what you think of this episode on all of our platforms at the Startup Leap pod.
Do you have a question?
Ask us and we'll ask our guests.
Go to the startupleap.io.
See you next time.
Payment is a trust business.
(00:01):
A child will trust you to do their business.
Did you know this was the skill Flotao would get to?
The woman told me to be at this 10-year age age.
I was like, that's not true.
The operation of the 30 markets requires nine sisters in every market.
What did you do from the beginning?
I got an email on Monday morning, rejected.
Tuesday morning, I'm buying again.
And they were like, yo, what's going on here?
I'm ready for that rejection.
(00:22):
We're the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa right now.
Who is GB?
When I started this company, I had a full offer.
I'm just a...
Welcome to The Startup Leap, the number one podcast interviewing
startup founders who have taken the leap.
On The Startup Leap, we hear real, raw and relatable stories of how
(00:42):
they've navigated taking the leap.
We're your hosts.
I'm Yvonne.
And I'm Maria.
And this is The Startup Leap podcast.
Any statements made by Maria, Yvonne or The Startup Leap guests are
solely their view and are not advice.
Today, we have someone who founded one of Africa's largest
payments company.
(01:03):
Flutterwave is now one of the most valued African startups.
At 3 billion valuation, it serves almost a million businesses.
It touches over 30 African currencies.
And its goal is to enable payments for businesses and their
customers across Africa.
GB, we met almost nine years ago.
(01:25):
Did you know that this was the scale that Flutterwave would get to?
Was this your ambition or the law?
Let me start by saying thanks for inviting me into this podcast.
I recall when I was chasing you back in the day to use Flutterwave.
And I recall you giving me a lot of feedback.
And that was very instructive for us.
Going back in time, we did not know we'd be here today, to be very honest.
(01:49):
We're just thinking about doing what we love to do.
We want to make a product that people would like to use.
The problem we saw in the markets.
Quick background, I started my career with PayPal in the UK.
Worked for a bunch of companies across the world, from GT Bank to
Sonal Bank to Sterling Bank to Access Bank.
(02:12):
Started a company that did payments that was acquired by a bank.
This was my first rodeo.
But the problem we saw back then was the defragmentation of payment in Africa.
In every country in Africa you go to, payment works really well, to be honest.
Africa gets a badge rep for not being advanced.
(02:32):
We're one of the most advanced countries in payment.
Real-time transfers were available in Nigeria, in Ghana, in Kenya for decades.
And Pesa is fantastic.
In Nigeria today, where I went to somebody through NIPS,
they get the money instantly.
That is the Africa standard that everyone talks about a lot.
What we decided to do was to solve the probability of all these amazing payment types.
(02:58):
In Nigeria, NIPS works pretty well.
In Kenya, Pesa works amazingly well.
In Ghana, there's MTM UberMoney, HTM Money Rwanda.
The problem we're ready to solve for is if a business in Johannesburg wants to get paid by a customer in Lagos.
A better example, a business in Accra wants to get paid by a customer in Lagos.
(03:22):
Before Florida Wave, if they do a wire transfer, that money goes from Lagos to New York, New York to Accra.
It made no sense because money doesn't move, instruction moves.
If that merchant knows that their payment is confirmed, they will release goods.
That in day one or day two or day three, they will get paid.
That's what we're striving for.
We're striving for making Africa the payment hub of the world, the trade, which is a very tall ambition.
(03:48):
From my banking experience, large corporate who wanted to pay side of staff all over Africa, and it was hard to do.
How do we solve that problem and solve it well?
As Kenyans were from day one, our goal was not Nigeria or Kenya.
It was Africa.
We were trying to get it done.
But yes, we were not aware it would be like this today, but we knew the goal and we went ahead and we'll go.
(04:14):
When did you decide that you were going to go ahead to build Florida?
What was the decision?
When I couldn't solve it in a bank because I was an entrepreneur when I was working.
I worked for very amazing employers who gave me the room to innovate in my employment.
When I saw that the construct of my employers could not solve some problems, they all agreed with me and they've all supported it.
(04:41):
My employers are partners today of Florida Wave.
That is really amazing for me to see.
I recall a couple of months ago, I went with my board to see one of my employers in a bank.
When I got to their office, they had, welcome back on the wall.
Then they were showing some of my board members my seats.
I was like, oh, that's true.
(05:03):
You were in that corner.
Yes, I was in that corner.
It was amazing.
I had bosses like who of Sterling Bank, who is now the Memde of the Bank, amazing gentleman.
You know, Herbert of Bellet Memory.
And that was how we built this company.
We built this company on the back of our network and relationships at the beginning.
(05:24):
My co-founders, Leke and E, great, amazing guys.
We all brought what we knew how to do best at the table, to start this company and get it done properly.
I love how you set out with a thesis to make payments in Africa seamless, particularly across borders.
You set out to build a regulated product.
How did you go about building that product from zero to one?
Given the operating number 30 markets, you require licenses in every market.
(05:48):
What did you do from the very beginning, particularly being a regulatory product,
and how you thought about scale across borders with your customers?
That is why we have battle scars. Battle scars in reality, figuratively, mentally, emotionally.
Yes, it's really hard building from scratch.
It takes a lot from you.
(06:08):
When I started this company, I had a full afro.
Like when Barack Obama goes into the White House.
Like the change that comes with it.
Exactly. So I have a not-afro right now.
Yeah, so I think at first, most entrepreneurs, we also included, we thought the problem was technology.
(06:31):
It wasn't that. It was a trust business.
Technology is a trust enabler.
It was a trust business.
Payment is a trust business.
And people need to trust you.
Banks need to trust you to use their reals.
MyChamp will trust you to do their business.
It's not like SaaS where it's software.
What I see, what I get is different.
Even though we use software to enable payment,
(06:53):
but it's really a trust business.
And we learned that both the good and the hard way.
But in the last eight years, we've done pretty well.
We're the most licensed non-bank entity in Africa right now.
Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, Zambia.
(07:15):
We are licensed in all these countries and markets.
It is hard.
Each of them took a conscious effort.
In some countries, we have what I want.
For example, in Nigeria, we have a switching license,
payment license, remittance.
In Rwanda, we have EMI.
We are in the UK, we're licensed.
In the US, we have 30 state licenses.
Each application submitted differently.
(07:39):
We want to be here for the long term.
We also want to build a very sustainable business.
And to do so, we have to ensure we got the right approvers
to do what we do.
And so that's the journey.
We keep on trying to apply because beyond the application
itself, it gives us the trust that the third party regulator
has found you wealthy.
It's a privilege, frankly.
(07:59):
A license is a privilege.
You don't pay for it.
You apply.
You go through a process.
They find you wealthy, and then they give it to you.
And applying, getting granted, maintaining the licenses,
those are the things that we have to do to build that trust.
And I'm happy that we are constantly
proving that in our business.
What are our first year of challenges?
(08:20):
What's not we have to do?
We try to be resilient.
There was one license that we applied for, where
we applied like five times.
So what I used to do was that I would plan for a rejection.
And I would have it in my name, so I'd get it ready.
So I get an email on Monday morning, rejected.
Tuesday morning, I'm preparing again.
And they were like, yo, what's going on here?
They're just working it together already.
(08:41):
I was like, I'm ready for that rejection.
Mentally, I'm ready to be rejected.
It's crazy, but it's what it is.
Now that we've built that trust with them,
they give us the license.
So it's amazing to see that play out over time.
Tech doesn't make the companies the people.
Our secret sources of people that have worked there,
both in the past and now and working in the future,
are here right now.
(09:02):
People's payments are not personal.
People are requesting payments wherever they are in the world.
But people are somewhere making it happen.
And I think that is what makes everything work for us.
I want to go back a bit.
When you started, as you were pitching to potential partners,
either international or investors,
and trying to sell this vision,
what were the common things you heard at the time?
(09:22):
And how different are they to the reality now?
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If you're enjoying the podcast, hit that subscribe button.
Yep, whether you're watching on YouTube
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To be honest, it was just intrigue.
(09:44):
There's not been a lot of education in Africa out there.
So the first thing we have to do was to first educate,
before you even pitch.
So in your pitch, you have to educate.
You have to let people understand the opportunity here
and the realistic arrow high that you can get,
and also the problems that we're solving for.
(10:07):
The issues we have in Africa
are the opportunities in Africa as well.
Depending on how you see it, that's where I see it.
If you can solve for that properly, that would be huge.
I spent time in China in 2018,
part of some e-founders program
that Alibaba Group organized.
And I saw first time how entrepreneurs solve problems
(10:28):
to help our community to grow and scale.
They solve the commerce payment, logistic intersection,
and that left China massively, right?
That's what we need to do in Africa.
We need to solve problems for ourselves.
We need African entrepreneurs to solve African problems.
Obviously, we might need outside capital,
which is where you have to be for best practice,
global excellence from day one.
(10:49):
I call it Africa in genuity, global excellence, right?
You have to bring the African nuances to the table
and then use that to build.
But again, shout out to my investors.
They've been folks who support the company,
who try to understand the context, the intent,
and intent matters a lot.
That's the difference between the reaction
you give to something.
(11:10):
If the intent is great, you're able to understand
the perspective.
It's really a function of having the right investors,
the right partners who have an interest in Africa.
That makes a difference.
And that is what has also helped us to today.
We've been very lucky and blessed as a company.
There's challenges, but those are the opportunities, right?
(11:31):
If you look at all the data, the demographics of Africa,
it definitely points to the future of being in Africa.
However, there's still this challenge
when it comes to fundraising today.
I know that you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs
on the continent.
And I think one thing that Flatwaver's done really well
is storytelling and sharing the story of the opportunity
on the continent, particularly when it comes to payments.
(11:52):
But I'm just curious, was that intentional?
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs
who are setting out to raise today,
where investors may not understand the local context
and so on?
How did you navigate that?
I think my team is actually very incredible.
All the way from the beginning, right?
From the first people we hired in marketing in Flatwaver,
even in as well, great storyteller, my co-founder,
(12:15):
Leke, we're all telling stories in multiple shapes or forms.
I always prefer to tell my story with product and technology.
Some people are great at doing these things differently.
We've been lucky to have a variety of people in the company
who have different skill sets to tell our stories properly.
And that has helped us a lot.
What is important right now is profitability,
building a proper business from day one.
(12:37):
I think for us in Africa,
Africa will benefit massively from a lot of small companies.
We hired 10, 130 people and they're doing pretty well.
I don't think the,
people should not chase a peer-to-peer company.
We would do a lot better if we have,
imagine having a million, 20 million dollar companies.
(12:57):
That would make a massive difference in Africa.
America is like that.
The country of entrepreneurs and small businesses,
because they have so many small businesses,
who are in their own small niche, small state or city,
employing people, doing really well.
My advice for body entrepreneurs is always look,
stay true to your goals, stay true to your not-star,
things will go wrong.
(13:18):
Especially for those, I would love to hear that,
especially for those who are experienced operators like you,
they've built, they're builders.
They have massive ambitions.
Because imagine you pitching this pitch like nine years ago,
saying, see, there's a world where there's a trust layer
and we want people to be able to trade with each other
as easily as people trade with each other across the world.
What would you say to them, that disjoint between what they see,
(13:40):
what the current market is, but what the opportunity could be?
I think people need to just forge on.
I think right now, thankfully in Africa,
there's a lot of African VCs who understand the content
that was in there before.
That's one of the reasons why I go to that,
to you Maria as well, because I saw the opportunity
in Africans funding Africa, because you know what not to fund
(14:04):
and what to fund, what's on the ground, the reality of things.
And I think you can find on Google that you would know,
because obviously you're in the market.
And that's why I think it's very good right now that's happening.
So I think that makes it easier to raise capital.
But African VCs will not fund a company
who is just trying to build something for business sake.
They want to see you build a proper business.
They want to see you have an impact.
(14:25):
You have to be for profit and for good at the same time.
Fortunately, it's the continent that we are in.
And that's why I think my advice would be just keep going in,
knowing that it is not easy to start.
But once you get started, it might be smoother.
But again, that's also a possibility.
You're not sure.
I encourage you to do what you want to do,
(14:46):
but build a small, profitable business.
That also works.
Yeah.
I would love to say going to you, Gibi.
We were just saying that you don't do that many podcasts.
I think that my own thesis is that because you're a builder,
you want to build.
Heads down.
And you said it earlier with the personalities
of the co-founder, you said everyone brings their skill sets
and expresses themselves differently.
(15:07):
I'd love to get a sense of who you are,
because I think entrepreneurs imprint themselves
into their businesses.
They bring the passion, the drive.
They bring the ambition.
Who is Gibi?
Give us something.
I'm just a builder, sort of engineer by ground.
I love to solve problems.
That's one of my core.
(15:29):
I think I've also been incredibly blessed
by the people around me in the sense that Florida Reef today
is a function of everybody that has contributed
to make it work, from my colleagues, to friends,
to family, to co-founders, to people
who have left amazing jobs to join me
in the mission of the company.
By the way, I did a podcast, I think, a year ago
(15:50):
with a professor from Georgetown.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That was available online.
So I think this is my second one.
But I think it's a trust thing.
I just want to talk to people that I trust and want to talk to.
And I think that's what I find here,
being able to just be myself around the microphone.
I think it's really interesting.
Yeah, I'm just, I like Formula One.
(16:12):
I like NBA.
Really?
Yes.
OK.
But you have been a Formula One driver, like a basketballer
in your previous life.
When I was younger, I had asthma.
So I couldn't have done that.
But I love NBA.
I'm team Steph Curry.
Really?
I'm team Lewis Hamilton.
I love soccer, obviously.
Who's your favorite football team?
Arsenal.
Goodness.
(16:33):
Arsenal.
Arsenal.
They're on the up.
They're doing well these days.
Where these days?
I used to love traveling, but not anymore.
I like to stay in one place.
I bet you also travel a lot for work.
I feel like you're about to say travel.
And then when you start traveling for work,
you're like, look, it's inconvenient.
There was one day I was flying from Atlanta to Lagos.
(16:53):
And I got to the Delta lounge.
And I said, welcome back.
I was like, what do you mean?
They recognized you.
You realize that you're a frequent flyer by everything.
You know your ginger here, right?
Yeah, I travel a lot.
It's ridiculous.
But that is getting better now.
At FloraWave, we're scaling.
We have amazing leaders in the company.
We have Mitesh, who just joined us recently from Citibank
(17:14):
as our CFO.
He's doing a lot of the travels right now.
We have Bridget, who looks after astrology at FloraWave.
I have oil expansion.
We have got Birch, engineering, our CTO.
We have a bunch of folks in the company today
who are incredible.
Bankole, Lusaveta, Liga, Regulatory Affairs,
more compliance, Amarach Risk.
(17:38):
So these leaders are taking a lot off my plate.
And they are forging on driving value in the company.
And of course, Wendy, if I don't mention her name,
that would be a problem.
OK, OK, fantastic.
So you grew up in Nigeria, Africa, right?
Yes, proper African boy.
The reason why I was saying is because you mentioned
something earlier that understanding
(17:59):
the nuance of the concept probably was very influential
in how you thought about what was possible.
Beyond growing up in Africa, I worked in Africa.
I suffered a lot in Africa.
You know, African corporate are my thing.
Africa is my child.
So, boom and butter, yes.
You lived in the UK.
For how long were you with PayPal?
Briefly.
Worked with them as an engineer when I left school.
(18:19):
This one working with PayPal.
So I'm trying to understand where in your upbringing
the resilience comes from.
Because to build something that has these many licenses,
these many obstacles, but on the flip side, opportunities.
Like you said, it's never one without the other.
Where do you think that comes from?
And maybe also, everyone romanticizes
(18:41):
like the idea of starting a business
and like building an ambitious company.
What's your thoughts on the justice too?
So resilience is an important word to me personally
because obviously I believe a lot in that.
My resilience comes from, I don't know, is it family?
Is it my upbringing?
(19:02):
It's a mixture of all of those things together in my opinion.
My drive comes from just wanting to be better.
I want to be better.
I want to build better solutions.
I want to solve problems.
I want to go from one to two to three to four to five.
I believe in incremental growth.
That has helped me a lot.
I think growing up also had an effect on that.
Having family that are constantly pushing you.
(19:25):
You get a grade from school.
They're asking you why didn't you get the next grade?
Why were you not the best?
Traditional African.
Typical African parents.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And then also seeing having families who are treblizers,
ad, haunties, cousins, who are amazing people.
(19:45):
You also know that at some point you would be an entrepreneur yourself.
I didn't start to be an entrepreneur.
Though it's always been there, to be honest.
I started, my first company was doing Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Really?
Yes.
I sold out to a lot of companies in the UK.
Yes, before I joined PayPal.
And also across South Africa as well.
(20:06):
So I think for me it's only just been,
if there's something I want to do and it's not available,
why can't I build it?
And that's why I like software engineering.
But I love coding, because of that I can build things that I don't see available.
And that I think has been one of the drivers for me as a person.
But I thought about building in safe spaces.
And that's why I work for companies and I enjoy working for them.
(20:28):
If I could solve the Florida Wave problem in a bank,
I would have done it in a bank, right?
But when I couldn't solve it in a bank,
then I felt like it could be an opportunity to do it in a non-bank setting.
And that was why Florida Wave was birthed, right?
But I think I just love to solve problems and to build a solution.
Just looking back, it's almost 10 years since Florida Wave started.
(20:52):
You know the funny thing, someone told me to be at least 10 years,
I was like, that's not true.
Two years I've been down with this thing, what's the big deal?
They were like, we told you,
you take at least 10 years to build a company that's sustainable.
At least 10 years.
I love that.
I'm like, you're right, sir.
Yeah, 10 years after.
Fun flies when you're having fun.
Looking back, what's the one thing that you're most proud of?
(21:14):
I'm proud of the impact we've made.
People thought it was impossible.
Now people know it's possible.
That impact, I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of seeing people who have passed through Florida Wave infrastructure
go out there and they start to shine.
Build businesses themselves even as well.
Build businesses.
Beyond that, we have people who have let us work for Google,
American Express, Meta, Netflix, RDA.
(21:38):
We have people that their career was shaped in Florida Wave
and they went out there and they excelled.
I love to see that.
People say, a lot of them are side companies, they've let you do this.
I'm like, well done, this is good.
I think that's interesting.
Now people know it's possible to start from scratch and go out there
and just lay all on the table and just get to work.
(22:01):
I think we've shown that it's possible.
Now we're also showing that you can also be resilient.
You can stumble.
You can also keep working, right?
You can see issues, you can solve them.
And it's not going to be easy.
Nobody promised easy.
I recall a verse in the Bible about nobody told you to be easy,
but to be what it is.
That's what we're trying to do.
And from the impact perspective, 16 billion dollars transacted.
(22:23):
I think sometimes it's numbers you can throw them,
but those are businesses.
Those are businesses that have moved money using your infrastructure.
Those are businesses that have been enabled.
What was more difficult than you predicted?
What was the thing you didn't expect?
I think for each phase we are in,
we have a unique set of challenges that we need to solve.
When we get that done, we turn that phase,
(22:43):
another set comes up and that's just the way it is.
I'm not surprised.
I recall one of the banks I worked in over the last 10 years
and they would tell me,
Gibi, you're just a year eight plus a further wave.
Remember that.
So don't think that you're going to build the year 100 capacity in 80 years.
(23:04):
It's not possible.
And whilst you compare our results with yours,
you should compare like for like.
Go back and compare year eight of this bank.
Then you'll see that you're actually not doing badly.
You're doing incredibly well actually.
You're doing very well.
Yeah, so you need to just keep going.
And when I speak to people that I've done before,
people like Herbert, people like Tony,
(23:27):
people that have built companies in emerging market,
they tell me, Gibi, just keep going.
It's not easy.
It was easy for us as well.
But it's like you need to build Africa, right?
You have to keep going.
You have to do this.
I think that is very encouraging to hear and to see amazing people like that
who have done this in a scale and they keep going as well.
(23:49):
Right? Yeah.
One thing that I found very interesting about Flutterwave
is the pace in which you ship out new products
and constantly bring out new features, new offerings.
I'd love you to talk a little bit about how after coming up to 10 years,
how that's still evolving and how the DNA within Flutterwave has enabled that.
I think we've evolved over the years now.
(24:11):
In recent years, we are still shipping,
but we're shipping responsibly, if that makes sense.
And we're also shipping with scale in mind.
There's a time when a tiny change is just a tiny change.
Now, a tiny change is a customer saying,
oh my gosh, my pay is not working anymore.
So many customers, so many impact.
(24:34):
We have to be careful how we ship.
I'm happy with the team that has evolved to that level right now.
And I see the maturity team over build.
Now we're shipping.
An example is SendUp, for example.
That is a very matured product.
And that's the Remixance app that was sent in.
Yeah, it allows Africans in diaspora to send money back home.
Anybody in the US, UK, to send money back home to Africa.
(24:55):
Very beautiful seamless product and it works seamlessly as well.
And that was a vitriol of our APIs where we allow.
Now APIs are much more robust, backward compatible.
We allow so many payment types to work on our platform right now
through one API.
And we've fixed a lot of issues that we had in the past on those APIs
(25:17):
as well.
But the point really is we're now in the mature stage of the company.
We're taking grown up language right now.
And that is important for us.
And that's why you see people like Des join us.
From Citi, people like Bamkoly, Xvisa, Jeff Lollowave, people like Bridget,
PayPal, a decade plus.
(25:37):
And that's because we are now at that stage where we're building for scale.
Right?
You've spoken about your ambitions to go public.
Our ambitions are really one, grow the venue, grow our margins,
make our OPEX make sense, and be cash or positive,
(25:57):
and keep on being cash or positive.
That's the goal I have right now.
My immediate goal is not to go public.
It's just the-
If that comes as an eventuality to-
Once I've cash or positive, which is the goal I have right now,
then I can have all the options available to me.
But the goal right now is just double down, go deeper,
know wider, be there for my customers, and then to go and expand the business.
(26:20):
Yeah.
What's your view of the future of payments in Africa?
African payments will keep evolving.
I see a future whereby contactless will be a big deal very soon.
I see a future whereby pay-rebound transfer, open banking will scale.
There's a lot for us to build in Africa still, right?
(26:41):
But I'm happy that things are shaping up right now, which is good.
For context, pay-rebound transfer as a payment type did not exist five years ago.
Yeah, I remember.
Yes.
Now it's one of the biggest payment type on the continent, right?
And that is incredible, right?
Non-card payments are on the rise massively.
(27:02):
Obviously, they have less fraud risk, easier to settle.
That is what we're going through as a context.
So I see that happening across-
I see tokenization of accompaniments also happening as well.
One of the things we like to do just as we wrap up the episode is go into more-
The idea is that we have people who are listening, who are builders, who are thinking,
who have problems they want to solve, but they want to learn from the best,
(27:24):
from people who've gone through the fires, where if you could go back to GB
and tell him something just as he started Flutterwave with your co-founders,
what would you say?
Ten seconds.
It doesn't have to change what you do now.
But what do you think you needed to hear at that point?
So I have never romanticized entrepreneurship.
(27:46):
People should not.
It's hard work.
If you can solve that problem within the confinement of a well-deserved organization,
please, that's also a privilege.
Please do it.
Let's be problem-solving focused.
Not really about the method.
You can go intra or entrepreneur.
(28:07):
It doesn't really matter.
That's very important.
It's hard work building it from scratch.
And I think it makes you appreciate your players a lot more when you do it by yourself.
You're like, oh my god, I understand why this, why that.
So I would say just because of the good you want to solve, not the process,
look for the best way to solve that problem and get it done.
At the end of the day, make sure you make an impact.
(28:28):
That's important.
Advocate needs that right now.
And what are some of the resources that helped you along the way,
whether it be books, podcasts that some of our listeners could potentially tap into as well?
I think experience helped me a lot.
Working for companies, going to the ranks helped me a lot to see how things actually work in real life.
Those are one of my biggest ones.
(28:48):
Also having mentors, people out there to just listen to you, whatever the issue is.
I just give you their own version of how you can solve the problem.
My co-founders helped.
The people that I work with in Florida with, they inspire me.
I learn from them every day, which is amazing.
So all of that helps to build my opinion where we are today as a company.
(29:10):
I guess you would recommend to come on the startup leap next.
Who would you recommend?
Does it matter the continent?
Okay, I would choose Africa.
And I would recommend Richmond of investment, Richmond and Yamu, gateway combo.
(29:30):
Thank you so much.
Thank you for spending time with us.
We enjoyed this.
Same here. Thanks for having me.
Leave a review.
Tell us what you think of this episode on all of our platforms at the Startup Leap pod.
Do you have a question?
Ask us and we'll ask our guests.
Go to the startupleap.io.
See you next time.
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