November 27, 2023 • 48 mins
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Ever wonder what it takes to change the course of a whole industry? We're honored to host Arun P. Iyer, the Founder and CEO of Alpha Direct InsurTech, who is doing just that in the African insurance landscape. Brace yourself for an inspiring journey from a small-town upbringing, to a young boy investing in stocks, to a CEO transforming the insurance industry in Botswana.
Revolutionizing the highly regulated insurance industry, Alpha Direct is challenging the status quo with their disruptive approaches. Arun shares the story of Alpha Direct's genesis, discussing their innovative solutions that address the root cause of low insurance penetration in the lower middle class of Botswana. From the game-changing 'insurance in a box' initiative to leveraging mobile money platforms, expect to be enlightened by the ways Alpha Direct is making waves in the industry.
But what lies ahead for the future of insurance in Africa? Arun casts a spotlight on Alpha Direct's plans and their strategy for maintaining their standing in the underwriting market, optimizing the claims process and enhancing customer experience.
Tune in and join us in exploring the future of insurance in Africa from the city of Gaborone in Botswana.
Check out our free resources on InsurTech ecosystem and innovation in the African Insurance space here https://linktr.ee/insurtechbusinessseries
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arun (00:00):
Hey everyone, this is Arun Iyer, founder and CEO of Alpha
Direct InsurTech, based inBotswana, and I'd like to
welcome you to this episode ofInsurTech Business Series that
covers insurance innovation,insurtech innovation and
improving the state of insuranceon the continent of Africa.
I'm very excited to share mystory with you today and I hope
(00:23):
that this can be one of theinspiring stories that will
inspire you to do great thingsin the world.
Damola (00:36):
Welcome to the.
InsureTech.
Business Series podcast.
I am Folumy and I am Damola andtogether we host the most
exciting podcast on insuranceand insurtech related topics in
Africa.
Stay tuned.
(00:58):
Arun welcome.
Arun (00:59):
Thanks, Damola.
Very kind introduction.
It's my pleasure to be here andshare my story and, hopefully,
some insights that yourlistenership can gain from my
experience.
Damola (01:15):
Great.
We were speaking earlier,before we started, and I mean so
.
Much has happened within yourspace and, like I mentioned,
botswana is not one of the bigthree Nigeria, kenya, south
Africa when you talk aboutinsurance or even innovation
around financial services.
But before we go into all ofthat, who is Arun?
(01:39):
How did this all come about?
Arun (01:42):
Wow, that could take up this entire podcast.
So let me just think back as tohow I should summarize this
well so that it fits in nicelywith the format here.
So look, I'm a kid that grew upin a town called Lubaatsi.
It's about 70 kilometers southof the capital city of Botswana,
(02:04):
khabaroni.
Khabaroni is where I'mcurrently located and where my
company, alpha Direct, isheadquartered, and Lubaatsi is a
very small town, but veryvibrant town and a very old town
.
And as a kid we didn't have alot of things to do in Lubaatsi.
We used to climb up a lot ofhills.
(02:25):
The town is filled with,surrounded by a lot of hills,
and so we used to climb hills.
We never had television.
Even when we did havetelevision, we had two channels.
So there wasn't a lot of thingsto do and I was naturally
inclined as a child towardsentrepreneurship.
My father himself was anentrepreneur.
(02:45):
He was a professional.
Initially, he was a charteredaccountant, one of the first
chartered accountants inBotswana, and he set up the
Botswana Institute ofAccountants and so on and so
forth.
So growing up in Lubaatsi, Iwas very fascinated with
entrepreneurs and businesspeople in general, and I read I
happened to read when I was akid, a biography of Warren
(03:07):
Buffett and I was veryfascinated by Buffett's story.
And then later on, when I wasvery, very young, nine or 10
years old, I started investingin the stock market as a means
to try and learn more aboutbusinesses and how they operate,
the means of saving.
So I was very frugal, Inaturally had savings even at
(03:30):
that young age.
And then I just started readingannual reports of companies,
and one of the companies that Iinvested in when I was a
teenager was a subsidiary ofSandlam called Botswana
Insurance Holdings Limited.
It was a listed company, stillis a listed company, and I used
to religiously read their annualreports.
I have this friend of mine whowent to college with me called
Pex Ella Kello, mui Kisa and himand I used to invest in
(03:53):
companies all the time, but weused to do a lot of very deep
fundamental analysis oncompanies.
And he told me something whenwe were invested in Botswana
Insurance Holdings and we wereremarking about what a great
business insurance is, and hesaid Warren Buffett actually got
the capital to make all theinvestments that he made from
(04:14):
the insurance business.
And so I kind of tied two andtwo together to say, oh, I
really liked reading Buffett'sbiography and I really enjoyed
and found a lot of similaritiesin the way he did things and the
way my thought process also was, and so I maintained this
fascination for insurance.
However, as life often does, ittook me in a completely
(04:36):
different direction.
I went to the United Statesbecause my dad felt that I would
be able to accomplish a lotmore in the US than I would in
Botswana, and so I went out andI started a chain of CPA firms.
I purchased a couple of CPAfirms in the state of Florida,
expanded them for a couple ofyears, but I was never truly
passionate about practice and asa result I enjoyed sort of very
(05:00):
limited success.
You could even say that Iwasn't really very successful at
my first career.
But somewhere along the lines Imet a guy in Florida.
I purchased his firm and hesaid Aaron, you should really
consider getting licensed tosell insurance, because I've
made more money sellinginsurance in my career than I
(05:21):
ever have in my CPA firm.
This was right around the timethat my dad passed away as well,
and so I was like okay, youknow what this insurance thing
seems interesting.
I was a little bit lost and Iwent out and I got my insurance
license in Florida and I startedselling insurance and I was
fascinated by it.
But I would attend all theseconferences of insurance
(05:42):
companies in the US that wouldinvite me over and I was always
fascinated with how theirbusiness model worked and I
wanted to learn more about it.
And along the same time I met aguy called Dr Kiran Patel, who
today is very famous.
You know he's built and sold tobillion dollar insurance
companies in the US.
But we shared a couple ofsimilarities in the sense, even
(06:04):
though he was from a differentgeneration.
He was also, like, born inAfrica.
He was born in Zambia, grew upin Zambia and lived here for a
while and then immigrated to theUS in the 70s and he's a
cardiologist by profession andso on.
So we had a lot of similarities.
He's also Indian origin parents.
So I met Dr K and I literallyinstantly knew that I wanted to
be something like him in thesense that he was very
(06:27):
successful in the insurancebusiness.
But he also was aphilanthropist of note and I
always had aspirations to giveback.
You know, I never believed thatwealth is really possessed by
you.
I believe it's somethingtemporary and you.
You're a custodian of it forsome time, but you're always a
custodian of wealth for thebenefit of others, and he shared
(06:51):
that philosophy.
And so we were very aligned andfor five years four or five
years I literally I didn'treally discuss much business
with Dr K.
We just I just used to call himonce in a while and talk to him
, find out how he was doing.
And then finally I decided tosell my firm in the US and then
decided to move back to Botswanabecause I felt that Africa is
(07:14):
where the future was going to beand I felt that I wanted to
play a role in that future.
And when I decided to move back, I went to Dr K and I said I'm
thinking about starting aninsurance company because it's
been a lifelong dream of mine,ever since I read Buffett's
biography.
So would you like to invest inmy insurance company?
And five seconds later he saidyes, and the rest is history.
Damola (07:37):
Wow, wow, how do you get that that much support even
early on?
I think there's something therethat you mentioned, but it's
good to highlight.
It's the place of learning,understanding someone, amazing
stuff and starting off doinginsurance right and then
starting off an insurancecompany in Botswana.
(07:58):
How did that?
Yeah, it's crazy.
Arun (08:04):
It's crazy, it absolutely is crazy.
And you know, this is where Ibelieve in many things in life,
and more so in the businessworld, in the world of
entrepreneurship.
We are successful notnecessarily because of our own
actions, because there are manypeople also working just as hard
as us and doing all the thingsthat we're doing, but we're also
(08:26):
successful more because ofother people's faith and trust
in us.
So, just like Dr K decided tolend me credibility that he had
accumulated over his lifetime,just on the basis of my
personality it's not that Ibrought anything special to the
table, but just on the basis ofthe conversations and maybe
something that he saw in me.
(08:47):
You know I was able to build onmy dream, and so I think
oftentimes these things happenby chance.
But chance is also a functionof what we, what we put into it
and what we feel in our heartsright that we can accomplish.
Damola (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, and that journey to building an insurance
company in Africa.
What was the strategy?
Because I mean, you are todayis an insurer, but yeah, and in
short, as well.
So that's.
Arun (09:15):
That's interesting because that kind of happened as an
evolution.
So when we started our business, I knew that a we had to do
things differently in order torealize, you know, higher than
normal returns.
I knew that we had to have adifferent approach to
distribution.
So my initial idea was I'mgoing to start a direct
(09:36):
insurance underwriter.
This market was largelyintermediated I'm talking 80 to
90% intermediated when westarted our business.
There was two brokers thatessentially control the entire
Botswana market they controlabout 80% of all the short term
insurance premiums in thismarket and so I needed a
strategy that would ensure thata I could survive long enough to
(10:01):
actually change things and bethat I could have a base with
which I could, you know, leverthat I could have a base that I
could leverage to createsomething special.
So initially I said, okay, Ineed premiums in order for me to
afford a team and affordtechnology and so on and so
(10:21):
forth.
So I'm going to start a directinsurance underwriter which will
give me the capital base that Ineed to go out and actually
solve the bigger problem, whichis insurance penetration.
Damola (10:32):
I used to sell insurance , and so I'm very proud of that.
I mean, that's what.
That was my first entry intothe insurance space.
I'm coming from outside as well, right Looking at the market at
the time.
What year was this?
Arun (10:45):
I moved back in 2012.
It took a good amount of timefor me to get all the pieces
together to apply for a license,so I finally got the license in
2014.
Thanks to the support ofanother gentleman who you know,
I met randomly through some ofthe charitable work that my dad
had been doing and he agreedvery graciously to help me
(11:08):
establish Alpha Derek because Iknew nothing about insurance.
I had no contacts.
I'd never, I'd never dealt withreinsurance in the entire
history of you know, the talentand run and this gentleman, his
name is Mr Chari.
He had spent 40 years, fourdecades, in the insurance
industry at all levels ofinsurance companies, from the
lowest level in the underwritingdepartment, right up to, you
(11:33):
know, deputy general manager ofGulf insurance group, which is,
you know, billion dollaroperation in 14 countries in
Middle East and North Africa.
So, you know, he brought a lotof contacts to the table and he
again, you know, believed in mefor some reason and said you
know what?
I'm going to put my name and myreputation on the line so that
you can accomplish this dream.
So that's how it also cameabout.
(11:54):
And then, you know, you asked methe question about how did we
evolve from?
Okay, we wanted an insurancecompany.
How did we evolve into becomingan insure tech?
So my brother was always, youknow, more oriented towards
technology.
Both of us studied accounting.
So we we never, neither of us,had a background in insurance or
in technology from an academicperspective, but my interest was
(12:16):
always in insurance and hisinterest was always in
technology.
And so, after I had gotten theconcept of Alpha Derek off the
ground, you know.
He came in and said you knowwhat?
Let me figure out thetechnology side of this, how we
can leverage technology to makethings work better.
And then he went out and builtGraphite, which is our
(12:37):
proprietary insurance platformthat we developed from scratch.
It's as good as any world-classinsurance software platform
that you can buy for a lot ofmoney.
Damola (12:48):
What was the market like currently at that time?
And then you come into thespace.
What were you bringing and howwas the reception like?
Yeah, so it's very protective,you know.
Arun (12:58):
Oh, of course insurance is .
You know, I like to say it'sthe biggest mafia business on
earth because everybody isreally protective of their
territory and that's, and that'sfine.
I understand why the thing is.
You know, there was aconversation that I had with the
CEO of one of the biggestbrokerages in the country and
(13:19):
again, this was long before Ihad actually launched Alpha
Derek, but I'd wanted to do itfor a number of years and you
know, I went up to him and Isaid you know, I want to start
an insurance company in Botswana.
And he said, you know, that'sthe dumbest idea ever.
And I said why?
And he's like, well, he's likethere's two brokerages us and
another brokerage that control80% of this market and we have
(13:44):
no need to send our business toyou like, we actually would
rather send our business to theestablished players, the
incumbents, because we alreadyhave relationships with them and
you might get a little bit ofsupport from us will send you
all the rubbish business andthen you'll burn through your
capital and after a couple ofyears, if you're still alive,
then maybe we'll think aboutsupporting.
(14:05):
So I walked away from thatconversation both heavily
dejected and also insanelymotivated to become a disruptor
of the status quo rather than tofit in with the mold of the
business.
So that's kind of how there wasa lot of these moments that
seemed like sort of negativeoutcomes at the time, but then
(14:29):
they all contributed to usdeveloping and building this
business to what it is today.
Damola (14:34):
So the other alpha direct, starting off in space,
what was the business model?
I mean as that evolved to whatyou are doing today?
Or what was the business model?
I know when you talk aboutbrokers, it means that you're
dealing.
You're talking about corporatebusinesses.
Yeah, so many you want to know,so even even personal lines was
intermediated.
Arun (14:52):
in this country there was literally a small sliver I would
say it was under 10% of thismarket was insured on a direct
basis, that is, without having abroker in place.
The first idea or firstinnovation was to change the
distribution model and we said,okay, we are going to go after
(15:13):
direct business, whatever it is,whether it's corporate and
commercial, whether it'spersonal lines business, we're
going to go after it on a directbasis and we're going to
effectively save the customermoney by eliminating the need
for a middleman.
And the thesis there was thatthe middleman had become sort of
fat cats for lack of a betterword and they were earning a lot
(15:35):
of money without adding a lotof value to the customer at the
end of the day.
And I felt that by adding valueto the customer and working
harder than my competitors thatI could effectively compete with
them by giving a better valueproposition to the end customer.
So we started out with that andwe started out with you know
very important tagline ofmassive savings on car insurance
(15:57):
and this and that.
So we went out and we promiseda lot of savings to people who
came in and wanted to get abetter deal on their insurance.
That was the initial model, andthen what we did is we
innovated in terms of claims,were the first to build our own
supply chain for auto parts inthis country, and we have
fortunately succeeded inchanging the entire industry.
(16:17):
Today, all of our competitorsin this market also have gone
out and built their own supplychains for auto parts to the
first to do it, and we wesucceeded in getting them to
change their way of doing it.
When we started in this market,there was only general
underwriting, which means youknow everybody kind of gets the
same rate within a certaincategory.
We were the first to doindividual underwriting in this
(16:39):
market.
Today, most underwriters havedone some form of individual
underwriting, which never usedto do before.
We changed the game in a lot ofways and most of the time we
were leveraging two key things.
We were leveraging some form oftechnology, ict in particular
and we were leveraging a youngtalent pool that we believed in
(17:01):
unconditional, whereas most ofthese young people would never
have had an opportunity to workfor one of our competitors.
Today, we are the primerecruitment ground for our
competitors.
They love hiring our staffbecause our staff are deep in
the world.
Damola (17:17):
That's interesting and I mean it's what innovation
brings right and you bringsomething new to the market and
being able to see that it worksand then is impacting the whole
industry.
The insurance industry ishighly regulated and, starting
off an insurance company, not aninshote, it means that there's
a lot of engagement andconversation with the regulator
(17:40):
in the license.
Insurance business is, yes,it's very well regulated, highly
regulated, but then also it'scapital intensive Early on, you
know, being able to get thatkind of funding and that backing
.
I mean, how did that come aboutright?
And then, even for theregulator themselves, what's the
mindset around doing thingsdifferently?
Arun (17:58):
differently.
It's actually a great question.
So once I got Dr K to write methe first check, I then went to
two other you know sort of ultrahigh net worth individuals that
I knew here in Botswana, and Iwent to them and I said, look,
you know.
So, remember, I have zerocredibility because I've never
worked in an insurance company,I've never run an insurance
(18:21):
company.
I have zero credibility.
So I go to them and I say youknow what?
I've got this guy from theStates who has built a billion
dollar insurance company and hehas agreed to be my first
investor.
So if you want to be part ofthis journey and you know sort
of believe in me then this isyour opportunity and this is
(18:44):
what I'm willing to offer you.
And another five and fiveminutes later I had two more
backers.
So I leveraged Dr K'sendorsement to raise the money
that I needed to apply for thelicense.
Damola (18:58):
So Alpha Direct is up and running now and you're now
in competition with every otherinsurer within that space.
What was it like building, orhas it been building, the
business not like theconventional insurer, but like a
digital insurance company?
Arun (19:17):
Yeah, it's in Botswana, it's been really unique because
the first three years everybodybroke us, hated us.
Our competitors obviously hatedus, but they were all also
quite dismissive in the sensethey said these guys are not
going to survive one year.
And then we survived a year.
And then they said they're notgoing to survive two years.
(19:38):
We survived two years and thenthey said, oh well, even if they
survived two years, no startupin this country has ever made it
past the three year mark.
And we said well, we're goingto have to be the odd one out.
And so we kept going, and somevery tough moments, obviously in
that time period, because we'recompeting against people that
(19:59):
have been in the business for along time.
But I think we always had abelief that we could do it.
We always had a belief that wewere working on something
special, something beyond ourown necessities and our own
ambition.
Even so, I feel our competitorswere kind of, to some degree,
(20:21):
sleeping at the wheel, but, moreimportantly, I feel like they
didn't clearly have a strategy,because things were going so
good before we came into themarket.
Everybody was making doubledigit, healthy net underwriting
margins, pricing was sort ofoperating like a cartel and that
sort of a thing and I thinkthis is where I must compliment
(20:43):
our regulator here NBFERA they,despite us maybe not having
those credentials of being aforeign company, like we were a
Botswana startup, the regulatorhas always been very encouraging
for us to try new ideas, and tome that's what really good
regulation is about.
It's about enabling peoplewho've got ideas and are able to
(21:05):
raise capital to go out and totry their ideas out with a
backstop that preventspolicyholders from getting hurt
should those ideas notmaterialize.
But the solution is not to saydon't try your ideas.
The solution is to say try yourideas, and here's the framework
which you try your ideas with.
So we've been fortunate in thesense that our regulator does
(21:26):
want to encourage localcompanies to set up and start up
and grow from here, because atthe end of the day I mean you
know the way I see it is likethis all our competitors if they
make a diamond profit, you canrest assured that 50% of the
profit is leaving this country,whereas with us, if we make a
diamond profit, it's stayingright here, it's being
(21:47):
reinvested.
So a dollar of Alpha Directmoney goes a lot further in
bettering the lives of Botswanathan our competitors and I think
that's a very powerful thingand I'm happy, I'm fortunate,
that our regulator actually sortof supported that, saw that
that hey, this company can addvalue to what we're trying to
(22:09):
accomplish as a country, andsupported that, that notion.
Damola (22:13):
We like to hear stories around.
You know, regulatory,supporting innovation,
supporting new initiative withinthe space Again, these are
suspects.
You know South Africa, Kenya,Nigeria.
You know Ghana we are seeingthe regulators most especially
in Kenya.
You know, supporting innovation, new people, players in short
(22:35):
text, coming into the space andreally just having direct
engagement with this in shorttext, and not saying that we
don't know you, we don't careabout you.
As long as you're not insurer,don't come into our space, Right
, so, so it's very interesting.
And so, going back to yourstrategy, right, we talked about
your distribution strategy,right, but in terms of, because
(22:56):
you're an insurance company, youbring products to market, yeah,
the products that youdistribute.
How did you go about that?
What was the intention from dayone and how has that journey
been?
Arun (23:07):
So there was an important time in our journey where we
made the conscious decision tosay we are going to pivot from
being an innovative insurancecompany that's driven by
technology to we are going to bea technology company that
develops insurance productsRight.
(23:27):
And the change happened around2018 or 2019 when we did what's
called the Stanford SeedTransformation Program, and it
completely changed our thinkingabout what we should be doing,
who it's impacting and where wewant, where we can take this
business model.
And so we went.
We decided to go from being aninnovative insurance company to
(23:52):
being a company that really hasa chance to change the game as
far as insurance penetration anduptake of insurance on the
continent of Africa is concerned, and our vision became much
bigger.
It became bigger than justBotswana.
It became bigger than justdoing insurance better, cheaper,
faster.
It became about solving theroot cause of why people in
(24:17):
Africa, particularly in lowermiddle class, lsm so you know,
living standard four to six whyit is that they don't have
insurance, and we went abouttrying to solve that problem
using technology.
That was the key, pivotal point.
So we went out.
We said, okay, we want to solvethis problem.
How do we solve this problem?
So we went out and spoke to alot of people who are living in
(24:38):
this, in this living standardsmeasure four to six, and we
quickly gathered that you know,the problem of insurance
penetration wasn't necessarilyone of.
You know, I don't have money tobuy this product or I don't
believe I have a need to buythis product.
I know that there's a need andI do have the resources for it.
But, number one, the productsare not accessible to me.
(25:01):
So a lot of people in thatliving standards measure don't
have full time access to mobiledata.
Mobile data, relative to theirincome, is very expensive.
And then the second thing wasthe products were not.
The products are currentlyavailable in the market that our
competitors were selling werenot fit for purpose in the sense
they weren't designed with theneeds of people in living
(25:22):
standards measure four to six inmind.
They were designed around moreeducated, higher income
consumers in mind, because therewas this perception that they
had more money, more disposableincome.
And then the third thing theysaid was there was no
flexibility in terms of how youcould pay.
So we still are the firstcompany in Botswana to be able
(25:43):
to process and one of the firstfew in Africa to be able to
process recurring payments onmobile money platforms, for
example.
We wrote the code, we wrote thesoftware to be able to process
recurring payments on credit anddebit cards in this market.
So previously to us, you can dosingle transactions, single
authorization transactions, withus.
Now, having built the softwareplatform, the middleware, we are
(26:06):
now able to process recurringtransactions.
And those recurringtransactions are very important
for an insurance business to beable to run effectively, because
essentially what you're doingis you are spending money
upfront to acquire an annuitystream and that annuity stream
eventually generates a return onthe capital that you put up
front.
And so we had to overcome a lotof those hurdles.
(26:27):
But overcoming those hurdlesalso became our competitive
advantage.
So we've built not only theproducts from the ground up that
meet the consumers needs inthat market segment through our
retail distribution model.
We sell insurance in a boxwhich you can pick up in a
retail store, you can activateat the till and you have instant
, immediate insurance cover whenyou walk out of the store, and
(26:50):
we were the first to bring thatto market.
We learned and developed veryquickly and reiterated very
quickly in order to arrive atwhere we've gotten to today, at
the junction that we are today,I did come across the insurance
in the box initiative and Iwanted you to talk a little bit
more about that.
Damola (27:11):
What is that?
What product is it?
How do customers engage with it?
What's the feedback?
Because you are makingsomething that is intangible.
That's the age-old issue withinsurance what am I actually
paying for?
100%.
Arun (27:31):
What we realized when we went out and spoke to people on
the streets and oftentimes youwon't find insurance company
CEOs going out onto the streets,in the bus stations and so on,
talking to a hawker in themarket.
They live a completelydifferent life, and so, because
(27:52):
we were willing to do that, weactually got a lot of insight
into what makes people in thatcategory tick.
And, as you correctly said, wetook an intangible product and
we made it tangible, becausepeople relate to value in terms
of the tangibility that thatparticular product affords them,
in terms of the product designas well.
(28:13):
So we launched with anaccidental death and disability
product which is really unique,not only in Africa, but in many
other parts of the world as well.
I heard about this product thathad been very successful in
China, was an $8 billion a yearpremium product, and so I went
to Munich Rea and I said look,this product is going to be my
flagship product on my boxproduct line that I'm launching,
(28:36):
and I want your actuarial teamto help me design the product
and price it according to whatwill sell in this market and
still enable us to be able tomake a buck.
And so we went out and wedesigned this product from
scratch so we're able to offerlike $100,000 of cover for under
$5 a month in premium.
But it's a graded payoutstructure and so on and so forth
(28:59):
, but it gives people a chanceto have $100,000 of insurance
which they could never havedreamt of in their life before
we launched the product.
We also have, like a third partymotor insurance product.
We have electronic deviceproducts, so cover cell phones
and tablet computers and laptopsand the like, and we have a
(29:19):
legal insurance product.
So some of these products aredesigned along the lines of
existing products in the market,but we've changed the
distribution model and some ofthem are novel products that we
created from scratch.
But the important thing torealize is that our box business
, as we refer to it, is not a,it's not a single product
(29:40):
business, it's a platformbusiness.
Once we have a presence in aretail store, we can launch as
many products as the market willtake.
And that's exactly how we do it.
We launch a new product everycouple of months and we test out
the market.
If a product doesn't work, wequickly kill it, and if a
(30:00):
product works, then we keep itgoing and we try to, you know,
get more people to buy theproduct.
Damola (30:07):
Very interesting initiative there, and I mean I
wanted to use the opportunity tocongratulate you on the African
Reinshote of the award.
I mean back in 2020, I think itwas as regards this product
right.
Arun (30:22):
That's right.
And what's interesting is, Ithink at that time we had sold
about 10,000 boxes and now we'reat about 60,000.
Damola (30:33):
Wow, wow.
So for the boxes, so for theproducts, so is this something
that you buy a month or a classfor a year?
Arun (30:42):
and yeah, it's month to month, Okay, okay.
Month to month and the reasonwe've made it month to month is
because of the affordabilitything, like if you ask somebody
to pay you a full annual premiumupfront in, you know in that
category of customer they won'ttake the risk of trying you out
(31:02):
and seeing how the product yeah.
Damola (31:05):
So you have to make the barrier to entry really, really
low.
Arun (31:08):
So for us the barrier to entry is literally like it's
about $4 for US dollars.
Damola (31:15):
I wanted to ask so compared to your competitors or
the traditional insurancecompanies, right, how is Afro
direct fair in terms of expense?
You know how much of how muchis technology helping in that
regard, because you know whenyou look at insurance, the
expense is something that is ahuge line on the balance sheet.
(31:36):
What's differentiating factorfor you compared to your peers?
Arun (31:39):
So look, I would say this.
I would say that our expenseratios are, as of today, very
much in line with the market,perhaps a little bit superior to
the market.
We've grown from a standingstart to today.
We are the fifth largestunderwriter in Botswana and I
(32:00):
think in the next two or threeyears will be the fourth largest
and the.
The idea is we will get ourexpense ratios the benefits of
all the efforts that we put inas we scale this business to the
next level.
In fact, we're already startingto see it.
So, if you look at, every yearsince we started our business,
our expense ratio has droppedbecause we've written more
(32:22):
business, more premium and so onand so forth.
We're not necessarily having tohire more staff or incur more
overheads, and I think that, interms of claims, while we know
our primary focus up until nowhas been to deliver the best
claim service and notnecessarily to cut costs, I
(32:43):
think that now is the time whenwe can go in and start to
optimize our claims process,optimize our buying leverage
technology to be more efficient,and you need to use less people
to do the same job.
That's sort of the thing,because we've achieved a certain
level of scale at about $7million in gross return premium.
Now we can start to optimizeour business for performance and
(33:05):
, most importantly, optimize itwithout compromising on the
customer experience is.
In my view, the customerexperience is the most important
thing, is a driver of revenueand it is the singular most
important thing that we need tofocus on.
The second most important thingis optimizing our own cost
structure and our own balancesheet so that we are giving you
know sort of the profitabilityand the results that we expect
(33:27):
to see from the business.
Damola (33:29):
Alright, so you've disrupted basically the, both
swan and markets, leveragingtechnology, innovation, customer
first.
Looking at the, the insuranceindustry generally across the
continent, what do you think thefuture holds?
Arun (33:47):
So I mean the benefits I think are fairly obvious.
In the sense, the number oneproblem that we need to crack in
Africa is our low insurancepenetration rate.
Even even when you take ourinsurance penetration rate and
you adjust it for you knowdifferences in per capita income
and so on and so forth it'sstill dismally low.
(34:08):
And so there's a lot, there's anaturally a lot of potential to
grow the market itself and Ithink that there's going to be a
lot of innovation in the space.
But there's also a lot ofbarriers that I think we, as not
only an industry, but even usas Africans, need to think about
.
So, for example, I would loveto see a day when Botswana
(34:30):
insurance company and rightbusiness in Nigeria and not have
to necessarily go in and applyfor a separate license in
Nigeria and every other marketthat wants to operate.
And the same way we're thinkingabout trade within the African
continent and increasing intraAfrica trade, we should also
start thinking about how do weenable our homegrown financial
(34:55):
services in this businesses, andinsurance in particular,
because that's my field ofinterest to go into new markets
easily, effectively, with aunified sort of dispute
resolution process and so on,and be able to operate in a new
market so that we can contributeto growing that market.
I think that's a super bigproblem to solve and I think
(35:17):
it's a it's a very hairy problemthat exists currently in in
terms of us achieving our truepotential.
The second thing is that, whilethere's a lot of potential for
innovation, I do believe thatthere's going to be a couple of
different models that are goingto succeed better than others,
and the reason why we've we'vegone with this model of
(35:38):
controlling the entire customexperience from end to end, from
product design to claimsettlement to reinsurance.
I believe that our model willultimately be more successful
because working with incumbentsis a zero sum game.
The incumbents don't want thestatus quo to change.
There's no incumbent who reallywants to be disrupted.
(36:02):
There's no incumbent who reallywants their current profits and
bonuses to change.
Human beings are innatelyselfish, so you're going to find
that they're going to sabotageyou.
They're going to try to takeyou down unless you actually
come in and disrupt their veryown business model, and that, I
think, will force them to sortof work with insuretex and look
(36:24):
at insuretex not as a threatthat they need to squash, but as
a new paradigm shift in how wethink about insurance and what
it can do for people in Africa,for the ordinary people in
Africa.
Damola (36:37):
So in terms of insuretex in Botswana, are there that
many or some of them springingup?
Arun (36:45):
No, there aren't that many , unfortunately.
I'm hoping that entrepreneursin Botswana that are interested
in the insurance space will lookat us and say, if these guys
can do it, why can't I?
And they'll come in and try tobe part of the industry and the
ecosystem and help us to buildthe ecosystem.
But, as of today, there hasn'tbeen this big insuretex boom
(37:08):
that's happened in Botswanabecause of Alpha Director or
even otherwise.
So I'm hopeful about it, butI'm not sure if there are other
entrepreneurs thinking aboutthis problem as much as we've
spent our time thinking about.
Damola (37:23):
OK, so beyond Botswana, what does the future hold?
Is there expansion?
Are you coming to Nigeria soon?
Arun (37:31):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, look, we started anoperation in Zambia about two
years ago.
It's doing fairly well, it'sexpanded quite significantly and
that was our first step outsideof Botswana.
We are currently busy goinginto South Africa and the future
beyond South Africa.
(37:52):
Of course, we want to be in allthe big markets.
We want to be in Nigeria, egyptand Kenya, but that may not be
the way it pans out.
Our business model could evenbe applied successfully in
countries like Brazil, vietnam,cambodia, some countries in the
EU.
Even so, we see a lot ofpotential for the business
Beyond the Southern African play.
(38:13):
We see a lot of potential forthe business even globally, in
many emerging markets wheresimilar problems exist in terms
of insurance penetration andwhere our solution can actually
be a real game changer for thosemarkets.
Damola (38:28):
Fair enough.
So for short texts looking tocome into this space, which
would you advise to come in,maybe like an innovation partner
to existing insurers, or theycome in fully like you as an
insurer themselves, controllingthe value chain?
Arun (38:43):
I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all type of
situation.
I think it's about what, as anentrepreneur, what moves you,
what is your calling?
So my personal desire wasinitially to be a game changer,
to change the game, to changethe way that things were done
and, to some degree, to prove tomyself and to a few other
(39:05):
people that I know very wellthat my ideas have merit.
And then, over time, it evolvedto how do we solve this problem
of insurance penetration?
It's a big problem, it's a veryproblem.
It's a problem where, if we dosuccessfully solve it, we can
have a tremendous amount ofsocial impact and do a lot of
good in the world.
And that was sort of where wecame from in terms of attacking
(39:27):
this problem.
So it depends a lot on theproblem itself that you're
trying to solve.
So if you're trying to solveinsurance penetration, like we
are, then I think the model ofbeing an underwriter is your
best model, because you can havethe flexibility to design and
deploy products at your own pacebut that also meet the needs of
customers, which largerincumbents may not do, may not
(39:49):
want to do or may not besuccessful at doing.
And if you're trying to solve adifferent problem, like maybe
you're trying to solve for fraudin the claims process, then I
think it's a better model foryou to be a technology provider
to a large incumbent or to theindustry.
That's the way I would see it.
So InsureTech is a very broadstatement.
(40:09):
I like to call us a riskcarrying InsureTech.
So yes, we build our owntechnology, but we also carry
risk, and that, I think,differentiates us, because we
have to stand behind everysingle product that we build and
develop and deploy.
Damola (40:24):
Yeah, I mean.
Arun (40:25):
And if the product is, so do we you know.
Damola (40:27):
Yes, yes, yes, I've been meaning to ask this right Even
from the name Alpha Direct.
You've spoken about how youstarted off in this space and
you were basically walkingagainst the tide.
What kind of culture do youhave within your team that helps
you to just be gong-go aboutthis project?
(40:50):
What's the mindset that you'reinstilling within your team
Because you're doing somethingdifferent?
You're going against, just likeyou said, a very protective
industry.
Arun (40:59):
Your assessment is correct in the sense you have to start
at the base level, at the rootlevel, of solving the problem,
and that means your ownorganization needs to have a
disruptive mindset.
So I'll give you a simpleexample.
Yesterday, last evening, I tooka walk around the office.
I do that after hours.
I go around, talk to all themanagers, talk to all the
(41:19):
different teams that are workingwithin the company, and I
realized that we're currentlydeploying three new systems
within our organization.
I'm talking about technologyplatforms.
Within our organization, we'remigrating a key part of our
business onto our proprietaryplatform.
We are changing the way that webuy automotive parts and we're
(41:42):
changing the entire procurementsystem for that, and that's also
ongoing.
And then there's a third pieceof our business as well that we
are deploying new technology to,and the only way that I'm able
to do this I mean I didn't evenknow about one of the
deployments that was happening,because that's an initiative
that's being taken by one of theteams that hasn't bothered to
(42:05):
tell me that they wereimplementing this, but that's
great.
That's the kind of culture thatwe encourage.
So when we started the business,we said we have to, first and
foremost, recruit the rightpeople and we never recruited
anybody from within the industry.
We always located our office,so insurance companies like to
locate in a cluster.
So if you come to Habaroni,you'll notice that almost every
(42:27):
insurance company is locatedeither in the fairgrounds area,
which is like a financialservices district, where the
largest insurance companylocated, so everybody else also
located there and all thebrokers are located there too,
or they're in the centralbusiness district, which is the
other place where the fewbrokers are, and so on and so
forth.
We started our business in anindustrial park, in a warehouse
(42:49):
with no air conditioning, andnow we're at the Botswana
Innovation Hub, which isextremely far away from every
other insurance company.
So we always had this mindsetthat we want to be different, so
we located our offices in adifferent place.
We never hired anybody fromwithin the industry for years
and years and years.
Now.
Of course, we do have a lot ofpeople that we've hired from
(43:09):
other companies, but we stillprefer to hire people fresh out
of college and give them thetraining that they need and the
platform that they need to buildthe best versions of themselves
, and I think that belief andfaith that young people can do
it and can do it without tankingthe company.
(43:30):
I think was the key to usfinding the best talent,
motivating them and giving themplatform to really showcase what
they could do for solving theproblem that we're after Wow.
Damola (43:42):
Aaron, it's been a pleasure speaking.
I mean very insightfulconversation, Very interesting
journey as well.
Also great insight into what'shappening in the Botswana market
and I mean super excitingwhat's happening within
insurance innovation acrossAfrica.
I mean we definitely would havefurther conversations because I
(44:05):
know that there are a lot ofthings that we still definitely
need to deep into, even aroundin short text.
And growing the space and, youknow, attracting funding.
Oh yeah, thank you Absolutely.
Arun (44:17):
First and foremost, let me say thank you, damola, for
taking the initiative to reachout to me and giving me this
opportunity to share part of mystory with your listenership
Solving such a big problem asinsurance penetration.
While, while we all understandthat it can have tremendous
impact, it can't be done by oneperson or a small group of
(44:40):
people.
A lot of people who arepassionate about solving this
problem need to come together tosolve this problem, and they
can be from across Africa.
So my feeling is that there'sgoing to be a lot of people that
listen to this and think youknow what this is a good enough,
important enough problem that Iwant to solve it, and then
(45:00):
we'll join hands and go out andfigure out how we solve this
problem.
Damola (45:03):
Yeah, that's something that we are keen on.
Three things encourage learning, facilitate innovation,
encourage networking and I knowthat this conversation, a lot of
people will learn from it is tosupport some innovation,
different thinking.
And, in terms of the networking, how can people connect with
(45:23):
Aaron?
How can people connect withAlpha Direct?
I want to partner, I want towork with you, I want to invest,
because I know you work withthe number of VC firms, launch
Africa being one of them.
Zac is a friend of the house.
How can they connect?
Arun (45:39):
So yeah.
So, first of all, a big shoutout to Zac Sinead and the Launch
Africa team.
Them backing us was the gamechanger for us.
It changed the gamesignificantly, and I'm ever so
grateful for having met them andfor them having believed in us.
And then, in terms of reachingout to us, I think if people
want to understand more aboutwhat we do, please do visit our
(46:00):
website it's alphadirectafricaand then, if they want to
connect with me personally, thebest way is LinkedIn.
Arun P Ayer from Alpha Direct.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn and share your ideas,
share your thoughts, and we willtake them forward.
If you want to just have a chator a coffee, happy to do that
as well.
Awesome, thank you, aaron.
(46:21):
Thank you so much, damola.
Damola (46:52):
We might have comments, reviews as well as questions.
Please do share our LinkedInpage or our Twitter page, as
well as remember to follow us.
Hey everyone, this is Arun Iyer, founder and CEO of Alpha
Direct InsurTech, based inBotswana, and I'd like to
welcome you to this episode ofInsurTech Business Series that
covers insurance innovation,insurtech innovation and
improving the state of insuranceon the continent of Africa.
I'm very excited to share mystory with you today and I hope
(00:23):
that this can be one of theinspiring stories that will
inspire you to do great thingsin the world.
Damola (00:36):
Welcome to the.
InsureTech.
Business Series podcast.
I am Folumy and I am Damola andtogether we host the most
exciting podcast on insuranceand insurtech related topics in
Africa.
Stay tuned.
(00:58):
Arun welcome.
Arun (00:59):
Thanks, Damola.
Very kind introduction.
It's my pleasure to be here andshare my story and, hopefully,
some insights that yourlistenership can gain from my
experience.
Damola (01:15):
Great.
We were speaking earlier,before we started, and I mean so
.
Much has happened within yourspace and, like I mentioned,
botswana is not one of the bigthree Nigeria, kenya, south
Africa when you talk aboutinsurance or even innovation
around financial services.
But before we go into all ofthat, who is Arun?
(01:39):
How did this all come about?
Arun (01:42):
Wow, that could take up this entire podcast.
So let me just think back as tohow I should summarize this
well so that it fits in nicelywith the format here.
So look, I'm a kid that grew upin a town called Lubaatsi.
It's about 70 kilometers southof the capital city of Botswana,
(02:04):
khabaroni.
Khabaroni is where I'mcurrently located and where my
company, alpha Direct, isheadquartered, and Lubaatsi is a
very small town, but veryvibrant town and a very old town
.
And as a kid we didn't have alot of things to do in Lubaatsi.
We used to climb up a lot ofhills.
(02:25):
The town is filled with,surrounded by a lot of hills,
and so we used to climb hills.
We never had television.
Even when we did havetelevision, we had two channels.
So there wasn't a lot of thingsto do and I was naturally
inclined as a child towardsentrepreneurship.
My father himself was anentrepreneur.
(02:45):
He was a professional.
Initially, he was a charteredaccountant, one of the first
chartered accountants inBotswana, and he set up the
Botswana Institute ofAccountants and so on and so
forth.
So growing up in Lubaatsi, Iwas very fascinated with
entrepreneurs and businesspeople in general, and I read I
happened to read when I was akid, a biography of Warren
(03:07):
Buffett and I was veryfascinated by Buffett's story.
And then later on, when I wasvery, very young, nine or 10
years old, I started investingin the stock market as a means
to try and learn more aboutbusinesses and how they operate,
the means of saving.
So I was very frugal, Inaturally had savings even at
(03:30):
that young age.
And then I just started readingannual reports of companies,
and one of the companies that Iinvested in when I was a
teenager was a subsidiary ofSandlam called Botswana
Insurance Holdings Limited.
It was a listed company, stillis a listed company, and I used
to religiously read their annualreports.
I have this friend of mine whowent to college with me called
Pex Ella Kello, mui Kisa and himand I used to invest in
(03:53):
companies all the time, but weused to do a lot of very deep
fundamental analysis oncompanies.
And he told me something whenwe were invested in Botswana
Insurance Holdings and we wereremarking about what a great
business insurance is, and hesaid Warren Buffett actually got
the capital to make all theinvestments that he made from
(04:14):
the insurance business.
And so I kind of tied two andtwo together to say, oh, I
really liked reading Buffett'sbiography and I really enjoyed
and found a lot of similaritiesin the way he did things and the
way my thought process also was, and so I maintained this
fascination for insurance.
However, as life often does, ittook me in a completely
(04:36):
different direction.
I went to the United Statesbecause my dad felt that I would
be able to accomplish a lotmore in the US than I would in
Botswana, and so I went out andI started a chain of CPA firms.
I purchased a couple of CPAfirms in the state of Florida,
expanded them for a couple ofyears, but I was never truly
passionate about practice and asa result I enjoyed sort of very
(05:00):
limited success.
You could even say that Iwasn't really very successful at
my first career.
But somewhere along the lines Imet a guy in Florida.
I purchased his firm and hesaid Aaron, you should really
consider getting licensed tosell insurance, because I've
made more money sellinginsurance in my career than I
(05:21):
ever have in my CPA firm.
This was right around the timethat my dad passed away as well,
and so I was like okay, youknow what this insurance thing
seems interesting.
I was a little bit lost and Iwent out and I got my insurance
license in Florida and I startedselling insurance and I was
fascinated by it.
But I would attend all theseconferences of insurance
(05:42):
companies in the US that wouldinvite me over and I was always
fascinated with how theirbusiness model worked and I
wanted to learn more about it.
And along the same time I met aguy called Dr Kiran Patel, who
today is very famous.
You know he's built and sold tobillion dollar insurance
companies in the US.
But we shared a couple ofsimilarities in the sense, even
(06:04):
though he was from a differentgeneration.
He was also, like, born inAfrica.
He was born in Zambia, grew upin Zambia and lived here for a
while and then immigrated to theUS in the 70s and he's a
cardiologist by profession andso on.
So we had a lot of similarities.
He's also Indian origin parents.
So I met Dr K and I literallyinstantly knew that I wanted to
be something like him in thesense that he was very
(06:27):
successful in the insurancebusiness.
But he also was aphilanthropist of note and I
always had aspirations to giveback.
You know, I never believed thatwealth is really possessed by
you.
I believe it's somethingtemporary and you.
You're a custodian of it forsome time, but you're always a
custodian of wealth for thebenefit of others, and he shared
(06:51):
that philosophy.
And so we were very aligned andfor five years four or five
years I literally I didn'treally discuss much business
with Dr K.
We just I just used to call himonce in a while and talk to him
, find out how he was doing.
And then finally I decided tosell my firm in the US and then
decided to move back to Botswanabecause I felt that Africa is
(07:14):
where the future was going to beand I felt that I wanted to
play a role in that future.
And when I decided to move back, I went to Dr K and I said I'm
thinking about starting aninsurance company because it's
been a lifelong dream of mine,ever since I read Buffett's
biography.
So would you like to invest inmy insurance company?
And five seconds later he saidyes, and the rest is history.
Damola (07:37):
Wow, wow, how do you get that that much support even
early on?
I think there's something therethat you mentioned, but it's
good to highlight.
It's the place of learning,understanding someone, amazing
stuff and starting off doinginsurance right and then
starting off an insurancecompany in Botswana.
(07:58):
How did that?
Yeah, it's crazy.
Arun (08:04):
It's crazy, it absolutely is crazy.
And you know, this is where Ibelieve in many things in life,
and more so in the businessworld, in the world of
entrepreneurship.
We are successful notnecessarily because of our own
actions, because there are manypeople also working just as hard
as us and doing all the thingsthat we're doing, but we're also
(08:26):
successful more because ofother people's faith and trust
in us.
So, just like Dr K decided tolend me credibility that he had
accumulated over his lifetime,just on the basis of my
personality it's not that Ibrought anything special to the
table, but just on the basis ofthe conversations and maybe
something that he saw in me.
(08:47):
You know I was able to build onmy dream, and so I think
oftentimes these things happenby chance.
But chance is also a functionof what we, what we put into it
and what we feel in our heartsright that we can accomplish.
Damola (09:01):
Yeah, yeah, and that journey to building an insurance
company in Africa.
What was the strategy?
Because I mean, you are todayis an insurer, but yeah, and in
short, as well.
So that's.
Arun (09:15):
That's interesting because that kind of happened as an
evolution.
So when we started our business, I knew that a we had to do
things differently in order torealize, you know, higher than
normal returns.
I knew that we had to have adifferent approach to
distribution.
So my initial idea was I'mgoing to start a direct
(09:36):
insurance underwriter.
This market was largelyintermediated I'm talking 80 to
90% intermediated when westarted our business.
There was two brokers thatessentially control the entire
Botswana market they controlabout 80% of all the short term
insurance premiums in thismarket and so I needed a
strategy that would ensure thata I could survive long enough to
(10:01):
actually change things and bethat I could have a base with
which I could, you know, leverthat I could have a base that I
could leverage to createsomething special.
So initially I said, okay, Ineed premiums in order for me to
afford a team and affordtechnology and so on and so
(10:21):
forth.
So I'm going to start a directinsurance underwriter which will
give me the capital base that Ineed to go out and actually
solve the bigger problem, whichis insurance penetration.
Damola (10:32):
I used to sell insurance , and so I'm very proud of that.
I mean, that's what.
That was my first entry intothe insurance space.
I'm coming from outside as well, right Looking at the market at
the time.
What year was this?
Arun (10:45):
I moved back in 2012.
It took a good amount of timefor me to get all the pieces
together to apply for a license,so I finally got the license in
2014.
Thanks to the support ofanother gentleman who you know,
I met randomly through some ofthe charitable work that my dad
had been doing and he agreedvery graciously to help me
(11:08):
establish Alpha Derek because Iknew nothing about insurance.
I had no contacts.
I'd never, I'd never dealt withreinsurance in the entire
history of you know, the talentand run and this gentleman, his
name is Mr Chari.
He had spent 40 years, fourdecades, in the insurance
industry at all levels ofinsurance companies, from the
lowest level in the underwritingdepartment, right up to, you
(11:33):
know, deputy general manager ofGulf insurance group, which is,
you know, billion dollaroperation in 14 countries in
Middle East and North Africa.
So, you know, he brought a lotof contacts to the table and he
again, you know, believed in mefor some reason and said you
know what?
I'm going to put my name and myreputation on the line so that
you can accomplish this dream.
So that's how it also cameabout.
(11:54):
And then, you know, you asked methe question about how did we
evolve from?
Okay, we wanted an insurancecompany.
How did we evolve into becomingan insure tech?
So my brother was always, youknow, more oriented towards
technology.
Both of us studied accounting.
So we we never, neither of us,had a background in insurance or
in technology from an academicperspective, but my interest was
(12:16):
always in insurance and hisinterest was always in
technology.
And so, after I had gotten theconcept of Alpha Derek off the
ground, you know.
He came in and said you knowwhat?
Let me figure out thetechnology side of this, how we
can leverage technology to makethings work better.
And then he went out and builtGraphite, which is our
(12:37):
proprietary insurance platformthat we developed from scratch.
It's as good as any world-classinsurance software platform
that you can buy for a lot ofmoney.
Damola (12:48):
What was the market like currently at that time?
And then you come into thespace.
What were you bringing and howwas the reception like?
Yeah, so it's very protective,you know.
Arun (12:58):
Oh, of course insurance is .
You know, I like to say it'sthe biggest mafia business on
earth because everybody isreally protective of their
territory and that's, and that'sfine.
I understand why the thing is.
You know, there was aconversation that I had with the
CEO of one of the biggestbrokerages in the country and
(13:19):
again, this was long before Ihad actually launched Alpha
Derek, but I'd wanted to do itfor a number of years and you
know, I went up to him and Isaid you know, I want to start
an insurance company in Botswana.
And he said, you know, that'sthe dumbest idea ever.
And I said why?
And he's like, well, he's likethere's two brokerages us and
another brokerage that control80% of this market and we have
(13:44):
no need to send our business toyou like, we actually would
rather send our business to theestablished players, the
incumbents, because we alreadyhave relationships with them and
you might get a little bit ofsupport from us will send you
all the rubbish business andthen you'll burn through your
capital and after a couple ofyears, if you're still alive,
then maybe we'll think aboutsupporting.
(14:05):
So I walked away from thatconversation both heavily
dejected and also insanelymotivated to become a disruptor
of the status quo rather than tofit in with the mold of the
business.
So that's kind of how there wasa lot of these moments that
seemed like sort of negativeoutcomes at the time, but then
(14:29):
they all contributed to usdeveloping and building this
business to what it is today.
Damola (14:34):
So the other alpha direct, starting off in space,
what was the business model?
I mean as that evolved to whatyou are doing today?
Or what was the business model?
I know when you talk aboutbrokers, it means that you're
dealing.
You're talking about corporatebusinesses.
Yeah, so many you want to know,so even even personal lines was
intermediated.
Arun (14:52):
in this country there was literally a small sliver I would
say it was under 10% of thismarket was insured on a direct
basis, that is, without having abroker in place.
The first idea or firstinnovation was to change the
distribution model and we said,okay, we are going to go after
(15:13):
direct business, whatever it is,whether it's corporate and
commercial, whether it'spersonal lines business, we're
going to go after it on a directbasis and we're going to
effectively save the customermoney by eliminating the need
for a middleman.
And the thesis there was thatthe middleman had become sort of
fat cats for lack of a betterword and they were earning a lot
(15:35):
of money without adding a lotof value to the customer at the
end of the day.
And I felt that by adding valueto the customer and working
harder than my competitors thatI could effectively compete with
them by giving a better valueproposition to the end customer.
So we started out with that andwe started out with you know
very important tagline ofmassive savings on car insurance
(15:57):
and this and that.
So we went out and we promiseda lot of savings to people who
came in and wanted to get abetter deal on their insurance.
That was the initial model, andthen what we did is we
innovated in terms of claims,were the first to build our own
supply chain for auto parts inthis country, and we have
fortunately succeeded inchanging the entire industry.
(16:17):
Today, all of our competitorsin this market also have gone
out and built their own supplychains for auto parts to the
first to do it, and we wesucceeded in getting them to
change their way of doing it.
When we started in this market,there was only general
underwriting, which means youknow everybody kind of gets the
same rate within a certaincategory.
We were the first to doindividual underwriting in this
(16:39):
market.
Today, most underwriters havedone some form of individual
underwriting, which never usedto do before.
We changed the game in a lot ofways and most of the time we
were leveraging two key things.
We were leveraging some form oftechnology, ict in particular
and we were leveraging a youngtalent pool that we believed in
(17:01):
unconditional, whereas most ofthese young people would never
have had an opportunity to workfor one of our competitors.
Today, we are the primerecruitment ground for our
competitors.
They love hiring our staffbecause our staff are deep in
the world.
Damola (17:17):
That's interesting and I mean it's what innovation
brings right and you bringsomething new to the market and
being able to see that it worksand then is impacting the whole
industry.
The insurance industry ishighly regulated and, starting
off an insurance company, not aninshote, it means that there's
a lot of engagement andconversation with the regulator
(17:40):
in the license.
Insurance business is, yes,it's very well regulated, highly
regulated, but then also it'scapital intensive Early on, you
know, being able to get thatkind of funding and that backing
.
I mean, how did that come aboutright?
And then, even for theregulator themselves, what's the
mindset around doing thingsdifferently?
Arun (17:58):
differently.
It's actually a great question.
So once I got Dr K to write methe first check, I then went to
two other you know sort of ultrahigh net worth individuals that
I knew here in Botswana, and Iwent to them and I said, look,
you know.
So, remember, I have zerocredibility because I've never
worked in an insurance company,I've never run an insurance
(18:21):
company.
I have zero credibility.
So I go to them and I say youknow what?
I've got this guy from theStates who has built a billion
dollar insurance company and hehas agreed to be my first
investor.
So if you want to be part ofthis journey and you know sort
of believe in me then this isyour opportunity and this is
(18:44):
what I'm willing to offer you.
And another five and fiveminutes later I had two more
backers.
So I leveraged Dr K'sendorsement to raise the money
that I needed to apply for thelicense.
Damola (18:58):
So Alpha Direct is up and running now and you're now
in competition with every otherinsurer within that space.
What was it like building, orhas it been building, the
business not like theconventional insurer, but like a
digital insurance company?
Arun (19:17):
Yeah, it's in Botswana, it's been really unique because
the first three years everybodybroke us, hated us.
Our competitors obviously hatedus, but they were all also
quite dismissive in the sensethey said these guys are not
going to survive one year.
And then we survived a year.
And then they said they're notgoing to survive two years.
(19:38):
We survived two years and thenthey said, oh well, even if they
survived two years, no startupin this country has ever made it
past the three year mark.
And we said well, we're goingto have to be the odd one out.
And so we kept going, and somevery tough moments, obviously in
that time period, because we'recompeting against people that
(19:59):
have been in the business for along time.
But I think we always had abelief that we could do it.
We always had a belief that wewere working on something
special, something beyond ourown necessities and our own
ambition.
Even so, I feel our competitorswere kind of, to some degree,
(20:21):
sleeping at the wheel, but, moreimportantly, I feel like they
didn't clearly have a strategy,because things were going so
good before we came into themarket.
Everybody was making doubledigit, healthy net underwriting
margins, pricing was sort ofoperating like a cartel and that
sort of a thing and I thinkthis is where I must compliment
(20:43):
our regulator here NBFERA they,despite us maybe not having
those credentials of being aforeign company, like we were a
Botswana startup, the regulatorhas always been very encouraging
for us to try new ideas, and tome that's what really good
regulation is about.
It's about enabling peoplewho've got ideas and are able to
(21:05):
raise capital to go out and totry their ideas out with a
backstop that preventspolicyholders from getting hurt
should those ideas notmaterialize.
But the solution is not to saydon't try your ideas.
The solution is to say try yourideas, and here's the framework
which you try your ideas with.
So we've been fortunate in thesense that our regulator does
(21:26):
want to encourage localcompanies to set up and start up
and grow from here, because atthe end of the day I mean you
know the way I see it is likethis all our competitors if they
make a diamond profit, you canrest assured that 50% of the
profit is leaving this country,whereas with us, if we make a
diamond profit, it's stayingright here, it's being
(21:47):
reinvested.
So a dollar of Alpha Directmoney goes a lot further in
bettering the lives of Botswanathan our competitors and I think
that's a very powerful thingand I'm happy, I'm fortunate,
that our regulator actually sortof supported that, saw that
that hey, this company can addvalue to what we're trying to
(22:09):
accomplish as a country, andsupported that, that notion.
Damola (22:13):
We like to hear stories around.
You know, regulatory,supporting innovation,
supporting new initiative withinthe space Again, these are
suspects.
You know South Africa, Kenya,Nigeria.
You know Ghana we are seeingthe regulators most especially
in Kenya.
You know, supporting innovation, new people, players in short
(22:35):
text, coming into the space andreally just having direct
engagement with this in shorttext, and not saying that we
don't know you, we don't careabout you.
As long as you're not insurer,don't come into our space, Right
, so, so it's very interesting.
And so, going back to yourstrategy, right, we talked about
your distribution strategy,right, but in terms of, because
(22:56):
you're an insurance company, youbring products to market, yeah,
the products that youdistribute.
How did you go about that?
What was the intention from dayone and how has that journey
been?
Arun (23:07):
So there was an important time in our journey where we
made the conscious decision tosay we are going to pivot from
being an innovative insurancecompany that's driven by
technology to we are going to bea technology company that
develops insurance productsRight.
(23:27):
And the change happened around2018 or 2019 when we did what's
called the Stanford SeedTransformation Program, and it
completely changed our thinkingabout what we should be doing,
who it's impacting and where wewant, where we can take this
business model.
And so we went.
We decided to go from being aninnovative insurance company to
(23:52):
being a company that really hasa chance to change the game as
far as insurance penetration anduptake of insurance on the
continent of Africa is concerned, and our vision became much
bigger.
It became bigger than justBotswana.
It became bigger than justdoing insurance better, cheaper,
faster.
It became about solving theroot cause of why people in
(24:17):
Africa, particularly in lowermiddle class, lsm so you know,
living standard four to six whyit is that they don't have
insurance, and we went abouttrying to solve that problem
using technology.
That was the key, pivotal point.
So we went out.
We said, okay, we want to solvethis problem.
How do we solve this problem?
So we went out and spoke to alot of people who are living in
(24:38):
this, in this living standardsmeasure four to six, and we
quickly gathered that you know,the problem of insurance
penetration wasn't necessarilyone of.
You know, I don't have money tobuy this product or I don't
believe I have a need to buythis product.
I know that there's a need andI do have the resources for it.
But, number one, the productsare not accessible to me.
(25:01):
So a lot of people in thatliving standards measure don't
have full time access to mobiledata.
Mobile data, relative to theirincome, is very expensive.
And then the second thing wasthe products were not.
The products are currentlyavailable in the market that our
competitors were selling werenot fit for purpose in the sense
they weren't designed with theneeds of people in living
(25:22):
standards measure four to six inmind.
They were designed around moreeducated, higher income
consumers in mind, because therewas this perception that they
had more money, more disposableincome.
And then the third thing theysaid was there was no
flexibility in terms of how youcould pay.
So we still are the firstcompany in Botswana to be able
(25:43):
to process and one of the firstfew in Africa to be able to
process recurring payments onmobile money platforms, for
example.
We wrote the code, we wrote thesoftware to be able to process
recurring payments on credit anddebit cards in this market.
So previously to us, you can dosingle transactions, single
authorization transactions, withus.
Now, having built the softwareplatform, the middleware, we are
(26:06):
now able to process recurringtransactions.
And those recurringtransactions are very important
for an insurance business to beable to run effectively, because
essentially what you're doingis you are spending money
upfront to acquire an annuitystream and that annuity stream
eventually generates a return onthe capital that you put up
front.
And so we had to overcome a lotof those hurdles.
(26:27):
But overcoming those hurdlesalso became our competitive
advantage.
So we've built not only theproducts from the ground up that
meet the consumers needs inthat market segment through our
retail distribution model.
We sell insurance in a boxwhich you can pick up in a
retail store, you can activateat the till and you have instant
, immediate insurance cover whenyou walk out of the store, and
(26:50):
we were the first to bring thatto market.
We learned and developed veryquickly and reiterated very
quickly in order to arrive atwhere we've gotten to today, at
the junction that we are today,I did come across the insurance
in the box initiative and Iwanted you to talk a little bit
more about that.
Damola (27:11):
What is that?
What product is it?
How do customers engage with it?
What's the feedback?
Because you are makingsomething that is intangible.
That's the age-old issue withinsurance what am I actually
paying for?
100%.
Arun (27:31):
What we realized when we went out and spoke to people on
the streets and oftentimes youwon't find insurance company
CEOs going out onto the streets,in the bus stations and so on,
talking to a hawker in themarket.
They live a completelydifferent life, and so, because
(27:52):
we were willing to do that, weactually got a lot of insight
into what makes people in thatcategory tick.
And, as you correctly said, wetook an intangible product and
we made it tangible, becausepeople relate to value in terms
of the tangibility that thatparticular product affords them,
in terms of the product designas well.
(28:13):
So we launched with anaccidental death and disability
product which is really unique,not only in Africa, but in many
other parts of the world as well.
I heard about this product thathad been very successful in
China, was an $8 billion a yearpremium product, and so I went
to Munich Rea and I said look,this product is going to be my
flagship product on my boxproduct line that I'm launching,
(28:36):
and I want your actuarial teamto help me design the product
and price it according to whatwill sell in this market and
still enable us to be able tomake a buck.
And so we went out and wedesigned this product from
scratch so we're able to offerlike $100,000 of cover for under
$5 a month in premium.
But it's a graded payoutstructure and so on and so forth
(28:59):
, but it gives people a chanceto have $100,000 of insurance
which they could never havedreamt of in their life before
we launched the product.
We also have, like a third partymotor insurance product.
We have electronic deviceproducts, so cover cell phones
and tablet computers and laptopsand the like, and we have a
(29:19):
legal insurance product.
So some of these products aredesigned along the lines of
existing products in the market,but we've changed the
distribution model and some ofthem are novel products that we
created from scratch.
But the important thing torealize is that our box business
, as we refer to it, is not a,it's not a single product
(29:40):
business, it's a platformbusiness.
Once we have a presence in aretail store, we can launch as
many products as the market willtake.
And that's exactly how we do it.
We launch a new product everycouple of months and we test out
the market.
If a product doesn't work, wequickly kill it, and if a
(30:00):
product works, then we keep itgoing and we try to, you know,
get more people to buy theproduct.
Damola (30:07):
Very interesting initiative there, and I mean I
wanted to use the opportunity tocongratulate you on the African
Reinshote of the award.
I mean back in 2020, I think itwas as regards this product
right.
Arun (30:22):
That's right.
And what's interesting is, Ithink at that time we had sold
about 10,000 boxes and now we'reat about 60,000.
Damola (30:33):
Wow, wow.
So for the boxes, so for theproducts, so is this something
that you buy a month or a classfor a year?
Arun (30:42):
and yeah, it's month to month, Okay, okay.
Month to month and the reasonwe've made it month to month is
because of the affordabilitything, like if you ask somebody
to pay you a full annual premiumupfront in, you know in that
category of customer they won'ttake the risk of trying you out
(31:02):
and seeing how the product yeah.
Damola (31:05):
So you have to make the barrier to entry really, really
low.
Arun (31:08):
So for us the barrier to entry is literally like it's
about $4 for US dollars.
Damola (31:15):
I wanted to ask so compared to your competitors or
the traditional insurancecompanies, right, how is Afro
direct fair in terms of expense?
You know how much of how muchis technology helping in that
regard, because you know whenyou look at insurance, the
expense is something that is ahuge line on the balance sheet.
(31:36):
What's differentiating factorfor you compared to your peers?
Arun (31:39):
So look, I would say this.
I would say that our expenseratios are, as of today, very
much in line with the market,perhaps a little bit superior to
the market.
We've grown from a standingstart to today.
We are the fifth largestunderwriter in Botswana and I
(32:00):
think in the next two or threeyears will be the fourth largest
and the.
The idea is we will get ourexpense ratios the benefits of
all the efforts that we put inas we scale this business to the
next level.
In fact, we're already startingto see it.
So, if you look at, every yearsince we started our business,
our expense ratio has droppedbecause we've written more
(32:22):
business, more premium and so onand so forth.
We're not necessarily having tohire more staff or incur more
overheads, and I think that, interms of claims, while we know
our primary focus up until nowhas been to deliver the best
claim service and notnecessarily to cut costs, I
(32:43):
think that now is the time whenwe can go in and start to
optimize our claims process,optimize our buying leverage
technology to be more efficient,and you need to use less people
to do the same job.
That's sort of the thing,because we've achieved a certain
level of scale at about $7million in gross return premium.
Now we can start to optimizeour business for performance and
(33:05):
, most importantly, optimize itwithout compromising on the
customer experience is.
In my view, the customerexperience is the most important
thing, is a driver of revenueand it is the singular most
important thing that we need tofocus on.
The second most important thingis optimizing our own cost
structure and our own balancesheet so that we are giving you
know sort of the profitabilityand the results that we expect
(33:27):
to see from the business.
Damola (33:29):
Alright, so you've disrupted basically the, both
swan and markets, leveragingtechnology, innovation, customer
first.
Looking at the, the insuranceindustry generally across the
continent, what do you think thefuture holds?
Arun (33:47):
So I mean the benefits I think are fairly obvious.
In the sense, the number oneproblem that we need to crack in
Africa is our low insurancepenetration rate.
Even even when you take ourinsurance penetration rate and
you adjust it for you knowdifferences in per capita income
and so on and so forth it'sstill dismally low.
(34:08):
And so there's a lot, there's anaturally a lot of potential to
grow the market itself and Ithink that there's going to be a
lot of innovation in the space.
But there's also a lot ofbarriers that I think we, as not
only an industry, but even usas Africans, need to think about
.
So, for example, I would loveto see a day when Botswana
(34:30):
insurance company and rightbusiness in Nigeria and not have
to necessarily go in and applyfor a separate license in
Nigeria and every other marketthat wants to operate.
And the same way we're thinkingabout trade within the African
continent and increasing intraAfrica trade, we should also
start thinking about how do weenable our homegrown financial
(34:55):
services in this businesses, andinsurance in particular,
because that's my field ofinterest to go into new markets
easily, effectively, with aunified sort of dispute
resolution process and so on,and be able to operate in a new
market so that we can contributeto growing that market.
I think that's a super bigproblem to solve and I think
(35:17):
it's a it's a very hairy problemthat exists currently in in
terms of us achieving our truepotential.
The second thing is that, whilethere's a lot of potential for
innovation, I do believe thatthere's going to be a couple of
different models that are goingto succeed better than others,
and the reason why we've we'vegone with this model of
(35:38):
controlling the entire customexperience from end to end, from
product design to claimsettlement to reinsurance.
I believe that our model willultimately be more successful
because working with incumbentsis a zero sum game.
The incumbents don't want thestatus quo to change.
There's no incumbent who reallywants to be disrupted.
(36:02):
There's no incumbent who reallywants their current profits and
bonuses to change.
Human beings are innatelyselfish, so you're going to find
that they're going to sabotageyou.
They're going to try to takeyou down unless you actually
come in and disrupt their veryown business model, and that, I
think, will force them to sortof work with insuretex and look
(36:24):
at insuretex not as a threatthat they need to squash, but as
a new paradigm shift in how wethink about insurance and what
it can do for people in Africa,for the ordinary people in
Africa.
Damola (36:37):
So in terms of insuretex in Botswana, are there that
many or some of them springingup?
Arun (36:45):
No, there aren't that many , unfortunately.
I'm hoping that entrepreneursin Botswana that are interested
in the insurance space will lookat us and say, if these guys
can do it, why can't I?
And they'll come in and try tobe part of the industry and the
ecosystem and help us to buildthe ecosystem.
But, as of today, there hasn'tbeen this big insuretex boom
(37:08):
that's happened in Botswanabecause of Alpha Director or
even otherwise.
So I'm hopeful about it, butI'm not sure if there are other
entrepreneurs thinking aboutthis problem as much as we've
spent our time thinking about.
Damola (37:23):
OK, so beyond Botswana, what does the future hold?
Is there expansion?
Are you coming to Nigeria soon?
Arun (37:31):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, look, we started anoperation in Zambia about two
years ago.
It's doing fairly well, it'sexpanded quite significantly and
that was our first step outsideof Botswana.
We are currently busy goinginto South Africa and the future
beyond South Africa.
(37:52):
Of course, we want to be in allthe big markets.
We want to be in Nigeria, egyptand Kenya, but that may not be
the way it pans out.
Our business model could evenbe applied successfully in
countries like Brazil, vietnam,cambodia, some countries in the
EU.
Even so, we see a lot ofpotential for the business
Beyond the Southern African play.
(38:13):
We see a lot of potential forthe business even globally, in
many emerging markets wheresimilar problems exist in terms
of insurance penetration andwhere our solution can actually
be a real game changer for thosemarkets.
Damola (38:28):
Fair enough.
So for short texts looking tocome into this space, which
would you advise to come in,maybe like an innovation partner
to existing insurers, or theycome in fully like you as an
insurer themselves, controllingthe value chain?
Arun (38:43):
I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all type of
situation.
I think it's about what, as anentrepreneur, what moves you,
what is your calling?
So my personal desire wasinitially to be a game changer,
to change the game, to changethe way that things were done
and, to some degree, to prove tomyself and to a few other
(39:05):
people that I know very wellthat my ideas have merit.
And then, over time, it evolvedto how do we solve this problem
of insurance penetration?
It's a big problem, it's a veryproblem.
It's a problem where, if we dosuccessfully solve it, we can
have a tremendous amount ofsocial impact and do a lot of
good in the world.
And that was sort of where wecame from in terms of attacking
(39:27):
this problem.
So it depends a lot on theproblem itself that you're
trying to solve.
So if you're trying to solveinsurance penetration, like we
are, then I think the model ofbeing an underwriter is your
best model, because you can havethe flexibility to design and
deploy products at your own pacebut that also meet the needs of
customers, which largerincumbents may not do, may not
(39:49):
want to do or may not besuccessful at doing.
And if you're trying to solve adifferent problem, like maybe
you're trying to solve for fraudin the claims process, then I
think it's a better model foryou to be a technology provider
to a large incumbent or to theindustry.
That's the way I would see it.
So InsureTech is a very broadstatement.
(40:09):
I like to call us a riskcarrying InsureTech.
So yes, we build our owntechnology, but we also carry
risk, and that, I think,differentiates us, because we
have to stand behind everysingle product that we build and
develop and deploy.
Damola (40:24):
Yeah, I mean.
Arun (40:25):
And if the product is, so do we you know.
Damola (40:27):
Yes, yes, yes, I've been meaning to ask this right Even
from the name Alpha Direct.
You've spoken about how youstarted off in this space and
you were basically walkingagainst the tide.
What kind of culture do youhave within your team that helps
you to just be gong-go aboutthis project?
(40:50):
What's the mindset that you'reinstilling within your team
Because you're doing somethingdifferent?
You're going against, just likeyou said, a very protective
industry.
Arun (40:59):
Your assessment is correct in the sense you have to start
at the base level, at the rootlevel, of solving the problem,
and that means your ownorganization needs to have a
disruptive mindset.
So I'll give you a simpleexample.
Yesterday, last evening, I tooka walk around the office.
I do that after hours.
I go around, talk to all themanagers, talk to all the
(41:19):
different teams that are workingwithin the company, and I
realized that we're currentlydeploying three new systems
within our organization.
I'm talking about technologyplatforms.
Within our organization, we'remigrating a key part of our
business onto our proprietaryplatform.
We are changing the way that webuy automotive parts and we're
(41:42):
changing the entire procurementsystem for that, and that's also
ongoing.
And then there's a third pieceof our business as well that we
are deploying new technology to,and the only way that I'm able
to do this I mean I didn't evenknow about one of the
deployments that was happening,because that's an initiative
that's being taken by one of theteams that hasn't bothered to
(42:05):
tell me that they wereimplementing this, but that's
great.
That's the kind of culture thatwe encourage.
So when we started the business,we said we have to, first and
foremost, recruit the rightpeople and we never recruited
anybody from within the industry.
We always located our office,so insurance companies like to
locate in a cluster.
So if you come to Habaroni,you'll notice that almost every
(42:27):
insurance company is locatedeither in the fairgrounds area,
which is like a financialservices district, where the
largest insurance companylocated, so everybody else also
located there and all thebrokers are located there too,
or they're in the centralbusiness district, which is the
other place where the fewbrokers are, and so on and so
forth.
We started our business in anindustrial park, in a warehouse
(42:49):
with no air conditioning, andnow we're at the Botswana
Innovation Hub, which isextremely far away from every
other insurance company.
So we always had this mindsetthat we want to be different, so
we located our offices in adifferent place.
We never hired anybody fromwithin the industry for years
and years and years.
Now.
Of course, we do have a lot ofpeople that we've hired from
(43:09):
other companies, but we stillprefer to hire people fresh out
of college and give them thetraining that they need and the
platform that they need to buildthe best versions of themselves
, and I think that belief andfaith that young people can do
it and can do it without tankingthe company.
(43:30):
I think was the key to usfinding the best talent,
motivating them and giving themplatform to really showcase what
they could do for solving theproblem that we're after Wow.
Damola (43:42):
Aaron, it's been a pleasure speaking.
I mean very insightfulconversation, Very interesting
journey as well.
Also great insight into what'shappening in the Botswana market
and I mean super excitingwhat's happening within
insurance innovation acrossAfrica.
I mean we definitely would havefurther conversations because I
(44:05):
know that there are a lot ofthings that we still definitely
need to deep into, even aroundin short text.
And growing the space and, youknow, attracting funding.
Oh yeah, thank you Absolutely.
Arun (44:17):
First and foremost, let me say thank you, damola, for
taking the initiative to reachout to me and giving me this
opportunity to share part of mystory with your listenership
Solving such a big problem asinsurance penetration.
While, while we all understandthat it can have tremendous
impact, it can't be done by oneperson or a small group of
(44:40):
people.
A lot of people who arepassionate about solving this
problem need to come together tosolve this problem, and they
can be from across Africa.
So my feeling is that there'sgoing to be a lot of people that
listen to this and think youknow what this is a good enough,
important enough problem that Iwant to solve it, and then
(45:00):
we'll join hands and go out andfigure out how we solve this
problem.
Damola (45:03):
Yeah, that's something that we are keen on.
Three things encourage learning, facilitate innovation,
encourage networking and I knowthat this conversation, a lot of
people will learn from it is tosupport some innovation,
different thinking.
And, in terms of the networking, how can people connect with
(45:23):
Aaron?
How can people connect withAlpha Direct?
I want to partner, I want towork with you, I want to invest,
because I know you work withthe number of VC firms, launch
Africa being one of them.
Zac is a friend of the house.
How can they connect?
Arun (45:39):
So yeah.
So, first of all, a big shoutout to Zac Sinead and the Launch
Africa team.
Them backing us was the gamechanger for us.
It changed the gamesignificantly, and I'm ever so
grateful for having met them andfor them having believed in us.
And then, in terms of reachingout to us, I think if people
want to understand more aboutwhat we do, please do visit our
(46:00):
website it's alphadirectafricaand then, if they want to
connect with me personally, thebest way is LinkedIn.
Arun P Ayer from Alpha Direct.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn and share your ideas,
share your thoughts, and we willtake them forward.
If you want to just have a chator a coffee, happy to do that
as well.
Awesome, thank you, aaron.
(46:21):
Thank you so much, damola.
Damola (46:52):
We might have comments, reviews as well as questions.
Please do share our LinkedInpage or our Twitter page, as
well as remember to follow us.
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