Embark on an enlightening quest to demystify the secrets behind starting and scaling innovative enterprises with a seasoned entrepreneur who debunks the conventional wisdom that domain expertise is the silver bullet for business success. As the founder of WestCape, our guest unravels the narrative of how personal frustrations with the financial services industry spurred the inception of his company, setting the stage for a broader discussion on how challenges can be transformed into impactful solutions. This episode promises to reshape your perspective on the ingenuity that drives the startup world.
Our conversation stretches into the practicalities of distinguishing mere ideas from profitable ventures, with a focus on the lifeblood of any business – unit economics, scalability, and the power of a visionary mindset. We examine the evolution of iconic brands like Samsung and Adidas, emphasizing how their beginnings hardly hinted at the titans they would become. By recounting stories of success, reinvention, and strategic acquisitions, we provide a masterclass on what it truly takes to transform a spark of an idea into a market-changing powerhouse.
Lastly, we traverse the harrowing yet rewarding terrain of entrepreneurship, reflecting on the sustainable foundations necessary for business longevity, the nuanced approach to leadership that fosters team growth and personal development, and the indelible impact a successful venture can make on the community it serves. This episode not only shares the wisdom of our guest's experiences but also ignites a conversation on the core values and pivotal choices that craft a meaningful entrepreneurial journey. Join our Konnected Minds community and take a step toward your own path of progress.
Watch the video episode of this on YouTube - https://linktr.ee/konnectedminds
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Business is a numbers game.
Building a businesstraditionally is different from
building a tech product.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What person must you become to be able to lead a
startup?
Number one business andself-development podcast.
Connected Minds podcast.
My man, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm great.
How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm doing fantastic.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Look, I see you're wearing white and I'm also
wearing white white is myfavorite color well, I live for
white hey, that makes the two ofus yes um, I've seen several
interviews of you right and I'vewatched the trajectory of
businesses that you started inGhana.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And one of the things that really strikes me is how
you can move from an industry toan industry, because most
people would like to becomfortable in the space where
they're in.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
How you?
Would you start this business?
I mean you started.
There was a company you started.
You sold it to trips Right.
That's true, you got employedby them again, so how are you
able to do that?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So I think most people first of all like to
think that to be successful inbusiness, you need to have a
domain expertise in that sector.
So someone should start arestaurant only if they are a
chef.
Or someone should start afashion business if they've gone
to a fashion school.
I am of a completely differentopinion only if they are a chef.
Or someone should start afashion business if they've gone
(01:30):
to a fashion school.
I am of a completely differentopinion.
I actually think that outsidepeople so if you do not have
sector-specific experience inthat domain you can bring new
perspectives or new thinking andthat can bring about
innovations and new ways ofdoing things.
Because the people who havedomain expertise think
conventionally.
They will say that, oh, this ishow it's always been done in
this sector.
Oh, this is how it's alwaysbeen done, you know, for the
(01:51):
past 50 years.
So what are you going to change?
But if you are from the outside, you think differently.
You think like a customer, youthink like a user, you think
like an innovator and youdisrupt the system.
I mean, today, facebook or Metais the biggest media platform,
but it wasn't built by a mediaprofessional.
You understand?
(02:13):
X is a media platform, but itwasn't built by a media
professional or media andcommunication platform, but it
wasn't built by PR andcommunication professional.
So, as an entrepreneur, I justlike to think about how can we
do things differently,regardless of whether I have a
domain expertise in thatbusiness or not.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
You know, most people get scared right when they're
moving into new industries as anentrepreneur especially when
it's a startup, you usually wantto be comfortable in the space
where you are.
But then for you, what does ittake to say that today I'm going
to do a business in transportand I'm going to disrupt it,
tomorrow I'm going intohealthcare, the next day I'm
(02:54):
going into construction.
What does it take?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So for me personally and I think it varies for
different people I have toexperience the problem or the
opportunity.
I have to experience it, I haveto feel it, I have to connect
with it and then personalize itand then I own it.
That's how you start.
So let's go back to my firstventure, which was a fintech, a
financial technology companycalled West Cape.
(03:20):
I was working at Imani at thetime.
Imani is a policy think tank,you know, based in ghana.
I got into money to launchtheir francophone project.
Then I became communicationsdirector.
I also did a lot of work ongovernance and economic research
, you know.
But I wanted to leave imani todo something different, because
(03:40):
I thought that I had outland thesystem, you know, and I wanted
to start a business.
So I was looking for loans.
I had saved up to it's close toabout 200,000 Ghana cities, all
right so, but I wonder I wantedto start would require about
500,000 Ghana cities to launchit.
So I needed loan to to top upthe savings I had.
(04:02):
And I was then that and thatwas the first time I came into
contact with the financialservices industry firsthand,
because the only thing I wasdoing was either saving,
investing, either throughintermediaries or through my
relationship managers.
At the time you didn't haveapps like this, you know.
So I wanted to borrow money andI went to the banks.
(04:23):
They said you've got to havethis, you've got to have bank.
They said you got to have this,you got to have that, you got
to have that.
It was a shock for me.
I didn't know that.
That's what many people youknow were were going through,
and I would tell them that I sawthis interest rate on your
website.
It says 21, but now you'retelling me 29.
You know why is that the case?
I don't understand.
You said that what I only needthis, this, this, these five
(04:45):
items on your website, but nowyou're telling me about 10
things I need.
So it didn't make sense to meand I got frustrated.
That was the birth of my firstcompany called Wayscape, and
what we sought to do was prettysimple Digitize financial
products like insurance, loansand investments, so that you
(05:06):
don't have to go throughmultiple steps to have access to
this product.
So let's take insurance, forexample.
If you wanted to buy an autoinsurance or a car insurance,
you would have to be harassed byan insurance agent and they
tell you that their premium isthe best, their claim process is
the best, all, all of that.
(05:26):
And then they bring you someforms to fill out with tiny text
you know and you you need tohave a lawyer to understand what
the text means all of that, andso with our platform, that was
completely different.
So what you would see what theinsurance cover is about.
So, auto insurance fromenterprise, for example, this is
the premium.
(05:46):
This is the.
So, auto insurance fromenterprise, for example, this is
the premium.
This is the claim process.
This is the description.
These are everything.
You see it, and you'd even seereviews from previous users,
which then gives you theconfidence to go ahead with that
, with that service provider ornot.
And if you are interested inthe auto insurance from
enterprise, then you go aheadand request it on the websites.
Once you request it, you inputyour details, your car number,
(06:08):
everything.
The request goes to theEnterprise insurance dashboard.
Then they act on it and theydeliver your sticker to you or
they ask you to come to theoffice pick your sticker.
It was as simple as that.
So I wouldn't have thoughtabout it if we hadn't felt the
pain.
If I was from the inside, Iwould not be thinking of the
(06:29):
solution that way.
And then we moved to.
So what happened is that weraised $100,000 in equity
investment from it locally,because the problem we're
solving was, I think very good.
And so one investor saw theopportunity and decided to
invest.
And that's when you knowbuilding a product.
(06:51):
I actually saw the challengeswith building product like tech
product, because building abusiness traditionally is
different from building a techproduct.
With traditional business,you're just concerned about
providing the service to theuser, right, you know.
So the user needs insurance.
You provide that insurance.
It ends there and then they payyou for that.
(07:13):
For a tech product, you've gotto think about a problem and
you've got to understand theuser's problem.
You know how do they use theinsurance.
You know how would they accessit, because you're not going to
sell it to them physically or inperson.
They have to.
You're going to give them thetech and then they have to then
buy the service using the tech.
All right.
(07:34):
And so you've got to thinkabout the user.
Understand the user, the user'sjourney, very well.
How do, where did they discoverit?
Did they prefer to buy it on amobile app store or a USSD short
code?
Or they want to call and buythat insurance product.
You've got to do this and it'snot easy, and sometimes most
entrepreneurs tend to think thatthey know better than the user.
(07:56):
So they start to build fromtheir bedroom, and that's what
we did.
We spent about $50,000 buildinga solid platform.
We were super excited about itand you know, without any
feasibility studies.
Without talking to the user.
You know, and that's what beingthe first time founder teaches
(08:16):
you.
And so we went to the market.
We saw that the product wasover-sophisticated for the user.
We had too many features thatthe user didn't need, and so it
wasn't solving the problem forthe user and we had to go back
to the drawing board.
Well, thankfully, we managed torecover from that mistake.
(08:37):
It wasn't fatal Sometimes it canbe fatal, but it wasn't fatal
and so we pivoted and we did theright thing by talking to the
users.
We started calling users tocome to our office would create
a round circle, you know, and Iwould sit in the middle and be
asking them questions.
So what was the last time youbought an insurance product?
When was the last time youborrowed the money, you know?
And they were giving us ideasand I'll be noting the things
(08:59):
down.
So that's how we built thefinished product and built it
better, and that's how wemanaged to sell that software
asset at some point when thebanking sector faced some crisis
between 2017, 2018, and 2019.
And what happened was that manyfinancial institutions were
(09:19):
undercapitalized, and what thatmeans is that they didn't have
the required reserve to operatetheir business.
So at every given point in time, the bank of ghana, which is
the regulator, requiresfinancial institutions to have a
certain amount of money sittingsomewhere, you know, so that
when we all go to this financialinstitution or to this bank for
(09:41):
a drop money, they will be ableto honor that, that request and
many of them could not couldnot because they had divested
the funds.
You know they were investing inreal estate, which were, you
know, long-term assets.
And if a market woman is savingat the bank, they don't expect
to keep the money for the next10 years, you know, even five
years.
They expect to come for it in amonth's time yes but the
(10:02):
microfinance savings and loansand banks were investing the
money in real estate, in newventures like Resolve and things
like that, and these thingstake time to generate returns.
So we had a bank run and ourbusiness was exposed to the
industry and so some of thecontracts we had got canceled,
some of the lease we're pursuingthat we're going to give us,
(10:23):
you know, millions in revenuewere cancelled.
I was already dreaming ofbecoming a millionaire when I
saw when I saw the revenue andeverything.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You've already started spending the money
before you even get it In myhead.
You know it happens you know Iwanted us to touch on for the
average person.
How can they generate a startupidea in this economy?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So I think it's pretty.
I shouldn't say it's simple,because then it might be simple
to me, but it's not that it maynot be simple for other folks.
But I think the lessfrictionless way to go about it
is to look at the environmentfirst.
Start with your environment.
(11:17):
If you live in the village, forexample, and everybody's
thinking about is complainingabout the water.
The water bodies are polluted.
Everybody's saying that, oh,the water body's polluted.
That's everybody's thinkingabout is complaining about the
water.
The water bodies are polluted.
Everybody's saying that, oh,the water body's polluted.
That's everybody's nightmareconcern.
As an individual within thecommunity, what can you do to
address that concern?
You can do many things.
(11:39):
You can consider, for example,importing a chemical you put in
the water body to purify thewater body so that when people
fetch the water it's notcontaminated, and you charge the
government or you chargewhoever is to pay you a fee for
purifying the water body.
This could be an idea.
You could decide that you wouldextract the water from the
(12:04):
river, treat it and supply it topeople's homes, so people don't
come to the water bodiesthemselves directly, but you're
extracting the water from thewater body and then you're
treating it and distributing it,and you're still addressing the
content.
Because the content is thatthey don't have access to
quality water and the waterbodies are contaminated.
Or you can say that there's awater treatment plant in Accra.
(12:27):
I'm going to do a joint venturewith them.
I'm going to ask them to cometo this community, set up a
plant.
They bring their machinery.
I'm going to have 10% of thebusiness, they're going to have
90%, they will do it and theywill do everything.
I will simply be coordinatingthe success of the business on
the ground in that community andyou are addressing the issue.
So that's one way to thinkabout generating startup ideas.
(12:50):
Start with the environment andthink about the ways you can
address that problem for theuser.
But not every startup idea canbe a business as well, and
that's another thing to thinkabout.
Because it's a good thing tohave an idea.
It's another thing to have abusiness as well, and that's
another thing to think about,because it's a good thing to
have an idea, it's another thingto have a business.
A business must make money atthe end of the day, and so if
(13:13):
you're not able to make moneyprofitably, then you don't have
a business.
So not every startup idea isworth pursuing and most of the
times there's no way of knowingat the beginning.
No amount of visibility studiesor projections can tell you
what the market is going toteach you at the end of the day.
If you look at Airbnb, forexample, everybody said that it
(13:34):
was a stupid idea.
I'm sure many of our audienceknow what Airbnb is.
In fact, some of the greatestinvestors in the world at the
time 10 down the Airbnbinvestors because nobody thought
that it made sense for one togive out their private room for
another person and that businesswould be able to make money at
(13:55):
scale.
All right.
So because then that was a goodidea, but you didn't think that
it would be a good business.
So the only way to know is todo it right.
To know if a good idea is goingto be a good business, it's
just to do it, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I was in the car in a conversation with one of my
friends, daniel, and then thequestion I asked was at what
point do you know when you'vestarted a business right, or do
you know when you've started abusiness right, or when you
start the idea?
At what point then do you knowwhether I am in it, is it going
to work, or should I leave itand move on?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I think it's a first of all, I think it's a feeling.
It happens like a feeling, butit should not be that way.
Business is a numbers game.
If you're spending, say, $5, tomake $3.
So let's say today, for example, your customer pays you $5 for
(15:03):
the service you're offering andfor you to be able to make that
$5 from the customer, you spend$4.
And out of that you have $1left you have to pay rent, other
things, pay salaries, all ofthat and so on.
So your objective as a businessperson, as an entrepreneur, is
to reduce the cost at whichyou're producing the service to
(15:25):
the customer.
So from $4 to maybe $3, $2, andso on.
And so if by tomorrow you tryagain and you're unable to
reduce the cost of producing theservice from $4 to $3, then you
know that there's an issue withyour business.
Or if you attempt to reduce thecost of production from four to
(15:48):
three and the customer stopsbuying from you because they say
that there's a reduced valuefrom what they're getting, you
know that there's a problem withthe business.
So that's one way to look at it.
Your unit economics Do the uniteconomics add up?
Do they make sense at scale?
Would you have after producingthe service or the product and
the customer paying you for it,would you have enough left to
(16:10):
pay for your office, for payroll, for other things and so on,
and then to even declare profits?
If you don't see it happening,then you know that it's not
going to cut it.
But one must be patient.
You know there are differenttypes of business.
There's what we call the marginbusiness model and then there's
(16:31):
the volume business model.
A margin business model is whenyou simply need a few people to
buy the service and pay a lotmore for it and that's it.
And then volume is when youneed a lot of people to buy the
service at a cheap price.
So if you're running a volumebusiness, you need to know it
(16:51):
means you have to give yourselftime to acquire a lot more
customers in order to make upfor the cost of production.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, I understand that.
You know it's very difficult to, in most cases, right If you
don't have any experience instarting a business which most
people don't.
That's true.
I mean, I just started out ofschool.
The only experience I had waswhat I used to do in college.
Here and there, it's reallyhard to identify what could
(17:20):
potentially work Because youknow.
For someone like yourself who'sgot several industries where
you've got, you know businessessometimes it can be very
difficult to understand if thiswill work or not now to you as
an entrepreneur.
What would you say to thatperson running that business?
I?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
just, I think that you've got to be visionary about
the future and not contentyourself so much about the
present.
There are many businesses wethought would not work but
worked.
I mean, samsung, for example,was a shoemaking business.
They were just doing shoemaking.
They weren't doing electronics,but they were concerned about
(18:03):
the future.
You understand and then buildabout the future.
You understand and then youknow, build for the future.
If you look at adidas today,adidas was just doing, it was
repairing people's shoes.
And as they think about thefuture, you know, yeah have the
future in mind.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I you as an individual.
You've built a business, you'vesold a business you've acquired
a business recently?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
yes, I think one of the companies you just acquired
was Waffle.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, Waffle, yeah, that's true Now do you think
people should, because a lot ofthe companies these days they're
looking for acquisitions?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
acquisitions.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Do you think we should build businesses with the
hope to sell or with the hopeto?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
live to posterity with the hope to sell or with
the hope to live to posterity?
I think that we should buildpersonally build business for
the long term, regardless ofwhether the founder wants to
sell it or not.
The business itself should beable to stand on the foundation
that guarantees its long-termsustainability, because, if you
(19:04):
look at many of the things thatwe're using today, they are
built and manufactured bybusinesses that are not just
recently founded.
These are businesses that existor have existed for a very long
time.
Just look at everything aroundyou.
These things are notmanufactured by new businesses,
(19:28):
and so, if we seek to createvalue for the future what, which
is what the business should becreating value for the future we
need to think about thelong-term sustainability of the
business.
Now.
Every founder, everyentrepreneur must have an exit
strategy for their business yepyou.
You know, and so if your goal isto at some point exit your
business, you shouldn't exit thebusiness with the business
(19:50):
exiting itself as well, you know.
So I think that has been thechallenge for our industry.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Somebody will say that right, this guy has been
lucky for too long.
Yeah, yeah, he starts it, itworks out, sells, it comes back
again, do a quick runner, comeback again and then each time
he's got a business that hetalks about.
Yeah, I you know many startupsthat I have seen around here.
(20:18):
The biggest problem is funding.
How are you able to navigatethat in your businesses?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So funding, first of all, is a relationship business.
You cannot secure funding ifyou don't have the relationship.
That's the first thing.
So it's not a financialtransaction.
Securing the funding for yourbusiness is not a financial
transaction.
It's not.
It's a relationship thing.
So that's the first thing.
I didn't know that Our firstbusiness, our first venture, we
(20:50):
got the funding because I usedto design websites.
I used to design websites and Iwas very good at it.
I designed a website for thislady, ohi McCarthy, yvonne
McCarthy.
She's a customer serviceprofessional.
She was just from the UK aswell and she wanted to do
something in the customerservice industry and she was
(21:13):
always frustrated with thequality of service she was
getting everywhere.
She said she had gone to fillout the form on the website to
have her website designed.
She didn't get feedback.
But she got the feedback after72 hours and she was really
frustrated.
Look, in the UK I'll get aninstant feedback.
So when she reached out to me Idon't even know how we actually
(21:36):
met, but she was so happy andelated with the quality of
interaction we had.
She would say something thenext minute.
I'm providing feedback on that.
She said I need you say don'tworry, we'll do the research and
I'll send you now.
We'll do the research.
Give her three options she hasto choose from.
So, oh, wow, you're even givingme options.
Are you doing the research forme?
She was so happy with theexperience, so we, I built her
(21:58):
first website.
She was super happy, and so oneday she went to do, she went to
conduct a training for ashipping business in Tema called
Ben Marine Services in Tema,and so this Ben Marine Services
gentleman, a guy, wanted toactually upgrade his brand.
(22:20):
You know, he wanted to make hisdigital brand, everything solid
, and so she recommended us.
She recommended me to the manso he's not even a guy, he's a
man, you know and she said allthe nice things about me to this
man, all the nice things.
And then the man said, yeah,hey, isidore, someone just
(22:42):
talked to me about you.
I want to see you.
See, you know that we went.
At the time I had a partner andso he has background in finance,
so we went to his office.
Yeah, I even like you more inperson.
You know, I like the energy.
You know all of that.
Because I said we can do this,we can do that, we can do that.
(23:03):
You're so happy, yeah, I, andso on, because I said we can do
this, we can do that, we can dothat.
You're so happy, yeah, I thinkyou also come and work here.
I can give you an office here,you work here, you can do your
stuff outside, but work here,you know, because we, you're so
happy, excited to want to dosomething with us.
And then we just told him aboutthe idea, the idea of starting
the marketplace for financialservices.
Then he said he would invest.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
The power of recommendation?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, so that's the relationship business I'm
talking about.
So it's not a financialtransaction, because I wasn't
expecting him to even invest.
I didn't go there forinvestment, I was going there to
design websites and upgradepeople's flyers.
So that's how he started.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
We hear the success story You've done fantastic with
all the businesses that you'vedone, but there are black stains
behind you.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You've gone through it Sometimes you can even feel
to the extent that you don'thave money to put fuel in your
car.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, I mean, you just mentioned that you have to
sell a car yeah, exactly, right,exactly it's, it's
entrepreneurs go through it andI always say that if you're
crazy enough to think of you, Iwant to start a business and you
need to be prepared for all thethings that are going to come
your way yeah, that's true,because you will sell your car
you might even sell your house.
Yeah, that's true, you haveyour family, depending on you
(24:25):
and your staff members and theirfamilies.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, that's right.
That's what I love aboutentrepreneurship when you
succeed, you are empowering notjust your yourself, but an
entire economy.
All right that you don't evensee, you don't't even know.
Because this is it.
If I succeed today, I paybetter salary or I pay salary.
(24:50):
Let's just say I pay salary.
This colleague is going to usethe salary.
He's going to give part of itto his wife.
He's going to use some to payhis children's school fees.
He's going to buy something onthe roadside from the roadside
seller and the roadside selleris going to use that to pay
children's school fees, is goingto use that to buy some things.
(25:11):
You can understand how thereplaying effect of that sucks.
It goes a long way that wedon't see, which is why I'm a
big believer in entrepreneurship, except that I have challenges
with the way we're doing it here, especially the way I mean
government-supportedentrepreneurship programs have
(25:31):
not been successful, and that isa big challenge with the
ecosystem.
We need to incentivize peopleto get into entrepreneurship.
To incentivize people to getinto entrepreneurship not by
giving them like 20,000ganasides after taking them
through a 12-month program tolaunch something.
(25:54):
No, no, that's not how toincentivize quality talent into
entrepreneurship, becausesomeone with the right talent
will not subject themselves tosix months, 12 months of
so-called training and then waitfor 20,000 Ghana cities or
50,000 Ghana cities, 100,000Ghana cities from you, to just
(26:17):
launch a business.
Quality people will not subjectthemselves to that process, for
sure.
What we need to do is to allowpeople to be bold and crazy.
So, for example, I shouldn't.
I mean, I've registered.
I was just saying it.
This morning I was talking tosomeone.
I registered like fivecompanies in the US without
(26:38):
stepping foot for each type ofthe process in the US right, I
know where you're going withthat.
Yeah, I registered a bankaccount just last week or this
week.
It happened in two days.
I didn't have to go and sit insome banking hall.
Bring this, take a picture.
I didn't have to do that, andthe way it works in our system
(26:59):
is the reverse, and that is abig frustration to people who
have something to offer, right,right.
So or look at how the currencyis dancing, don't?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
even know what dance it is I can't figure it out.
You know whether it's at duwawa, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So these things can frustrate quality people with a
quality talent to first comeback home, wherever they are, or
to stay within the system andbuild for the system, all right,
or the cost of finance.
So one of the things that Ithink it should be easy for um
for for government to do is tosay that is to actually
(27:37):
guarantee um risk for banks.
You see, ask banks to give, andthis is something that's
working at the part of what.
Ask banks to give, and this issomething that's working.
The other part of the world.
Ask banks to give x, to reservea portion of their loan book to
entrepreneurs to start up, soentrepreneurs doing this in this
industry yeah and if they don't, without any collateral.
If they don't, if the loansdon't perform, we will pay back,
(28:00):
right, government will pay back, right, okay, if the loans
don't perform, we would pay back.
And that's why business loansare so easy to access in some
markets and with competitiveinterest rates, and here you
don't have anything.
And so you realize that thefolks who have access to all the
business loans are people whoare doing things that are not so
(28:21):
transformational for the future.
We're just financing realestates, right.
We're not thinking about I mean, we're not thinking about AI.
All right, just look at how muchwas invested in open AI before
it started commercializing.
More than a billion dollars.
More than a billion dollars, Imean.
(28:42):
Can you go to a bank and say Ineed $10,000 today to start an
AI company and they'll give youit?
No, of course, they will not.
All right.
So we need to think about ourregulatory environment.
We need to think about ourfinancial system, the way we
support entrepreneurship and theway we support people who want
to invest in entrepreneurs.
We need to create a better taxsystem or tax regime for both
(29:06):
investors and entrepreneurs.
Many investors, I know, are notso confident about the
regulatory framework of Africangovernment, so they prefer that.
You know, startups theyinvested in are registered
outside, and so that's why andso these things are headers that
you know deter quality peoplefrom going into you know
(29:30):
entrepreneurship.
Wow.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Wow, Isidore.
What person must you become tobe able to lead a startup?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, I think that you've got to be a listener.
You have to be observant a lot,because leadership is a
people's business.
It's just a people's business,and so you can only do that
effectively if you know how tolisten to people.
So listening is not just aboutwhat they say, but really paying
(30:05):
attention to them, because Iknow many a times what I have
had to do or say that changedthe way someone is feeling, and
if I wasn't listening or payingattention, I would have missed
that and that would haveaffected their productivity,
that would have affected theoutcome of the business.
So that's one you have to be agood, good listener.
(30:29):
You also have to be willing tolearn.
That is important.
Um, many a times, some leaderstend to think that they have to
be the most dominant voice inthe room.
But you already have authorityby virtue of the fact that
you're the leader, so you don'thave to do anything for you to
exert that authority.
So talking and having the mostdominant voice is not an
(30:53):
expression of leadership.
So you've got to allow otherpeople to have a position and to
think and to execute, to feelas well.
That's how you discover newopportunities, that's how you
empower your team.
That's how you build thefoundation of the business,
(31:14):
because the foundation of thebusiness is the people.
If the people have theconfidence to execute, do things
and all of that, you'll be good.
You can scale it very easilybecause you won't have to be in
every department for things tomove forward.
So that is important.
The other thing I've seen thatworks really in leadership or in
(31:36):
, you know, leading, especiallystartups is doing the things
that you expect other people todo.
So I can take the customerservice call, for example.
I mean, I can take the customerservice call, for example.
I can take the customer's line.
I even this morning we we didsome campaign and we got some
leads and I told the gentlemanin charge of that project don't
call, I'll be calling, I'll makethe first calls yeah I just
(31:59):
want to make the first, so dothe things that he said.
Oh, wow, remember, we gotsomeone recently and, uh, we're
going on some sales visits, youknow, and she told me that, oh,
what we need is that, and whatyou need is that you need about
five people.
Give them the cars.
You don't have to come on thesales visits, just sit in the
office and you know that's whatyou need.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's what she was saying.
You're already racking up thebills.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, racking up the bills.
Yeah, that's it not even thatyou need to do what other you
expect others to do, so that youlearn, you experience what they
go through, and then you canempathize with them as well.
You know that's true.
Yeah, so these are some of thethings I see work in in
leadership, but most importantly, you've got to just learn.
You've got to learn and beflexible to adjust, you know
yeah, we're getting into thequestions that we like to ask.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Okay, when we get into the end of the conversation
?
Now, if you haven't subscribed,please do become part of the
family and stay connected.
No-transcript.
What are your limitations andweaknesses?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Oh, limitations and weaknesses.
I know for sure that I have themind to see opportunities
everywhere, and that can becomea weakness, in the sense that it
turns from an opportunity intoa distraction.
(33:29):
Okay, all right, so it's notthe real opportunity that you
should go after.
It's everything that you shouldwant to pursue, and so I think
that is one weakness that I amworking on.
I think I've managed to dobetter.
It's something I'm aware of.
There are many things that I'veI've noted down.
(33:51):
I say I'm not touching, but Ijust noted them down.
Okay, um, that's one umlimitation, I think, so big some
time that I, um, I I know thatI have to start small somewhere,
but I just dread starting small.
(34:11):
Okay, because I have alwaysbelieved that if someone could
achieve building this and thisskill, why not me?
You can do it, I can do it, butby the point of truth is that
they started from somewhere andthey didn't just start by doing
it big and so yeah, I was sayingthat.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
You know human beings , we like to learn from finished
products.
Yeah yeah, and sometimes it canbe very detrimental.
Yeah, yeah, it is better tolearn from someone within your
circle who is doing better thanyou.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Than to take that huge target.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
It can be very difficult.
Even that huge target didn'tjust become that target all of a
sudden.
It went from the infancy stageto the puberty stage.
You're an adolescent, an adult,and a grandfather.
You see, I've seen a grandpapasomewhere.
You want to be a grandpapa?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
No, you've got to start from need to take the
first step for the first step.
Yeah, now then our nextquestion is motivation or
discipline?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I think, for me motivation, for me motivation,
uh, because, um, I, I, I, I, Iwell, I think it's also a
chicken and egg problem, youknow.
But most of the times I justknow that once I have the
motivation to do anything, I canget it done because I'm
(35:34):
motivated to do it.
Right.
You can have the discipline,but I'm not sure if yeah, but
for me, once I I know that mymotivation is to do this, I just
do it.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, that's amazing.
What's the?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
best advice you've ever received don't do it.
Yeah, don't, don't doentrepreneurship that's the best
advice yeah, wow the bestadvice you've ever received.
That's the best, because I mean, you're an entrepreneur and and
there are many entrepreneursout there I wouldn't advise
anyone to be an entrepreneurunless you're ready to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Okay, right, right, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, Unless you're ready to do that.
Crazy enough right.
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Gotcha.
Okay, now what's your favoritepersonal development book?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So, I'm not a huge fan of personal development
books.
I rather have learned so muchfrom books on specific topics,
right, and one of the thingsI've loved is the Word of
Nations by Adam Smith.
When I started working inpolicy think tank, it was one of
the first books that I startedhearing.
(36:41):
You know, in the Word ofNations by Adam Smith, he talked
about how some nations you knowdevelop to become so wealthy
and others remain poor for avery long time.
And when you look at our livesas well, others you know grow to
become wealthy.
Others remain poor for a verylong time or forever, you know.
And so I've learned a lot fromthat book on how to really it's
(37:03):
a mindset thing, it's a systemicthing to get to where you are.
I mean, wealth is not the goal,but it's it's, it's a natural
byproduct of, of development.
Wow, you know.
And so once you're developingyourself, you become wealthy
without thinking about it.
You understand, you can becomewealthy in health, wealthy
(37:24):
intellectually, wealthymaterially.
You wealthy with theconnections.
So yeah, and so that's for meone of the best books.
I've also loved some podcasts.
I mean I enjoy listening to thediary of a CEO.
Yeah, I love some of thecontent and guests that Stephen
(37:48):
brings on the show.
Show, yeah, and I just yeah,that's it.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
That's amazing um, we need a question for the next
guest from you if you, um, Imean, that's, that's interesting
.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Well, yeah, so if you had to do it all over again,
what would you do differently?
I mean, that's, that is a verysimple question, but, um, in
fact, I think this question isso, it's so popular that it's
writing it for yeah, it's the.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
The tablet is writing yeah, yeah, predicting it, yeah
because sometimes you look back.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
You look back at your journey and say oh okay, I wish
I had done this differentlyyeah I wish I had done this
different and I think everyonehas got that right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Anyone you ask this question to over the age of 15
will probably tell you something.
They'll tell you something.
I think it's quite a profoundquestion yeah, no matter how
simple it is.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah, but if I'm allowed to ask um a second
question so that the guest hastwo questions to ask, maybe that
would be a new well it would bea new thing, but I'm willing to
write it down.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Okay, then maybe they have a choice, you see, all
right, all right so you havemoney, health and relationship.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
What would you prioritize?
Wow, money, half andrelationship and have relations
what?
What would you prioritize andwhy?
Speaker 2 (39:27):
that's a good question, no that's a very good
question, I like that we haveabout 80% of our viewers on the
channel who have not subscribed.
Now we still have about 9,000subscribers and we're very close
to getting to the 10.
And I'm hoping that before thisconversation comes out, before
you hear it, we'll be on 15Kkand if we are not, then be part
(39:50):
of the family.
Connected minds podcast is forthose that want self-development
and wants to move ahead in lifestay connected.
Business is a numbers game.
Building a businesstraditionally is different from
building a tech product.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
What person must you become to be able to lead a
startup?
Number one business andself-development podcast.
Connected Minds podcast.
My man, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I'm great.
How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm doing fantastic.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Look, I see you're wearing white and I'm also
wearing white white is myfavorite color well, I live for
white hey, that makes the two ofus yes um, I've seen several
interviews of you right and I'vewatched the trajectory of
businesses that you started inGhana.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And one of the things that really strikes me is how
you can move from an industry toan industry, because most
people would like to becomfortable in the space where
they're in.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
How you?
Would you start this business?
I mean you started.
There was a company you started.
You sold it to trips Right.
That's true, you got employedby them again, so how are you
able to do that?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So I think most people first of all like to
think that to be successful inbusiness, you need to have a
domain expertise in that sector.
So someone should start arestaurant only if they are a
chef.
Or someone should start afashion business if they've gone
to a fashion school.
I am of a completely differentopinion only if they are a chef.
Or someone should start afashion business if they've gone
(01:30):
to a fashion school.
I am of a completely differentopinion.
I actually think that outsidepeople so if you do not have
sector-specific experience inthat domain you can bring new
perspectives or new thinking andthat can bring about
innovations and new ways ofdoing things.
Because the people who havedomain expertise think
conventionally.
They will say that, oh, this ishow it's always been done in
this sector.
Oh, this is how it's alwaysbeen done, you know, for the
(01:51):
past 50 years.
So what are you going to change?
But if you are from the outside, you think differently.
You think like a customer, youthink like a user, you think
like an innovator and youdisrupt the system.
I mean, today, facebook or Metais the biggest media platform,
but it wasn't built by a mediaprofessional.
You understand?
(02:13):
X is a media platform, but itwasn't built by a media
professional or media andcommunication platform, but it
wasn't built by PR andcommunication professional.
So, as an entrepreneur, I justlike to think about how can we
do things differently,regardless of whether I have a
domain expertise in thatbusiness or not.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
You know, most people get scared right when they're
moving into new industries as anentrepreneur especially when
it's a startup, you usually wantto be comfortable in the space
where you are.
But then for you, what does ittake to say that today I'm going
to do a business in transportand I'm going to disrupt it,
tomorrow I'm going intohealthcare, the next day I'm
(02:54):
going into construction.
What does it take?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So for me personally and I think it varies for
different people I have toexperience the problem or the
opportunity.
I have to experience it, I haveto feel it, I have to connect
with it and then personalize itand then I own it.
That's how you start.
So let's go back to my firstventure, which was a fintech, a
financial technology companycalled West Cape.
(03:20):
I was working at Imani at thetime.
Imani is a policy think tank,you know, based in ghana.
I got into money to launchtheir francophone project.
Then I became communicationsdirector.
I also did a lot of work ongovernance and economic research
, you know.
But I wanted to leave imani todo something different, because
(03:40):
I thought that I had outland thesystem, you know, and I wanted
to start a business.
So I was looking for loans.
I had saved up to it's close toabout 200,000 Ghana cities, all
right so, but I wonder I wantedto start would require about
500,000 Ghana cities to launchit.
So I needed loan to to top upthe savings I had.
(04:02):
And I was then that and thatwas the first time I came into
contact with the financialservices industry firsthand,
because the only thing I wasdoing was either saving,
investing, either throughintermediaries or through my
relationship managers.
At the time you didn't haveapps like this, you know.
So I wanted to borrow money andI went to the banks.
(04:23):
They said you've got to havethis, you've got to have bank.
They said you got to have this,you got to have that, you got
to have that.
It was a shock for me.
I didn't know that.
That's what many people youknow were were going through,
and I would tell them that I sawthis interest rate on your
website.
It says 21, but now you'retelling me 29.
You know why is that the case?
I don't understand.
You said that what I only needthis, this, this, these five
(04:45):
items on your website, but nowyou're telling me about 10
things I need.
So it didn't make sense to meand I got frustrated.
That was the birth of my firstcompany called Wayscape, and
what we sought to do was prettysimple Digitize financial
products like insurance, loansand investments, so that you
(05:06):
don't have to go throughmultiple steps to have access to
this product.
So let's take insurance, forexample.
If you wanted to buy an autoinsurance or a car insurance,
you would have to be harassed byan insurance agent and they
tell you that their premium isthe best, their claim process is
the best, all, all of that.
(05:26):
And then they bring you someforms to fill out with tiny text
you know and you you need tohave a lawyer to understand what
the text means all of that, andso with our platform, that was
completely different.
So what you would see what theinsurance cover is about.
So, auto insurance fromenterprise, for example, this is
the premium.
(05:46):
This is the.
So, auto insurance fromenterprise, for example, this is
the premium.
This is the claim process.
This is the description.
These are everything.
You see it, and you'd even seereviews from previous users,
which then gives you theconfidence to go ahead with that
, with that service provider ornot.
And if you are interested inthe auto insurance from
enterprise, then you go aheadand request it on the websites.
Once you request it, you inputyour details, your car number,
(06:08):
everything.
The request goes to theEnterprise insurance dashboard.
Then they act on it and theydeliver your sticker to you or
they ask you to come to theoffice pick your sticker.
It was as simple as that.
So I wouldn't have thoughtabout it if we hadn't felt the
pain.
If I was from the inside, Iwould not be thinking of the
(06:29):
solution that way.
And then we moved to.
So what happened is that weraised $100,000 in equity
investment from it locally,because the problem we're
solving was, I think very good.
And so one investor saw theopportunity and decided to
invest.
And that's when you knowbuilding a product.
(06:51):
I actually saw the challengeswith building product like tech
product, because building abusiness traditionally is
different from building a techproduct.
With traditional business,you're just concerned about
providing the service to theuser, right, you know.
So the user needs insurance.
You provide that insurance.
It ends there and then they payyou for that.
(07:13):
For a tech product, you've gotto think about a problem and
you've got to understand theuser's problem.
You know how do they use theinsurance.
You know how would they accessit, because you're not going to
sell it to them physically or inperson.
They have to.
You're going to give them thetech and then they have to then
buy the service using the tech.
All right.
(07:34):
And so you've got to thinkabout the user.
Understand the user, the user'sjourney, very well.
How do, where did they discoverit?
Did they prefer to buy it on amobile app store or a USSD short
code?
Or they want to call and buythat insurance product.
You've got to do this and it'snot easy, and sometimes most
entrepreneurs tend to think thatthey know better than the user.
(07:56):
So they start to build fromtheir bedroom, and that's what
we did.
We spent about $50,000 buildinga solid platform.
We were super excited about itand you know, without any
feasibility studies.
Without talking to the user.
You know, and that's what beingthe first time founder teaches
(08:16):
you.
And so we went to the market.
We saw that the product wasover-sophisticated for the user.
We had too many features thatthe user didn't need, and so it
wasn't solving the problem forthe user and we had to go back
to the drawing board.
Well, thankfully, we managed torecover from that mistake.
(08:37):
It wasn't fatal Sometimes it canbe fatal, but it wasn't fatal
and so we pivoted and we did theright thing by talking to the
users.
We started calling users tocome to our office would create
a round circle, you know, and Iwould sit in the middle and be
asking them questions.
So what was the last time youbought an insurance product?
When was the last time youborrowed the money, you know?
And they were giving us ideasand I'll be noting the things
(08:59):
down.
So that's how we built thefinished product and built it
better, and that's how wemanaged to sell that software
asset at some point when thebanking sector faced some crisis
between 2017, 2018, and 2019.
And what happened was that manyfinancial institutions were
(09:19):
undercapitalized, and what thatmeans is that they didn't have
the required reserve to operatetheir business.
So at every given point in time, the bank of ghana, which is
the regulator, requiresfinancial institutions to have a
certain amount of money sittingsomewhere, you know, so that
when we all go to this financialinstitution or to this bank for
(09:41):
a drop money, they will be ableto honor that, that request and
many of them could not couldnot because they had divested
the funds.
You know they were investing inreal estate, which were, you
know, long-term assets.
And if a market woman is savingat the bank, they don't expect
to keep the money for the next10 years, you know, even five
years.
They expect to come for it in amonth's time yes but the
(10:02):
microfinance savings and loansand banks were investing the
money in real estate, in newventures like Resolve and things
like that, and these thingstake time to generate returns.
So we had a bank run and ourbusiness was exposed to the
industry and so some of thecontracts we had got canceled,
some of the lease we're pursuingthat we're going to give us,
(10:23):
you know, millions in revenuewere cancelled.
I was already dreaming ofbecoming a millionaire when I
saw when I saw the revenue andeverything.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You've already started spending the money
before you even get it In myhead.
You know it happens you know Iwanted us to touch on for the
average person.
How can they generate a startupidea in this economy?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
So I think it's pretty.
I shouldn't say it's simple,because then it might be simple
to me, but it's not that it maynot be simple for other folks.
But I think the lessfrictionless way to go about it
is to look at the environmentfirst.
Start with your environment.
(11:17):
If you live in the village, forexample, and everybody's
thinking about is complainingabout the water.
The water bodies are polluted.
Everybody's saying that, oh,the water body's polluted.
That's everybody's thinkingabout is complaining about the
water.
The water bodies are polluted.
Everybody's saying that, oh,the water body's polluted.
That's everybody's nightmareconcern.
As an individual within thecommunity, what can you do to
address that concern?
You can do many things.
(11:39):
You can consider, for example,importing a chemical you put in
the water body to purify thewater body so that when people
fetch the water it's notcontaminated, and you charge the
government or you chargewhoever is to pay you a fee for
purifying the water body.
This could be an idea.
You could decide that you wouldextract the water from the
(12:04):
river, treat it and supply it topeople's homes, so people don't
come to the water bodiesthemselves directly, but you're
extracting the water from thewater body and then you're
treating it and distributing it,and you're still addressing the
content.
Because the content is thatthey don't have access to
quality water and the waterbodies are contaminated.
Or you can say that there's awater treatment plant in Accra.
(12:27):
I'm going to do a joint venturewith them.
I'm going to ask them to cometo this community, set up a
plant.
They bring their machinery.
I'm going to have 10% of thebusiness, they're going to have
90%, they will do it and theywill do everything.
I will simply be coordinatingthe success of the business on
the ground in that community andyou are addressing the issue.
So that's one way to thinkabout generating startup ideas.
(12:50):
Start with the environment andthink about the ways you can
address that problem for theuser.
But not every startup idea canbe a business as well, and
that's another thing to thinkabout.
Because it's a good thing tohave an idea.
It's another thing to have abusiness as well, and that's
another thing to think about,because it's a good thing to
have an idea, it's another thingto have a business.
A business must make money atthe end of the day, and so if
(13:13):
you're not able to make moneyprofitably, then you don't have
a business.
So not every startup idea isworth pursuing and most of the
times there's no way of knowingat the beginning.
No amount of visibility studiesor projections can tell you
what the market is going toteach you at the end of the day.
If you look at Airbnb, forexample, everybody said that it
(13:34):
was a stupid idea.
I'm sure many of our audienceknow what Airbnb is.
In fact, some of the greatestinvestors in the world at the
time 10 down the Airbnbinvestors because nobody thought
that it made sense for one togive out their private room for
another person and that businesswould be able to make money at
(13:55):
scale.
All right.
So because then that was a goodidea, but you didn't think that
it would be a good business.
So the only way to know is todo it right.
To know if a good idea is goingto be a good business, it's
just to do it, okay.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I was in the car in a conversation with one of my
friends, daniel, and then thequestion I asked was at what
point do you know when you'vestarted a business right, or do
you know when you've started abusiness right, or when you
start the idea?
At what point then do you knowwhether I am in it, is it going
to work, or should I leave itand move on?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I think it's a first of all, I think it's a feeling.
It happens like a feeling, butit should not be that way.
Business is a numbers game.
If you're spending, say, $5, tomake $3.
So let's say today, for example, your customer pays you $5 for
(15:03):
the service you're offering andfor you to be able to make that
$5 from the customer, you spend$4.
And out of that you have $1left you have to pay rent, other
things, pay salaries, all ofthat and so on.
So your objective as a businessperson, as an entrepreneur, is
to reduce the cost at whichyou're producing the service to
(15:25):
the customer.
So from $4 to maybe $3, $2, andso on.
And so if by tomorrow you tryagain and you're unable to
reduce the cost of producing theservice from $4 to $3, then you
know that there's an issue withyour business.
Or if you attempt to reduce thecost of production from four to
(15:48):
three and the customer stopsbuying from you because they say
that there's a reduced valuefrom what they're getting, you
know that there's a problem withthe business.
So that's one way to look at it.
Your unit economics Do the uniteconomics add up?
Do they make sense at scale?
Would you have after producingthe service or the product and
the customer paying you for it,would you have enough left to
(16:10):
pay for your office, for payroll, for other things and so on,
and then to even declare profits?
If you don't see it happening,then you know that it's not
going to cut it.
But one must be patient.
You know there are differenttypes of business.
There's what we call the marginbusiness model and then there's
(16:31):
the volume business model.
A margin business model is whenyou simply need a few people to
buy the service and pay a lotmore for it and that's it.
And then volume is when youneed a lot of people to buy the
service at a cheap price.
So if you're running a volumebusiness, you need to know it
(16:51):
means you have to give yourselftime to acquire a lot more
customers in order to make upfor the cost of production.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, I understand that.
You know it's very difficult to, in most cases, right If you
don't have any experience instarting a business which most
people don't.
That's true.
I mean, I just started out ofschool.
The only experience I had waswhat I used to do in college.
Here and there, it's reallyhard to identify what could
(17:20):
potentially work Because youknow.
For someone like yourself who'sgot several industries where
you've got, you know businessessometimes it can be very
difficult to understand if thiswill work or not now to you as
an entrepreneur.
What would you say to thatperson running that business?
I?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
just, I think that you've got to be visionary about
the future and not contentyourself so much about the
present.
There are many businesses wethought would not work but
worked.
I mean, samsung, for example,was a shoemaking business.
They were just doing shoemaking.
They weren't doing electronics,but they were concerned about
(18:03):
the future.
You understand and then buildabout the future.
You understand and then youknow, build for the future.
If you look at adidas today,adidas was just doing, it was
repairing people's shoes.
And as they think about thefuture, you know, yeah have the
future in mind.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I you as an individual.
You've built a business, you'vesold a business you've acquired
a business recently?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
yes, I think one of the companies you just acquired
was Waffle.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, Waffle, yeah, that's true Now do you think
people should, because a lot ofthe companies these days they're
looking for acquisitions?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
acquisitions.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Do you think we should build businesses with the
hope to sell or with the hopeto?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
live to posterity with the hope to sell or with
the hope to live to posterity?
I think that we should buildpersonally build business for
the long term, regardless ofwhether the founder wants to
sell it or not.
The business itself should beable to stand on the foundation
that guarantees its long-termsustainability, because, if you
(19:04):
look at many of the things thatwe're using today, they are
built and manufactured bybusinesses that are not just
recently founded.
These are businesses that existor have existed for a very long
time.
Just look at everything aroundyou.
These things are notmanufactured by new businesses,
(19:28):
and so, if we seek to createvalue for the future what, which
is what the business should becreating value for the future we
need to think about thelong-term sustainability of the
business.
Now.
Every founder, everyentrepreneur must have an exit
strategy for their business yepyou.
You know, and so if your goal isto at some point exit your
business, you shouldn't exit thebusiness with the business
(19:50):
exiting itself as well, you know.
So I think that has been thechallenge for our industry.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Somebody will say that right, this guy has been
lucky for too long.
Yeah, yeah, he starts it, itworks out, sells, it comes back
again, do a quick runner, comeback again and then each time
he's got a business that hetalks about.
Yeah, I you know many startupsthat I have seen around here.
(20:18):
The biggest problem is funding.
How are you able to navigatethat in your businesses?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So funding, first of all, is a relationship business.
You cannot secure funding ifyou don't have the relationship.
That's the first thing.
So it's not a financialtransaction.
Securing the funding for yourbusiness is not a financial
transaction.
It's not.
It's a relationship thing.
So that's the first thing.
I didn't know that Our firstbusiness, our first venture, we
(20:50):
got the funding because I usedto design websites.
I used to design websites and Iwas very good at it.
I designed a website for thislady, ohi McCarthy, yvonne
McCarthy.
She's a customer serviceprofessional.
She was just from the UK aswell and she wanted to do
something in the customerservice industry and she was
(21:13):
always frustrated with thequality of service she was
getting everywhere.
She said she had gone to fillout the form on the website to
have her website designed.
She didn't get feedback.
But she got the feedback after72 hours and she was really
frustrated.
Look, in the UK I'll get aninstant feedback.
So when she reached out to me Idon't even know how we actually
(21:36):
met, but she was so happy andelated with the quality of
interaction we had.
She would say something thenext minute.
I'm providing feedback on that.
She said I need you say don'tworry, we'll do the research and
I'll send you now.
We'll do the research.
Give her three options she hasto choose from.
So, oh, wow, you're even givingme options.
Are you doing the research forme?
She was so happy with theexperience, so we, I built her
(21:58):
first website.
She was super happy, and so oneday she went to do, she went to
conduct a training for ashipping business in Tema called
Ben Marine Services in Tema,and so this Ben Marine Services
gentleman, a guy, wanted toactually upgrade his brand.
(22:20):
You know, he wanted to make hisdigital brand, everything solid
, and so she recommended us.
She recommended me to the manso he's not even a guy, he's a
man, you know and she said allthe nice things about me to this
man, all the nice things.
And then the man said, yeah,hey, isidore, someone just
(22:42):
talked to me about you.
I want to see you.
See, you know that we went.
At the time I had a partner andso he has background in finance,
so we went to his office.
Yeah, I even like you more inperson.
You know, I like the energy.
You know all of that.
Because I said we can do this,we can do that, we can do that.
(23:03):
You're so happy, yeah, I, andso on, because I said we can do
this, we can do that, we can dothat.
You're so happy, yeah, I thinkyou also come and work here.
I can give you an office here,you work here, you can do your
stuff outside, but work here,you know, because we, you're so
happy, excited to want to dosomething with us.
And then we just told him aboutthe idea, the idea of starting
the marketplace for financialservices.
Then he said he would invest.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
The power of recommendation?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, so that's the relationship business I'm
talking about.
So it's not a financialtransaction, because I wasn't
expecting him to even invest.
I didn't go there forinvestment, I was going there to
design websites and upgradepeople's flyers.
So that's how he started.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
We hear the success story You've done fantastic with
all the businesses that you'vedone, but there are black stains
behind you.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You've gone through it Sometimes you can even feel
to the extent that you don'thave money to put fuel in your
car.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, I mean, you just mentioned that you have to
sell a car yeah, exactly, right,exactly it's, it's
entrepreneurs go through it andI always say that if you're
crazy enough to think of you, Iwant to start a business and you
need to be prepared for all thethings that are going to come
your way yeah, that's true,because you will sell your car
you might even sell your house.
Yeah, that's true, you haveyour family, depending on you
(24:25):
and your staff members and theirfamilies.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, that's right.
That's what I love aboutentrepreneurship when you
succeed, you are empowering notjust your yourself, but an
entire economy.
All right that you don't evensee, you don't't even know.
Because this is it.
If I succeed today, I paybetter salary or I pay salary.
(24:50):
Let's just say I pay salary.
This colleague is going to usethe salary.
He's going to give part of itto his wife.
He's going to use some to payhis children's school fees.
He's going to buy something onthe roadside from the roadside
seller and the roadside selleris going to use that to pay
children's school fees, is goingto use that to buy some things.
(25:11):
You can understand how thereplaying effect of that sucks.
It goes a long way that wedon't see, which is why I'm a
big believer in entrepreneurship, except that I have challenges
with the way we're doing it here, especially the way I mean
government-supportedentrepreneurship programs have
(25:31):
not been successful, and that isa big challenge with the
ecosystem.
We need to incentivize peopleto get into entrepreneurship.
To incentivize people to getinto entrepreneurship not by
giving them like 20,000ganasides after taking them
through a 12-month program tolaunch something.
(25:54):
No, no, that's not how toincentivize quality talent into
entrepreneurship, becausesomeone with the right talent
will not subject themselves tosix months, 12 months of
so-called training and then waitfor 20,000 Ghana cities or
50,000 Ghana cities, 100,000Ghana cities from you, to just
(26:17):
launch a business.
Quality people will not subjectthemselves to that process, for
sure.
What we need to do is to allowpeople to be bold and crazy.
So, for example, I shouldn't.
I mean, I've registered.
I was just saying it.
This morning I was talking tosomeone.
I registered like fivecompanies in the US without
(26:38):
stepping foot for each type ofthe process in the US right, I
know where you're going withthat.
Yeah, I registered a bankaccount just last week or this
week.
It happened in two days.
I didn't have to go and sit insome banking hall.
Bring this, take a picture.
I didn't have to do that, andthe way it works in our system
(26:59):
is the reverse, and that is abig frustration to people who
have something to offer, right,right.
So or look at how the currencyis dancing, don't?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
even know what dance it is I can't figure it out.
You know whether it's at duwawa, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So these things can frustrate quality people with a
quality talent to first comeback home, wherever they are, or
to stay within the system andbuild for the system, all right,
or the cost of finance.
So one of the things that Ithink it should be easy for um
for for government to do is tosay that is to actually
(27:37):
guarantee um risk for banks.
You see, ask banks to give, andthis is something that's
working at the part of what.
Ask banks to give, and this issomething that's working.
The other part of the world.
Ask banks to give x, to reservea portion of their loan book to
entrepreneurs to start up, soentrepreneurs doing this in this
industry yeah and if they don't, without any collateral.
If they don't, if the loansdon't perform, we will pay back,
(28:00):
right, government will pay back, right, okay, if the loans
don't perform, we would pay back.
And that's why business loansare so easy to access in some
markets and with competitiveinterest rates, and here you
don't have anything.
And so you realize that thefolks who have access to all the
business loans are people whoare doing things that are not so
(28:21):
transformational for the future.
We're just financing realestates, right.
We're not thinking about I mean, we're not thinking about AI.
All right, just look at how muchwas invested in open AI before
it started commercializing.
More than a billion dollars.
More than a billion dollars, Imean.
(28:42):
Can you go to a bank and say Ineed $10,000 today to start an
AI company and they'll give youit?
No, of course, they will not.
All right.
So we need to think about ourregulatory environment.
We need to think about ourfinancial system, the way we
support entrepreneurship and theway we support people who want
to invest in entrepreneurs.
We need to create a better taxsystem or tax regime for both
(29:06):
investors and entrepreneurs.
Many investors, I know, are notso confident about the
regulatory framework of Africangovernment, so they prefer that.
You know, startups theyinvested in are registered
outside, and so that's why andso these things are headers that
you know deter quality peoplefrom going into you know
(29:30):
entrepreneurship.
Wow.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Wow, Isidore.
What person must you become tobe able to lead a startup?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, I think that you've got to be a listener.
You have to be observant a lot,because leadership is a
people's business.
It's just a people's business,and so you can only do that
effectively if you know how tolisten to people.
So listening is not just aboutwhat they say, but really paying
(30:05):
attention to them, because Iknow many a times what I have
had to do or say that changedthe way someone is feeling, and
if I wasn't listening or payingattention, I would have missed
that and that would haveaffected their productivity,
that would have affected theoutcome of the business.
So that's one you have to be agood, good listener.
(30:29):
You also have to be willing tolearn.
That is important.
Um, many a times, some leaderstend to think that they have to
be the most dominant voice inthe room.
But you already have authorityby virtue of the fact that
you're the leader, so you don'thave to do anything for you to
exert that authority.
So talking and having the mostdominant voice is not an
(30:53):
expression of leadership.
So you've got to allow otherpeople to have a position and to
think and to execute, to feelas well.
That's how you discover newopportunities, that's how you
empower your team.
That's how you build thefoundation of the business,
(31:14):
because the foundation of thebusiness is the people.
If the people have theconfidence to execute, do things
and all of that, you'll be good.
You can scale it very easilybecause you won't have to be in
every department for things tomove forward.
So that is important.
The other thing I've seen thatworks really in leadership or in
(31:36):
, you know, leading, especiallystartups is doing the things
that you expect other people todo.
So I can take the customerservice call, for example.
I mean, I can take the customerservice call, for example.
I can take the customer's line.
I even this morning we we didsome campaign and we got some
leads and I told the gentlemanin charge of that project don't
call, I'll be calling, I'll makethe first calls yeah I just
(31:59):
want to make the first, so dothe things that he said.
Oh, wow, remember, we gotsomeone recently and, uh, we're
going on some sales visits, youknow, and she told me that, oh,
what we need is that, and whatyou need is that you need about
five people.
Give them the cars.
You don't have to come on thesales visits, just sit in the
office and you know that's whatyou need.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's what she was saying.
You're already racking up thebills.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, racking up the bills.
Yeah, that's it not even thatyou need to do what other you
expect others to do, so that youlearn, you experience what they
go through, and then you canempathize with them as well.
You know that's true.
Yeah, so these are some of thethings I see work in in
leadership, but most importantly, you've got to just learn.
You've got to learn and beflexible to adjust, you know
yeah, we're getting into thequestions that we like to ask.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Okay, when we get into the end of the conversation
?
Now, if you haven't subscribed,please do become part of the
family and stay connected.
No-transcript.
What are your limitations andweaknesses?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Oh, limitations and weaknesses.
I know for sure that I have themind to see opportunities
everywhere, and that can becomea weakness, in the sense that it
turns from an opportunity intoa distraction.
(33:29):
Okay, all right, so it's notthe real opportunity that you
should go after.
It's everything that you shouldwant to pursue, and so I think
that is one weakness that I amworking on.
I think I've managed to dobetter.
It's something I'm aware of.
There are many things that I'veI've noted down.
(33:51):
I say I'm not touching, but Ijust noted them down.
Okay, um, that's one umlimitation, I think, so big some
time that I, um, I I know thatI have to start small somewhere,
but I just dread starting small.
(34:11):
Okay, because I have alwaysbelieved that if someone could
achieve building this and thisskill, why not me?
You can do it, I can do it, butby the point of truth is that
they started from somewhere andthey didn't just start by doing
it big and so yeah, I was sayingthat.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
You know human beings , we like to learn from finished
products.
Yeah yeah, and sometimes it canbe very detrimental.
Yeah, yeah, it is better tolearn from someone within your
circle who is doing better thanyou.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Than to take that huge target.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
It can be very difficult.
Even that huge target didn'tjust become that target all of a
sudden.
It went from the infancy stageto the puberty stage.
You're an adolescent, an adult,and a grandfather.
You see, I've seen a grandpapasomewhere.
You want to be a grandpapa?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
No, you've got to start from need to take the
first step for the first step.
Yeah, now then our nextquestion is motivation or
discipline?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I think, for me motivation, for me motivation,
uh, because, um, I, I, I, I, Iwell, I think it's also a
chicken and egg problem, youknow.
But most of the times I justknow that once I have the
motivation to do anything, I canget it done because I'm
(35:34):
motivated to do it.
Right.
You can have the discipline,but I'm not sure if yeah, but
for me, once I I know that mymotivation is to do this, I just
do it.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, that's amazing.
What's the?
Speaker 1 (35:50):
best advice you've ever received don't do it.
Yeah, don't, don't doentrepreneurship that's the best
advice yeah, wow the bestadvice you've ever received.
That's the best, because I mean, you're an entrepreneur and and
there are many entrepreneursout there I wouldn't advise
anyone to be an entrepreneurunless you're ready to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Okay, right, right, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, Unless you're ready to do that.
Crazy enough right.
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Gotcha.
Okay, now what's your favoritepersonal development book?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So, I'm not a huge fan of personal development
books.
I rather have learned so muchfrom books on specific topics,
right, and one of the thingsI've loved is the Word of
Nations by Adam Smith.
When I started working inpolicy think tank, it was one of
the first books that I startedhearing.
(36:41):
You know, in the Word ofNations by Adam Smith, he talked
about how some nations you knowdevelop to become so wealthy
and others remain poor for avery long time.
And when you look at our livesas well, others you know grow to
become wealthy.
Others remain poor for a verylong time or forever, you know.
And so I've learned a lot fromthat book on how to really it's
(37:03):
a mindset thing, it's a systemicthing to get to where you are.
I mean, wealth is not the goal,but it's it's, it's a natural
byproduct of, of development.
Wow, you know.
And so once you're developingyourself, you become wealthy
without thinking about it.
You understand, you can becomewealthy in health, wealthy
(37:24):
intellectually, wealthymaterially.
You wealthy with theconnections.
So yeah, and so that's for meone of the best books.
I've also loved some podcasts.
I mean I enjoy listening to thediary of a CEO.
Yeah, I love some of thecontent and guests that Stephen
(37:48):
brings on the show.
Show, yeah, and I just yeah,that's it.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
That's amazing um, we need a question for the next
guest from you if you, um, Imean, that's, that's interesting
.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Well, yeah, so if you had to do it all over again,
what would you do differently?
I mean, that's, that is a verysimple question, but, um, in
fact, I think this question isso, it's so popular that it's
writing it for yeah, it's the.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
The tablet is writing yeah, yeah, predicting it, yeah
because sometimes you look back.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
You look back at your journey and say oh okay, I wish
I had done this differentlyyeah I wish I had done this
different and I think everyonehas got that right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Anyone you ask this question to over the age of 15
will probably tell you something.
They'll tell you something.
I think it's quite a profoundquestion yeah, no matter how
simple it is.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah, but if I'm allowed to ask um a second
question so that the guest hastwo questions to ask, maybe that
would be a new well it would bea new thing, but I'm willing to
write it down.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Okay, then maybe they have a choice, you see, all
right, all right so you havemoney, health and relationship.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
What would you prioritize?
Wow, money, half andrelationship and have relations
what?
What would you prioritize andwhy?
Speaker 2 (39:27):
that's a good question, no that's a very good
question, I like that we haveabout 80% of our viewers on the
channel who have not subscribed.
Now we still have about 9,000subscribers and we're very close
to getting to the 10.
And I'm hoping that before thisconversation comes out, before
you hear it, we'll be on 15Kkand if we are not, then be part
(39:50):
of the family.
Connected minds podcast is forthose that want self-development
and wants to move ahead in lifestay connected.
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