BY RARZACK OLAEGBE
Life is a performance. If you understand this, you are on the way to delivering an excellent performance. Otherwise, you will struggle and compete with others, instead of competing with yourself. You are the performer. An entrepreneur who understands this earlier in the journey would demonstrate the ability to build solutions for specific people. Rather than replicating business models from other markets. When you have successfully innovated the local arena, it is time to go global.
On The One Hand
uilding a successful startup does not have a date. The story of fintech startups that have become unicorns is a testimony. Some of them have been around for decades before attaining unicorn status. Others took less than a decade to achieve the same status. For instance, Interswitch versus Moniepoint versus Flutterwave versus others.
On The Other Hand
To build a fintech that matters does not require an army. It requires one thing. Trust. That is the currency. Because obsessions are rare. Ideas are common. We have nine leading fintech firms in Nigeria. These firms have a combined value of $10.6 billion. Of the total, Flutterwave stands at $3 billion. OPay at $2.75 billion. Moniepoint is about $1 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released these figures.
In The Long Term
Olugbenga Agboola, founder and CEO of Flutterwave and I had an encounter recently in an unlikely environment. He had come to share business insights with intellectuals invited by the American Embassy under the YALI programme. I was invited. When Olugbenga, a.k.a. GB, concluded, we had a chat behind the scenes.
Our discussions centred on the theme he had spoken about, how to build something that matters. Meanwhile, he was to speak on ‘’building and scaling a fintech start-up’, but changed his mind when he walked into the full hall. He said: ‘’You need to scale globally. You trust locally. Why is money movement fragmented in Africa?’’ He did not answer the question. He explained that getting a ‘yes’ is an anomaly in raising funds, while getting a ‘no’ “gives you the mental fortitude to scale through.”
Before he built his firm, in seven years, he applied for a license six times. Each time he experienced a rejection, he applied for the same license again. His fintech firm has a presence in 30 countries. It has processed 40 billion dollars. It has democratised the Application Programming Interface [API]. ‘’Learn what you want to do. You can become a student and have a domain expert in an area you want to play,’’ he told the audience. In other words, he explained, ‘’you can get someone in the market you are interested in, pay someone to research the market of your interest, or get a co-founder in the country of your choice’’.
Why Does This Matter?
What is your niche? Is it digital payments, stablecoins, core infrastructure, or regulatory tech? You need to understand that AI adoption is increasing. Besides, you must cultivate compliance and corporate governance early in your journey. This will open up the opportunities ahead. Growth is not enough. ‘’You must scale globally and trust locally,’’ GB said.
In The Short Term
To build a fintech that matters now and in decades, your trust quotient matters. How have you performed?
