People ask why I chose Africa. The honest answer is that I didn't choose it the way you choose a market. I chose it the way you choose a side.
The continent is not a charity case. It is not a growth story in the way that phrase gets used — breathlessly, by people who fly in once and leave with a pitch deck. It is a place with more active trade corridors, more mobile internet users, and more under-built digital infrastructure than most markets that get called "emerging" with a straight face.
I build here because the gap is obvious, the need is real, and most of the people building for it are building it wrong. As if the users are a cheaper version of someone else's users. As if you just need to take a Silicon Valley product and reduce the price.
They're not. They need different products. Built by people who understand that M-PESA was not a workaround. It was an answer to a question that nobody in fintech was asking.
That's the posture. Nairobi is not a satellite office. It's the floor. Australia is the foundation. Africa is the future.
That's not a brand line. That's the decision I made in 2019 and have not revisited.
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