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Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

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Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#41

Post by jrockway »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #16
byoung2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the contradiction is that what makes for a successful startup within Africa ( scratch our own itches ) doesn't necessarily translate well to the developed world. The examples you mentioned, such as monitoring elections and disaster response would do very well in developing countries, but they aren't necessary in countries like the US or UK. I think that's what PG was suggesting.

>The examples you mentioned, such as monitoring elections and disaster response would do very well in developing countries, but they aren't necessary in countries like the US or UK. Hurricane Katrina, hanging chads ...

Yes. If this is how the rich countries handle these things, imagine how badly the poor countries handle them.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#42

Post by byoung2 »

jrockway wrote: post #41
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The examples you mentioned, such as monitoring elections and disaster response would do very well in developing countries, but they aren't necessary in countries like the US or UK. Hurricane Katrina, hanging chads ...

Yes. If this is how the rich countries handle these things, imagine how badly the poor countries handle them.

I wonder how a startup would handle these any better than the government, especially since there's no money in it.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#43

Post by dsulli »

I think culture plays a big role. When I was in China for a while, it seemed like the government wants to build a Chinese copy of other things. Whatever technology exists elsewhere, they seem to want to have their own version of it that's Chinese.

Philippines is another country with a lot of smart people, but I don't feel that the people in power there really have a building culture. Even with their last round of elections, they bought their voting machines from a Venezuelan.

If technology and startups really are in the culture of a country, there are lots of opportunities everywhere, to try and make a difference.

I guess it's better if things can come from the top down, like in the case of China - to jump start things a bit.

The other thing, with Nigeria. It's economy has been growing steadily over the past decade. But, it seems to be primarily driven by foreign oil companies.

Is there any room for doing start ups related to this? Oil exploration definitely requires a lot of capital. It would be hard to imagine what kinds of contributions a lowly Nigerian hacker could make in this area. Lastly, I know that India benefited quite a bit by having a large community of overseas Indians. People who came to USA for school, and later stayed on and worked here after graduating. As I understand it, these people provided some of the key contacts as the outsourcing boon started.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#44

Post by AjJi »

zackattack wrote: post #6

I am actually very excited by opportunities in Africa, but I know nothing about marketing to Africans. For example, out of the 110 million connected online, what percentage of them are willing to pay for goods and services online? How do you accept payment from an African user? How do most people access the Internet? What sort of social media sharing is most popular - Twitter, Facebook, texting, Skype ...?

The problem is that most of them can't even if they want to especially if we're talking international payment.

My view is based on my own experience (Morocco, here), and it's almost impossible to get an international credit/debit card from your bank unless you're building and import/export company.

Online payments (in a national scale) are, sure, evolving but the ignorance is killing the online market, nobody is willing to pay for something that they can't touch.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#45

Post by robfitz »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #10

If you're anxious to start a startup, you should probably move to the US, Europe, or East Asia. There is simply too much infrastructure to replicate. That's also true of starting a startup in Oskaloosa, Iowa, too. If that's a problem, it would be interesting to know why.

I see Oo around London pretty often, so I don't imagine the question is about his personal location. I suspect it's more about why a continent is being written off.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#47

Post by heresy »

I think it's an opportunity, but not for expanding to the West - I don't know how many ideas that can "make it" in Africa are readily translatable.

Rather, since isn't even on investment radar at the moment, as a local startup you can expand across the continent and have a big head start on foreign companies that try to enter the market when you're already established (viz. QQ, Taobao, Baidu in China), if the African market starts heating up.

Whether your startup will be an internet startup or not, is probably the question.

In nominal terms, the GDP and number of people on the African continent is roughly equivalent to India (numbers from Wikipedia), though it is true that it is spread across numerous countries.

I find it hard to believe that it will not become the "next frontier" at some point, if nations across the continent start electing technocrats.

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#48

Post by [deleted] »

xg wrote: post #4

Don't you think it's something like the following: think of a country's economy as a technology stack. You need to have the base levels of the stack in place before you can make more abstract things. In places like Africa and India, there's a lot of access via mobile phones. But there's also a lot of missing pieces: transporation goods and services, smartphones, etc. It seems to me like there's a lot of opportunity f…

[deleted]

Re: Ask PG: Why do you think Africa cannot produce global scale start ups?

#50

Post by kragen »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #35
philwelch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's rather challenging to immigrate to the US, for one.

Which is easier: moving one programmer from Nigeria to Silicon Valley, or moving the Valley to Nigeria?

Have you dealt with US immigration? It might be easier to move the Valley to Nigeria.
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