61–70 of 90 posts
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 ...?
He didn't say "there is no hope of successful startups in Africa"; he just said "African startups aren't high on my priority list".
Another thing oo, PG doesn't know Africa like you and I do, so I don't think his statement is the final word on African startups. Lets prove him wrong. (rolling up sleeves....)
Did you know? Mark Shuttleworth and Elon Musk come from South Africa.
I think the main reasons Africa hasn't produced global scale startups is that they (global scale startups) are so rare you really need everything to be in your favor AND to have a lot of luck for a startup to become a global success. What unique advantage does being from Africa give you? I'm assuming you are clever and lucky - but there are a lot of clever, lucky people around who also have access to friends with hug…
Re: "What unique advantage does being from Africa give you?" I am in Cape Town, South Africa and let me tell you it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with a university producing decent CS graduates (Mark Shuttleworth), beautiful weather, vineyards on our doorstep, plenty of African color and positive energy, terrific advertising talent, and the typical South African work ethic. South Africans love wor…
Africa has produced a number of insanely successful start-ups, though mostly not in the tech area. e.g. De Beers is dominating the diamond market worldwide & was founded in South Africa. Same for Anglo American PLC. On the tech side there is Dimension data. They are in talks regarding a take-over for 2bn pounds. MTN Group is operating in 21 countries. Then there is Mark Shuttleworth's startup Thawte consulting. Sure,…
DiData is horrible and overcharges clients.
There's plenty of other semi-exciting startups in South Africa, like FireID.com
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon Musk left SA when he was 17.
The point is that he is of South African origin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very interesting, but a few questions: 1. Really one in three orders was a scam? How big is the sample -- how many times did you ship to Nigeria? How long ago did you stop? 2. You list two problems: determining if a customer really can pay, or as a startup, having customers trust you with financial data. In both cases, the problem is trust & reputation. Foreign customers do not trust Nigerian businesses or customers.…
1. Before we stopped completely, we would get two kinds of orders: a. Orders over $1000 to Fancy Sounding Expediters Co XYZ Address Nigeria b. Smaller orders to Nigeria I shipped one and only one of type a. This happened in ~2001. I took this hit as a business 101 tuition fee and stopped shipping this kind of order. I continued to ship to people on compounds working for Shell/BP/etc. During this time, I got my rough…