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Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

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Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#41

Post by marquis »

okal wrote: post #40
jakek wrote: post #31

Fantastic story. I would love to hear some first-hand accounts / comments from any Kenyans on HN. Is there anyone here currently in Kenya and involved in startups?

I'm Kenyan. The scene mostly revolves around the incubators in Nairobi, the iHub, Nailabs and the 88mph Garage being the most vibrant. The iHub is closer to a typical hackerspace than the others, which are more concerned with startups actively seeking investment than meetups and such. I'd wager that half of all Kenyan startups are building mobile apps of some sort. The stack is quite varied. SMS is king here, but J2M…

I've seen Ushahidi in practise in a disaster area, extremely impressive.

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#42

Post by majani »

jakek wrote: post #31

Fantastic story. I would love to hear some first-hand accounts / comments from any Kenyans on HN. Is there anyone here currently in Kenya and involved in startups?

Kenyan startup guy here. In three years, my company has developed two top Kenyan websites. In 2009, we developed the largest lyrics site in Kenya, and now we run the largest blog in Kenya: http://ghafla.co.ke with close to 500,000 monthly uniques.

On consumer-facing startups, which are my expertise, I can say that the problems currently facing Kenyans online are basic content issues(online news, classifieds, downloads etc). If you stick to the basics, it's really easy to get some traction going. Revenue-wise, HNers would love Kenya. The absolute best internet revenue model in Kenya is to charge your users one-time monthly subscriptions. Paid classifieds like cheki.co.ke and eatout.co.ke are making hundreds of thousands of dollars annually with this model. Ad-based revenue follows an extreme power-law. The digital budgets flow mainly to Google and Facebook. E-commerce is there, mainly in the tourism and daily deals spaces. Skimming commissions off the top of transactions is not very lucrative right now, haven't seen any success stories. All in all, the online space is more of a land-grab right now, than a gold-rush. On acquisitions, there are VERY few. Most big companies would rather partner or compete. Most acquisitions are done by private equity companies or high net-worth individuals, and they only buy startups that absolutely kill it on each and every front(user growth, revenue growth, profit growth, brand awareness etc).

PS: My company shares the same investors with the M-Farm team.

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#44

Post by majani »

mynameishere wrote: post #30
ph0rque wrote: post #8

I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...

Here ya go http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=nafax I don't recommend investing in tiny enterprises in developing countries, because you're heading for shakedown street at that point. But if you think it's a growth sector, go for it.

If you come in with set terms like Yc, you'll avoid that. That's what my company's investors ( http://88mph.ac )did.

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#45

Post by syedkarim »

ph0rque wrote: post #8

I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...

My job is to invest in companies like this, so I can offer some insight into the process. I manage a seed fund for digital media startups in frontier markets and spend a lot of time in countries like Zimbabwe, Jordan, and Indonesia--and work closely with local subject matter experts. The one thing to be aware of when looking at potential investments in frontier markets is that many of the companies that are getting international press coverage are spending more time on marketing themselves to foreign correspondents than on building a scalable business; often times the technology doesn't really work or traction really isn't there. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors to cut through because there is so much grant money/NGO activity out there; the access to free, dumb money distorts the funding process for legitimate, high-growth startups. Investing in these markets is very different from the types of deals you read about on TechCrunch.

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#46

Post by jmilloy »

syedkarim wrote: post #45
ph0rque wrote: post #8

I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...

My job is to invest in companies like this, so I can offer some insight into the process. I manage a seed fund for digital media startups in frontier markets and spend a lot of time in countries like Zimbabwe, Jordan, and Indonesia--and work closely with local subject matter experts. The one thing to be aware of when looking at potential investments in frontier markets is that many of the companies that are getting i…

I'm still wondering how someone like ph0rque or myself could invest in some of these companies. Deciding which one to invest in is part of the process, but what next?

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#47

Post by syedkarim »

jmilloy wrote: post #46
syedkarim wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My job is to invest in companies like this, so I can offer some insight into the process. I manage a seed fund for digital media startups in frontier markets and spend a lot of time in countries like Zimbabwe, Jordan, and Indonesia--and work closely with local subject matter experts. The one thing to be aware of when looking at potential investments in frontier markets is that many of the companies that are getting i…

I'm still wondering how someone like ph0rque or myself could invest in some of these companies. Deciding which one to invest in is part of the process, but what next?

This is my suggestion: 1. Find many people who want to invest in these markets. You don't really need many people, but you do need a good bit of cash. The only way to make this work is by having a portfolio approach; it's extraordinarily difficult to pick individual winners. Let's say you (the investor collective) are investing $50,000 per company. My advice is to invest in at least 10 companies.

2. Find a local subject matter expert; someone who is plugged into the startup community and understands what the context is like. This person may need to get paid, but not much (it's a limited amount of work). You really should have a contact in each local market (not that hard to find).

3. Set up weekly calls with your collective and assign individuals specific verticals to monitor/research. For example, you take e-commerce, your friend takes UGC, and a third person takes marketplaces; similar to the way that conventional fund operates.

4. Find local counsel--even if you insist that the companies be re-incorporated in Delaware.

5. Schedule monthly calls to go over deal flow. Spend more time (virtually is fine) with those companies that receive approval from the collective. Make sure you have had enough time to verify that the founders do what they say they do. Look at traction and budget.

6. Review the docs and disburse funds. Monitor the investment.

As you can see, it's not a complicated process, but it does take time and energy. Do you have that (as well as sufficient capital to put at risk)?

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#49

Post by jabass »

Choppen5 wrote: post #13
ph0rque wrote: post #8

I so wish I could invest in some of these companies...

I agree - we need more oportunistas to invest in businesses in developing countries. I invested in this African company: http://unreasonableinstitute.org/profile/mwilkerson/ It was a little easier as the founder was from the US and I met him here, and then he returned to Africa to continue running the operation. Wish more African founders had the opportunity to raise money here.

Hi, I was too at the unreasonable institute with Michael and had the same opportunity. Great exposure and we are closing our second round with investors we met through the same channel in March.

Jamila,C.E.O MFarm

Re: Kenyan Women Create Their Own 'Geek Culture'

#50

Post by quit »

noonespecial wrote: post #15
quit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah, we routinely did this for our lan parties.

I'm guessing you didn't drive on dirt roads or carry all of the fuel for the trip with you in jugs, all while hoping you had enough bribe money for anyone who might turn up with a rusty AK-47 and a barricade to keep them from taking said computer from you along the way.

As a matter of fact, I did drive on dirt roads and many times after dictatorship enforced curfews. No jugs of gasoline or bribe money though. Anyway, the point I was making that carrying a CPU tower, mouse, keyboard and a monitor (no alienware or volvos, btw) is not such an effort by itself, as people did it just to play. The story is remarkable but for other reasons, like the ones you mention.
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