Today's guests are Michael Seibel, the Managing Director of Y Combinator, and Kwamena Afful, a Founding Partner of Microtraction. Michael has been an avid supporter of the African tech ecosystem. Since his first trip to Lagos in 2016, and since Paystack joined YC's winter batch earlier that year, the number of African startups that have participated in the global accelerator has grown to 89. And for Microtraction, the early-stage fund was founded in 2017, in part in relation to the increased glo...
Oct 19, 2023•37 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Today's guest is Kiaan Pillay, the Co-founder and CEO of Stitch. My conversation with Kiaan comes on the heels of their recent fundraising announcement, a $25 million Series A extension led by the global fintech fund Ribbit Capital, which brings their total funding raised up over $50 million since the launch of the company in 2019. In this episode, we talk to Kiaan about how they've gotten here, the intangibles of company building, their vision for the next generation of payments, and much more....
Oct 06, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Today's guest is Olugbenga Agboola, better known as the one and only GB - the Co-founder and CEO of Flutterwave. It's been a trying last year or so for Flutterwave with issues of fraud, allegations of impropriety inside the company, regulatory hurdles, and the general challenges of scaling a fintech in a tough operating environment. Yet through it all, Flutterwave has "technology reach" in 34 countries, they've continued to ship new products beyond their core payments technology, including their...
Sep 22, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 1
The future of work in the African context is going to be a lot of different things. It mimics the nature of work itself for many individuals on the continent. They're taking this portfolio approach to work. Even in more "developed markets" we're seeing work become less formal and more flexible, as work becomes unbundled from employment. And this evolution of work itself provides a whole set of new challenges and opportunities. So this episode is a retrospective on the entire season, in which we ...
Apr 13, 2023•44 min•Season 4Ep. 10
There is a perception that there's a tech talent shortage in the African tech ecosystem, and that it's hard to find high-quality local talent. There has been lot of conversation around the impact and role of Big Tech in the equation, which many felt were also culprits in driving up the price of talent in local marketplaces. In an environment of talent scarcity, there's been an upward pressure on salaries for talent of a certain caliber - which Big Tech can more readily afford compared to startup...
Apr 06, 2023•16 min•Season 4Ep. 9
We're dropping one more episode of our new show, crypto@scale, on The Flip's feed today. In this episode, we interview our first guests on what might be Africa's killer crypto app, stablecoins. According to data from Coinmetrics, cumulative Stablecoin volumes are at a $9 trillion annualized run rate, exceeding the volumes of all major card networks, except for Visa. Across the African continent, stablecoins are finding meaningful uptake, particularly in markets with low USD liquidity, or countri...
Mar 31, 2023•1 hr 6 min
We interrupt this season on the future of work to drop a special episode today in The Flip’s feed. Introducing crypto@scale, a new show from The Flip, co-hosted by MFS Africa's Head of Crypto, Gwera Kiwana, and The Flip's Justin Norman. crypto@scale is a pragmatic and hopefully hype-free exploration of the crypto ecosystem across the African continent. If you enjoy this episode, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or YouTube by searching for crypto@scale. We'll be dropping o...
Mar 28, 2023•32 min
Where there is fragmentation, informality, and a dearth of infrastructure, there are questions about what the path to formality and standardization will look like. One intriguing answer to that question is conversion franchising, where existing stores are converted into a franchise. In the future of work context, are microenterprises, their owners, and their employees better off as converted franchisees? This episode is a case study, with mPharma's Gregory Rockson. 00:00 - We begin this episode'...
Mar 23, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 8
African markets are largely informal. So while our examination of workforce and training programs in the fast few episodes focused on formal and salaried jobs, we know that most Africans aren't going to get these types of jobs. So, our exploration of the future of work needs to span much further than that. Where there are no formal jobs, what does it look like to help stimulate the development of the informal sector and microenterprises? And what role does technology play? In this context, we he...
Mar 16, 2023•27 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Throughout this season, we've heard about this disconnect between supply and demand in the labor marketplace. It's often a skills and training issue. Even where there are jobs, there's still this disconnect between demand and supply. But what are we training people for when there are few jobs or income-generating opportunities? In the past few episodes of this season, we've explored the talent networks, the remote work platforms, the workforce enablement programs, and the multi-stakeholder initi...
Mar 09, 2023•25 min•Season 4Ep. 6
How do we tie interventions - whether traditional education or boot camps or training programs - to job outcomes? As we'll explore in this episode, it requires a demand-led approach and starts with employers. In this episode, we're going to focus on the platforms doing the matching - those that are explicitly working to better connect supply and demand in the job marketplace, to achieve the employment outcomes we wish to see across the continent. 4:03 - We start our exploration on matching with ...
Mar 02, 2023•23 min•Season 4Ep. 5
What's particularly exciting about remote work is that it's not constrained by the demand from the local market. The jobs can come from anywhere in the world. But it leaves us with a big question: why are global employers looking to hire African talent? And how can African markets take advantage of the opportunity and capture more of these jobs for its citizens? This episode is another case study, on what it looks like to develop the global business services industry in a country like South Afri...
Feb 26, 2023•18 min•Season 4Ep. 4
We know that local economies are not going to create enough jobs or income-generating opportunities for such a rapidly growing African population. But at the same time, for countries in the global north whose working-age population is shrinking, where's the labor going to come from? The solution to both of these problems might be the same: remote work. In this episode, we're going to explore three buckets of remote work: the sexy, high-skilled remote work for product-led technology companies, th...
Feb 23, 2023•34 min•Season 4Ep. 3
In the first episode of this season, we argued that the future of work is a traditional development playbook. Considering the nature of most African markets today - informal, fragmented, subscale - and considering the fact that most employment comes from the agriculture sector, the traditional development playbook says that development starts by increasing the productivity of the informal sector and the agriculture sector, in particular. These jobs are local jobs. In the context of Africa's risi...
Feb 19, 2023•14 min•Season 4Ep. 2
How are jobs created? While throughout the season we're going to be looking at that question primarily through a technology and innovation lens, in this episode we're going to start by exploring this jobs question through a more traditional development and economics lens. Because as we'll see, though the future of work might be remote work or the creator economy or any other nascent categories, the future of work in Africa is also a traditional development story. And it starts with farming. 4:11...
Feb 16, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Introducing The Flip Season Four. African countries will be adding more people to the workforce in the next 10 years than the rest of the world combined. Where are the income-generating opportunities going to come from? All this season, we're exploring the future of work. Thanks to MFS Africa for their sponsorship of the entirety of Season 4 of The Flip. Follow The Flip on Twitter @theflipafrica and subscribe to our newsletter The Flip Notes at https://theflip.africa/newsletter ....
Feb 09, 2023•3 min
Read Sabi: Platforming Trade in Africa on The Flip. We’re trying something new - an audio version of this week's partner edition of The Flip Notes, together with Sabi. Along with narration from The Flip's Justin Norman, you can hear Sabi’s co-founders, Anu Adedoyin Adasolum and Ademola Adesina, tell part of the story in their own words. The Flip Notes Partner Editions are our occasional sponsored deep dive of a market or sector or business model, in partnership and behind the scenes with a compa...
Jun 27, 2022•20 min
In this episode, we're going to explore web3 in the African context. The premise of web3 technology, and tools like NFTs, in particular, is that they can and perhaps will create new paradigms and economic models and that these models will have positive implications for creators and fans alike. And we believe that the decentralized and permissionless nature of web3 blockchains and protocols can have especially positive implications across Africa and emerging markets, as well. We're going to look ...
Feb 17, 2022•31 min•Season 3Ep. 9
African culture and content is taking over the world - from Afrobeats and amapiano, to Nollywood and Netflix originals, to fashion. To what degree can Africans monetize their creativity not only on the continent but globally? To what extent can Africans, as owners of culture and intellectual property, participate in the upside? And if content has been largely an export product, to date, how do *we* develop the local creator ecosystem, as well? 05:11 - A brief history of the creator economy. From...
Feb 10, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Food prices are disproportionately expensive in African markets. In some countries, consumers spend 50% or more of their income on food. It's a logistics problem and a retail fragmentation problem, and it's also an agriculture and processing problem. So in this episode, we explore the agriculture and processing value chains on the continent. [04:44] - Lack of processing capabilities is a problem in African markets. But processing capabilities are hampered by inconsistent supply from smallholder ...
Nov 25, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 7
How can Africans receive greater access to quality healthcare? That's the problem we'll attempt to explain in this episode, and it's a wicked problem. In this episode, we go deep into the healthcare value chain from diagnostics to labs to clinics and pharmacies, to better understand how it all works and how those we speak to in this episode are working to get improved care to Africans across the continent. [04:49] - Today, there is a greater trend towards reactive, not proactive medicine, due to...
Nov 18, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 6
As MFS Africa announces its $100 million Series C, The Flip's Justin Norman and Sayo Folawiyo sit down for a conversation with MFS Africa's Founder and CEO, Dare Okoudjou. [02:34]- First question, on MFS Africa's recent acquisition of Baxi, and their expansion into Nigeria. [05:36] - Why Nigeria? And why now? [09:15] - On MFS Africa's expansion capabilities. [12:49] - Beyond remittances. - on trade clusters and markets. [18:05] - How does MFS Africa think about collaboration in the ecosystem whi...
Nov 11, 2021•44 min
As we began our exploration into retail and the so-called B2B commerce platforms, we kept asking about the nature of last-mile retail. Why is it so fragmented? And can we expect retail consolidation? In this episode, we explore why retail looks the way that it does in African markets, and how B2B commerce platforms are working to empower retailers in the context of the way in which last-mile retail works to meet the demands of their customers, the mass-market consumers across the continent. Thes...
Nov 04, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 5
As we continue our season on value chains, in this episode, we explore logistics. The cost of goods and food is disproportionately higher in Africa than anywhere else in the world, with consumers in some markets, spending 50% or more of their total income on food alone. A major reason for these high prices is logistics. So how do we fix this? How do we improve the efficiency of logistics on the African continent, and ultimately drive down the cost of goods? [04:20] - On the role of containerizat...
Oct 28, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 4
This episode concludes our three-part fintech series this season. In the first two episodes, we tackled payments. In this episode, we explore the other layers of the financial services stack - namely, identity and data. Africa Stack is a play on India Stack - India's pioneering platform of open APIs and digital infrastructure that underpins the country's rapid move towards a paperless, cashless, and digital future. But whereas India Stack was built in one market, with one currency and one regula...
Oct 21, 2021•34 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In episode one of this season, we explored how money moves within borders in Africa. In this episode, we explore how money moves across them. [01:27] - Africa is the most expensive region in the world to send money to, according to the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide report. [07:26] - Why are there such limited cross-border payment options within Africa? [08:30] - And why is sending money across borders in Africa so expensive? AZA Finance's Elizabeth Rossiello tells the story of investm...
Oct 14, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 2
We hear a lot, in the African tech ecosystem, that the competition is with cash. Virtually every country in the world is on some form of a journey to move from cash to cashless. Many African markets, however, are quite far on that journey. And to understand how to accelerate this trend on the continent, we first need to understand how money moves. [04:55] - For most Africans, the mobile money experience starts with agent networks, like TeamApt's MoniePoint, in Nigeria. [09:47] - Though increasin...
Oct 07, 2021•33 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Introducing The Flip Season Three. This season is about value chains - we pop the hood across sectors and take an in-depth look at what's going on underneath.
Sep 30, 2021•7 min
Each episode during our narrative episodes, The Flip's b-mic, Sayo Folawiyo, and founder, Justin Norman, sit down for a retrospective conversation on the topic explored in that episode. However, our current series of conversational episodes explored one theme across the series - digitizing analog and fragmented industries - we opted to have one retrospective conversation that reflects on the entirety of our 10 episode series. In this episode, Sayo and Justin talk about people-centric tech startu...
Mar 18, 2021•20 min
In this episode, we talk edtech with Wambura Kimunyu, the Group CEO of Eneza Education. Throughout the series of episodes, we’re exploring the entrepreneurs in start-ups digitizing informal and fragmented industries on the continent. And for Eneza Education to remain affordable and accessible, it means distributing text-based content to basic mobile phones via SMS, and acquiring customers via radio advertising. We talk to Wambura about building a product for low-income students - 70% of whom liv...
Mar 11, 2021•33 min
