What they are doing is certailny good, and I'm not faulting them for their success..
However, as someone who grew up and was trained in Africa, and went on to work in the Silicon Valley, I know first-hand that one can find internationally competitive talent on the continent.
Now, each technological leap brings the opportunity to create fortunes but also influence on the society. It saddens me to see that, we Africans may miss the IT wave, like we arguably missed all the others. More local founders would go a long way to making the local IT sector more sustainable and robust.
Looking at China (which nurtured local tech providers) and Europe (which was open to foreign tech) we can see the erosion of local control in the latter scenario. For better or worse.
To reiterate, the Wave story is a success story to be lauded, I am just worried (maybe unreasonably so) that African tech very often isn't African enough (in terms of control). And I don't say it to criticize non-Africans, but to alert Africans to do more.
Very fair points & completely agree that the more African founders involved in the rapidly emerging tech ecosystem on the continent the better. I think GB, Shola, etc. have done a great job so far though and hopefully many more African unicorns are on the way as it's still truly Day 1 for the startup scene across SSA
Great piece and an amazing opportunity, while helping to improve the lives of a lot of people, by giving them easy and cost-effective access to financial services.
What I am trying to understand is what is Wave's strategy. I see them entering several new markets, Uganda, Mali, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso to add to their strong presence in Ivory Coast and Senegal. Is the plan to win big and double down in a few markets or to get a toe-hold across several markets and see how it works out?
And how do you think about the ultimate 'winner' in these markets, is it a winner takes mosts (if not all) kind of business (like Safaricom in Kenya), or do you see room for a few competitors.
Ultimately is Wave looking to be the go-to player in each of the markets they enter, or will they be happy with a meaningful but not overly dominant position in a few markets?
One more comment. Initially there was a promising start-up in Uganda called Eversend. Their intention was to become something like the African version of Wise (formerly Transferwise) and/or Revolut. The founders of Eversend were friends with the people of Monito, a Swiss-based website which helps people to find the cheapest remittance providers by using the Monito search engine. Monito also does reviews and comparisons of neobanks/challenger banks/remittance providers etc. I think Eversend has been taken over by organized crime type people though but I'm sure their friends at Monito might know what the problem is. Eversend's recent Google Play reviews are horrible but if you read the details from Eversend's Google Play site you can get an idea of what they were trying to create. They might have been a worthy competitor of Wave's?
It surprised me that you didn't mention that mobile money worked for users very well in economies in Africa where nothing else worked, including cash. Both Zimbabwe and Somalia (probably both considered unanimously the worst economies in the world) were able to build their complete basket case economies on the reliability of mobile money in commerce. If Wave can match that reliability in Somalia and Zimbabwe then you might have a clear winner? But Africa and Africans won't benefit well unless Wave has a number of African competitors on the continent.
It always saddens me to see foreign-led companies raking millions on the continent. Africans need to wake up.
Why would it sadden you for any company to reduce the price of accessing essential financial services for African users by ~70%?
What they are doing is certailny good, and I'm not faulting them for their success..
However, as someone who grew up and was trained in Africa, and went on to work in the Silicon Valley, I know first-hand that one can find internationally competitive talent on the continent.
Now, each technological leap brings the opportunity to create fortunes but also influence on the society. It saddens me to see that, we Africans may miss the IT wave, like we arguably missed all the others. More local founders would go a long way to making the local IT sector more sustainable and robust.
Looking at China (which nurtured local tech providers) and Europe (which was open to foreign tech) we can see the erosion of local control in the latter scenario. For better or worse.
To reiterate, the Wave story is a success story to be lauded, I am just worried (maybe unreasonably so) that African tech very often isn't African enough (in terms of control). And I don't say it to criticize non-Africans, but to alert Africans to do more.
Very fair points & completely agree that the more African founders involved in the rapidly emerging tech ecosystem on the continent the better. I think GB, Shola, etc. have done a great job so far though and hopefully many more African unicorns are on the way as it's still truly Day 1 for the startup scene across SSA
Hello
Great piece and an amazing opportunity, while helping to improve the lives of a lot of people, by giving them easy and cost-effective access to financial services.
What I am trying to understand is what is Wave's strategy. I see them entering several new markets, Uganda, Mali, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso to add to their strong presence in Ivory Coast and Senegal. Is the plan to win big and double down in a few markets or to get a toe-hold across several markets and see how it works out?
And how do you think about the ultimate 'winner' in these markets, is it a winner takes mosts (if not all) kind of business (like Safaricom in Kenya), or do you see room for a few competitors.
Ultimately is Wave looking to be the go-to player in each of the markets they enter, or will they be happy with a meaningful but not overly dominant position in a few markets?
I talked to Ben a while back on my podcast, they're an awesome team solving a really important problem! https://narrativespodcast.com/2021/09/06/58-be-intentional-with-ben-kuhn/
This is great Will! Will add this to the post links / resources section now
Appreciate it! Would love to have you on the show as well if you're interested :D
One more comment. Initially there was a promising start-up in Uganda called Eversend. Their intention was to become something like the African version of Wise (formerly Transferwise) and/or Revolut. The founders of Eversend were friends with the people of Monito, a Swiss-based website which helps people to find the cheapest remittance providers by using the Monito search engine. Monito also does reviews and comparisons of neobanks/challenger banks/remittance providers etc. I think Eversend has been taken over by organized crime type people though but I'm sure their friends at Monito might know what the problem is. Eversend's recent Google Play reviews are horrible but if you read the details from Eversend's Google Play site you can get an idea of what they were trying to create. They might have been a worthy competitor of Wave's?
This post looks like an investment memo to me tbh. It really did makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.
It surprised me that you didn't mention that mobile money worked for users very well in economies in Africa where nothing else worked, including cash. Both Zimbabwe and Somalia (probably both considered unanimously the worst economies in the world) were able to build their complete basket case economies on the reliability of mobile money in commerce. If Wave can match that reliability in Somalia and Zimbabwe then you might have a clear winner? But Africa and Africans won't benefit well unless Wave has a number of African competitors on the continent.
Interesting article... I enjoyed reading it and hope we can exchange ideas on this topic..... see https://somalia.substack.com/p/coming-soon?showWelcome=true