1. Mentor. Accelerate. Invest
Developing tech entrepreneurs in subsaharan Africa
www.savannah.vc
7 Hard Truths on Africa Startups
@mbwana
@savannahfund

2. Savannah Fund Today
• 15 startups. Accelerator to Series A stage
• $2M revenue run rate, raised $8M, 100 full time jobs
• Connecting up the continent through Venture Capital.
E-
commerc
e
39%
Educatio
n
11%
Entertain
ment
11%
Financial
Services
10%
Logistics
9%
Social/M
obile
20%
Rest of
World
11%
Ghana
19%
Kenya
27%
Nigeria
9%
South
Africa
24%
Uganda
10%

3. Waterhole
• Resource to help bridge knowledge and
experience gap in startups in Africa
• Fundraising in
Africa
• UX/Design
• Product
• Engineering &
Scaling
• Expats....
www.savannah.vc/waterhole

4. Venture Capital Course in
Africa
• Reduce the VC process
knowledge gap.
• $1,000 for corporates
• $350 for "qualifying startups"
• Savannah fund will sponsor 11
startups inc. Pivot East
winners

5. #1You are nothing special, but have potential
• Startups are increasingly getting caught in
the "Africa rising" hype
• High Valuations and availability of "soft
money" lead to a distorted view
• We are seeing the rise of Nigeria and
Ghana

6. #2 talent development, mentor networks
• Not enough experienced coders for
growth. Especially on process.
• Investment in emerging platforms
Facebook, Android, Web stack/Cloud
• Not enough awareness and utilization of
product managers and UX

7. #3 Safaricom dependence is not healthy
• Safaricom (and every other mobile operator)
wants to be the Alibaba of Kenya
• Startups want to reach Safaricom's mobile
subscribers. Beware of Monopolistic
behavior
• There needs a clearer strategy and options
between "revenue vs growth". +
Differentiation

8. #4 Need to Develop a Growth mindset
• Starts with deeply understanding
your customers
• Expand competence and learning
new skills
• Thinking multi country or multi
product line expansion

9. #5 Hustle hard, otherwise it's 2 steps forward and 3 back
• Nothing gets done unless you do it
yourself
• Especially business development.
Knowing when to cut your losses.
• Find workarounds... There is always a
way

10. #6 Relentless focus. not working on the same thing everyday
• .... Nor doing a million things at
once
• Prioritization vs Distractions
• Clearly defined objectives and
strategy to succeed.
• Dealing with Uncertainty

11. #7 problem is often you problem definition
• Bounding the problem taking with cultural
contexts.
• You are often dealing with multifactorial
problems.
• Unit economics and industry structure
matter. Especially when you copy/clone
from elsewhere to Africa
http://savannah.vc/2014/04/16/problem-definition-problem-in-africa-solutions-for-a-diverse-continent