If you’ve built a company in Lagos, Nairobi, or Accra, this message is for you.
While startups in Silicon Valley raise millions on pitch decks, you’ve bootstrapped through power outages, fragmented payment systems, and markets where trust is earned, not assumed. The good news is that these challenges are forging you into a new breed of talent that’s poised to dominate the next wave of global innovation.
Let me explain.
Constraints Breed Superpowers
In Africa, the absence of seamless infrastructure, reliable internet, widespread credit card penetration, or stable logistics forces entrepreneurs to rethink fundamentals. While a San Francisco founder might optimize a SaaS funnel, you’re building agent networks to deliver cash payments when digital channels fail.
This explains why an African operator in Silicon Valley sees beyond the low-hanging fruit of ad-driven or subscription models to spotting opportunities in underserved niches. Consider Flutterwave, a Nigerian fintech unicorn. In 2016, its founders tackled Africa’s fragmented payment landscape, where 60% of transactions were cash-based and digital infrastructure was unreliable. They built a platform that seamlessly integrated mobile money, bank cards, and USSD codes, processing over $20 billion in transactions by 2024. Or take Kenya’s M-KOPA, which scaled solar energy access to over 3 million households by creating a pay-as-you-go model tailored to low-income users with inconsistent cash flows.
If you are an operator that has honed your skills in the African market, when you step into mature markets that have stable infrastructure and deep capital pools, your skills should become your superpowers, not a disadvantage.
It’s time to reframe your narrative
To African entrepreneurs and operators:
Your constraints are your edge. On your résumé, don’t list “built a startup in Lagos.” Say “engineered a payment system that scaled to 1 million users despite 40% network downtime.” In investor pitches, highlight how your hybrid model outperformed Western playbooks. Your ability to create value under pressure is your unique selling point.
To global hiring managers:
If you want process managers, hire the polished résumé. If you want innovators who can solve impossible problems, look to Africa. Integrate them into your teams not as “diverse hires” but as strategic assets who see what others miss.