Money does not solve most fundamental growth problems; product improvements do! Work hard to understand your customers and do all to retain them before you begin to spend on massive scaling.
Never try to scale a business until you can retain customers. That customer retention is a validation of your business hypothesis via product-market fit. A growth playbook which begins when a company cannot retain customers wastes resources. You are likely going to onboard customers, but the day that marketing or promotion blitz stops, the customers will move. Build. Pursue product-market fit. Then Scale.
Without a postal system in Nigeria, B2C ecommerce will need more years to discover product market fit. Jumia is overwhelmed by that perception, not just because it is trading in New York, but the fact that investors do think the “market” is moving from the “product”. Jumia has many solid units which are leverageable, and can compound, but perception destroys before balance sheets. Yes, its market performance in New York is no more about Jumia but its operating environment.
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