“Konga Should Sell to Jumia ” and “The Andela Problem” are two articles I am not happy that I made public. Specifically on the Andela one, an investor in the company wrote to me, and commended my ability to understand the business, from far. The Konga one was a meltdown as many on LinkedIn felt I was demoralizing people. Sure, within days I wrote the article, Konga sold itself. The premise of that piece was based on a press release from Konga.
Practically, what it said it was going to pivot made no sense for a company that had around $100 million of investors money. It would have made sense if Konga had raised about $20 million. So, I simply said: if that was the only thing available in the playbook, sell because you have no future!
In the Andela piece, I wrote, “The business cannot scale outside the blue, because the revenue is the developer, and you cannot mass produce them. There is a space constraint on how many you can have in the offices. Sure – you have more offices, but that also increases cost. For the very fact that these workers remain with Andela, and not leaving, it will quickly run into carry-capacity.”
But today, Andela is going completely remote which means its carry-capacity problem is eliminated. For that, I will write that Andela has completely evolved. Now, all it needs is to find demand for its services.
Software talent outsourcing company, Andela, has said that it has shut down all its offices and now operates remotely. The remote work idea has been on the pipeline for the company for a long time, but COVID-19 hastened its implementation.
Andela spokesperson said working remotely will help the company to fine-tune the talents in its disposal and serve its customers better.
“The reason behind this decision was that we found that our physical offices at times constrained our ability to connect talent with opportunities. By going fully remote, it opens our access to talent with diverse experiences and skill sets to support our current and future customers.”
Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson said last month the plan is materializing as the company had tested the effectiveness and ascertained that the remote work model will serve it better.
“We’ve now proven that we can operate fully remote by delivering excellent work to our customers over the past couple of months. We will continue to ensure that our engineers have the infrastructure needed to operate at a world-class level,” he said on Medium in May.
Of course, as you might have noticed, I do not write analytical articles anymore. I try to make people happy by celebrating fundraise, happy-hours, etc. Those insightful articles that look at business models are gone from the public. I do not want people to lose confidence in themselves.
Congratulations Andela.
