Data-Driven Success: How Chari is Transforming Traditional Retail in French-Speaking Africa with Ismael Belkhayat

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. A generation of young talented entrepreneurs who are still in need of finding examples of successful exits in the country. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential.

[00:00:47] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host, Terser Adamu. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are doing amazing things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today we have another special guest, we have Ismael Belkhayat, who is the founder and CEO

[00:01:12] of Chari which is an e-commerce app helping small retailers in French-speaking Africa procure inventory for their stores and get it delivered for free while benefiting from payment facilities. Welcome to the podcast, Ismael, how are you?

[00:01:29] I'm very good, happy to be here and thank you one more time for your invitation. It's great to have you on the podcast and I've heard a lot and read a lot about Chari so looking forward to our conversation but before we start I was hoping you could

[00:01:43] introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Ismael. So I'm born and raised in Morocco, Rabat more specifically where I had my high school diploma and then I went to Europe for my undergrads first in Paris as you can hear from my loosey French accent.

[00:02:08] And then I went to the US for my master's upstate New York in Cornell. Back at that time I thought that New York was only New York City until I landed and I discovered that my school was five hours away from GFK.

[00:02:26] And then I started working as a strategy consultant, I worked for a company called BCG, the Boston Consulting Group first in Paris and then I came back to Morocco when BCG opened its office in Casablanca where I worked about two years before becoming a startup

[00:02:49] and that was eight years ago. I am a repeat founder. My first company was a property portal that quickly became the leading portal for those who were looking for their housing. I exited to a group called Property Finder based in Dubai that is the leading player

[00:03:08] in that field. And then I started a ride sharing app called Votkhoche Feuch that also became a leading player and then it got acquired by Avis, the rental company. Oh wow. Yes, and that's when about three years and a half ago I started the sharey with my

[00:03:29] co-founder who by the way happens to be my wife. So I do handle my wife at home and at work. That's it. There's no place to hide. So you mentioned obviously you're from Morocco, studied in Paris, New York before becoming

[00:03:48] an entrepreneur which has led you to what you're doing now with the sharey. So can you tell us a bit more about the company and what inspired you to create the platform? Yes. So tell me Terser, you told me you live in Liverpool.

[00:04:05] Where do you go for your groceries? The local supermarket, Tesco, Aster. Tesco, local supermarket to a big chain. When here in Morocco we go for our groceries we usually go to the local non-name independent traditional grocery store that is next to our door.

[00:04:26] Morocco is dreaming to become one day like the UK and obviously you guys are a model. However, myself I'm fighting very hard to make sure that what has happened in the last decades in the UK which is the modern trade, the big supermarket, the

[00:04:46] big chain replacing these small grocery stores won't never happen in Morocco. Simply because I believe that these shops are part of our national heritage. Not only they are our grocery stores but they are our neighbors, they are our friends sometimes our bankers and we need them to survive.

[00:05:10] And if nothing is done they will be progressively replaced by the big names such as Kharfour for example. So what I'm trying to do is to digitize them because I believe that if they start using some amazing tools they could keep up with the competition

[00:05:33] coming from these big chains. So that's basically my vision and my objective. Brilliant, brilliant. So as you mentioned in Morocco a lot of shopping happens in small stores you might describe them as mom-and-pop type stores and it is part of Morocco's cultural heritage.

[00:05:51] So with what you're offering how does Shari specifically benefit these small retailers? It's a good question. So the first service we are offering them is a procurement service. So we believe that if we make them team up all together so they could buy through us

[00:06:11] we could leverage the relationship with the suppliers and we could become a kind of digital purchasing body that would be able to get better prices from the big multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, but also get better payment terms.

[00:06:28] So we are a kind of one-stop shop where the small mom-and-pop shops can find anything they need for their shop. They can order it once from our app and we make sure to deliver it to them

[00:06:43] for free in less than 24 hours by giving them again payment terms, an invoice and accepting returns. That's the first main service but on top of it we believe that these small grocery stores on top of selling to you fast-moving consumer goods or CPG they could also start offering

[00:07:08] to their end users some financial services. So we could turn them from being normal stores, normal grocery stores into becoming super stores or super financial services stores where any user could come pay his bills, pay his taxes,

[00:07:26] top up his mobile, maybe move money, do some remittances and so on. You name it buy your insurance and so on. And that is coming from the fact that the shop already exists and they already have their costs

[00:07:42] and they could be selling more than the goods they have in-house. They could become a kind of local bank for their users. And that's how we believe we could save them from progressively dying because of competition. Awesome, awesome.

[00:07:57] So you mentioned that Shari is a one-stop shop offering procurement services and also financial services. So is a platform, would you say, more of an e-commerce platform or a fintech? This is a very good question. We started with e-commerce and then we progressively added embedded fintech. Okay.

[00:08:19] And then the fintech became the real opportunity. And then we became a fintech with embedded e-commerce. It's great to see the evolution now. No, but to make it simple to understand, e-commerce is a great vertical to grow fast,

[00:08:41] to acquire users, to have loyal users and to build what I call trust. However, e-commerce is not great when it comes to unit economics. You know, the margins are slim because at the end of the day,

[00:08:57] what you do is FMCG distribution and the suppliers don't give big margins. When fintech, again, is a vertical that is very hard to start as a standalone business because it's very hard to acquire users and educate them to start using your services. But the margins could be good.

[00:09:16] So the startup starts making sense when you do mix e-commerce and fintech. You use e-commerce as a chosen horse and the fintech as an additional revenue stream or a way to start monetizing the database of users you've built and you've gained the trust through e-commerce.

[00:09:39] Hope it makes sense. Perfect. And so it's both an e-commerce and fintech platform where they coexist and benefit or add value to one another. But it seems like the fintech side of it is extremely important in terms of being an important vertical.

[00:09:57] So I was hoping you could elaborate on probably more of the details in terms of the financial services that Shari provides to its users and how they benefit from this. Yes, of course. So down the road, Shari got financial institution license

[00:10:13] from the central bank of Morocco that allowed us to start offering to our shopkeepers what we call an open loop wallet. That means that the wallet that our users get by using Shari allowed them to start receiving payments from other wallets in the market

[00:10:36] as for instance, the one of orange money. So what we are now providing the shopkeepers with is what myself I call a payment ecosystem. And let me explain what it is. It comes first with a payment terminal that allows the shopkeepers

[00:10:55] to start accepting payments whether through wallets or payment cards with the NFC or with the chip. When the money is paid on this payment terminal, it lands immediately on the wallet through instant settlement. So the shopkeeper doesn't need to wait two days for the money

[00:11:15] to hit its account. It's immediately available on the payment accounts of the shopkeeper. When the money is there, the shopkeeper can either start paying his suppliers including us as Shari because again we also do e-commerce.

[00:11:31] So we sell goods to him or her and he is able to buy from us or he can use the same terminal in which we've added a few apps. So the shopkeeper can buy added value services such as again

[00:11:47] mobile top ups on which he gets a good margin or he can pay the bills of some of his clients and that's a way for him again to make additional margin. That's the option one to spend his money or he can use a payment card

[00:12:04] that we provide him with because again the payment terminal comes with a wallet and the wallet is linked to a payment card. And with the payment card, the shop can again go to any ATM and withdraw money. So that's how we digitize the shopkeeper but we financially

[00:12:22] include them and this is basically our vision is to make sure that more and more grocery stores will be equipped with payment terminals allowing them to be financially included. It sounds like you've achieved quite a lot notably your license from the Central Bank of Morocco.

[00:12:42] During your journey, what are some of the main or significant challenges you've faced in scaling Shari in the African market? Oh, before I even started I had one main challenge so myself one. And that's the beauty of Africa, right? The challenges before you start.

[00:13:03] You know when I had the idea, I went back to my office and I worked for two, three months with my team. So I hired a great tech team and we started working on an amazing app that would help the shopkeepers again get their procurement.

[00:13:16] So we got some again product developers, some user experience experts and we tried to came up with an MVP that would fit all the shops and we were very happy about our MVP because it was well designed using the best libraries.

[00:13:35] Myself, I thought it would be great but then I went to see my first clients to see how they could adopt the app and I quickly realized that my clients were shop owners owning all the phones on which the latest libraries were not working.

[00:13:56] And some of them didn't have enough data left in their phone to be using it and no space in the phones. And then I realized that even those who just got a phone didn't care about my nice design because many of them couldn't

[00:14:13] even read my nice texts and nice things I've done. And for some reasons, their hands and fingers were larger than mine so they couldn't even click on the small icons I put there. And I just understood that I had to redo the work with a very easy app

[00:14:32] with big pictures, no text, only figures. And I added a WhatsApp button for those who didn't know how to work so they could send me a WhatsApp voice message with their order. And that took me months before being able to educate the shopkeepers

[00:14:47] on how to use the app. And that was a big challenge because our population here is not as tech-savvy as the one you guys have in more developed countries. So the first step is not to come with an amazing product.

[00:15:03] The first step is to understand your client and educate your client to what could be your service. So that was my first challenge. And I guess that's true for many people who are doing business in Africa. Sometimes people come with solutions that they perceive are needed

[00:15:20] or a product that they feel that's needed. But as you mentioned, you need to understand your clients, understand the markets which you do and then follow the product that suits or fits. So it's clear that you've overcome and found solutions to many challenges

[00:15:33] and the businesses gained a lot of momentum, which has led you to securing. Recently was it $14 million in funding? Yeah, we secured so far a total of $14 million. So can you share how this funding has been utilized to further your mission and grow within the continent? Of course.

[00:15:56] So again, you know, when the first day when you start a business like this one, you as a B2B e-commerce platform and distributor, first obviously you need to convince your users to start buying from you. Yes.

[00:16:14] But you need to convince also the suppliers to let you buy and resell their products, right? And when you are unknown and you go see these big multinationals who have their own go-to markets, they usually don't want it to be disturbed.

[00:16:31] So you go see them and you ask, hey, would it be possible to get some margins? So myself I can buy from you and resell and they all say no.

[00:16:41] So when they all say no, you end up in a situation where you have nothing to sell to your clients, but still you believe in your model and you have to start. So when we started and we received our first orders from our first users

[00:16:55] because remember we could still find a few users with the phones who accepted to use it to see our products and who accepted to send us voice messages with their orders. What we did is we received the orders on WhatsApp voice messages,

[00:17:11] we listened to them and we used to go to local cash and carry stores, you know, like Metro where we need to buy the goods and deliver them to the end users. And we were buying them at the exact same price as we were selling them.

[00:17:28] Otherwise, we couldn't have sold them, we would have been too expensive. So the shopkeepers were expecting the goods on our platform to be at least at the same price as in local cash and carry stores. So we were basically subsidizing the cost of logistics

[00:17:45] and we did that for about six months paying the cars to deliver the goods, paying the human resources to take the goods from the cash and carry stores and take them to the shopkeepers. And that was very costly as you may imagine

[00:18:00] and we used the funding we got from some of the investors. But the good news is after six months we had something that was very precious, which is the data. So we went back to see the same suppliers who said no six months earlier

[00:18:15] and we told them look guys, we are probably the unique wholesaler in Morocco able to provide you with data about the traditional trades which are the small grocery stores. We are the only ones able to tell you where your goods are sold,

[00:18:34] to whom, at what frequency, with what other categories and so on and so on. And that's how we started convincing the multinationals to start using us as a distributor because they realized that we could gather some data for them.

[00:18:50] And that's how we progressively started getting margins from them and these margins were at the beginning covering some of our logistics costs until they ended up covering the logistic costs. So funding first went to logistics, then it went to hiring more people for the tech side

[00:19:11] to improve our products. Then it went to again get the FinTech license and then it went to getting the first devices to be distributed and then it went to our expansion because when we succeeded in Morocco, we decided to expand in Francophone Africa.

[00:19:28] We moved to Ivory Coast for instance. We also did some M&A and acquired a few startups. So that's how we used the money. Brilliant. From what you've mentioned, Shari operated the intersection of supplier and buyers which requires smart technology driven data.

[00:19:45] So how do you use the data driven insight to enhance the services that you provide? Yeah, so we use the data in many ways. One, we take into account all of our sales to do predictions on our future sales

[00:20:04] and we take into account past sales depending on the months of the year, the weather, the Ramadan period in order to make sure that the stock we keep in our warehouse is as low as possible.

[00:20:21] Obviously our business is a matter of being able to predict the right sales so we limit the number of days of stock so we lower our working capital requirements. So this is a first example. A second example is we take into account basically the behavior of our users

[00:20:45] in order to credit score them and the reason why we need to credit score them is because we sometimes give to some of them payment terms and allow them not to pay immediately their goods and in order to lower the default rates

[00:21:02] we need to use the data to make sure to lend the money only to those who would be able to pay us back and this is why we acquired this local startup called Carney that was made by some former BCG consultants

[00:21:18] and which is what we call a credit book. It's a kind of bookkeeping app for shopkeepers and that allows them to give themselves credit to the end users. So with this app we are today able to know the sales out of the shops

[00:21:35] but we are also able to know the volume of credit these shops give to the end users and it allows us to credit score the shops. So that's two examples of data usage for our business. Awesome, awesome.

[00:21:48] And this all goes back to benefiting the end customer and user. So in your opinion, what do you believe sets Shari apart from other e-commerce platforms operating in the African market? So I'll say there are two categories of e-commerce platforms.

[00:22:07] You have the B2C ones such as Jumia and you have the B2B ones. So I'll start first by explaining the difference and then I will get deep into B2B but the main difference between Shari for example and Jumia

[00:22:21] is that Jumia deliver the goods to the end users and when you say end users means that you have to go to his place and make sure that he's there, make sure that he has the cash. So usually the return rate is quite high.

[00:22:35] I think I've seen a report of Jumia where about 35% of their orders are returned and the sale happened in the second attempt which is huge because that means that your cost of delivery goes up by 35%. But when you deliver to shopkeepers, basically you know when they are open

[00:22:55] so you know that they will be there. You know when they have cash. So our return rate today is lower than 2%. That's the first main difference. A second one is when you are Jumia and you need more clients, you need to do marketing.

[00:23:12] That's only with marketing that you acquire users and as you know marketing is very expensive when you need to go on TV, radio, billboards. That's a lot of money. But when you are a B2B e-commerce you just need to hire a few people on the ground

[00:23:28] that ourself we call ambassadors. They're kind of sales reps and their job is to go knock on the doors of any shop and shopkeeper and take his phone and download the app, install the app, create an account and train the user. So we save on acquisition costs

[00:23:46] and we save also on educational costs because we use humans on the ground. You could give me all the money of the VCs of the world, spend it so I can spend it on media. I won't be able to educate the users

[00:24:03] because some users need a human relationship to be educated. So that's the difference between B2B and B2C. And then to answer your question what is the difference between us and other B2B players in Africa? I would say the big players well known in B2B

[00:24:20] are mainly located in Anglophone Africa. They are in Egypt, they are in Kenya, they are in Nigeria but there are no big player in Francophone Africa and I'm very fortunate to be the first one, the leading player and hopefully I'll get big enough

[00:24:36] so when a big player from Anglophone Africa will come he will probably want to buy us out instead of going greenfield. Brilliant, thank you for sharing that. So you detailed what sets you apart is that you're B2B and you have the ability to deliver to other businesses

[00:24:52] and also operating in Francophone Africa. So can you share some success stories of small retailers that have say significantly benefited from using Shari? Yes, so for you to understand my answer I need to explain to you what is the go-to market of the local suppliers in Morocco.

[00:25:14] So let's say you are a big name such as Unilever when you are in the UK and you want to distribute your goods it's quite easy, you call Tesco and the purchaser of Tesco and overnight your goods are in all the Tesco's of the country.

[00:25:29] So when you speak with the main purchasers from the main brands that's it. But when you are in Morocco it's another story they are out there 250,000 shops and all of them buy independently so you can't handle 250,000 clients. So you need to go through what we call middlemen

[00:25:49] and this middlemen they could be distributors or wholesalers. But again even when you go through distributors you can't ask them to do numerical distribution which means that you can't ask them to cover every single shops. So what we call the 2080, what we call the weighted distribution

[00:26:07] are the shops who represent 20% of the shops but who sell usually 80% of your goods because they are the big ones. They are the shops where the cost of the drop or the cost of the visit

[00:26:20] is covered by the margin coming from the volume of the goods you sell to them. So what happens is the big shop owners stay at their shop and wait for the visit of the trucks of the suppliers and they're happy and they don't need to go anywhere

[00:26:37] but the small shops those who are left behind unfortunately nobody come to visit them. And remember the shopkeepers are one-man show it's one guy behind the counter to whom you ask what you want and he gives it to you and nobody works with him.

[00:26:53] So if nobody comes to visit him to sell to him the goods he has a problem with his procurement. So what he does is he closes his shop and go to a cash and carry store that is usually in the outskirts or outside the city.

[00:27:08] So he has what we call an opportunity cost because by closing his shop to go buy his goods he loses the sales of the clients who come to visit him. So thanks to our technology today we don't make any difference between a big shop and a small shop

[00:27:27] and everybody is able today to use sherry services no matter what the size of the basket. So today we are helping all the small shops that before nobody took care of to basically order what they want and we make sure to deliver the goods to them

[00:27:46] so they can stay at their place keep their shop open and improve their sales while still improving the cost of their procurement. That's how we benefit to the shopkeepers. Fantastic. So you've detailed in terms of the strategies that you use to ensure efficient and reliable delivery

[00:28:07] all of this requires partnerships and collaboration. So I was hoping you could go into more detail about some of the key partnerships and collaborations that you have to strengthen your presence in African markets.

[00:28:21] Yeah. So you need obviously some time to use what we call third party logistic companies that can handle for you the what we call the warehousing the pick and pack which is the preparation but also the last mile which is the delivery so they provide you with humans

[00:28:37] they provide you with cars they provide you with the warehouses and you pay them for that. However, that's not enough what you really need and this is why we call ourselves a tech company before everything what you need is a tech suite of tools that everybody uses

[00:28:55] and as an example in sherry the shopkeepers use our apps to make their orders but once the orders are made they go directly to an app used by the pick and packers of our 3PL and this app is called the sherry warehouse management system

[00:29:13] where the pick and pack get the list of items or SKUs ordered and he needs to make sure to go through the list without missing any goods otherwise we lose the sale because we can't deliver an imperfect delivery because the client doesn't have time

[00:29:31] to make sure that everything is in there or that something is missing and then once the goods are prepared it goes to another team called Delivery Boys who themselves has another app called Shari Transport Management System

[00:29:47] and this app is basically a tool allowing the drivers to optimize their routing by visiting the stores depending on their opening hours the traffic between them even the kind of goods they've bought the time they want to be delivered and so on and so on

[00:30:08] and all of that is possible only thanks to technology Fantastic. So it's clear from what you do there's a huge element or strong element of social impact so how do you balance the social impact of say Shari supporting small retailers with the financial sustainability

[00:30:26] and the growth as a business? They are not necessarily incompatible you can have a strong impact while still making a profitable business and again we are working hard on digital inclusion and financial inclusion by digital inclusion I mean that we send people on the ground

[00:30:46] to educate our users to start using our apps and understand how to use technology but that creates for us a bigger market and more clients willing to spend money so it's a win-win situation and when it comes to financial inclusion

[00:31:04] the more the users use our digital payment methods the less we handle cash the lower is our risk of losing it so again it's a it's another win-win situation Brilliant. So you mentioned the digital inclusion aspect exposes you to a bigger market and more clients

[00:31:26] so what are your expansion plans in the near future in terms of say geography and reach? Our ambition is to remain in Francophone Africa because that's where we believe we have real competitive advantage based on the fact that the conception habits are usually the same

[00:31:47] even our suppliers are the same we usually speak with the head of the region so our partners and multinationals are encouraging us to move to other Francophone countries of Africa we also have in our cap table an investor called Orange which is the French Telecom operator

[00:32:07] these guys sell scratch cards and mobile top-ups in grocery stores so together we have the same go-to-market strategy so they help us out whenever we expand with sharing with us the database of shopkeepers so the idea is to keep growing again in Francophone Africa

[00:32:26] probably next will be Senegal, Cameroon that kind of countries Awesome. Awesome. So it's clear that you've grown significantly already and have ambitious growth plans which I guess ties in with what I read recently as so someone mentioned Shari could become the first unicorn from Morocco

[00:32:45] so in light of that what milestones or achievements do you think have contributed to this rapid growth and success? I think the fact that we participated to a few accelerators helped us a lot so Morocco is a fast growing country it's stable it has great markets

[00:33:08] however it's still at its beginning when it comes to building a startup scene and the startup ecosystem we hope to become one day a startup nation but we are not there yet so in order to get some spotlight as a Moroccan startup

[00:33:23] you need to go through some accelerators so myself I was very fortunate because I got accelerated by at the beginning plug and play Tech Center which is a Californian VC and then that allowed me to move to Paris and I went to Station F

[00:33:43] which is one of the biggest campus of startups in the world and then I ended up going to San Francisco where I participated to the summer 2021 batch of Y combinator and I believe YC was kind of shortcuts to help us out understand the best practices

[00:34:10] get to meet the right people get the right ambition to make it work Amazing so you've emphasised the importance of accelerators for startup founders you've participated in a few yourself where you've gained tremendous knowledge, skills and network so as a startup founder of two successful exits

[00:34:30] and currently managing a very successful startup what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make an impact in the African tech ecosystem? If I had to give two pieces of advice I would say one always keep in mind that those who succeed

[00:34:48] are not necessarily the strongest the most intelligent, the richest it's usually those who never give up and the successful startup is a matter of learning how to fail and how to learn from your failure and how to keep iterating so I would say try to be resilient

[00:35:09] and keep trying until it works that's advice number one and advice number two is make sure to get surrounded by the right people I think the most difficult part in founding a startup is to handle the loneliness being lonely is very difficult

[00:35:27] so that's why I recommend to everyone to find the right co-founder someone who has I'll say complimentary to you who can help you when you'll be down and who yourself you can help when he or she will be down

[00:35:41] and myself I was very fortunate to team up with my wife without her I wouldn't have been able to do one tenth of what has been done so again get surrounded by the right people Brilliant pieces of advice as you mentioned be surrounded by the right people

[00:35:59] the most successful people are those that never give up and learn how to fail so if we look at yourself what motivates you personally as the founder and CEO of Shari how do you stay committed to your mission in the face of challenges?

[00:36:15] Again, as I told you myself I am from a country that is just starting in the tech space in the VC space in the startup scene and everything still needs to be built and I really hope that I'll be able to create the first success story

[00:36:31] maybe a first exit that would serve as an example to other local startups who will see that it's possible to make it from here so I feel like I'm doing it of course for myself but I'm also doing it for a generation of young talented entrepreneurs

[00:36:50] who are still in need of finding examples of successful exits in the country Brilliant, brilliant As you said you hope to be the first to successfully exit within Morocco currently you're doing great work if we look at the future future of Africa even future of Morocco

[00:37:10] Where do you see the B2B e-commerce space so in the next five years within? It can be Morocco or just Francophone Africa? I think what's going to happen in the coming five years is we're going to see a lot of consolidation

[00:37:27] You have the big players who have raised good money and those who are anglophone and able to reach out to the right investors finding ways to consolidate by acquiring the smaller players Again it's a scale business

[00:37:42] if you want to succeed you need to get big as fast as possible if you want to succeed you need to have the right size to be able to negotiate with your suppliers

[00:37:51] so no matter what a consolidation will happen in the coming years in this sector in Africa Thank you for sharing that insight So if we look closer to home where do you see yourself and Sherry in five years time?

[00:38:05] I think the dream of any startup is one day to ring the bell That's a great image But I think this dream is easier to have when you are already based in San Francisco than when you are based in Casablanca

[00:38:23] However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be dreaming big So myself I don't put any limits on my dreams and why not one day? Why not being able to list the company? Quote of the week

[00:38:36] As people we often have quotes, mantras, proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good Do you have one that you can share with us today? Oh I didn't expect this question

[00:38:49] No but I will invent one because I don't have one Take every day as a gift and take feedback from your environment as a gift whether it's your family or your co-worker telling you something Make the most of it

[00:39:05] Keep building on it because at the end of the day it's who you are Obviously improve yourself but seize the day and make the most of every single moment Brilliant and I guess these are all key messages to live by as an entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur

[00:39:21] So thank you for sharing that Ishmael As you come to the close of today's conversation I was wondering do you have any closing remarks final course to action for people who are interested in the work that you're doing

[00:39:33] but just genuinely interested about the B2B e-commerce space in Africa I say good luck to everyone Please remember that Africa is full of opportunities Africa is in need of amazing entrepreneurs and I'm sure there is much more founding out there

[00:39:52] than amazing entrepreneurs being able to handle the the the founding So just take your courage and move ahead The best is yet to come and entrepreneurship is an amazing journey Fantastic incredible insight Ishmael Your journey with Shari from her inception to its remarkable growth is truly inspiring

[00:40:13] So thank you for sharing your expertise Vision for the future of financial services in Africa It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast Likewise, thank you again for the invitation Brilliant, we will speak soon Thank you, YouTube, bye-bye