Trust, Metrics, and Impact: A Blueprint for Success in Africa’s 2024 Startup Economy With Efayomi Carr

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast, where we find inspirational people who are doing inspirational things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today we have Efayomi Carr, who is principal at Flourish Ventures and has worked with startups and scale-ups on the African

[00:01:15] continent for the last decade, gaining unique insights into Africa's innovation and startup landscape. Welcome to the podcast Efayomi, how are you? I'm doing well, thanks for having me and looking forward to the conversation. Me too, so where are you at the moment?

[00:01:36] I'm actually in Nairobi at the moment. I'm originally from Sierra Leone, so I was in Sierra Leone these past couple of weeks but got back to Nairobi yesterday. It's nice to be back, so I'm usually based.

[00:01:48] Fantastic, so I'm looking forward to hearing what took you to Sierra Leone and what you're currently doing in Nairobi. So, together, start it, introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Efayomi Carr.

[00:02:01] Yeah, okay. I mean, so I've really spent the last 10, 15 years of my career as an investor and operator in Africa. And I've really tried, in my own small way, to move this ecosystem, but really the constant forward through working and investing. And so I've worked as

[00:02:20] an operator, folks like Jumiya, those at Lower East Systems, even was consulting for a while at BCG and worked as a Sierra Leone government for some time as well. And then most recently, obviously, I worked as an investor. So at Flourish Now, worked at Kwonakapital, another

[00:02:38] Vintec focused investment fund and another fund called Eight Miles, which is a private equity shop. So, so yeah, a few different roles across in investing, operating in Africa. Fantastic. So as you mentioned, last 10 to 15 years, you've worked as an investor and operator

[00:02:56] within an array of quite established organizations and companies which has led you to what you're doing now at Flourish Ventures. So can you tell us a bit more about Flourish Ventures, in particular in terms of its missions and goals within Africa's innovation or startup landscape?

[00:03:17] Absolutely. And Flourish is a bit of a unique venture fund. We are headquartered in Silicon Valley, so we're headquartered in San Francisco. But we invest globally. So we have teams investing in US, Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, and then obviously Africa, we're unfocused.

[00:03:35] And despite having these broad geographies represented, there is a core mission, which is to not just invest in Vintec companies that we think can be commercially successful, but also work with entrepreneurs that are building towards a more fair financial system. What that means in

[00:03:53] different geographies and contexts can be different. But across Africa, we have a very underserved population when it comes to banking services and access to fair financial practices. And so a lot of the work we do in Africa is to support customers and merchants to enable

[00:04:11] them to have access to financial tools that will improve their lives and have a meaningful impact on their day-to-day work. I mean, I've seen Flourish Ventures described as a Vintec venture fund with a purpose. Could you kind of explain or elaborate on what that purpose is?

[00:04:31] Absolutely. I mean, the purpose is how can we work with entrepreneurs, enable them to build a more fair financial system across the world. And I think oftentimes the best way to describe our work is to describe the folks we work with. Yes.

[00:04:50] And so I always love to describe the work that our companies do, right? We invested in Apollo agriculture as an example and their company provides loans to farmers across Kenya and Zambia. And today it's very hard for farmers, smallholder farmers, to

[00:05:09] access financial services. So they build this broad distribution network and product that allows them to serve this group of people who, until very recently, haven't had these type of resources. It means they haven't been able to grow their businesses.

[00:05:24] They haven't been able to have access to the right seed and fertilizer to improve yield and provide for their families. And so that sort of really sort of typifies the mission which is can we back innovation, innovative entrepreneurs,

[00:05:38] in this case, folks like Eli, who are doing things that change the financial system for the people who are most in this world. And in this case, it's small or farmers. And so that kind of encapsulates what our purpose is

[00:05:50] and why we choose entrepreneurs that are very aligned with that purpose. Fantastic. Thank you for showing that. So would you say that purpose is similar across all markets or is there a specific purpose that is intrinsic

[00:06:05] to what you do within the African continent? You know, I would say that that purpose very much is aligned across all markets. But how it actually works in practice might differ because the dynamics in these markets are

[00:06:20] so different. And that's also why we tend to take a thematic approach. So we might pick a particular subsector within Infantec and we might make bets globally. So an example, I would say is NEO banking or Challenger banks. And then this is really sort of startups or smart

[00:06:37] companies who have developed new versions of banks and an way to compete with the existing banking system. And so we've made bets across the world. We've made bets in, you know, May on Brazil, Albo in Mexico,

[00:06:53] and Burmese Nigeria and in China, the U.S. And if you look at China, China's mission was in the U.S. The banking sector is, you know, overall there is all these fees and customer service issues and challenges that are actually predatory for customers. And that makes it

[00:07:10] more difficult for the most disadvantaged and most vulnerable users to be part of the banking system. And so what China did is they said, we're going to build a profitable bank that doesn't have those same problems, right? That doesn't charge for croaks for overdraft the

[00:07:26] same way that a larger institution might. And they have been incredibly successful. Not only have they been successful individually, but they've also changed the banking landscape. They forced the more traditional banks to change how they operate to now service these

[00:07:39] other customers and to remove these fees. And so in the U.S. context, this NEO banking thesis was really around disrupting an oppressive banking system that because of the fees and charges made it really difficult for the most underserved customers to participate fully.

[00:07:55] In Africa, it's a slightly different thesis, right? Fair Money has been able to build a business initially built on loans to customers and micro businesses and building them into a broader banking set. But the issue in Nigeria, the context was

[00:08:12] it was really hard for those customers to get loans safely and for those loans to build them towards a more inclusive financial system as opposed to being actually more oppressive, things that will hold them down. And so Fair Money has also changed the

[00:08:26] banking system in Nigeria. It's allowed these small and micro businesses to not just access loans, but now of course Fair Money is a full NEO bank so they get access to other banking services. And so I choose those two examples to illustrate how the

[00:08:40] mission drives our activities and what we choose to invest in and it's aligned across geographies. Though the actual thesis might be slightly different because of the challenges that folks face in those countries. So I guess it's clear that flourish is keen to invest in

[00:08:58] mission-driven entrepreneurs. So if you look away from the context of Africa, are there specific missions that flourish is keen to support in Africa? Yeah, I mean, frankly, it aligns with the purpose, right? So I think the missions that our entrepreneurs are working

[00:09:16] with are across a variety of challenges, right? I mean, I think part of the reason why it's in my opinion so exciting to work in Africa and so challenging and almost saddening to work in Africa or is it the same two sides the same coin

[00:09:31] which is so many of the system structures are so are actually underdeveloped or poor. And that also means that there are incredible opportunities and that the impact that you can make from innovation is outsized here relative to other

[00:09:46] markets. And so when we think about what are the missions that order that our entrepreneurs support, it can be across such a range of categories. I've given you two examples of access to loans, loans and banking in Nigeria and farmers having

[00:10:00] access to new lending products and enabling them to grow their businesses in Kenya. But if we look across our other investments, we have things in blockchain, right? Allowing people to send and receive money cross-border in a seamless and cost effective way that can be transformative

[00:10:20] right in a place where in countries where people are so reliant on remittances. We invested in a company called Honeycoin that's doing that here in Kenya. If you look at in Egypt we have investors in Maxib which is allowing merchants to

[00:10:33] access a whole range of tools and to make their operations more efficient. And you know this continent is ruled by these small merchants who supply so many of the goods. And so that mission is very, very different. It's working with a slightly different segment but also using innovation

[00:10:49] to improve an entire business category and improve the lives of the businesses and customers they serve. And so I think the missions that we support in Africa are really vast and in a way that can be daunting but also in a way

[00:11:04] it's so exciting to see how many types of people, types of companies we can support and the range of impact that they can have in these different places. Thank you for sharing that. I guess we've discussed investing in mission driven entrepreneurs. We know that

[00:11:20] as an investor there is a requirement for a return on investment where you have supported a startup or innovator or entrepreneur. But from your perspective what does success look like when you're supporting or investing in a company? Is it all about profit

[00:11:39] or is it a lot more behind that you look at in terms of the metrics? Yeah, I think that there are two ways to look at success and then I think there's almost like a philosophical approach that I prefer to use.

[00:11:53] So I'll give probably the two more conventional approaches which is I think many organizations, taking a step back many organizations in Africa, particularly African focus investors have some kind of impact or mission driven approach. Oftentimes dictated by their LPs

[00:12:12] who in the African context tend to be, you know, or there's a higher proportion of DFI's or government related institutions, NGOs who have some kind of mandate that requires the investments to have impact. So I'll say that impact is one way to look at success. I'd say there's

[00:12:33] a traditional, you know, there's some of these globally approved ways of looking at impact success metrics, which would be, you know, things that are related to the UN SDGs or, you know, oftentimes, you know, when I was at Kona we have LPs that

[00:12:47] force us to sort of track the number of jobs traded or lives touched or female entrepreneur, etc. So I think those are some of the more traditional metrics that are used for impact. At Flourish we have a very different approach which is we try to look

[00:12:59] at the nuance of an individual business and see what the impact of our investment is on both a business but also a sector. So I'll use the example I shared earlier with Chime. When we look at the impact of that investment it's actually what has

[00:13:14] that done to the banking sector in the U.S. And in the U.S. what it's done is it's changed how fees are charged for all customers. So it's actually had this very broad impact on the banking sector and how customers are treated.

[00:13:29] That's how we look at impact, which is what is tangible change in environment, a sector or a business as a result of a company we've invested in. That's one bucket. Of course the second bucket is commercial returns which is I think

[00:13:44] the traditional way that success is viewed in venture. If you look at most venture firms or top bucket U.S. looking for 15-20% plus returns as a strong outcome for a fund we track ourselves across a very similar standpoint.

[00:14:02] So those are probably two high level ways to look at impact. One is the impact of the investment how meaningful is the change created as a result of our company's activity and then the commercial returns which is how much monetary

[00:14:17] value is created over the course of the investment. So those are kind of the traditional ways I think to think of success. I think as investors in the people business, my role isn't necessarily to change a business I'm here to support a board management team

[00:14:37] to increase the likelihood that they achieve the best possible outcome for their businesses. So that's really what my job is as an investor and of course it's to provide insights and to network and to help with hiring etc. And to have a fiduciary duty

[00:14:55] these individuals to help them be successful. And for me, I think there's a lot of different ways that as well internally we look at an NPS score, for example, to see how do our entrepreneurs rate us as investors on their cap table?

[00:15:09] Another way is the feedback that we receive from others in the ecosystem on the work that we're doing, how we're engaging as thought leaders or as partners in solving some of these really, really deep problems. And so almost from a philosophical standpoint,

[00:15:24] I really like to look at the inputs of my work, which is how am I engaging with entrepreneurs? How deliberate am I being in my research? I try to wake up every day and say, if I can be two things,

[00:15:35] if I can do my job with curiosity and integrity, then I'll have a successful day. And that means integrity means honesty and humility, meaning do I show up to every time I get pitched, do I show up with the mentality that I'm learning from this entrepreneur, right?

[00:15:52] I'm always learning from the work they're doing. And am I genuinely curious about the work they're doing? Am I digging deeper to hopefully by the questions I asked and by having a wider lens of experience, but definitely not as much focus as they do,

[00:16:05] I can ask the right questions that can push them to achieve something great than they would otherwise. And so that's really how I try to approach this job and this work. And I think across our firm there's a similar approach of let's be humble

[00:16:19] but curious thought partners and part-in collaborators both with our portfolio companies both with the ecosystem as a whole. Thank you for sharing that. So if we look at, I guess the commercial returns but accounts for the ability to also innovate which is what you're hoping

[00:16:36] get off the startups or entrepreneurs that you're supporting will be able to do. How would you say that you navigate the balance between allowing startups to innovate without the demand for immediate returns or profitability? The venture capital industry exists essentially because for certain business models

[00:17:00] they will not be able to achieve profitability for a while and they need this period of losing money in order to create products and solutions that in the long-term will be very highly scalable. In the most traditional sense this works with software

[00:17:19] because software takes a lot of investment in order to get right. And then once you do get it right and once you do hit a growth curve then it's a high margin product so you can make a lot of money and as a result of that

[00:17:31] you can make good returns to the initial investors. So that's why the venture model exists if the businesses could make money on their own and it could be profitable then they shouldn't take venture capital money frankly like they can choose their growth

[00:17:45] but they should probably take debt capital which they can and then retain all the equity on their cap table and be worth more. So VC is a model for folks who think that they have an idea that can be widely successful at scale

[00:17:58] but before it reaches scale will be cash or will burn in a lot of cash. For an investor perspective we need to be conscious of that so my role in as one of the hats is to identify companies to invest in and when I'm looking at these companies

[00:18:14] I need to be able to assess what does the end game look like what is the at scale in five to seven years what will this company look like what will the profitability look like what is the competitive landscape. And so if I have a vision

[00:18:28] and hopefully is aligned with the founders in the management team's vision of what this company will look like in five to seven years then being patient and being level headed early days is a requirement that's the entire business is to say

[00:18:44] this time is made to develop these ideas, product and team such that once you reach that growth curve you're in the best position to capture the value that we initially invested in. And so yeah I think for all investors in this space that's the mentality we should approach

[00:19:02] the early days of loss making businesses with. Thank you for that. You touched on this earlier if we look specifically at your approach what value do you add to these startups or innovators outside of capital to enable them or give them the best chance of success?

[00:19:23] Yeah, again I mean my main role is as an advisor I think as an individual and as an institution there's a lot that we bring to the table. I was an entrepreneur before this and I think I had investors who were good.

[00:19:39] I had investors who were ambivalent so did nothing and I had investors who were bad in the case value destructive. And my first advice when I was an operator to investors was do no harm. If your activities are taking time and actually inhibiting the growth

[00:19:58] or development of this business then that is value destructive. And so I think first for most if the investors could do no harm that in itself would be great. Get out of the way of some entrepreneurs that let them work. I think where investors can be positive

[00:20:12] is where they can be one responsive so accessible in a way that if they need if folks need advice or even need support for just administrative tasks that that can be done without any hiccups. I think too as strategic partners, strategic thinkers

[00:20:28] and so again I have many investors that are very positive and I think the value that they have is that they might have more breadth and they might have a bit more experience and as an individual's institution and so many of the hurdles

[00:20:42] that entrepreneurs in our portfolio are facing they might be facing for the first time but across the 75 companies in our portfolio and the 25 people on our team someone has probably experienced that before or has access to someone who does. And so bringing that thought partnership

[00:20:59] and experience is incredibly valuable is just having someone who's been in that position give them a bit of counsel or just feedback. And then I think the other is actually to be an ambassador and this particularly applies when fundraising but what role can I play

[00:21:14] in helping to curate financing when there's hiring needs how can I be active representative to identify people to hire them or to hire their team, et cetera. And so I think those are really the main hatch thing overarching is do no harm make sure you're again

[00:21:31] you're approaching your entrepreneurs with integrity and humility and then as much as you can try to leverage experience networks to be a strategic partner and then when possible act on behalf of the company in ways that are supportive of them.

[00:21:46] You mentioned that you were an entrepreneur before this so from your experience what would you say are some common challenges or pitfalls that are startup founders in Africa encounter on their journey towards business success? How much time do you have?

[00:22:04] Maybe just give me the top one or two. You know I'll maybe talk about because we always talk about the challenges of talent or infrastructure or one thing that I think is often understated but which is honestly pretty consistently the top challenge for a lot of folks

[00:22:22] to interact with is just co-founder issues so it can be a range of things but you know this running a business is like a never in memory but I've been told it's like a marriage in the sense of the ups and downs the challenges and the various

[00:22:37] the various emotional emotionally taxing experiences and that doesn't always work out as we know. And so I think the experiences that I think cause often cause founders the most stress the most hardship often times relates to co-founder issues and so I think

[00:22:56] you know I always give advice that try to have some experience with your co-founder beforehand right? Like there's certain there's certain ways that you can de-risk the co-founder relationship such that you can either have an additional experience or exposure to them

[00:23:10] or you can set up your business in such a way that if things don't work out that you both aren't sort of handicapped going forward and so I think one thing that's not talked about often but that we see time again as one of the biggest challenges

[00:23:23] that founders face is just issues with the co-founding team. Interesting, interesting and to be honest that's one that I don't think is often shared or talked about enough so is there any specific advice that you would give to founders to avoid this issue? Yeah again I mean again

[00:23:41] I think it's can you de-risk it by having additional experience with co-founder so either have worked with them or do proper diligence on folks who have worked with them and so that you have some understanding of a personality slash mission alignment. How do you communicate with each other?

[00:23:58] How do you communicate your opportunities? How do you set up these systems so that when things are in a bad place you guys can still come to a resolution and then I guess three is how do you structure a cap table? Like different companies will have different shareholdings

[00:24:13] and besting schedules for founders but there are ways to set these things up such that in the event of some fallout again you're not totally handicapped so. So if we move from the challenges and look at some of the successes that you've seen through the years

[00:24:29] in your opinion in terms of the founders that you have worked with what would you say distinguishes the success of founders from those who struggle to achieve sustainable growth in their businesses? Yeah I mean I think it's just it's resilience right? I mean every founder I know

[00:24:46] has been punched in the mouth time after time and that's an inevitable part of the job and so it's really around how can you recover from that and then can you continue to push forward in the face of adversity? And so yeah I think they do really

[00:25:02] we just had our CEO retreat about a month ago or a few weeks ago and it's interesting having the portfolio in the same room because the profiles and personalities of the founders are so different it would be impossible to say what character trait is most indicative of success

[00:25:18] some are extroverted some are incredibly shy and introverted some are very technical some are super untechnical and it's great salesmen you know there's very different qualities but what is consistent is these guys have been down and kind of back up at time and time again

[00:25:33] and so that really is a great sign for success and continued success in this industry. Brilliant so you mentioned our resilience as key so if we move from character traits and look specifically at skill sets are the specific skill sets that you believe enables some entrepreneurs

[00:25:51] to succeed and others to fail? Yeah I can I I don't want to say specific skill sets because again I think there's such a range of skill sets like some are incredibly detailed or handed and some are incredibly disorganized right so like and then some are

[00:26:08] you know I think overall there are certain qualities that will be advantageous right like if you are a great rallyer of people so if people are attracted to you and if you're able to inspire then it's a good chance you'll be able to hire a team early on

[00:26:24] it's a good chance you'll be the sell a vision to investors early on so like that's that's a really valuable quality for an early stage founder but I can say that there are some founders who are not if I may add that that are also widely successful

[00:26:36] so I hesitate too much and I you know being too restrictive about what one needs to be like in order to be be successful I will say the how which is being really resilient which is not taking no for answer which is running through brick walls

[00:26:54] and so and certainly I would also just add that at different stages different traits are more valuable so at the early stages it's like yeah your storytelling you're rallying of people you know you don't have much to go on so you can if you can sell

[00:27:08] then you can probably get a bit more early stage success later on it's like you need to be a complete master of the business right and then even later than that you maybe don't need to be a master of this at all

[00:27:18] maybe just need to be a public CEO public facing CEO who has this really creative big think your energy as opposed to a sort of wartime CEO who knows the X of the nose of everything going on in the company so so I think

[00:27:30] if you're different types of companies and at different stages there are different qualities that will be useful but really it's like man can you get up can you get up off the map can you show up every day with enthusiasm, energy and positivity to make things happen brilliant

[00:27:43] we've discussed some of the internal challenges such as co-founder issues if you look at say external challenges from what you've observed I know we are currently seeing a bit of a downturn in terms of global economic activity within Africa are there any pressing challenges externally that you're seeing

[00:28:06] startups currently facing that they're having to navigate for long term success and sustainability yeah I mean I think the big ones that we've all seen are you know macro challenges if you're Nigeria can you if you're in any of the big four markets then you have had

[00:28:26] incredible currency volatility supply chain disruption inflation etc so for any of these markets I think there is a huge macro risk that is ever present I think you know next one we talked about a lot is regulation so a lot of these countries have sort of unclear regulation

[00:28:44] and standards are often opaque and changing and so that can be difficult to navigate I think a third big one is just talent right I think you know there's a huge young population on the continent but not as big as far as the technical talent for scalable companies

[00:29:04] and so if you need engineers and CFOs etc it's especially at scale it can be hard to I find some of that talent on the continent frankly especially when you get to a later stage and are in a globally competitive space so those are probably the

[00:29:20] three challenges that come to mind but man there's the challenges these books are facing every day are numerous I agree so you touched on currency regulation and talent that flourish ventures how do you help the startups that you're investing in address or navigate some of these challenges

[00:29:39] in the market yeah I think I'll take each one but for for currency for example there's not much we can't control the currency what we can do is advise strategies to hedge we can what we can do is to advise on right transfer policies for internal transactions

[00:29:59] so that's more of the how can we leverage experiences and networks in order to help support our entrepreneurs navigate these I think we do a decent job of that I think I think similar on the regulation you know again we we can't influence

[00:30:16] you know in some ways we can influence the regulators but that's not our bread and butter I think it's really helping them to navigate what are unclear landscapes at time we have actually invested directly in you know policy sandboxes so that we can hope help craft regulation

[00:30:32] but I'd say for entrepreneurs it's really just here's what we've seen and then here's ways that we think that you know you might be at risk slash vulnerable in the future and then I think for talent we do a lot of work I mean to

[00:30:46] to help people with hiring and so I think we leverage our own networks we work with headhunters we're active in the interview process for sort of senior hires and so with that it's really how can we be a supporting a supportive recruitment

[00:31:01] network for for some of these companies interesting so what lessons would you say you've learned from your experience over the last few years navigating some of the unique circumstances that you've encountered yeah who's you know I think one thing is patience I mean you mentioned earlier around

[00:31:22] you know we're discussing the venture capital model and how there's challenges most companies are not going to have profitability early on and then later on they they can reach scale and so I think it's really to have patience for these companies especially in Africa

[00:31:36] just takes a while to build there's a lot of a lot of infrastructure and pieces to put in place to be successful um so I think patience is is is really important I think you know the entrepreneurial journey is is so so difficult but also filled with such

[00:31:50] high highs and no lows that often being level headed uh can be a real benefit to some entrepreneurship we work with and so I would say maintaining composure is often really really important and then I think in general um you know these things are really hard and so

[00:32:10] for me it's it's having a deep level of compassion empathy for the folks that I work with understanding that they're going through they're constantly facing battles and crises and so it's important that I recognize that not that I'm sort of easy on them or that I

[00:32:25] I mean in fact don't treat them as adults but more so that I'm aware of their circumstances and connect appropriately would you say that these lessons or experiences have shaped your investment approach or strategies going forward certainly I mean I think as we talked about

[00:32:43] you know what qualities that we look for at entrepreneurs you know I think having looking for solving for their resilience solving for spending more time to understand the motivations of a person and the to see how that impacts the work that they're doing so very much so

[00:33:01] you know have have over time evolved my own approach to entrepreneurs but to this job as a whole and then try to revise my own values as an investor and as an advisor so ensuring that I have patience empathy and then some sort of level headness

[00:33:20] in the way that I engage with the entrepreneurs I'm already invested in so so very much and then you know but I would hope that these things are always evolving that if you ask me again two years from now five years from now 10 years from now

[00:33:31] I would have different answers of what I've learned and then how it's shaping my strategies looking forward in terms of this evolution and maybe some of the external trends going on in the space are you seeing a change or a shift with regards to how people are evaluating

[00:33:52] the success or performance of companies in the African market um in some ways yeah I mean it goes back to it's kind of all the money right so if five 10 years ago the LPs were more likely to be dfis and if now that's moving to more commercial capital

[00:34:10] then the relative weight of sort of impact relative to commercial terms will decrease and I think for this ecosystem to be successful in the long term it really needs to be more commercially driven so so I think that's been one trend though I think I think with

[00:34:23] a lot of the climate money coming in it's not necessarily tied to commercial terms it's just too early for folks to have any good view on that so I think that's starting to regress a bit but I would say that had been the trend for the last

[00:34:33] you know 10 years where you know when I first started doing this in 2012 and 2011 there wasn't you know there's a few funds but mostly dfi mostly impact and grant money and so the major success was can you have an impact can you sell a good story

[00:34:48] and more and more that has been moving towards you know what is the what are the core metrics of the business and what is the exit profile thank you for that so if we move from trends and look to the future say in the next five years

[00:35:01] where do you see the african startup ecosystem in terms of how success is measured yeah I mean this is still a very early asset class and where the rubber it's the road is when exits happen and for a long time we've been able to say

[00:35:21] it's too early to determine the overall success of this asset class because it's been too we haven't had enough exits in five years time this will have been a 10 15 year old space there needs to be some signs of exit so I think investors won't stop investing on potential

[00:35:38] but actually on realized returns which will shift to the landscape it might mean that certain investors pull back from Africa and that means that other ones crowd in right so I think in five years will be more rigid and how we will have more data

[00:35:54] to determine you know financially how lucrative is this asset class which will determine the scale of capital that's coming into the market so if we look closer to home where do you see yourself and floors ventures in five years time I mean hopefully still supporting putting on entrepreneurs

[00:36:11] and in some ways to perform I think yeah we reached that new capital for another fund cycle back last year and so you know between now and five years if we have success if we continue to identify great companies and we can help support them to be successful

[00:36:29] then hopefully we can raise capital again in the next three years and then continue to do this work for a bit longer 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

[00:36:47] that you can share with us today okay a proverb there's something we say what the size of stone no federal and it's like a a water-side stone is not afraid of rain right like if you're a stone by the ocean you won't be afraid of getting wet

[00:37:03] because you're always wet and I think it's a mentality that has served me in the past as an entrepreneur and I think it's something that that I had resonated with the entrepreneurs I work with right because at the end of the day you're in the fire

[00:37:20] with the very nature the crux the core spirit of this work is that we are putting ourselves in our entrepreneur put themselves in very vulnerable positions trying to do something that's never been done and in order to do that they need to go up against thresholds

[00:37:35] and often cross those thresholds and get burned and so if the nature of the work is to be by the ocean and to be as close as you can so that you can push the shore out a little bit further just so that you can

[00:37:49] so that the people behind you can push it a little bit further right so that's the nature of it you shouldn't get wet because we're gonna get wet all the time and so yes that always has resonated with me and at those moments when I have gotten wet

[00:38:01] or I've gotten burned or whatever it might be I've said this is the position I put myself in and I knew this was part of the job and I'm happy that means I'm still pushing these barriers so this isn't a cause for me to be discouraged

[00:38:14] but a cause for me to be reinvigorated that I'm doing what I'm supposed to Brilliant, brilliant thank you for sharing that it's actually one that I've never heard before but extremely profound and I guess it's in line with the work that you're doing and the spirit of entrepreneurship

[00:38:29] and business and investing in Africa so yeah I like that one Yeah well I mean I just spent two weeks with uncles and I got a whole list of proverbs that you might ever hear You go on if you need to hear Yes I know Brilliant, brilliant

[00:38:46] So if I owe me we've come to the end of today's conversation I was wondering do you have any closing remarks cause to action for people who are interested in the work that you're doing at flourish ventures The only call to action would be

[00:39:00] what we're doing is really hard and we're hoping to change the continent and the world and make it make it better and so truly we should all have grace for ourselves for what we're doing and we should do this with people that we want to work with

[00:39:13] like at the end of the day we're going to spend long hours in really tense moments you know me myself and I think my colleagues at flourish we love working with entrepreneurs and it's because of the passion and integrity that we have in our cross-off portfolio

[00:39:26] and so I love building I think in or out of my day job that's the goal and working with great people is really what makes me happy so keep your head up Wise words So thank you for sharing your perspective I guess on the importance of

[00:39:40] diverse metrics for success navigating challenges it's been a pleasure having you on the show and Frankie for your time and expertise My absolute pleasure thank you for the great questions and ready for part two any time I'll come up with some more proper groups Brilliant

[00:39:56] I look forward to that Cheers Thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast if you've enjoyed this episode please subscribe, share or tell a friend about it You can also rate with yours in Apple Podcast or wherever you download your podcast

[00:40:13] Thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast