Interview with Claire Hassoun, Co-Founder of appload

Welcome to ChainTech, the show and podcast focusing on the latest trends in supply chain, procurement, and logistics technology. My name is Max Henry from the Global Supply Chain Council, and together with my co-host and special guest, we explore the personalities, startups, innovators, and industry players driving disruption in supply chain. From early stage to unicorns, And from cutting-edge technology to the people using it to help drive more innovative, agile, and resilient supply chains around the world. This is ChainTech.

Hello everyone, and welcome to a new episode of ChainTech. I'm your host, Max Henry, from the Global Supply Chain Council. I'm very pleased to have you again today for a new episode. Of our show. I just want to remind everybody again that if you haven't done it yet, check out our chaintech.net marketplace that we have started quite some time ago and you'd be interested to get some solution. If you're also missing some of the previous episodes, you can also look at our chaintech.show website where you can find all the ChainTech interviews that we've done in the past. So today, as always, we are joined by one of our founders and I'm very pleased to have Claire Assoun, who's a co-founder of Upload. Hi, Claire, how are you?

Good morning.

How are you?

All fine.

I'm speaking from Accra, Mozambique.

Okay, excellent. So as we always do in our interviews, I'd like to get started with you a little bit on your background. Maybe if you could share a little bit on your journey before you started Upload, maybe starting with your childhood, the field of studies that you had, the first few jobs that you had before starting the company. So we can understand your background here.

Of course.

So as you can guess from my accent, I'm very French.

I've been studying transport engineering in France up to 2006. Then I started to work in the transport industry in France. And then I moved to developing countries in Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and also a bit in the Middle East to work on hard infrastructure. So on railway, roads, whether it is on feasibility study or monitoring of these infrastructure. And because of the impact that these infrastructure had on the larger economies where I was working in, I decided to do a master's in public administration at Harvard at the Kennedy School. In the meantime, I worked for AFC and the goal was really to go back to work for international organizations. In the meantime, after graduation, I took on a research project with an MIT fellow who thought that Mozambique actually had a very big potential in logistics while everyone was talking about the gas reserve that it had discovered a few years before. We were then in 2015. Mozambique was positioned to become the largest reserves in the world of gas after Qatar. So big buzz around that, but he believed that the real potential was in unlocking the neighboring countries of Mozambique. So Mozambique was a place for logistics. So I was glad to do that research. I didn't know it was from Africa, I didn't know Southern Africa. I thought, you know, I do 6 months of research and then go back to what I know how to do. And then I traveled around the country, did some market research, and quickly understood that while everyone wanted to build more roads in Mozambique, I thought that we could improve much better the transport industry through a solution that I further developed, which is Upload, connecting supply and demand. But at that time, I didn't have any resource.

I had actually a debt to American University.

So I created a consultancy to do further market research, to learn Portuguese, and of course to make a living. In the meantime, I met my first co-founder, Catherine, a British citizen who had been working in Mozambique for about 10 years, and we decided to team up to build Upload. We actually did further research, secured first funding and finally launched in 2020 in the midst of COVID That is the short story. Okay.

So before we talk about Upload, I just want to get maybe for those which are listening to us and don't understand what is Mozambique, let's please set the scene for us. Tell us what is Mozambique. Give us a bit of background on this island and what is the economy like? Just give us a very quick background.

Of course. So Mozambique is in the south of the African continent. It is bordering with South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Swaziland as well.

And it has 2,500 kilometers of coast on the Indian Ocean.

We are on the Indian Ocean side. It has very few paved roads, very low-density country, about 30 million people for a very large area. So transport here are very key because you really need to serve this country and it is very linked to the communication. So in terms of infrastructure, you have one road that goes from south to north and then 3 roads One from Maputo, the capital city, to South Africa, that serves South Africa. Then one from Beira in the center that serves Zambia and Zimbabwe. And then in the north, Nakala, that serves Malawi.

This is to say that this is really a country that is looking to neighboring countries and a bit not necessarily looking at itself.

So the need for better domestic irrigation, if I may say, in terms of transport is very, very salient. And this is why anyone who comes to Mozambique sees all these trucks struggling to serve the country. This is really a pressing need when you arrive in Mozambique. The rest, in terms of GDP per capita, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, even on Africa scale, and also in terms of IDH. So when you come to Maputo, it's a very nice capital city with Portuguese heritage, but as soon as you get out, you really see that everything is needed in this country in terms of basic services. So it's a country of utmost hopes, thanks to the gas reserves that were discovered and that are supposed to bring a large boost to the economy. But things take time, of course. As of now, you have stakeholders like TotalEnergies, Exxon, with shareholding from India and China in the projects This is what is happening in the country and should shape the next 20 years of the economic growth.

Does Mozambique play an important role in the overall logistics in Africa, in this part of Africa?

Yeah, clearly in Southern Africa it does. South Africa itself is starting to be congested.

Durban is the main port.

And it is really congested.

So Maputo, that is not very far from Durban, has a card to play in terms of serving even more, you know, the region, while it is already poised well to do so because of these axes that I mentioned through railway and roads that are aimed to serve the neighboring countries. So basically, a lot of landlocked countries up to DRC as well, the east of DRC that is also landlocked, that Mozambique can serve through its very long coast and its numerous ports.

Okay, so tell us about Upload. What is your solution providing?

So Upload is the marketplace that connects shippers, clients who need to transport cargo through Mozambique or in the regional corridors. So they're connected through an app with transporters, so vetted transporters that we check, and we check their references, we check their, you know, their also their governance, and then they can enter our network. So it is really a real-time connection between shippers who are looking for reliable transport solutions and the transporters who can provide it, whether they're very small with 1 or 2 trucks or very large, up to 300 trucks, which is the case for some large companies in Southern Africa. So as an example—

Yeah, go ahead. So what problem are you solving with this marketplace? Yeah.

So like a lot of African countries, You have very expensive logistics.

This is really the most salient problem. And the reason why it is so expensive is because first and foremost, when trucks go from one point A to one point B, like from Maputo in the south of Mozambique to the north of Mozambique, they never know whether they will come back empty or full. So they charge usually twice the price.

Then there is a lot of intermediaries along that chain who compound commission. without adding value.

So you can have a chain of intermediaries for one transaction that can compound up to 50% or 60% of the transport value without providing any additional service. They're more like gatekeepers. And finally, you have a lot actually of agricultural commodities in the fields, in the production area, that need timely solutions so that, you know, they don't perish in the field. and it cannot find it. So we are really connecting now supply and demand so that in real time you can find the most relevant solution within your budget around you that can ship at low risk to your destination. We can also mention 2 other problems, which is the cash flow problems of transporters. They always need to know fuel and minimum working capital to operate. To operate a shipment. So we demand clients that they pay upfront, and then we pay our transporters 50% upon loading and 50% after successful offloading. And then we monitor the trip so that we also de-risk that journey through our app and now also through GPS on the small transporters.

So this concept of marketplace between shippers and transportation company and 3PLs is pretty standard shared in other countries. When you created Aplow, did you actually create that platform from scratch or did you adapt an existing solution specifically for Mozambique?

Yeah, so that's an interesting one. Actually, the very first idea that I had, I remember I called Uber. I called Uber, the African department, and I told them the problem that I had It was back in 2016, and they hadn't even launched yet Uber Freight.

They were still on Uber Taxi. So they were interested in the cab services for capital cities like Maputo. But, you know, the freight was out of the question at that time on the African continent. So I thought, okay, there is a huge problem that I see. No one is tackling it the way I feel would be extremely relevant and efficient. Instead of building further roads. So I decided to take on this challenge.

And this is, you know, really myself designing a solution and talking to developers so that they could develop a solution that would solve this problem.

In the meantime, we also did a market study with the support of USAID here, who was interested in this concept. And I remember very vividly, we had, um, we met with farmers in the north of Mozambique who were telling us, you know, what would be very cool is to know which trucks are around us so that we could ship our oranges and our soy on the trucks and reach the markets. And we were, okay, this is really the definition of what we want to build. And then only then afterwards, I learned that other solutions had already flourished and become operational across the continent and across the globe. This was when we prepared, of course, the business plan. So yeah, it was starting from scratch, but on the other hand, we were, you know, we had imagined a solution that had already proven successful.

Is there other solutions in the other African countries who actually look like Upload? And have you, you know, talked to them? Is there any kind of partnership or collaboration you can have with them as well?

So while the solution is pretty much the same, we have a different type of profile of users, if I may say. Here it is a pretty mature market when it comes to transport, again, because Mozambique really has transport in its DNA, right?

So when I mentioned large companies of 300 trucks, it's not only one.

There are a few large companies, there are also medium companies that have about 60 and 70 trucks. What I mean is that our users are companies.

They are not owner drivers, unlike on the rest of the continent.

So there are other solutions in the rest of the continent, like in Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal.

They all exist, but they are already focusing on these owner drivers. So this one truck company, if I may, which is a very different business because then, you know, the commercial aspect is—

and the operations are handled by the same service provider. It is the driver who also owns their truck. While when you have a company, there is a manager who manages the commercial operations, and then you have the driver who is in charge of performing. And so this itself changes really the way we operate, you know, and we differentiate ourselves from other solutions that exist on the continent. As we move further to remote areas, we might find, you know, more owner drivers, and we are already starting to adapt our solution to them. But what I mean is that the core is really about optimizing the fleet of companies, especially in the return backhaul journeys.

And just to, on the second part of my question, do you think there's some area for collaboration with those companies? Is there any way that you could collaborate? You know, because obviously there are, I would say, pan-Africa logistics happening. There are shipments going from one country to another and there might be some connections that you could have with those different marketplaces as well?

Yeah, this is very possible. You know, what we do when you're operating in a country like Mozambique, a transit country, because essentially this is what it is.

You have trucks from Zambia, from Zimbabwe, from South Africa that come on a daily basis to Mozambique. And so it is very easy for us to register them and then to start operating with them on the corridor.

So this is kind of the organic growth for these corridors. When it comes to domestic markets down the road, yeah, we can really imagine cooperating with countries, especially because we are in a region where Africa is really growing, the continent is really growing, and you have even more exchanges now and trade between not only sub-regions, neighboring countries, but also, as you mentioned, further countries.

We have some demand from South Africa to Malawi, which is still in Southern Africa, but also Zambia to Rwanda, for instance. So we mix East Africa and Southern Africa. So yeah, there is, I think, a lot of room for cooperation between the different solutions on the continent as Africa grows Okay.

Give us some numbers about your marketplace, maybe so people can understand, you know, the number of customers or partners or maybe the volume of transactions that you have currently and what are you aiming, you know, in the next year?

So we have about 300 transportation companies on Upload that represents a universe of 4,000 trucks. On the other hand, we have about 100 shippers that ship with us still on spot demand. And we do, you know, around 50, 60 trucks per month. What you need to realize is that these trucks travel 3 to 4 days, sometimes 10 days with us. Wow.

So it is not, you know, very short distance.

It is, you know, in transaction we can do up to you know, $1,000, $1,500, or even much more in terms of gross transaction value. So it is really a different market also to that extent because we're focusing on long-term, on long-haul and medium-haul. Now, you know, next year we're about to launch a project where we will really go to more rural areas, to the first or last mile as you want to call them. So when I say last mile, it's really last mile approval because we need, you know, to connect the more rural areas to the consumption and market areas. So it is about 100, 200, 300 kilometers. And for that, again, we might have to adapt the software to adapt these user profiles as well with lower digital literacy. So this is where we stand. And that would be the place of much bigger volume of transactions because of the needs of that market.

Let's talk about the adoption about your solution. Do you face any technical or digital adoption issues when you know you're pushing your solution? I believe a lot of those truck drivers use smartphones, You know, how tech-ready are those transportation companies? And is that an issue for you too as you push your solution further?

Yeah, absolutely it is. But we're really here also to support the users in that adoption.

Basically what you see a lot in Africa is that the adoption of smartphones in general is very much growing, even in countries like Mozambique, and especially for businesses.

For the general public, not necessarily.

It still costs— even the cheapest smartphone can cost $20 to $30. So when you have a very, you know, an average, the minimum salary here in Mozambique of $100 per month, this is a significant budget. However, it is picking up. We do business on WhatsApp, for instance, in Africa. This is very much the daily and the necessary tool. When WhatsApp goes off, every business are frozen for some time. So this is really, again, this is growing, but what we need to do is to support users in using more apps because so far, you know, again, they use more WhatsApp or maybe social media as well, like Facebook, but not necessarily professional apps. So this is where our job is really, where we focus our efforts with the team. And this is where we are growing with the users all across the provinces. especially in Mozambique.

But now that we're also, you know, we have tackled, if I may say, the most challenging country in terms of adoption.

Yeah. And as we check other countries, especially South Africa, but not only, Zambia or Zim, where people are really using much more technology, this should also be easier.

That being said, the work is always on us. So it is really technology to adopt, to also try to reach the users.

So we really try to, you know, improve the app as much as possible so that it is simple for low digital literacy users. And this is really part of our job, is to listen to their constraints and to simplify or adapt the software as much as possible so that the usage is seamless So Upload, you have an app which is available both on iOS and Android, right?

And you also mentioned that you know people are using WhatsApp. Do you have a direct connection with WhatsApp or a direct integration with WhatsApp? How does that work?

This is in the pipeline. As of now, we notify our users by email and SMS, and we also notify them now outside of the app on WhatsApp.

The idea is really to integrate notification, at least of new orders on WhatsApp directly. We also communicate important information on WhatsApp community with our users in terms of partnerships that we make for GPSs, for road safety training, which is also a very big part of what we do. We work on increasing the standards and leveling up the standards of the transport industry in Mozambique. So yeah, we use that channel to communicate with them on this specific—

Okay. And your community is on WhatsApp as well, right?

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Let's go back to, you know, how you, you know, started the company. At the beginning, did you actually bootstrap the company? But you say that you had a consulting business, helping you to, you know, stay afloat. And at the same time, you could— this is what happened, right?

Yeah. So this is really, you know, we're talking here about a frontier market in terms of investment. There is no precedent.

The ecosystem of startups is very nascent. Actually, one of Apple's co-founders, Federico, he was a pioneer. Entrepreneur here in Mozambique, startup entrepreneur, and he joined us in 2020. But he really, you know, with his company and his co-founders at that time, he built the ecosystem, contributed to build the ecosystem with other partners. But it is still, you know, 10 years later, it is extremely nascent, and there had not been any VC investment on digital startups to upload So this is to say that, you know, when it comes to investing, you really need to— investors need to want to look at the track record. And it was known here in Mozambique. So we really had to open doors and to explain what our market looked like and the potential that it had to really grow immensely. So the very start, we bootstrapped indeed with Catherine. And so with some personal savings and with first angel investment, we started to develop the app. And then we, you know, fundraised on a rolling basis.

But yeah, you always fundraise when you have startups, but we didn't have the funding that, you know, you might—

that might happen with other startups because of that, of that specificity of the market. So we have to prove everything in terms of growth, in terms of stickiness before you can raise. And this is what we're doing now.

So how did you meet your first VC? And then, you know, is there— I mean, you say that it's a very small community and many VCs are probably not looking at Mozambique in there. When they go to Africa, they tend to go to Nigeria and all those big countries, right? So how did you actually happen to to meet? And did you actually— were you proactive in going to them or did they come to you? How did that work?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, in the very beginning, so the fantastic story of Upload, I would say, is that we, you know, in that story, we had fantastic angels from the get-go.

Angels who know the African continent, who know what it is to invest in the frontier market and who believed in us very strongly, and they also opened doors. Similarly to the first VC back in 2021, GSV, Greensboro Ventures, an American VC, also supported us.

And I really consider them as co-founders as well.

We rely on them when we have an issue. They help us when it is time to raise, and they also think of us on the best strategy in that regard because they know what this market is about.

Then we applied to the Norrsken Accelerator last year in Sweden.

So we went there for a fantastic program as well. And so we've been pushing since. It was also extremely interesting because half of the cohort in Sweden was from Africa. Wow, okay. All right. So we could really brainstorm about where, you know, our challenges, who we were talking to, who was, you know, in terms of VC, who was interested in these frontier markets.

But maybe one thing that I think is extremely important when you come to—

when we speak about African startups is that you really need to make a case for your market more than anywhere in the world, I guess, because there are very few data still. So you need to dig in terms of data, whatever you can find in terms of market study to really know your market even before you get started. And also, you know, the best, to me, the best proof of the existence of the market is when we launched, even with very few resources, we had huge demand from day one. It was not manageable at that time because of course we were very small, but that really showed to the investors that the demand and the market was out there. So what I mean here is that when you're in this position, you really need to do as much as possible before you engage so that you can really show how much you know about the market and also how how big your market is. And secondly, what was very clear for us is that the real market was always a region, right? Not only Mozambique, but the Southern African region, which makes enormous sense in terms of logistics. But I do believe this is also very important when it comes to growing a startup in Africa, at least in a homogeneous market or region, if I may say. It's very difficult, for instance, it would be very difficult for our float to go from Mozambique to Nigeria.

Okay.

But from Mozambique to South Africa or Zimbabwe or even the east of DRC, this is something that is natural for us to do because there is some linearity and some homogeneity in terms of doing business.

I want to go back on the community and, you know, I will say the early stage in terms of startup and founders. Do you actually meet them in Mozambique? Is there a community of founders, you know, with regular events and meetup that you can go to and you can exchange and share experience and also common problems? Yeah.

Yeah, so we have been exchanging more with founders across the continent.

Okay.

This is because I think, yeah, with our specificities that we— logistics is quite kind of unique.

It's quite niche. Yeah.

And so I could really relate and I brainstorm a lot with other founders from logistics. Logistics tech or from fintech, because a lot of logistics tech, as you might know, also become very, you know, naturally fintechs because of the—

related to payments.

Yeah, yeah, the cash flow that it requires. And so you have a lot of similarities between the two industries, and this is what helped me a lot. The community also in Sweden was fantastic in that regard to continue exchanging. Also founders like VCs like Reflect Ventures also introduces us to other startups. And I think this is really necessary for startups like ours where the community is still pretty small here. And our challenges are not the challenges of the startups yet here in Mozambique.

It might become very soon. And now I'm starting also to engage with early-stage startups to also share our experience because I think this is also very necessary. I do believe that communities are an absolute must when it comes to startup development.

And do you find that the other logtech founders are open and willing to share as much as you do? Or sometimes you get resistance from, you know, because the founders are not the most, you know, generous person when it comes to actually providing advice and guidance. You know, You know, we see that every day when we run that marketplace called Gentech where we bring all those founders together. And sometimes it's just very hard to get them to talk and speak. They're busy. They're busy, they're stressed, you know, sometimes they're worried about, you know, it might be competition or, you know, so what's your view on this? In Africa, are people open?

I do believe so. The people that I've been talking to, Of course, it is a tough industry. You know, our lives are not the easiest. You know, it can start at 6 AM and stop at 9 PM, even on weekends.

Logistics never stop.

So yeah, what you described is super familiar, you know, to me. And sometimes this— I just told you now, I'm starting to engage with the community here because so far I was just, you know, engaged on Zoom with other founders so that it was limited time, then I could go back to You know, you have— I feel that over the past 3 years, um, there wasn't— I didn't make enough room for that, if I may put it this way, because the focus was the business. While I do believe there is a tremendous value taking a step back, but when you're still a small team, you want to grow, and more importantly, you want to be—

to provide an impeccable service, because this is what this is about, right?

When you're small, you need to be, uh, to have 100% success, if I may say.

Yeah.

This is, this is what you're focusing on. So it's only now that I'm, I'm starting to share. So I really cannot blame the founders who have challenges to share because I can see where this is coming from. It is just that we are really in our, in our bubble.

We try to grow. In our bubble, yeah.

We push as much as we can. Our focus is our clients and our transporters. This is, you know, this is our world. And this is also why I think this is a specific industry. Maybe other startups in other sectors feel the same, but I do believe that this is a stressful industry.

But also we have a certain profile, right?

I guess the other founders also, we chose that path because we also love challenges, we love overcoming these difficulties.

Exactly.

So, um, it is, I guess it's just a matter of picking, you know, these founders when they You know, and a more relaxed moment of the startups, which doesn't happen often, but I can see that happening. Yeah, we need to step back and to relax. I guess it's really more about that.

Talking about challenges, what do you think is your biggest one right now as a co-founder of Upload? You know, what keeps you awake at night? What's your biggest headache? As you, as you run the business. Yeah. And try to grow it.

Yeah, it is really, it is really about the, about fundraising, fundraising, because the level, you know, of commitment it requires, you know, again, in a frontier market like this, uh, to raise, um, it is, it is very challenging.

And all the more so now, you know, this year with the contraction, uh, of the, of the investment, it It is tough. It is extremely challenging.

And so yeah, I would really say that because we never, you know, so far we had, you know, investment to grow our software, but not sufficiently to grow our team while the demand is out there, right?

We have such, you know, a high level of demand.

And what we do is that we just operate what we can based on quality. And this is really quite that drives us.

But yeah, I would really mention the fundraise so that we can, you know, grow the software so that we can automate everything that we've learned so far even more and then grow the team because in a market like this one, you still need people on the ground to support the use and adoption and also to vet them. is a key, key point in developing markets like Mozambique. You need to have very good transporters, whether they're big or small, this is not the problem. You need them to perform well so that you can cover your territory well.

So if funding is so hard in a place like Mozambique, will it be maybe somehow better for you to try to cover another market which has more you know, VCs and more, you know, willingness for investments and try to, you know, keep Mozambique as your home ground, but also try to attack another market, which then could help you with financing and go international. Maybe the investors are looking at Mozambique thinking, oh, that's too extreme, that's too small in a way, right? Maybe they want Nigeria, maybe they want, I don't know, Zambia, they want South Africa, and packaging those countries together could maybe help you to get further financing. I don't know, I'm just brainstorming with you.

It's an interesting one. I really do believe that we are now in a very good position because we've— Sometimes lacking of investment can be a very interesting one because you just need to run the business.

This is what you do.

And make money and be profitable.

Yeah, yes, exactly.

This is really what maybe the problem has more maybe been, if I may say, in terms of culture of VCs so far, or investment that wanted to push growth without the foundations of businesses. And we see this now, right? We see investment is requiring much more profitability. They're really looking at the businesses more in terms of revenues than in terms of GTV growth. So I think we've done the right thing in this constrained environment. And now we are in a much better position to engage for growth because the foundations are there. The business works. We generate profit on any, on every transport we make. But it's just that it takes time. It takes more time than in any other markets to grow. So this is again chicken and egg in investing, right? You want to see growth before you invest. And now I think, you know, the investment climate has changed in the way that they will value the business that we've built.

And that now they can grow with us.

Also, indeed, it is nice now to operate on more corridors.

We operate now on Mozambique-South Africa corridors, on Mozambique-Malawi corridors, also to Zambia. So this also indeed helps having other conversations when it comes to volume, when it comes to data availability.

But I would say for me, you know, even being a French speaker, this is my market. This is what I know. I know the users here.

I know the clients.

This is really what I know I can tackle.

And these are problems that I know we can solve as a team.

So yeah, Uploady is about—

I really do believe that for now Uploady is about this market because we know it. So we know how to solve it.

So again, a very good testing ground for your company. If you had to do it again today, you know, will you choose Mozambique again as the starting point for your logistics startup, or will you have to pick a different market? And forget about— I know you have, you know, you have history and background in Mozambique. You probably I love the place, but if you're just strictly looking at a logistics startup, do you think this is the right place again today to do this?

Yeah, absolutely. I still do believe this is the right place in the region specifically.

I do believe strongly, strongly in the potential of Mozambique and just the demand is right at our door. So everything we had learned in terms of when we were doing our market case study was confirmed by the demand that we received on Upload.

That being said, timing is everything, as we say, and the timing was super challenging because I remember very vividly, I started to write an email in March 2020 about the launch of Upload.

Yeah.

And I hadn't sent it yet, and then we received the news that And the Zumi was closing their border, and then you know COVID had hit also.

I would say they had COVID had launched its operations, so we couldn't launch literally.

You know, we are in the traditional market where you know the economy froze, and they couldn't even absorb an innovation. It's not like when you already have an innovation and you can it can grow tremendously during COVID No, it is about launching an innovation.

And that was extremely challenging for users. So we delayed it until the end of 2020.

And so that, I think, you know, was challenging. And now, of course, the recession since last year and this year was not the best.

But again, I think we've, even in these very adverse conditions, we managed to develop and grow.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

So, you can probably—

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, again, you know, sometimes the most successful companies start and grow in the most challenging times, right? So, I think if you can prove a concept and make money in a place like Mozambique, you can probably, like you say, do it, you know, in other African countries. And so, I think I'm very confident you'll be able to grow and get also the VC funding that you need. for that international expansion. So what would be your final advice to a founder, you know, who's starting, you know, today, you know, especially in a place like Africa? You know, I know a number of people are looking at this market. What would be your advice?

Yeah.

Maybe a couple of them.

I would really say that you need to have worked before. I would really, I really say that. I think that more than anywhere else, you need working experience because you really need to be resourceful. Local experience, yeah. So working in local, you really need to know your market and your users. Then I feel also you need a support system again because there are not a lot of support systems here. It's not like in France.

I have friends who developed startups there and, you know, there's a whole system for them. You can enter an incubator, you still have a high paycheck, and you can grow your idea for 18 months and see where that goes, right? This is a state support for innovation.

Here, this doesn't exist.

So you really need a support system that, um, that, that can, you know, help you during, uh, you know, the development of the startup. Um, and because it's also a family journey, right? Yeah.

So everyone embarks with you on the startup. I think my son can pitch better at home than me now, so he knows all about it as well. Seriously, you really need that.

And then if I may say, as a woman, as we know, startups led by women are extremely underfunded, right? We were chatting about that before, but about 2% only of the startups at pre-seed and seed led by women get funding. And, but I even, you know, that being said, it's really not a reason for not developing and founding your startup because there's also, you know, I think now times are extremely changing. But again, as long as you know your subject, there will be people who would want to join you in this adventure.

Who can support you.

Exactly.

Okay. Thank you very much, Claire. I just want to finish up with some quick questions for you, some what we call the fire questions. So let me go through them and give me a quick answer. Cats or dogs?

Dogs.

Window or aisle?

Window.

Okay. Can you share a movie that you've seen recently that you're very excited about?

A movie?

No, I'm—

Anything comes up?

No, I'm just more into series now.

Oh yeah, TV show is fine. TV series.

I'm into the morning show these days. So, you know, very American driven about the The media industry.

Okay.

What's your favorite lunch?

Favorite lunch?

Yeah.

Yeah. Salad with a friend.

What's your most used app on your phone?

It's WhatsApp. Yeah. I wish I could say Apple, but surely not. It's WhatsApp.

Okay.

What's your favorite tool to build and manage your company?

I would say WhatsApp and Slack.

Okay. Where will you be if you imagine 30 years, 20 or 30 years from now, you are retired? Where do you see yourself doing and where?

I would love investing in startups, in startups that I love. I would love doing that.

you know, on the long run.

I'd love to be in a position to do so. And I know that I would be traveling a lot, but I do believe that my life would still be based in the African continent.

Okay, somewhere in Mozambique, probably?

I don't know. No, that I'm, you know, I love, you know, it's interesting in most of the African countries that I've been in, more more than 20 now.

I felt very, very much at home. So yeah, this is, there are other stories to write in other countries. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you very much, Claire. This was Claire Assoun, the co-founder of Upload, sharing again, you know, her own journey and experience in running the company. So thank you. Thanks again, Claire.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a nice day.