James Blewett & Telma Le Guen: From Full-Time Jobs to Launching Startups

I was the typical go to university, then get a corporate job. That's my background. But entrepreneurship in an African context is something you see all the time, from the person who leaves their house and sells the fruit on the sidewalk to something a little bit more sophisticated. So people are just resourceful with whatever is happening around. And so that sense of resourcefulness for me, it's like If they can do it, I can do it.

I'd like to welcome both of our panelists today. We have Tama Lagoon as well as James Blewett. They're both based in Africa right now and they're doing some really cool things. I want to get into this so that we can use the full hour. Huge round of applause. Welcome. So maybe, yeah, tell me, maybe just introduce yourself, kind of what your background, how you got into being a founder. You've gone through the program, but yeah, maybe take us from your background up to today.

Fantastic. So, um, hi everybody, my name is Telma. I'm the founder of The Workrate, which is a B2B SaaS platform created for African enterprises to compensate their workforce. My background is actually compensation and benefits. So before I transitioned to entrepreneurship, I was an in-house resource in your typical corporate multinational. So in my defense, I'm a corporate dropout, but I didn't transition directly into being a startup founder. I actually transitioned from corporate to consulting. I encountered a problem that as a consultant I couldn't solve, and I decided to solve it. And that was my journey into entrepreneurship. Um, and I found Founders Institute on LinkedIn, believe it or not, when I was thinking of what I needed to do to actually effectively transition from a consultant to a startup founder. So that's me.

And hello, I'm James. I'm the founder of Coloso, which is an edtech startup in Zambia. We've been going now for a couple of years, and my background is that I've worked in international— well, sort of, I went from accountancy to corporate finance to international economic development work around the world in Asia and Africa, lots of post-conflict, very fragile economies. And at some point in my career, I just realized that, um, rather than advising other people and helping other people to set up their businesses, it was time for me to do the same myself. And, um, so I kind of started off as a small-time impact investor myself and did some work in the tech sector, learned a little bit about the sector, and then started my own business. And I really wanted to do something about education, so It's very commercial, but it's also very mission-driven.

Very cool. So maybe let's talk about the leap of faith. So, you know, you're working for a company. And so for example, tell them, you know, you were working for large companies sometimes. And then all of a sudden, one day, you're like, okay, maybe I want to try this entrepreneur thing, you know, and then that's how The Workrate was born. So maybe go into that leap of faith and what How did you come up with that decision to go off and embark on your own?

What best describes it for me is unrest. So there was a level of unrest within me that I no longer felt could be fulfilled in that organization. Not to the fault of that organization. I loved my work. I worked very hard to reach the levels that I did. But somehow it just, wasn't fulfilling anymore. Um, and so I decided, well, if I'm going to leave, um, I, I needed to have a plan. So what does it look like to leave an organization and have nothing? Um, and then COVID came, and then I, I said I absolutely need to leave. Um, I— it didn't make me feel any more secure to stay in a corporate role. I didn't have a backup job. I just needed to leave. But I did make a plan to leave because I knew that just jumping into the next job would not fulfill me. And I don't have the words for the leap of faith, but it is quite humbling to make yourself vulnerable in that way. So initially when I left, I knew I needed a reset, whatever that means, because I kept myself busy. And then I thought, well, let me try and find a job. For the work that I do, it's not typical to find that type of role profile in Mauritius, just for the market it is. I had some really interesting interviews with some companies, but they wanted me to move. Are you willing to come to London? Are you willing to come to Dubai? No, I'm not. And so then I decided, well, no one's hiring me, but I'm sure I can do it. So I'm just going to do consulting and let me just try consulting. And that happened to work. And I guess what I'm trying to tell everybody in the audience is that sometimes for some people, they have this master plan that works out well. And in my case, I sort of just landed. I landed, I landed, I landed until one day, you know, here we are having this discussion because I joined Founders Institute last year. You don't always see the full path. You sometimes just see one step ahead. But you know that wherever you are or you were, you just can't stay any longer. And that's just the feeling that I have. If, if the end— if the world crumbles— remember, this is 2020. If the world crumbles, we didn't have vaccine, there was nothing of that. It was just there's a pandemic and we have to stay home. Then I just thought, this is not the way I want to live the rest of my life. I don't want to die tomorrow because I'm not happy with the way that I'm living. So that was a leap of faith.

Yeah, maybe James, for you. So I mean, you were doing economic development, which is different from, let's say, like university development, where, you know, you're trying to build the university or college. In this case, you're trying to build countries and ecosystems. So, you know, for you, what was that leap of faith like?

Um, it was honestly, it was a realization that I think my respect, my admiration, if you like, for people who are entrepreneurs just grew and grew and grew. And what I saw as I moved around the world was that even in the most demanding circumstances, in the most difficult circumstances, there were people who were starting businesses or keeping businesses going. Making things happen one way or another. For those of us who are— I grew up in the UK and I'm sure many of the people I've seen, some of the countries that people are coming from on the call. For those of us who come from these more, let's say, stable environments, when you see somebody in Afghanistan or somebody in Iraq or somebody in Somalia or Libya or somewhere like that, really trying to make a business happen, your respect levels go up because it's people facing up to all sorts of challenges and adversities. And I think that at the end, I was just driven to try and test myself and see what I could do. Um, I had this idea that a lot of the work that I'd done in economic development ultimately rested on education and how well education systems worked in different countries. So I looked for a way in which I could work, you know, bring a kind of business idea in the education sector that would somehow kind of create the, the foundations for economic growth that I had spent 20, 30 years of my working life, you know, trying to foster. So, um, leap of faith— it was more like a leap of admiration. Like, anybody who is an entrepreneur, my goodness me, take your hat off to them, because, you know, if, if there's anything else that you can do or anything else that you would rather do, go do it. Um, but those of us who feel the need to be an entrepreneur, it's, it's an extraordinary thing. And yeah, I just felt the need, I guess.

And then maybe quickly, do you want to, James, elaborate on kind of the mission of Coloso and then what you're actually doing, like what the platform does, just for people that aren't familiar?

Sure. So throughout the developing world, and not just the developing world, in many developed countries, there are all sorts of issues to do with the quality of education. And, um, in particularly in our part of the world, in sub-Saharan Africa, the problem is not so much access to education anymore. You know, there are many more schools than there used to be, many more teachers than there used to be. It's not job done, but it's, it's a job in progress, work in progress. The challenge now is to improve the quality of education. And what we're doing with Colosso is we've developed a very cheap very simple, very easy-to-use learning assessment tool that primary and secondary school children can use for a couple of minutes each day, and it generates the learning data that teachers need to understand exactly where each child is on their learning journey. So at the village school— I'm talking to you from the bush in Zambia, right, with the courtesy of Starlink. Um, so thank goodness for that. Um, but in our local village school, a typical teacher will have 70 or 80 children in their class. They'll be teaching 2 or 3 classes a day. There are 2 or 3 shifts of children coming through the school each day, and their ability to stay on top of where each child is in their learning is obviously Yeah, it's really tricky thing to do. So what we've done is develop a very simple once-a-day, 2-minute, 10-question quiz game that children can play on a device. It generates the data and it kind of flags up to the teacher exactly who needs help or who's doing really well and can be stretched a bit further. So that's what Glofta is all about.

Very cool. Yeah, maybe tell me from your perspective, kind of what's the vision, um, with the Workrate? And, um, you know, maybe tell us a little bit about the platform. Sure.

So the platform, um, has two— has two databases. Uh, one is for individuals, so it's B2C, uh, crowdsource information. And the other one is specifically for organizations, B2B. If I take it back to the mission and why we have these two different interfaces, our mission and our vision is really to ensure that talent, African talent gets to stay in the region, gets paid competitively, and that we are able to effectively just retain our talent. If you consider what organizations go through, particularly SMEs. We're just underserved. SMEs account for majority of employment in many African, um, countries, and yet they continue to not be able to play the same way in the market for talent, for anything really, compared to larger organizations. Uh, larger organizations may be local or foreign, it doesn't matter. But for our perspective, we need to ensure that there is an ecosystem where there is some level of pay transparency, where decisions around compensation can be made by organizations, whether you have a 10-person company or whether you have 3,000 employees, you should be afforded the same sort of choices around how to compensate your employees and make decisions around them. And that's really what our mission is, is to make it accessible, to simplify it. So you don't need to be an expert on Excel, Well, what you need to do is make decisions for your employees and for your talent pool. And so if we can give you a platform that enables you to do that— arguably the largest expense in many organizations is your people cost— then we want to simplify that for you. And that's fundamentally our mission.

Very cool. So I think there's a lot of misunderstanding with Africa. I think, you know, people think that it's maybe not very vibrant startup ecosystem. Meanwhile, like some of the, some of the fastest growing ecosystems really in the planet are in Africa. I remember talking to someone that does a, like, a podcast webinar show online, and they just visit ecosystems globally. We're talking about how, you know, Africa is where they're seeing the, the most exciting growth. So from that perspective, um, And maybe we'll go back to you, Telma, on this, but we'll direct it to both of you. Maybe address some of the misconceptions that people have about Africa and the potential there, but then also there are obviously challenges. So what are those types of challenges? Are they infrastructure, talent, scaling, funding, those types of things?

Yeah, and I think this is— It's a really good question, but it's also about glass half full, or is it a half empty view on it? Do you see it as a challenge, or do you see it as an opportunity? And it sounds flippant to say, um, but the same way you can say, um, that there are challenges in the market, particularly for startups of funding, etc., maybe there's less options, maybe there's less accelerators, maybe there's this, like funding options in particular. Some of that is true. Um, of course, this market is not as large as ones like the US, for example, where you are. At the same time, there is visibility because there are fewer pools. So you can absolutely join plenty of accelerators. Of course, Founder Institute is, is one of them, and that's the one that I joined. Um, we're not gonna advertise the others, but there's certainly others and there are funding options. So in my particular case, I was able to get funded after Founders Institute through the Founders Institute network, right? So as much as we can say it's not available for people, yet I'm an example. Um, and I'm, I'm not a 3-time founder exit. I'm not on some Forbes list. I'm a person who had a problem, who believes I can provide a solution to a region I care about. And yes, Africa, of course, Africa, of course, is one continent with many diverse countries. My corporate employment before becoming a founder has given me access and the ability to understand a lot of these markets in a way that is serving me as a founder today. And then I look back at my journey and I've managed to get funded as well. So I want to say that shouldn't be the determining factor for anyone thinking about becoming a founder. It is possible. What doors are you knocking? Are you knocking on multiple doors? I'm in Mauritius. I wasn't even able to be in Founders Institute in South Africa to meet some of those people in person. I'm not in Nigeria. I'm not in Nairobi. Those are large, you know, markets. I'm not in Ghana, but it's possible. And you have James that's based in Zambia, right? Arguably, from an African perspective, smaller markets, Yet here we are. So I would just challenge the view. If you're focused on, I don't know, getting that type of visibility or saying it's impossible, then it will be impossible. And if you say it's possible, then it is. There's plenty of startups in the region that have managed to get funded, even, you know, Y Combinator, etc. It's just possible if you want it, work for it.

Yeah, and things like Starlink, I agree, uh, well, I mean, made it possible for James to be here, but, uh, has broken down so many barriers. And it's, uh, I don't think a lot of people realize actually that, uh, so Adeo, our co-founder, and Elon are really close friends. They, they launched the, um, like Hacker House at University of Pennsylvania together, and then Adeo went on to chair the X Prize and then subsequently to create Founders Institute and a bunch of other things. But then Elon, I'm not sure what he did, but no, he went on to then create SpaceX, uh, you know, and that led to Starlink and all sorts of great things. Um, but yeah, funny story, the— not too long ago they were like ranching and, um, Hideo was like taking the loop and trying to, uh, hook a horse, and I think he hooked it. And then like the rope ended up like being around his hands and like crushed his hands. So I think Elon had to take him to the hospital and stuff. Anyways. Okay, so maybe James, to you, kind of same question. You know, you're in Zambia. You know, what are the unique challenges that you're facing, but also kind of the opportunities that you're seeing there?

Okay, let's talk about unique challenges, right? There's no point glossing over the fact that, you know, there are challenges in this part of the world that don't apply elsewhere, right? So the Ministry of Energy in Zambia has just announced that they're going to increase electricity supply from 3 hours a day to 5 hours a day, right? And we've had load shedding with no electricity for several days in a row, um, for over the last— however many— 6, 8 months. And, you know, people live without electricity, live without water. You know, it's, it's tough. And when you're trying to set up a tech business and the mobile phone network goes down and you have no mobile internet, your meetings break off, you're trying to do a pitch to somebody and then the whole thing collapses, this is not good, right? There are challenges here to do with infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and what have you. There are also regulatory challenges which make this part of the world. I think Mauritius is probably well in the lead in this regard, right? But there are many countries in Africa where regulation is not the most conducive towards startup businesses. There are onerous regulatory requirements, licensing requirements, and all the rest of it. But having said all of that, right, Number one, this is an amazing market in terms of the growth potential, particularly for an organization like, like ours where we're focusing on education. This is the only continent in the world where the population is set to grow. It's where one-third of the world's children are going to be living in a few years' time. It's like, I mean, it's just the population is going to double and then double again by the end of this century, and urbanization is happening at an immense rate. And so you're going to end up with all these megacities across Africa that just don't exist at the moment, and they're going to need servicing, they're going to need people, they're going to need things to work for them to, you know, be successful. So the business which is focused on education, I think, um, the opportunities of working in Africa are just phenomenal. Um, at the same time, as I sort of highlighted some of the challenges with the digital infrastructure, the fact is that, you know, mobile internet is growing at a rapid rate. Um, things like Starlink are changing I mean, it's just phenomenal when suddenly you go from some really dodgy VSAT connection that gives you a very, very dubious connection now and again to actually being able to have a call like this from, you know, and literally we're off-grid. So I'm talking to you courtesy of Starlink and solar power. And batteries. So we have no, no infrastructure whatsoever. But that means that we're close to the people that we want to work with, and it means that we understand some of the challenges that they are up against. And we can work with schools in places where, you know, normally, you know, if you ask the European business or an American business, they would say, oh no, that's completely off limits, right? There's no way on earth that you can make a commercial proposition that can work there, and that's for NGOs, or that's for governments, or that's for USAID, or whatever it is, right? But actually, the sustainable solutions of the business solutions, the commercial ones that, that work, you know, you provide a service that people are actually willing to pay for at a price that they can afford. And it's incredible what, you know, how people will prioritize expenditure and, you know, with very meager resources, and will, you know, create a business opportunity that if you're sitting in, I don't know, somewhere in America or somewhere in Europe or whatever, it might all seem a bit kind of, you know, impossible. When you're on the ground and when you talk to people and when you really understand what's going on here, um, there are solutions, there are ways around even the most difficult challenges. So I, I would say that, yeah, there's a lot of myths about Africa, um, there's a lot of lack of knowledge, really. Um, I know that before I came and worked here, I had very little understanding, really, of what, what it was like to do business here. But it's not so scary, and it's not so different. It's just a different set of— slightly different set of rules that you have get used to. And like any country, there are ways of doing things here and ways of doing things in other places. And if you learn to navigate your way around those, the opportunities are enormous.

And maybe if I can just—

yeah, go ahead.

I think it's an interesting perspective because as an African, um, that has grown up in Africa I don't see the challenges the same way because it's the world that you know. I've never set up a business in the UK, in the US. We understand that things apparently look easier and there's more structure and, but you know, there's something different about being able to doing something yourself versus hearsay is not a perspective I have. I've also always grown up with entrepreneurship around me, even though I was, you know, the, the typical go to university, then get a corporate job. That's my background. But entrepreneurship in an African context is something you see all the time, from the person who leaves their house and sells the fruit, you know, on the sidewalk, to something a little bit more sophisticated. So people are just resourceful with whatever is happening around. And so that sense of resourcefulness, for me, it's like If they can do it, I can do it. And yes, there are red tape and all those things. By the way, when I was doing the Founder Institute accelerator last year, there were blackouts all the time, not here in Mauritius, but half of the time the team in South Africa was just complete darkness. It's just, you see their face and the shadow of the reflection of their laptop, and sometimes the laptop would die. And if you want the opportunities here, You've got to take both, right? It's that thing of you want the rainbows, you've got to take the rain. That's just how it is here. And so if you find partners or potential clients or whatever they are that don't understand this environment, then they're not the ones that are going to help you reach the finishing line. There has to be a level of understanding and discernment that this is the environment, but the opportunity remains there.

Just as a personal interest question, have you found that inflation has really impacted where you guys are?

Yeah.

And that's one of the reasons why the work rate is there, because inflation will always impact people's pay and their ability to— what they can afford, affordability, right? Your living wage will— and it's not just inflation, it's also with the exchange rates and the way that countries that import a lot, you know, there's a lot of components. But yes, that does impact. Absolutely.

Yeah, because like we've seen, so for example, like I'm in Waterloo, Canada, and, you know, over the last, over the last decade, we've seen basically half the amount of startups that we saw a decade ago. But then even since COVID yeah, we've seen like really stark inflation, which does impact people's ability to go off and create a startup because if it's too expensive to live, you know, and we've seen places be even more impacted than obviously us in a developed country. So yeah, I was just trying to get an interest from that perspective. So for just as a reset for everyone, we're going to get into questions in kind of about like 5 minutes here. So feel free to just click on the Q&A tab, you can put your, um, question in, and then they can get upvoted, and then we'll get into those. But maybe just, uh, before we transition into that, maybe, um, um, James, we'll go to you real quick. Um, you know, is there, is there a mindset shift or like a key lesson that you give to entrepreneurs in the audience today that are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur? You know, maybe in particular like a social impact startup?

Yeah, um, I, I think, I think that, I mean, obviously there's all those sort of issues about giving up a lot of security, right? If you have a job and you're getting a salary each month, you know exactly what the deal is, and you know, it— you live within those parameters. When you step into entrepreneurship, clearly you introduce a huge uncertainty factor into it. And I think, you know, from what Telma's been saying and what I've been trying to say, when you do it in Africa, it kind of, you know, let's say the bounds of that uncertainty can be a little bit bigger than in some other places, right? And I think also, yeah, the title of this thing is from, you know, from employment to entrepreneurship, or from employee to entrepreneur. I think one of the big things is that very few people in this part— in Zambia I'm talking about now— but in this part of the world really have the opportunity of private sector employment and private sector professional formation. And I think this is one of the great advantages of living, um, in, in other countries where there are more private sector jobs. I mean, the dream of most people in Zambia is to get a job with government or a job with an NGO or the UN or whatever it might be. Which is not necessarily the best preparation for entrepreneurship. So I would say that— sorry, this is a long way around, but I would say that for people who are contemplating becoming an entrepreneur, it's good to get a bit of employment experience under your belt to understand a little bit about, you know, what it's like to work in an organization what it's like to belong to a structure, what it's like to work according to sort of rules or routines or processes and systems. Not because that's what you want to replicate in your young startup, but it's basically because that's where ultimately these things exist for a reason and they can help you as you grow your business to kind of have an orientation as to where you want to go. I mean, the sort of things, the problems that Telma's addressing for businesses, right, are exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, where, you know, you, you, you, you take them for granted maybe if you work for a large organization, but suddenly if you become an entrepreneur, you have to solve them yourself. Yeah, as they, as they say, if you're an employee You love the month end because you're getting paid. If you're an entrepreneur, you hate the month end because you've got to pay everybody who's getting paid, right? And you often don't get paid yourself.

I don't think people realize that aren't entrepreneurs how stressful it is to basically be fighting for every meal all the time, constantly.

It's great fun though. It's great fun. So my parting comment on this subject is, look, if you feel the need to do it, go do it. Because it's the most amazing, amazing thing. But if you can think of something better to do, go do that instead.

And maybe tell me, from your perspective, you know, is there any advice you would give to founders looking to create a sustainable business model?

I mean, I fundamentally— first, let me just say I agree with James in everything he just said. Uncertainty is the default. As the first point when you do transition. And being comfortable with that and understanding that you might not have line of sight to the end of the tunnel. So I absolutely agree with that. I think there is value in working for organizations for all of the reasons that James mentioned. And it doesn't have to be forever. But it will give you a different outlook. And it can also help you just to have a different perspective of how things can work. I think in terms of your question around, please repeat your last question. I'm slightly different.

Yeah, just any advice that you would give to founders.

If you want to go for it, I would say go for it, but you can have a plan. And so there's people who are just naturally I'll say risk-takers. And then there's other people who might want to explore, but they don't know what that looks like. And so exploration does not mean you have to go all, you know, 2 feet deep in it with a lot of debt. You know, programs like accelerators can show you how to test your ideas in a very soft, sort of non-heavily financial way. And for me, I think fundamentally it's being curious and knowing that you don't have the answers, and most importantly, knowing that you don't know things that you don't know. And that sounds redundant, but if you have that line of sight, then that curiosity will keep attracting you and taking you towards spaces where you can find the answer. And the answer might not always be there, but that one person can connect you to somewhere else. And one day you'll see something on LinkedIn and some one day you'll hear a conversation and it'll get you there. So I think that curiosity and knowing that you don't know things. So I had been in corporate for over a decade, arguably, you know, knowing what it is that I do. But, and even being an independent consultant does not mean that that naturally translates into being a founder and starting to build something that is larger than what you could possibly imagine. So I think the curiosity is the most important thing. And if you want to do it, do it, have a plan, test it easy, and then see where it takes you. You do not have to give up your job. I believe you can do the two things at the same time. It's grueling, but it can be done. And you can also do gig work on the side while you have your startup. So I just want to circle back on your comment about the inflation. Because inflation, particularly in this region, hits us all, all the time. A lot of our economies are just hyperinflation economies anyway. So again, it goes back to like, that's what you've known. Even when you had a job, the inflation was increasing 20% and you would only get a 5% increase or 8%. So this is a lot of our reality anyway, and I don't want to minimize that. But again, if you want it, I have to do some gig work on the side sometimes to supplement my income. So this, this is the reality of being a founder.

No, and I think that's important to know. Yeah, a friend of mine's, um, startup founder, and, you know, they're kind of on pace to actually be a unicorn. Um, they got some pretty big clients and they're doing really well, but like, he attributed his early success with, uh, basically being ignorant, um, from the perspective of like, he, he— there were so many things that he didn't know And, uh, you know, he, he approached it with humility, but it was that that actually attributed to his success because like he realized, okay, I don't know these things, I need to figure these things out. Um, you know, and it was kind of like the fact that he was basically flying blind that helped him like reach the other end. Okay, so for everyone, as a reset, we're going to get into the Q&A. So you'll see the little Q&A icon, feel free to put your question in there, and then people can upvote them. And we'll, we'll launch the first question right now, so you'll see it come across the screen. I'll kind of read it, and then it's open to Talma, James, whoever wants to get it. So when you first left your job to focus on your idea, how did you manage the financial uncertainty? What steps did you take to ensure you had enough for essentials like product development and marketing while making no revenue? Whoever wants to jump in on it.

I can have a go at this because this is a really live issue for us right now. I think you asked the question earlier on about the leap of faith. There is a certain element of just closing your eyes, grabbing, and jumping. I can't necessarily say that I had like a detailed plan as to how I was going to cope with the financial uncertainty. And I have no doubt that, you know, being an entrepreneur is not a quick or easy route to riches. I'm sure for some people, you know, the stories that you hear in the media or, you know, highlighted around social media and what have you, it all makes it all sound so easy. But actually it's a long, long sludge. I have not had a salary for 2 years. As Thelma was saying, you have to do this and that, here and there, now and again to have a bit of money to keep going. But we were just talking as a team today that we, all of us, have to reduce our payroll again because we know that we need to do some product development work. We know how much money we've got in the bank, we know what our revenue projected— we've just gone post-revenue, so it's really exciting times for us, but there's a limit to how fast that can grow. So having to really balance all these things and having a team of people who are willing to be flexible is just— that's been a real asset for us as a business. Not just the founders, but actual employees willing to say, okay, I'll take a bit less this month or whatever. So yeah, flexibility has been really important, I would say.

Maybe tell me— I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, please.

Well, yeah, tell me from your perspective, you know, how did you manage financial uncertainty? And if it's ongoing?

Yeah, so I don't, I don't pay, I don't receive a salary. Neither does my co-founder. So all of the funding that we've received, and we have had a round with angel investors, so we have fundraised, all of it goes to dev work essentially, you know, and some business development as well, but most of it is dev. So we don't pay ourselves salaries. The plus side with us is that since we are independent consultants, when we need to dabble and just take on some side work, we can. And we already have structures to be able to do that. So our transition from, let's say, your formal employment, right, to startup has been actually, let's say, two-step. Because first, it was becoming an independent consultant, which I don't consider to be the same dynamic as what we're trying to build here with our startup. So that has enabled and given us a cushion to say, well, you know, already in the market, we have clients that come to us that know us for what it is that we do, which is compensation and benefits, which is tied to our platform anyway. So we have an ecosystem and this is how we essentially feed our families. Because I think to James's point, what you see in the media is a lot of, you know, you hear young people, I'm a millennial. I won't say my age, but I'm a millennial. So you see a lot of young people, maybe they don't have families or maybe they don't have children or responsibilities. They can live with their parents and that's not my reality. And so you do need to think about that. I do not advocate for just leaving your job and having a leap of faith. I think a leap of faith can also come with a plan, whatever that means to you. Do you need 6 months runway? Do you need 12 months runway for you to survive? Survive? Um, and how can you test your idea in a gentle, soft, non-heavy economic way so that you can know whether you want to go 2 feet deep or not?

Yeah, and I think, um, in terms of managing financial uncertainty, I mean, like, I look like a privileged white male, but I think at the same time, you know, I've lived as a founder in like negative balance. It was zero money in the bank account and like literally eating hot dogs from the freezer for, for months at a time. So I think the— but, but I think it's important for people to know that with founders, there's almost no Plan B. And so I think that like miraculously what ends up happening is like you need to make payroll, you need to bring money in somehow, and like most times it gets really tight, but it's like you're always able to figure it out somehow. And I think that, um, not everyone is equipped to deal with that level of stress and anxiety, to know that, like, you know, maybe you've got a sale but the payment hasn't come in yet, and you're basically just waiting for it to come in.

So I think, um, you know, as a founder, you definitely Can I just say, one thing that we've found, right, over the last few years is that if you do run into trouble where you know that, you know, actually I'm not going to be able to pay this bill when I thought I was going to be able to pay it, the most important thing is to be upfront with people because actually the vast majority of people that you're dealing with are also entrepreneurs, right? When you're in this kind of world and the understanding and the generosity of spirit that we've encountered from people that we do business with, even developers who have said, yeah, okay, it's fine, you know, yeah, don't worry if you can pay us in a couple of weeks' time, not a problem, right? People are just— honestly, there are some amazingly decent people out there who will help you. So financing is not always just about, you know, we're lucky we've got some angel investors involved as well, right? But, you know, it's not just about equity or whatever investment. It's people who are willing to cut you a bit of slack now and again to help you get through difficult moments. But be upfront, be open, be honest. Don't let the bills pile up. Just say, guys, look, we're in a bit of a sticky situation.

Yeah, that's really good advice. I think communication solves all problems. Okay, let's get into another question here. Uh, so this is from Kalash. Hopefully you got that right. How do you validate your idea or business plan with experts in the market? Did Founder Institute help with that, or how did you validate?

Let me jump in here. Um, so firstly, Founders Institute did help, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for everyone that wants to join the accelerator. Uh, what I will say for my particular, uh, business idea, um, is that I, I was already in that ecosystem. In fact, the idea is something that clients kept asking me repeatedly, and I did not have a crystal ball to solve the problem. And if I could solve my own problem as a consultant to give them an answer, like that's it. So, in my case, it was validated just by the fact that number one, it's a constant request. What we do, we've built it into a platform. But the information that's being requested gets asked consistently, number one. And then number two, we are able to sell that solution through Excel and good old-fashioned manual work. But we're in 2024 and there's no need for all of that, hence what we're building.

Yeah, I would say we actually— our original idea was completely different. We just wanted to do like a fun educational game. And then we showed it to some teachers, friends and family and all the rest of it. And they were like, oh, hang on a sec, there could be something in this. So in a way, the problem found us rather than the other way round. And I think that's, that's helped to shape where we're at. And I would say that Founder Institute, I went through the South Africa Founder Institute winter course last year. And absolutely, I mean, honestly, just having that rigorous disciplined and structured way of looking at your, you know, your idea and your business and how you're planning to sort of go to market and what have you was enormously helpful. You know, I thought I kind of understood business and then I did Founder Institute and it really opened my eyes to a lot of things that I hadn't appreciated before. And it was just really good to be take him through that process.

No, it's good feedback. Okay, let's get into another question here. So this is from Edward, uh, in South Africa. Is there a how-to on research to development funding guidelines? That is, what business plan format should I use? What does research investors look at, etc., etc.? So maybe, uh, to James. I'll throw that at you.

Um, is there a how-to on research? I, I get to find it if there is one. I think kind of every business is probably different, so that's, that's probably not the answer you're looking for, but, um, that's, that's been my experience. Um, in terms of business plan format, I'm, I, I'm a great believer in keeping using these canvases and what have you to keep things simple and flexible rather than developing great long business plans which tend to kind of go out of date very, very quickly. So, sorry, I think coming back to the point that we were making earlier on about uncertainty, part of the uncertainty and the flexibility that's required is this ability to respond to changing circumstances. I don't think there is a how-to. At least if there is, please can somebody put it in the chat.

We'll try and get a bunch of questions in, so we'll just do rapid-fire. Maybe we'll load another one here. There's a ton of questions here, so I want to try and get to as many as we can here. Then for everyone, once this ends, we'll open this up for networking. And then everyone can stick around. If James, tell me if you gotta leave, that's okay. But I know it's getting pretty late there, but we can do networks. So yeah, we'll start with another question here from Solomon. How did the two of you go about raising capital on the continent of Africa? Great question. So who wants to go with this?

Should I? I'm happy to go.

Yeah, go ahead.

So firstly, I, I, um, the first— yes, first investors were through Founder Institute Network. Um, so we were funded by Loyal. Um, so this is— this was fantastic. Um, how did you go about raising capital? Doing well in Founder Institute. So that's the first question. And we weren't, you know, I was the one that participated. I didn't do well to do well. It's my business. Therefore, I was invested in it and I cared about it. So everything that we were told to do, I did to the best of my ability because I knew it would help the business. This is not like high school where you get a score. At the end of the day, if you win, you win because your, you know, your work will support your business. So that was number one. But But I count myself very lucky on that one. And the second one is that we approached angel investors as well. And who are angel investors? So I didn't go for, you know, the typical, you get these lists of all these different, you know, VCs and people who do it. No, I didn't do that. We didn't do that. We went through our network, people who we work with, people who know the quality of our work and, you know, the way that we are able to provide solutions. And therefore they said the idea is great because they understood the problem that we were solving very well because they're in that ecosystem. And therefore it was like, we're on, how can we support? And then you negotiate the terms. So that's the way that I did it. I didn't go to a big, you know, I want to say black hole, a sea of all these different VCs because how do you get contact with them? How do you, who do they know who you are as a person? I might not be great at the pitch. Pitch, but I know what it is that I'm doing because I've been doing it for 15 years. So that was my approach. James?

So we bootstrapped to prototype because nobody would— yeah, I mean, you can't even talk to anybody until you've got something working around here, right? And then we pitched to a local business angels network. There were like 20 people in the room here in Lusaka. And we were lucky enough to secure— I think we got $30,000 of angel investment at the time, and that has taken us from our prototype to our MVP and getting to commercial launch, right? And now, yeah, we've had to— yeah, I've had to put in a bit more money myself, and our original angel investors put in a bit more money. But essentially, that's where the funding— and one thing I would say is that we've been incredibly frugal and very careful. Our burn rate at the moment as a business is like about $4,000 a month. That's including the payroll and everything, right? So, um, yeah, you just have to be very careful because money— yes, there are, of course, there are investors and what have you, VCs and all the rest of it. Specialize in Africa. But when you're in a country like Zambia, which is really, you know, doesn't have a particularly well-developed ecosystem, isn't really on anybody's radar, it's, it's quite tricky. So, um, yeah, we've just had to do it ourselves, really.

Yeah, the good thing that I did, we did bootstrap as well, because you don't know where you're going to land. So the bootstrapping starts And then other things came into the ecosystem, but we bootstrapped our MVP. So that doesn't— we're not excluded, myself and my co-founder, from that. We had to invest in our business too.

Yeah, and at the end of the day, growth is growth. And, you know, if you're growing and you're making sales, then people will find you for sure. Okay, we've probably got time for one more question. We'll do sign-offs and then we'll get into networking. Thinking. So we'll throw one more question up here. So, Muhammad, looking back, are there specific mistakes you made early on that you would advise aspiring entrepreneurs to avoid? Great question.

Um, okay, I'll start on this one. Um, I think the biggest mistake that we made was not having a tech co-founder. Um, we thought that we knew the sector, that we kind of had a good notion of how the business would run and that we would outsource the tech work. And I think that has— that was a big mistake. It would— because you need somebody who's really part of your team to help you with the, the tech side of things. And, you know, I just— neither me nor my two co-founders had the expertise to be able to argue back or demand set realistic targets. We were very much at the mercy of the people that we outsourced to. I mean, it wasn't a complete disaster, but certainly I would, if I was doing it again, I would do it differently.

Yeah, tell me on your side.

Yeah, I mean, it's the same for us. We don't have, um, a tech co-founder. But for me, I still don't label that as a mistake because had we gone back in time, I believe that alignment between the co-founders is really important to the point where if you haven't found a tech founder, tech co-founder potential, even CTO that aligns with what you're trying to do, then you need to wait until you find that person. So I still believe in that. I do. I will say that like the legal aspect of, and depending on the country, the complexity of the company structure and so on, can get quite complicated, especially if you're trying to, depending on your ambition in terms of what it is that you want to reach, you know, the type of company structure, this vehicle, all of that, all It's really complex. And the tricky thing is that lawyers cost a lot of money. And so very early on, you don't have a lot of funds to dedicate to just the lawyers. They can bleed you out. And I'm not sure that that's a mistake. It's still a space that we're navigating in and we just try as best as possible. If I had to say a mistake, I wouldn't say that it's as a startup. Founder, I would say very early in my career, I should have been much more diligent with having a very diverse network. That's what I would say. I should have had more lawyers in my network. I should— all I had was the ecosystem of people that I would naturally do the work that I did. So for anyone listening, have doctors, have lawyers, have just about every job range, like make it your mission to be friends with all these people because one day you'll have a question that is just a 5-minute question and you're gonna pay somebody a lot of money to answer you something in 10 minutes in an email and waste your time.

So yeah, I've worked with enough lawyers. I've worked with enough lawyers. My lawyers are gonna hear this and they're gonna be like, you should be doing all the negotiations yourself internally and the lawyers just do the very final part of it. Uh, don't negotiate your lawyers, that's for sure.

Yeah, we're not— it's not even about negotiating, it's just like writing, you know, all these kind of documents, and it's, it's, it can get complex and they can make it complex and someone you have to understand.

But yeah, and I would just conclude on that question too. Um, I mean, last, last year at Founder X, we had Jason Calacanis and he was kind talking about. So like, for those who don't know, I'm the host of This Week in Startups. He's a Founder Institute mentor, also, you know, proclaimed as one of the best investors in Silicon Valley. And his point was, you know, we're, we're not investing in the solo founder anymore. Now what we're looking for is like teams. So teams where in this economic environment, let's say maybe there's 3 of them that have hustler, the, um, what is it, the hacker, hustler, hipster, like that kind of combination where fundamentally the core team can build out the product and sell the product without any funding. Because, uh, like, unless you're in AI, you know, sometimes it can be difficult to fundraise right now. So maybe just before we go and get into networking here, um, maybe we'll start with you, Telma. Is there any final advice that you would have to anyone looking at becoming, uh, going from employee to entrepreneur?

There's a lot of information. We live in an amazing time where you can just Google stuff. And so you don't have to be left with doubt and questions. Reach out to people. Be surprised how many people just on LinkedIn will answer you with your question. All these questions that they're asking here, they might not ask you in the timeframe that you want. But I would say reach for it, discover it, be curious. Nothing is stopping you. Um, and you can, you can always test things. Test it and see if it works out for you. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't see any of this journey as— I, I'm not, I'm not reaching for some unicorn, whatever we see on social media. That's not what this is about. Because no matter where I land, no one can take everything that I've learned throughout all of these steps, even this type of discussion. It's, it's, it's with me, it's, it's there. So I see that as a value add, um, and I would recommend anyone that's exploring it to explore it, whatever that means to you.

And James, from your perspective, any final advice?

Yeah, I mean, the, the big thing, one of the earlier questions about validating the idea, and what I would say is Before you make any leap, right, whether it's of faith or it's a plan or it's financial or it's time or whatever, just validate, validate, validate, and really try and open your mind and your ears and what have you to be able to hear people saying, hang on a sec, this is not— this is a solution looking for a problem, or this isn't really a problem that matters to a lot of people or whatever. Because I think it's so easy to get fixated on your solution. And it's advice that you'll hear from a million different people saying focus on the problem rather than the solution, but it's advice which is very easily overlooked. So I would just like to reiterate that thought.

Yeah, and I would just conclude friend of ours, Erika Smith, who's like the head of the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation, recently said, failure is simply a means to an end, and failure does not determine who you are as a founder. And for me, that really stuck with me because I think, you know, as a founder, you have to deal with a lot of failure, and then you have to pick yourself up again and you got to go do it again. And I think that, yeah, it's just being comfortable with the fact that, you know, just because you failed doesn't mean that you personally are a failure. So thanks to everyone who attended. This is huge. We couldn't do without you. Thank you so much. Thanks to Telma. Thanks to James. Thanks to the whole team at Founders Institute helping put this on behind the scenes. Our producer, Fahima, behind the scenes. Amazing. Thank you, Fahima. So at this time, we're going to transition into the networking portion. So you'll kind of leave this, you'll go back to the tables. Tell them, James, if you got to go, that's okay. Or you can stick around, it's up to you. And then, yeah, we'll hang out here for maybe the next half an hour and then kind of log off. So thanks again, everyone, for tuning in. And until next time.

Thank you, James.

I'm not sure what that means for us.

I know, it's like bye.

Oh, I think they're working. Yeah, yeah, Fajima will turn the, uh, turn the rooms in.

So, uh, I'll do 5 minutes and then I'm off to bed.

Yeah, no worries. So if you want to, um, end this portion of the webinar and then we'll get into, uh, the networking here.

Uh, you guys just actually need to see right next to live, there's a, there's an arrow. That's what will take to the networking, uh, okay, perfect.

All right, so we'll see you guys over there.

Okay.