Excerpts from the Africa Tech Startups Funding Report 2020. 🧵

THREAD: Here are 10 insights I've learned over the last 5 years from cofounding and selling business.

On startups, investing, marketing, and career advice:

👇👇

"I learn more from speaking with others than reading" is complete nonsense.

The smartest people in the history of the world have distilled their life's work into a few hundred pages.

No, a 30 minute convo with your buddy won't teach you more.

The best businesses in the world expand their target market

-Nike convinced the world that everyone is an athlete
-Apple convinced the world that everyone is a creator
-Shopify is convincing the world that everyone is an entrepreneur

Champion customers and they will reward you

"Follow your passion" is complete complete crap.

People are passionate about things they are good at. Get really good at something, and you will become passionate at it.

Then you will make enough money to follow your original passion in your free time.

There is no industry in the world that is easier to get to an 8 figure exit than digital media.

There is also no industry harder to get to a 10 figure valuation than digital media.

Understand your industry and plan accordingly.

We've been told having a job is safer than entrepreneurship.

But that's a lie.

10 reasons to bet on yourself:

More value capture:

As an employee or an owner, income is a function of value creation.

The only difference?

Some (or most) of an employee's value flows upstream to ownership.

Owners capture ALL of the value they create, and even more from their team's output.

Income diversification:

Entrepreneurs spread income across several accounts/business units, acting as insurance against total income loss.

Employees have a single income source AND are exposed to factors out of their control:

- economy
- corporate pivots
- budgets

Low downside:

In the past you needed an investment or debt to start a business.

In 2022 you need an internet connection, creativity, and consistent effort.

EX: you can start a 7-figure agency business (65%+ margins) for a few hundred dollars per month in software fees.

Time freedom:

Successful entrepreneurs use leverage (labor, capital, technology, audience) to disassociate their time with income.

Employees are required to be present in-person or on calls/video, making it hard to use leverage to get more done with less time.

Starting a company is hard.

The hardest part: the euphoric ups followed by the VICIOUS downs

I wasn’t satisfied that this was “the way it had to be”

I started digging. Worked with a coach. Read books

Here’s the #1 I learned to fight the ups and downs

I do it daily 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ First, let’s back up.

One thing entrepreneurs all have in common is that we are HUMAN.

Newsflash: Humans weren’t designed to be happy. We were designed for one thing: survival.

Now if you were designing an animal to survive, what are some things you may give it?

2/ How about an alert system?

Something to let them know they should be careful or stop doing something: EMOTIONS

Fear - what wants to be paid attention to?
Anger - what wants to be stopped?
Sadness - what wants to be let go?
Joy - what Wants to be celebrated?

What else?

3/ You’d want this animal to be able to use these emotions and quickly spot threats.

In fact, humans are built to walk into a room and first pay attention to anything that could harm them!

But these days, we don’t often experience threats aren’t to our physical survival…

Today, my little one-person business crossed $3M in revenue.

It took 1,187 days, I ran zero ads & operate at a 94% margin.

Here are the 20 steps of my wild & strange journey:

Hope it's helpful to someone.

[🧵 thread]

1/ Created lots of noise

When I was just getting started, I looked at attention as my friend.

I wrote content every day before I even had a business, just to find my voice.

I started on LinkedIn.

I shared my thoughts & observations about building a SaaS unicorn as the CRO.

2/ Honed in on signals

Inside all of that noise was some signals.

Sometimes I bombed, and sometimes I struck a chord.

The more I looked at what resonated, the more I doubled down.

This allowed me to understand what people cared about.

So, I kept writing & talking about it.

3/ Built a service business

My experience building SaaS was resonating. So I began creating more and more content about that.

Founders sent me DMs asking questions.

I responded to every single one.

Once I had prospects in my funnel, I started consulting.

4/ Found my ideal customers

Inside your customer base is more signals.

What are the commonalities between the customers you love & those who love you?

Mine were early-stage SMB SaaS in the healthcare space. A space I was experienced in & loved.

That became my ideal customer.

TODAY I WILL BE SHOWING YOU HOW TO CONVERT YOUR PHYSICAL SKILL TO A DIGITAL PRODUCT. part A

People ask me one question over and over: What is a digital product? And why should an entrepreneur focus on digital products instead of just their physical counterparts?

What Is a Product?

A product is any item that you can sell to someone else in exchange for cash or barter. It could be a piece of produce, an electronic gadget, or a comfy couch.
Until the Internet altered commerce for the better, a product was always a physical object or item.

The virtual world has opened up a new category of products (which will get into later).
The point, however, is that a product is something you sell. Most often, you ask. for money in exchange for the product. That’s how you earn a living.

What Is a Digital Product?

A digital product is any product you sell online that doesn’t have a physical form or substance. You can’t hold a website theme in your hand, smell an e-book, or taste a software program — Uber eats does come close though ; ).

Why Are Digital Products Preferable to Physical Products?

You might wonder why you would offer digital products instead of creating your own physical product. After all, physical products dominated commerce for hundreds of thousands of years.