Take it from someone who knows: Scaling a firm from simple startup to unicorn status isn’t for the faint of heart. For Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, the founder and CEO of the African e-payments platform Flutterwave, earning a valuation of more than $1 billion wasn’t about having the best idea or the most talented workers.
It was about resolve.
“Africa is different. Africa is really, really hard. The grit you require here is at a different level. There are a lot of infrastructure challenges you have to cope with. There, in my opinion, lies the opportunity,” he said. “We need to solve those problems, create the value, and sell that value to people who are willing to pay for it. That’s what you’re seeing across the board in Africa.”
Agboola launched his company in 2016 with a new idea and a handful of employees. Today, the firm operates in more than 30 nations on the African continent as well as in Europe and North America. Flutterwave has licenses in 49 out of the 50 U.S. states; it functions across nations like England, Italy, Canada, Mexico, and more.
And none of it came easy.
Learning From Others
Olugbenga Agboola started Flutterwave to solve a specific problem. Having worked at PayPal and Google Wallet, he understood the capabilities of modern financial technology. So when he took a job at a bank in Nigeria and saw his corporate clients struggling to move money across international borders, he knew he could build a solution.
“We were the largest bank by footprint, I think, in Africa at that time and we couldn’t help these customers scale their businesses. It wasn’t because we couldn’t do it. It was because of the regulatory barriers, technology barriers, and the lack of agility on our part to build quickly and scale,” he said.
“That was one of the triggers behind Flutterwave. I was wondering, ‘Why can’t we just build this infrastructure? Why, if I want to send money to Ghana, does money have to move from Lagos to New York, and from New York to Ghana?’ It didn’t make sense to me. If you get on a plane from Lagos to Ghana, you get there faster than doing a money transfer. You might as well take the money in a bag and get on a plane.”
But anyone can have an idea. The real skill of a successful founder lies in their actions. Taking on a giant problem like this, which would require immense infrastructure, was daunting. Before he began, Agboola put his network to use. He talked with people across Africa and Silicon Valley.
Hearing advice from others helped him shape his business plan to better reflect the realities of African finance. And, just as importantly, it gave him an invaluable perspective on the process.
“One thing I think I learned from [tech startup accelerator] Y Combinator is to make what customers want. So I will evolve that to be: Put your customers at the center of everything that you’re doing. That’s very important, and it’s a long, hard road,” he says.
Handling Adversity
Starting a new fintech firm is always a challenge. It’s even more complex in Africa, which doesn’t have the kind of technological infrastructure that Western countries take for granted.
“It’s been hard, speaking very frankly,” Agboola admits. “It’s been really hard. When you attempt to build payments infrastructure across 30 countries, 30 different central bank licenses to apply for, 30 different requirements of compliance to adhere to.”
Getting 30 people to agree on anything is almost impossible. But meeting the conditions of 30 countries? That takes serious skill.
Luckily, Agboola understood something foundational about relationships. They live and die through face-to-face interactions.
“We’re one of the most complex companies in Africa today because of one big reason, we have a board in every country,” he says. “A board in Nigeria, a board in most markets, a board globally as well, regulatory requirements to fulfill across the board.”
Having a physical presence in a country ensured better communication between Flutterwave and the governments whose approval was needed. These relationships proved to be a cornerstone that allowed the firm to expand rapidly.
“I think we’re actually the only company in Africa that has navigated Africa licensing like what we’ve done, to be able to do it at that scale and get it done properly as well. Till today, if you get an Uber in Cairo, in Egypt, into Uber in Johannesburg, Uber in Lagos, Nigeria, Uber … it’s a Flutterwave infrastructure,” he says.
“And that is so important because we’ve been able to build that technology to scale it that way. What is more important here is we’ve also been able to build the regulatory rails to be able to scale data as well, across all the markets that we’re operating in.”
But a successful fintech startup requires more than a great idea and smart execution. It also requires perspective.
“When I was starting, someone told me it was a 10-year journey. I was like, ‘Nah, 10 years, no way’ … [but] they were right, it’s a 10-year journey. That said, the journey is as important as the destination,” Agboola says. “Sometimes we optimize for that exit, that end goal, but I think if you get there and by the time you’re there, you are ragged, you are not in any way, shape, or form to actually enjoy that value, then what’s the point? So I think the journey is as equally as important as the destination as well.”
