Essays
Building ventures past the point where the imported advice stops working.
Two Jurisdictions, One Business: What Operating Across Harare and Sandton Teaches About Structure
Operating one business through two countries means two entities, two currencies and two regulators. The structure is a capital decision, not legal admin.
The Board You Can Afford: Advisory Structures for Ventures Too Small for Directors
A formal board is often premature for a small venture. No governance at all is worse. A three-person advisory group is the board you can afford.
One Vertical at a Time: The Super-App Temptation and the Discipline of Sequence
Nobody uses a super-app because it has many services. They use it because one service earned their trust, and the next was one tap away.
When the Bank Wants In: Strategic Money and the Strings You Cannot See
Banks, telcos and insurers are among the most motivated investors in African startups. Their money buys a position, not just a return, and the strings rarely appear in the term sheet.
Two Signatures: Financial Controls for a Team Too Small to Have a Finance Department
Small teams skip financial controls because they trust each other. Controls are what protect that trust when a number does not add up.
The Quarterly Letter Nobody Asked For
The quarter closes tomorrow. The people who put money, trust or credit into your venture would rather hear bad news on a schedule than good news by accident. One page, four times a year, same structure every time. It is the cheapest governance a small venture can buy.
Donor Money Is Not Customer Money
A grant in the pipeline feels like revenue and behaves like nothing else in your business. It reprices your product, reshapes your team, and ends on a date the market does not care about. Three tests before you take it, and how to take it without becoming a grant-shaped company.
The Year Nothing Happened: How to Read a Flat Year Before You React to It
Three quarters in, the numbers look like last year's. Before you call a strategy offsite, work out which of three very different things a flat year is telling you, because two of them are good news and the response to each is different.
Parting Well in a Small Market
The person you let go in March will be across the table in November, working for your biggest prospect. In a small market, how you end an employment is a governance decision that follows you. Five rules for doing it properly.