Essays
Building ventures past the point where the imported advice stops working.
The Stuck Middle: Why Most African Ventures Disappear Into Their Own Category
Premium ventures attract customers willing to pay for excellence. Economy ventures attract customers buying on price. The middle attracts no one. Most African ventures end up stuck there, and the stuckness is what kills them.
When Founders Ask for More Leads, They Are Asking the Wrong Question
Almost every founder who comes to me for help opens with the same request: I need more leads. The request is almost always pointing at the wrong problem. The work is to find the actual one.
Stop Saying Solutions: The Vague Word That Is Costing Your Venture Customers
Solutions is the most overused word in business marketing. It is also a tell for founders who have not yet done the work of articulating what they actually do. Here is why the word is costing you customers, and what to use instead.
Stop Thinking Big. Start Thinking Specifically.
The advice to think big is one of the most repeated and least useful pieces of founder counsel. Vague ambition produces vague action. The discipline that actually grows ventures is to think specifically about a finite outcome that can actually be reached.
Sales Targets Are Output Metrics. The Founders Who Hit Them Track Inputs.
Most founders set monthly sales targets and watch the team scramble to hit them. The founders whose targets actually get hit consistently track a different category of metric entirely. Here is the distinction that separates the two.
The Unique Value Proposition Most African Founders Should Stop Trying to Write
The standard UVP framework was built for crowded markets. African founders often face the opposite problem: the category itself does not exist. Here is the discipline that produces a value proposition that actually does work in a market that has not yet been formed.
When Customers Say Your Prices Are Too High, They Are Telling You Something Else
When a customer says your prices are too high, the price is rarely the actual problem. Six structural causes of price objection, and the one that founders almost never diagnose correctly.
Beyond Your Sympathy Market: Why Your First Customers Will Mislead You
Your first customers will be your friends. That is the problem. The sympathy market pretends to be a market and is in fact your social network priced. Here is the framework that distinguishes it from real revenue, and the test that proves your venture has crossed the threshold.
What Resilient Ventures Actually Do (And What Most Resilience Writing Gets Wrong)
Most writing about business resilience is celebratory and useless. Real resilience is built into the venture's structure before adversity arrives, not summoned from the founder's character afterward. Here is what the structure actually looks like.