From zero to hero in just 3 weeks: my LinkedIn game 💩 👉 🦸‍♀️.

Before jumping right into the meat of this episode (learnings + observations), let me explain how I managed to meet that many busy entrepreneurs.

My stay here was relatively short so I needed a way to connect quickly with people, but also find those hidden startups.

I arrived with a short list of 10 people I wanted to meet, mainly in the fintech space, and managed to book my initial meetings.

After each meeting, I posted a picture with the founder on LinkedIn and shared insights about their startup.

I was surprised how effective that was. I received a tons of DMs of startup founders curious to meet and people sending greeting messages.

This technique proved highly effective as founders and employees reshared the posts, providing new eyeballs among their network.

Moral of the story: put yourself out there and share whatever you are building. Good things will follow!

Ethiopian tech ecosystem at t-zero

Understanding a tech ecosystem involves more than just listing funded startups.

It’s about understanding the overall sentiment, the regulatory environment, the work culture, the political dynamics and the economic reality.

Based on numerous conversations with founders, here are some insights and observations about the tech environment:

• ✅ Opportunities everywhere: Most of the things are yet to be built. There are really 100 startup ideas a day you can have here.

• ✅ Fast changing habits: Ethiopians are quickly getting access to smartphones and digital payments. That will unlock a ton of new business model (online marketplace, SAAS etc)

•  ✅ Hungry young generation: the new generation of entrepreneurs have access to information and are eager to create the next African giants.

  

  Meeting with Gebeta Maps, a startup creating maps APIs in Ethiopia.

• ✅ Low competition: startups can easily be the only one in their market. Creating a monopolistic company is easier than elsewhere.

• ✅ Cheap labour: I've seen startups with over 10 employees operating with a monthly cash burn under $10K😳. Startups here can be very cash-efficient.

• ❌ Bureaucratic procedures: the process of registering a new business can be lengthy and cumbersome, involving multiple government agencies and extensive paperwork.

• ❌Crazy loan requirements: Banks and financial institutions often have stringent requirements for collateral, which many startups cannot meet.

• ❌ Limited venture capital: There is a scarcity of venture capital and angel investors in Ethiopia, making it hard for startups to secure early-stage funding. What is expected from a startup to even raise $100K is what would be expected from a Seed or Series A startup in the US/Europe.

• ❌Internal conflicts: While you may not feel it in Addis Ababa and most parts of the country, internal conflicts can scare investors away and hinder startup operations in some areas.

• ❌ Currency restrictions: startups struggle to access foreign currency, impacting their ability to import necessary equipment or pay for software (ex: pay for google cloud).

• ❌Repatriation of profits: Foreign investors may face difficulties in repatriating profits due to these controls.

• ❌Talent shortage: I heard from many founders here that it was hard to hire for technical positions. In fact, they are in direct competition with big corporates and foreign companies that have deeper pockets.

• ❌Low employe retention: a lot of founders were complaining about how hard it was to keep employees on the long term.

• ❌ Cultural Barrier: a lot of the founders I met had an amazing startups and managed to achieve crazy milestones, but were very bad at selling their vision. 

  The ability to clearly explain your startup end-goal and not be afraid to sell an ambitious vision is crucial to raise venture capital.

• ❌ Lack of good startup accelerators: there are some startup accelerators but they get most of their money from NGOs and do not invest directly in startups. A lot of startups are fighting for prizes instead of customers.

• ❌ Few exit possibilities: there are no companies big enough within the country to absorbe a startup with a multi-million deal. Buyers would have to come from outside.

While the negative list seems huge, I strongly believe that those points will disappear within the coming 5 years.

There is a true motivation from the Ethiopian government to foster innovation, develop startups and open the market with concrete measures.

The first generation of Ethiopian tech unicorns is being built as I write (I've met some with great potential), and it only takes one or two success stories to completely change the landscape.

We’ve seen this happen in India, Nigeria or Kenya.