Author: Broader

In Africa, the image of a startup with venture capital backing often dominates the imagination. Yet some of the most enduring businesses on the continent began with nothing more than savings, sweat, and strategic creativity. Bootstrapping, a word that conjures scrappy early mornings, careful spreadsheets, and endless ingenuity is not a limitation; it is a discipline that forces founders to focus on value, revenue, and sustainable growth from day one. Bootstrapping starts with mindset. African entrepreneurs who succeed without external funding learn early that every naira, shilling, or cedi counts. Decisions are guided by cash flow, customer retention, and the…

In Silicon Valley, product-market fit is that elusive moment when users “can’t live without your product.” But what happens when your users aren’t early adopters with disposable income, but price-sensitive, offline-first customers with different priorities? In Africa, product-market fit isn’t a celebratory milestone, it’s a survival mechanism. It doesn’t just mean building something people want. It means building something people will use consistently, pay for without reminders, and eventually tell others about What Counts as Traction? In many African markets, revenue isn’t always the best signal of product-market fit. Sometimes, the clearest signs are behavioural. Are your customers finding hacks…

Pricing in Africa is more than maths. It’s more than marketing. It’s a direct conversation with the consumer, one shaped by cash flow, trust, inflation, and how people live day to day. Across the continent, startups are realising that copying Western pricing models often leads to churn or stagnation. The ones who get it right like M-KOPA, SafeBoda, and Wasoko are pricing with context, not guesswork. Why Pricing in Africa Isn’t Just About Margins In mature markets, pricing is mostly about covering costs and protecting profits. But in African markets, price also carries weight in the following ways: A ₦100…

Raising capital is one of the hardest challenges for African startups, especially at the pre-seed stage. Venture capital is still in its early phases across most of the continent, with limited players and a high concentration of cheques going to a small pool of founders. Yet, many startups have launched, gained traction, and even scaled without ever receiving a cent from traditional VCs. This raises a crucial question for aspiring founders: is it really possible to raise pre-seed funding in Africa without a VC? The answer is yes, but it requires a different playbook. One that blends resourcefulness, storytelling, and…

In a world flooded with dashboards, graphs and growth charts, not all metrics are created equal. Founders, marketers and investors are often drawn to shiny numbers that look good in pitch decks but tell very little about long-term sustainability. These are called vanity metrics, figures that inflate the ego but not the bottom line. At the centre of any serious conversation about business growth lies a critical question: Are we chasing numbers that impress or those that actually drive value? What are Vanity Metrics? Vanity metrics are performance indicators that may look impressive on the surface but lack substance when…

For Africa’s younger generations, living standards are no longer just a measure of income or consumption; they are a reflection of aspiration, identity, and the negotiation between hope and reality. Millennials and Gen Z, born in periods of rapid urbanisation, technological expansion, and globalisation, inhabit a paradoxical landscape. They are the most connected, globally aware, and ambitious cohort the continent has ever seen, yet they face economic, infrastructural, and social constraints that often make those aspirations difficult to fully realise. Their everyday lives are shaped not only by what is affordable but also by what signals status, belonging, and self-actualisation…

Virtual communities have moved from the periphery to the centre of African cultural life, subtly reshaping how people connect, worship, marry, work, learn and express identity. What once relied on physical proximity, village squares, church gatherings, extended family meetings, neighbourhood associations now finds renewed life in digital form. The shift is profound but understated, unfolding not through grand announcements but in the quiet rhythms of everyday life: the midnight prayer meetings that knit together Nigerians in Abuja and London, the weddings hosted in Nairobi but celebrated by relatives scattered across three continents, the book clubs that have revived reading culture…

In the relentless rhythm of cities like Lagos, Nairobi and Accra, the end of week brings more than a break. For many urban professionals, it opens a door to reinvention a chance to recalibrate in a place that feels like escape. As this pattern becomes more ingrained, the desire for frequent “mini‑escapes” is no longer just shaping weekend planning; it is reshaping where people choose to make home. In short: wellness weekends are transforming residential decisions. In Lagos, the ripple effects are visible in real estate. Developers are increasingly marketing what can only be described as “vacation‑like living” gated communities…

In the early morning calm of Victoria Island, Lagos joggers thread their way along quiet streets, headphones in, phones tracking every heartbeat and step. By midday, rooftop gyms hum with activity as professionals break away from office walls to find movement, focus, and status. Fitness in Lagos has transformed. It is no longer just a private ritual; it is a visible lifestyle choice, a statement of ambition and increasingly, a stage for brands to engage with an aspirational, health-conscious urban audience. This evolution is mirrored across the continent. In Nairobi, running clubs weave through the shaded trails of Karura Forest,…

For Obi Ezeude, the story of Beloxxi Industries is not simply about biscuits, it is about the belief that Nigeria can compete on the global stage. His entrepreneurial journey began in 1994 with the founding of Beloxxi & Company Limited (BCL), an importing business bringing in premium biscuits such as Hwa Tai and Luxury Cream Crackers from Malaysia, and Dean’s Shortbread from Scotland. A graduate of Banking and Finance, Ezeude returned to Nigeria in his twenties with a determination to be part of the solution rather than escape the country’s economic struggles. His early years were spent learning the rhythms…