Why I HATE the word “Lack” in African Pitches

“Lacking” isn’t the Problem!

I hear the age-old trope that there’s a lack of opportunities, medical personnel, power, food security or any number of other things way too often whenever I listen to pitches from my fellow founders working in Africa.

Yes there are many things that need development in Africa, whether it’s the infrastructure, power, financial markets, food security, or healthcare systems etc.?

These development needs are typically used as a justification for a particular service / solution, or why someone should be the beneficiary of some form of funding, whether in the form of investment or grants.

Paternalism Gets Sympathy Not Partners

My issue is that framing ‘problems in Africa’ in this way creates a paternalistic, superior-inferior, power dynamic between the investor/donor and the founder. It also, either implicitly or explicitly, plants the idea in the funder’s mind that their country is superior to Africa.

From the investor/donor perspective if Africa's problems can be boiled down to a lack of something, then it only makes logical sense that if there’s a simple solution that’ll address that lack, then the problem is solved.

The consequence is that investors and donors push founders to create drastically oversimplified solutions that’ll be, at best, a plaster for the problem that you’re trying to solve. At worst it can actually undermine the goal of your solution.?

Look no further than a long list of fundraising projects over the past century in response to the many crises in Africa.?

Their lack of long term success shows us that they became sinks for money and their impact disappeared once funding was diverted to the next big catastrophe.

The age old saying “give a man a fish you feed him once, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” is perfectly apt.??

Sustainable Change Needs Private Markets

The alternative I suggest to founders is to focus their attention on missed opportunities and money being left on the table by not investing in Africa.?

Things like the Jevons Paradox, will do much more to convey a message that you need to invest into your business/project much more than pulling on heartstrings ever will.?

For those not familiar with the Jevons Paradox, it’s an economics term that describes the phenomenon that once you make something cheaper (through increased productivity / capacity) rather than demand for it reducing, it actually increases.

This can be applied to almost any industry from steel production, electricity consumption, plastic use, cloud computing, or AI algorithms. The cheaper any commodity becomes, the more potential uses people find for it, which means the more it gets used and the more demand it creates.

How I Pitch?

I stopped using the word Lack in all of my pitches. Instead found out what the unmet demand for our products and services were.

For Kapsule, I use our data to help pharmaceutical companies to see that they are missing out on billions of dollars in sales, simply not having their products registered in the right markets.?

We’re also showing them that there’s over 100,000 hospitals and millions of patients in Africa that can get their new products approved quickly and more cheaply. Saving them billions of dollars of R&D cost, and gaining billions more in sales through better utilization of their patents over time.?

Investing into Kapsule as an investor, or customer, makes perfect sense, because it makes Business Sense!

How to Pitch Moving Forward!

If you’re creating a product or service in Africa, ask yourself:?

If my product was successful and the lack of x disappeared, how would this lead to the increased use of my product??

If you can’t come up with an answer, you have a serious sustainability problem that no amount of marketing, funding, or endorsements can solve.?

Orange juice became a staple on the worldwide breakfast table because of an overproduction of oranges in the USA, mixed with a smart marketing strategy. Because of this an entirely new category for orange consumption was created.

How do I find new ways to 'sell the Oranges'??

Whether you’re a technology company providing AI assisted diagnostics, a solar startup providing clean energy, or fintech banking the unbanked, there is a future where the increased adoption of your product leads to an even bigger increase in the usage of your product.?

It’s your job as a founder to find out how to create that flywheel, as well as how to communicate that process clearly to both investors and customers.

Then, and only then, can you stop relying on sympathy dollars, and begin to find long term investment partners who are looking for mutual benefit.?