A-Players, Assemble!

Welcome to Tech Safari!

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Hey, Caleb here 👋🏾

Today, we’re launching a community for startup talent in Africa.

Read till the end to get the full tea! 😉

But before we dive in, a quick events note… 👇🏾

Now, let’s get into this week’s edition!

Hasan Luongo doesn’t build startups. He builds rockets.

In the last 10 years, he has:

• Helped Chipper Cash (an African fintech) go from 50,000 users to 5 million users in 3 years

• Grown Voicea, a voice assistant software that sold to Cisco for $200 million

• Led a 3-person growth team at Honey to a $3 billion exit

But none of his big wins have come from being a founder.

He’s a serial operator — a skilled hand who’s built a career turning small startups into massive successes.

But like all operators Hasan started from scratch.

His first job was a marketing role at a small business coaching company.

Across Africa, many operators are working their way up the ladder like Hasan.

They’re behind the scenes, but most successful startups will be built on their impact.

Let’s get to know..

The African Operator

More than 3,000 startups are active in Africa today.

And while most are started by visionary founders, they’re built by operators.

Operators = talent doing functions like sales, marketing, operations, product and finance.

They take the founders’ vision and turn them into backable companies.

And most of them have careers that look just like startups.

They fail fast, learn fast, and do everything they can to grow.

Once in a while, the best talent finds each other at certain companies — whether by luck or intention.

And when they do, incredible things happen.

Ridwan Olalere and Rian Cochran are a great example of that.

Ridwan started out working as a software engineer in Lagos, but moved up the ladder to become ops lead at Opay.

At Opay, he met Rian who was leading finance.

Today they’re the founders of LemFi - a remittance startup that raised $53 million in Series B three weeks ago.

The best operators start the best companies.

That’s because they‘ve (often) worked on the biggest problems in their space with the best people.

But it's not just about becoming a founder.

Founders start, operators build

Sometimes, operators stick around, building more value at companies and getting better at their craft as they go.

When Paystack started, its first hire was Opemipo Aikomo - a designer who was only two years out of college.

He designed the first version of Paystack’s website and product.

And when they went off to YC to raise money, he was there.

Over nine years, he grew Paystack’s design team from a one-man show to a team of 20 designers.

When Paystack sold for $200 million in 2020, he was still there.

And many of the early employees at Paystack still work there today — adding value and growing their careers.

For every company that succeeds, talent like Opemipo is key.

And there’s data (from LSA Global) to show that it’s true:

• Companies with the best-in-class talent across the board grow 58% faster

• They are 72% more profitable on average

• And are twice as likely to retain customers than others.

These places have high talent density.

This means they have great talent on their team - and that the best operators get to work together.

It’s what Steve Jobs meant when he said that in tech, the difference between the average and the best is 50x.

So, A-players are best with other A-players.

That’s exactly what happened at Careem.

Meet the Careem Cartel

Careem is the poster child for what great talent can create.

Started in 2012, it beat Uber to become North Africa and the Middle East’s biggest ride-hailing company.

And after fighting a losing battle, Uber bought Careem for $3.1 billion in 2020.

But beating Uber was only possible thanks to Careem’s stacked team.

They understood the market better and could move faster.

But they were also a reflection of the culture Careem had built: one that took in fresh talent and trained them to be the best.

When these people leave, they often go on to scale other great companies - whether as founders or operators.

In fact, over 100 companies have been started by ex-Careem employees.

It’s clear that bringing talent together is important.

But across Africa, many great operators still work in isolation.

So it’s worth asking:

How do we connect Africa’s rising talent?

Great things happen when great talent gets together — like they do at Apple, Careem, and Paystack.

So, how do we bring the next generation of operators together and help them connect.

And how do we help them find the best jobs and opportunities to grow their careers?

At Tech Safari, we built a community that spotlights leading founders and investors.

But now, we’re building for the next generation of A-players.

The budding operators who will go on to build Africa’s startup future.

Enter: Talent Safari

African operators are underserved. If you’re an operator:

• You’re not connected with other people in the same role as you.

• It’s not always clear how to move up in your career.

• And it’s not easy to find the best jobs.

While there's so much for founders, not many people are building for operators.

That’s why we’re launching Talent Safari.

It’s a community where the best rising talent in Africa can connect and grow together.

And we think there’s a lot of value we can add:

Not only are we creating spaces for talent to connect with one another.

We’ll also be connecting them to jobs at some of Africa’s most exciting companies.

We’re building as we go - so it’s only day one.

But we know we’re building the community around Africa’s next generation of operators.

We’re kicking off with 100 operators.

So, if you’re a mid-career talent in operations, marketing, product, finance or sales…

We’ll be reviewing applications over the next couple of weeks.

And if you know anyone who would fit right in, tag them here.

Are you excited for our next Safari?

Hit us back and let us know.

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