In 2009, Canadian entrepreneur Mike Quinn packed his backpack and moved to Lusaka, Zambia on a mission to find African entrepreneurs building scalable, high-impact businesses. There he stumbled across two South African brothers who had founded a business to help unbanked smallholder farmers receive mobile payments in a market where cash was king. After convincing his retired parents to mortgage their house and lend him $100,000, Mike joined as a co-founder of Zoona and became CEO for nine of the next ten years.
With his partners, Mike built a network of more than 3,000 entrepreneur agents across Zambia and Malawi that enabled millions of unbanked consumers to send and receive $2.5-billion in money transfers and remittances. Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Zoona raised over $35-million of venture investment and operated on the leading edge of Africa’s emerging fintech ecosystem.
Mike’s remarkable story gives a rare and honest glimpse into the workings of a pioneering African startup through the lens of a purpose-driven entrepreneur who went “all in”. Zoona faced tremendous adversity along the way: currency crises, investment round collapses, ruthless pushback from the major mobile network operators, and a continuous internal struggle to discover and execute a growth strategy that matched the company’s billion-dollar ambition.
It was by failing to win that Mike learned what entrepreneurship – specifically entrepreneurship in Africa – is all about, and it was what motivated him to double down and try again.
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Review This Product
[Refreshing]
Wed, 29 Dec 2021 | Review
by: Gary L.
[Refreshing] I used to read a lot of business books, but over time I began finding them repetitive and the advice given theoretical and impractical — this is not that!
It is a story about an African startup, and in that, an enthraling read.
It's also a view into the 'hard earned' lessons of failure, seldom told, and refreshingly practical insight into how things might have gone differently.
Highly recommended!
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