The Ledger
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Akinlade in 2018: Nigeria's population will exceed the US in five years
“Like in the next five years, I think Nigeria is going to be even more than the US.”
Building impressive things is the best way to network
“Startups, founders think they want to be the way to network, like the way to get out there is to network and just be everywhere, you know, but the way to build a strong network is to build something impressive”
Paystack was the only Nigerian payments company with automated disputes
“So we started building where the first company, I think was still the only company that has like An automated dispute process and all that.”
Payment fundamentals are identical across Africa, only local context varies
“We've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and these things work the same way in these markets. You know, the part that just changes is the local context.”
Paystack brought on Stripe and Visa for cross-border scaling expertise
“That's one of the reasons why just thinking about that series A, we had to think about companies that have figured out skill. Companies like Stripe, companies like Visa. Like if there's a company, the companies that have thought about moving payments from one …”
Foreign payments companies struggle in Africa due to local context
“And that is why when people say, oh, why won't an international company just come? To Africa because it's very difficult. This local context is difficult and it really takes a team that believes that this is why they're here.”
Engineering challenges require seasoned mentors who have seen problems firsthand
“Because I know with engineering, some things you just have to have seen the problems before. You can't really anticipate some things, you know, so just having someone having a 10 X engineer, just sit with a team of five engineers. I think it helps everybody.”
Most cryptocurrency activity in Nigeria is focused on rapid trading
“Most of the activities around trading, you know, people are buying and selling very quickly.”
Getting into YC is easy if founders clearly articulate their business
“If you have like all the right components, it's extremely easy, you know? I think the hard work is, can you, Clearly articulate how impressive your business is. Can you just even explain what you're doing and can they understand what you're saying?”
Paystack was the first Nigerian startup admitted to Y Combinator
“We became the first Nigerian company to get into YC.”
Over 10 Nigerian startups joined YC within two years of Paystack
“Now I think there are over 10 other companies that I've gotten in just two years.”
Paystack raised a Series A round from Stripe and Visa
“We just raised a Series A million dollars from Stripe and Visa.”
Paystack processed only $200 during the month of their YC interview
“On the interview day, I actually remember they asked us how much had we processed that month. I said, 200 dollars.”
Paystack hit $20 million in monthly volume three years after YC
“Now last month we did over twenty million dollars. That's just three years, you know.”
Paystack reduced Nigerian online checkout flows from seven steps to two
“It's a payments company, we've made a huge leap over what currently exists. It used to be about seven steps before, it's now two steps”
Historically, Nigerian startup founders were older than Silicon Valley peers
“In Nigeria, oh well, when I was starting up. The kind of people that were building cool stuff, but really like in the, Thirties and their forties and their fifties.”
Less than two percent of Nigerian consumer spending uses cards
“So, but just less than two percent of consumer spending is spent for cards.”
Legacy Nigerian payment infrastructure was built for enterprises favoring complexity
“I think before now, A lot of the payments infrastructure was built for enterprise companies. And of course, enterprise companies like complexity.”
Akinlade: The best part of Y Combinator is observing Bookface discussions
“And now I think the best part of YC is just book face, just passively seeing conversations happening.”
Paystack let unregistered businesses accept up to $3,000 via Nigeria's BVN
“We can just get your BVN and we get your details.
We can verify that.
Okay.
We can allow you accept payments.
For, I think, up to about 3000 dollars, and then after that you have to like register the business.”
Paystack bypassed cards to support direct bank and USSD payments
“Very quickly, we moved past paying with cards, because not everybody wants to pay with a card, so we allow people to pay directly with your bank accounts.
We allow people to pay with USSD.”