African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep11: Balancing Funding Pressure with Solving Customer Pain Points

The African Pre-seed Podcast

🎙️ In this episode, we talk about how founders can focus on solving real problems instead of building ventures that prioritise fundraising first and solving user pain points second. With fundraising harder and founders finding themselves in a pinch, the macro seems to be exerting overt influence on how founders position and build their businesses.

To be clear, there are other arguments for raising money, one of which is the idea that somtimes founders are working on incredibly difficult problems that require audacious and expensive solutions.

Whether you’re scaling an existing solution or trying to solve an incredibly difficult problem, you should be ready to be the champion for your startup. You also need to have domain expertise that gives investors confidence in your ability to execute.

What to look forward to in this episode:

• Gerald Black's journey to exit [06:15]
• Competing in a saturated market [08:14]
• African founders prioritizing fundraising over addressing real problems [17:02]
• The systematic process of identifying customer pain points and building ventures effectively address them [21:27]
• The role of "Operators" in startup ecosystem growth [30:51]
• Staying warm during the funding winter [34:16]

CONNECT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA:

• Connect with Gerald Black on Linkedin.
• Connect with Andrew Obuoforibo on LinkedIn.

Tell us...

• What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode?
• What topic would you like for us to feature on a future podcast?

Let us know via the hashtag: #AfricanPreseedPodcast🔌