Because I am involved - why we set on a mission to unlock prosperity for Africans.
Since Fast Forward’s TechCrunch announcement, I have received variations of this basic question from friends and industry colleagues: Why a venture studio?
No man is an island, Entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. … Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
No Man Is an Island - John Donne
Since Fast Forward’s TechCrunch announcement, I have received variations of this basic question from friends and industry colleagues: Why a venture studio?
While the journey to Fast Forward can be traced to my entrepreneurial career (building category-leading companies such as Jobberman, Nigeria’s leading job site and Whogohost, market-leader in .ng domain names) and angel investing in/advising 50+ startups, it wasn’t until late 2021 that a vision began to crystallize on how founding a venture studio could deliver a significant impact in Africa’s tech and startup ecosystem.
In May 2021 I started a new venture, a fintech which ran into regulatory challenges quite early and was at an inflection point. This led me to apply to the MIT Legatum Foundry Fellowship — a fellowship for Africa’s best and proven entrepreneurial minds; helping them figure out the next big step on their journey, and how they could maximize their impact.
My time at the Foundry Fellowship involved deep introspection and soul-searching. Who am I? How do I multiply the impact of my work? I like to see ideas transform the world and help birth them. That’s who I am at the core — an ideas person. Many of my closest friends make jokes saying “Ope, you never stay in one place,” in reference to how fast I am come up with tech-influenced ideas for real problems, why they matter and pragmatic go-to-market strategies for them.
And why not? Ideas run the world. The greatest innovations have come from those who dared to challenge the status quo. And a conclusion I’ve come to repeatedly is that on so many levels, the status quo in Africa needs to be disrupted. Sure, we’ve seen plenty of progress across the continent in recent years. Still, when it comes to socio-economic and commercial indicators vis a vis the world – from digital infrastructure, to financial inclusion, to education – Africa (on average) still lags too far behind. Startup entrepreneurs and their ideas offer a unique value proposition for profound advancements in how we live and do business in Africa.
However, those entrepreneurs and their ideas need support from the earliest phases. I started spending more time with entrepreneurs across Africa, many of them early-stage founders in need of strategic advice. My experience building multiple African businesses across different sectors meant that I had insight and expertise to offer these young entrepreneurs on their journey.
In the end, I completed the Foundry Fellowship with three clear thoughts.
The first was about myself — I am an ideas person; I obsess about great ideas and love supporting them when possible.
The second was about what I wanted to do next — help unlock prosperity for hundreds of millions of Africans.
The third was about how I wanted to do it — by providing not just funding, but hands-on support for entrepreneurs.
I shared these realizations with Lara and a few good friends, and over time the right structure and support began to emerge. Lara signed on, Jake Bright signed on. The wonderful team at MIT Legatum Centre and my new lifelong friends also supported me in no small way.
So what is Fast Forward and why should it exist?
Fast forward is on a mission to unlock African prosperity through technology, and I consider myself and my partners the missionaries. Africa’s population explosion is a ticking time bomb. According to the UN Population Division. Four billion people (or 36 per cent of the world's population) could live in the region by 2100. What would you do if you have a ticking time bomb in your backyard? You defuse it! The problems are undoubtedly wicked, but our goal is simple — to unlock prosperity opportunities for 100m Africans through technology entrepreneurship at scale and we plan to do this through a Venture Studio and early-stage fund.
But getting back to the original question, why a venture studio, you ask?
Nine out of ten startups fail — that’s a fact. The VC model is incomplete for today’s Africa in a lot of ways. First is the need to build a super large portfolio size to get any sizable returns, aiming for outlier successes. This creates a second-order effect; the at-arms-length approach caused by portfolio size means VCs cannot spend time ideating and supporting solutions to the biggest challenges on the continent.
The enormous challenges Africa faces cannot be left to chance. They require urgency and rapid experimentation to validate market-ready solutions. These are unique characteristics enabled by a venture studio structure.
With Fast Forward, our strategy is to co-build with exceptional entrepreneurs at the earliest stages, helping them nurture great ideas. Every year, Fast Forward will select and fund up to 10 ideas for funding and support—with priority on platform and infrastructure plays—in sectors including (but not limited to) B2B, Fintech, eCommerce, Edtech, Healthcare, Logistics, Deep Tech, SaaS, Future of Work, and Blockchain.
We have, and are continuing to, put together a team of cross-disciplinary experts who can take on hands-on roles with early-stage startups, helping them experiment faster to prove (or disprove) their hypotheses, accelerate their ideas, and supporting with strategy and execution in key areas like growth, product development, research, fundraising, and more.
For context on what a great idea means at Fast Forward, we will only work with ideas we believe will scale to achieve 10 million+ people and achieve $10m in ARR in 3-5 years. Like VCs, we also work to achieve outlier successes, but put in the work very early on. And it's okay if we fail, so far we learn and are able to share the learnings with the next innovator(s) who would do it better at a better time.
The ideas we work on will not always be founder-generated; some will be generated from insight derived from research by the venture studio itself. For studio-generated ideas, we will match those with vetted entrepreneurs with a track record of superb execution and a passion for solving the problem at hand. However, the modus operandi remains the same - nurturing ideas alongside the founders past the point of market and business-model validation, to the point of earning the traction required for them to fly solo.
We have already piloted this model and it has shown tremendous promise. In 2021, we helped build three companies – TalentQL (now a subsidiary of Altschool), Dojah and Bumpa – that have gone on to secure subsequent venture capital. For some additional detail:
TalentQL connects quality African tech talent to high-earning jobs across the world. 500+ professionals have already been placed. Altschool, TalentQL’s successor launch create the largest cohort of engineers in Africa.
Bumpa provides over 35,000 sellers with an online store that can be set up and managed from a smartphone.
Dojah provides identity verification infrastructure and has verified 1m+ profiles to date.
This model of co-building has proven to deliver the impact we want, works and we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. As they say in the startup world, it is still day one at Fast Forward. We have made much progress, but I am even more excited about what’s to come.
I am Opeyemi Awoyemi, a Nigerian, an African and a venture builder leading a team to unlock prosperity for 100m Africans over the next 10 years. If you want to join us, here are a few ways you can do so:
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Quite a lot stands out here in the article. Thanks for doing what you are doing.