If you were to invest $100,000 into both Paystack and Amazon in 2016, you would have made $1.4 000 000 (1400% Return On Investment) and $499 000 (499% RoI) respectively from both two companies.

If you choose to invest in Apple (436% RoI), Facebook (142% RoI), Netflix (470%), Google class A (188%), Microsoft (369% RoI).

A notable US company investment that surpasses return on investment than Paystack would have been Tesla which returned a whooping 1951% RoI as at 7:15am February 22, 2021.

The reward for believing in Paystack – the very first ycombinator bet in Nigeria has excited the investor community so much, leaving many VC firms vowing to look more into Nigeria.

I would like to note some of the reasons Paystack succeeded wildly within just five years.

Paystack got extremely plugged to Silicon Valley


Paystack, Flutterwave, Bamboo, HeliumHealth, Cowrywise, RelianceHMO etc are all companies founded by young Nigerians but headquartered in the USA. In fact majority of those companies have their offices in San Francisco as a C-Delaware corporation. The US incorporated company gives trust to foreign led investors as to the safety of their investments and puts legal conflicts within a jurisdiction investors believe there would be fair play. The US companies are then made to hold the Nigerian company as a fully owned subsidiary.

Paystack Modelled Stripe

Paystack found a US model and replicated their tested design and business model in Nigeria. Prior to Paystack, you require a N150, 000 to integrate a payment gateway on your website in Nigeria if using In___Sw___. Paystack broke this model and offered zero fee integration, while crashing commission to 1.5% + N100 with a N2000 capped fee, above which it would not charge.

Cared Less About Founder Equity


One of the reasons many Nigerian companies fail very early is principal founder obsession with equity. Obsession over owning majority ownership makes your African entrepreneurial journey very long. If you are too equity focused, you would spend too much time bootstrapping insufficient capital than finding investors who align with your goal and infuse capital into your business rather than trying to start a startup with loans that have abominable interest rates.

The Dangote's, Adenuga's hold 80-99% of their enterprises. I believe new founders shouldn't do this. Partner with others and build a company that can outlast you.

The second aspect to this is, if you are too equity focused you would burn a lot of money trying to recruit a staff you can't afford. Rather than making such a staff a Cofounder with sizeable equity too.
(NB: I know I haven't done justice on this equity issue as a cause of business failure. Some day I would do an indepth talk on this)

Treated Employees Wonderfully

The report we have from Paystack is how they treat workers exceptional well. I once had a reason to consider working for Paystack. I was excited to learn I would get a Mac book pro and many other goodies. This would have enabled them to retain only the very best of engineers.

There are many other reasons Paystack succeeded, but mehn I’m running late. Chao and see you guys later.

www.davidolaleye./2021/02/22/how-paystack-returned-more-money-to-investors-than-amazon-and-other-us-companies



Lalasticlala

Fintechs in Nigeria have been doing pretty well...

dawnomike:
Fintechs in Nigeria have been doing pretty well...

Amen to that...
With faster growth in fact.