Helping African Businesses Get Paid, Shola Akinlade of Paystack

I think many people like kind of know about Paystack, but what can you give us the one-line explanation?

Yeah, well, payments company. We help merchants in Africa accept payments from their customers. So businesses will connect Paystack, and almost immediately the customers can pay them with credit cards, debit cards, and different payment methods.

And you said one-line description?

Well, we're currently live in Nigeria, and we're trying to just go into other markets very quickly.

Nice, and how long you guys been around?

We launched in January 2016.

Okay, and so before that you were also a founder, right?

Yes, yes, yes. I can take it back a little. No, I grew up in Lagos. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. I've spent all my life there. Actually, after college, I studied computer science. After college, I worked with Heineken, the beer company, you know, for two years, and then I left. I left because I thought I was—I just thought, like, I should be—I mean, make—I should be making things.

Okay, were you really pushing code at Heineken?

No, that was my friend Trainee. So I brought my co-founder, Den Maya. We thought Dropbox, I was told, was in 2008. We got Dropbox was cloud and get out in emerging markets, like, was a good concept. I was naive, I think. So we said, you know what, if someone feels like a Dropbox configuration, young people—you don’t need cloud—he brought that and all that.

So we did it. We called it Peculiar. We put it up on SourceForge, which was very big then, and I think it went well. We had over 200 thousand families using it. It was available in six languages.

So it went fairly well. I did about five years, and then banks in Nigeria started reaching out to me to help them build software. So I built software for about three banks, and quickly I said, you know what, this payments—like, I always knew the state of payments wasn’t where it should be, but I didn’t think it was completely so. But just working with the banks, I just—I don’t know, I just figured, you know, if the software capital, it probably will be me because I’d built other software before, and now I just have access. I understand how the financial system works.

So I studied Paystack very quickly, spent about one year just in your underground work, had a waitlist of about 300 customers, and I was caught in all of them just talking to what they wanted. I’m building for them.

And then one day, one of my friends actually sent an email, copied all the YC founders. It was—it was late, because Ventures— I think it was mine—has a head, or it does. So it was about one year. I saw that email and said, hey, I see this is—this is Paystack. Just accept that email and copied everybody, some Michael, and then were like, I slept.

And then I woke up in the morning, and Michael had responded. Michael, super—that’s it. Hey, shall I tell me more about Paystack? Mike, about five hours right email, which worked because Michael responded with another one line.

Yeah, so we had back and forth. They asked me to apply. I applied for YC fellowship, and I didn’t get in, actually. I think it was August, so immediately asked me to apply again for the YC. I think it was October. So I applied, thankfully, I got in. We became the first Nigerian company to get into YC.

Now I think there are over 10 other companies that I’ve gotten just that three years, which is really amazing, exciting.

Yeah, and we launched Paystack, and it’s good. So you guys just raised again?

Yes, yes, our just raised is a million dollars for Stripe and Visa.

Yeah, thank you. So I think a lot of people are curious, you—yeah, probably from Africa—about what your YC application looks like.

Yes, yes, what were your stats? Where were your metrics?

And that was the first Nigerian—geez, do you know, like, because people—I honestly, when I started my first company, my—I can use my profile. I think I opened it in 2008 or 2007, so I have actually applied for YC then.

Well, I probably didn’t expect to get into it because there was no reference. Like, why would a Nigerian company get into YC? But very quickly, I realized that YC structure is actually optimized for just finding the best companies. So my application was very simple.

On the interview day, I remember they asked, how much have we processed so far? I said $200, like I said, and it didn’t matter, you know? Now, last month, we did over twenty million dollars. It’s just three years.

So, um, but I think the application was really simple. It was just clear. You just wanted to say what we were, yeah, and you are what you're building right now. Is it basically identical to what Paystack was in the application?

Exactly, nothing has changed. It's been—it's the same vision. We knew payments was broken. Link is still broken, but I think we’ve made a lot of progress just trying to figure it out.

Yeah, and how did you meet Ezra?

Oh, we went to school together. We went to Babson College together.

Okay, we—after school, we lived together. He had worked on a payments company, actually, that didn’t work out in there, you know? So when I wanted to do payments, it was obvious I had to call Ezra back.

So you just built a prototype and pitched him?

Virginia? I built it. I actually built it. I had customers, and while I was in getting a tour of the back and forth with Michael.

Yeah, yeah, so one of the back and forth, Michael was saying, who else was working with me on the project? So I talked about Ezra and a few people.

You know, is this someone that really— is this someone that you can take along with you on this journey?

Oh, yeah, of course.

Okay, interesting. And I think it was a very good decision because, yeah, just having two people connect to the same vision, you're building this—just we started moving fast.

And things just—you guys just get better.

So when you arrived, so you were in the winter 2016?

Yes.

When you arrived in January, I guess you did your interview in November?

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, it was—it was fun. It's my favorite story every time I talk about Paystack stories. I talk about the interview day because we got into YC. We wanted to just see what was happening, so we came in a day earlier and just came in to see what was happening.

The first company I saw was someone just building kind of—I don’t know if I can say it—a *** that never gets dead-see. It showed us it had like that see what I had. I don't know if they cut into.

I say had a white shirt for the water. What they get there, they’re like, well, I saw two ladies. I saw no health to—I think they got into Iyala, building a bra that it takes breast cancer, you know? Like, it’s cool stuff, and people— they’re asking us, what are you guys building?

You know, like, this is five years ago, but it was fascinating for people, and people were like, wow, this is amazing.

Obviously, there are so many people in Africa. There’s a lot of transactions happening. Is there any team trying to figure out payments there? So we’re really excited.

I got at least two emails the night before the interview from people I met saying they thought of building something cool. So, it was really good.

The next morning, just commented, interviewee. We were a bit more confident.

Worthy. What were the interview questions?

They were saying things like, why won’t Stripe build this? It was very fast. I came on—we got in a very long flight, and it was about 22 hours, just from Lagos to San Francisco.

Yeah, and I wrote out, like, my notes. I think I crammed everything, but I only f***ed it. It was just the first line.

I just got in. They were like, hey, tell us, what are you guys working on? Like, what kind of Paystack? If we’re—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. I like short. So, I had to pull out a laptop and show them, like, wow, this is interesting.

So, and I forgot all my—it went very fast. Yeah, but it went well.

I think the—I remember also they asked, why we were not live? We said we just had a waitlist. We were worried about fraud and all that, and they said, you know, they don’t think we should put an artificial barrier to growth. It might be growing if people wanted it, then open it off.

Yeah, okay. That’s—I thought like that might have been a problem, but it didn’t matter.

And then we got a call in the evening asking if we want advice. Like, of course, it was very exciting.

Actually, man, and then so what was it like when you—I mean, I don’t know nearly as much as you do about the Nigerian startup scene, but like when you were just thrown in with everyone else in January?

No, it was fun. So Y Combinator is pretty much international for sure. I think a lot of people don’t recognize that.

But a redeem feel, yeah. Actually, I thought I was gonna have a problem, though. He got in. We met people from Ghana working on rent. I think she’s from Chicago, but she’s originally from Ghana, you know?

So, there’s a lot of diversity in Y Combinator, so we didn’t feel any.

Okay, and so then, what are the substantial differences in any element of the startup scene in Nigeria?

Hmm, I think a lot. Yeah, I think one of the things we just saw quickly was just—I’ll see. I don’t say the age. I think if I—well, when I was starting up, yeah, the kind of people that were building cool stuff but really like in their thirties and their forties and their fifties.

So just coming here and seeing young people just do amazing stuff—like, young people that I don’t have a sister—it is a cool—like, you know, I remember just in context. For example, I remember watching Justin TV, you know, and just seeing him, about twelve years, ten years later still have Y Combinator, still look at you, like, wow, everybody’s doing yoga.

So I was really shocked at how young everyone was, how connected everyone was, so that was shocking.

I think the other thing is also just the—I like to see it just the quality of the advice, you know, or the—you know, things are not as intuitive as they should be.

Like how they say—that’s my favorite. Like, oh, I see. That’s the first thing I picked up. One of the first few things I picked up, like the startup 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, you know?

And just letting that very quickly made me focus. It's down, you know? And it was helpful.

Now, I feel like I know people I need to know without having to just be everywhere.

That was me in college—exactly. I was asking, like, you know, that the handful of impressive people that I met.

Energy, don’t worry about it. Just make cool.

Exactly, exactly. Also, I think the long-term view was also very helpful, which helped me.

I think I remember a conversation I had. I think it was Michael—just asking about what this would look like, and he said it takes about seven years to build a solid startup anyway.

So yeah, good, so how to do it for a long time?

So that was really refreshing for me to say, you know, I’m not good to make it in one month. Like, don’t pressure. Let’s just do it every day.

This is our third year now.

Yeah, man, four years.

What does the payments market look like in Nigeria? Like how much is cash, how much is card, how does it go?

It’s a lot of cash. So I will say Nigeria’s GDP is about five hundred million, five hundred million dollars.

Okay, consumer spending is about 150 billion dollars.

Okay, I know the population is like 200 million, 200 million.

Yeah, yeah. So, but just less than two percent of consumer spending is spent with cards, you know? Just—and even more, a lot of that is just people using their cards at the ATM to get cash out, so they can’t spend it.

So, yeah, so I think it’s still very, very early.

Yeah, there’s a lot of transactions happening. Most of them are still happening offline, but online transactions are kicking off.

New business models have been created, and it’s getting obvious that digital payments will win.

So there’s a company called Buy Power. I think I see they’re selling electricity online, and they use Paystack.

Before now, you would have had to go buy electricity, like, at a store.

Yeah, but if your electricity goes off at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, then you have to let your money more. It doesn’t make sense.

So what just a fact that you can pay digitally means you can always have electricity.

Yeah, and the multiple business models like that making it very easy for people to do things. So I think—and people are realizing this. Smartphone adoption is increasing, mobile penetration is increasing, you know?

So I think it’s a good time. It was really a good time. Everything is picking up, and we’re just trying to connect the budgets and remove all the friction because I think and just to say, Paystack is extremely interesting.

Yeah, I think before now, a lot of the payments infrastructure was beautiful enterprise companies, and, of course, enterprise companies like complexity.

So just detangling all that and just keeping things simple. The first thing we had to do is make it easy for businesses are accepting payments.

Figure out the cards infrastructure, understand why things are why they are, and doing all that. So yeah, and in terms of your growth, are you trying to incentivize more businesses to pay to figure out a card system?

Like, what are you doing?

So I will say we've been overwhelmed. Like we haven't—since we launched Paystack, that’s—I can’t forget it. It’s been like—we're not hot—that’s a good thing.

But a few things we were doing very well, number one, we know that we see these transactions. We see what is missing. We see what’s wrong.

So we think the first thing to do is to make sure that transactions can happen. Transactions can be successful, which we’re doing.

The next thing is also just ensuring that customer experience is good enough. If someone is trying to pay, we have to make that payments happen as soon as it can.

If someone has a dispute, we have to figure it out. So we started building.

We’re the first company, I think we’re still the only company that has like an automated dispute process and all that.

So because everything is connected, we tell ourselves that if someone has a problem with a transaction, that’s someone that will never trust digital payments again.

So we don’t take it lightly. We try our best to make sure we can make it work.

So, yeah, so I will say in the short term, half of our strategy is just making it work, is building a community around the merchants. We think, yeah, Joel, Paystack magic.

You know why people are using Paystack? You know, people want to start and scale businesses.

So how can we help them do this? We know just having a community, helping them with tools, with content, with events.

Last week, last month, we had an event with Facebook just teaching people how to sell on Instagram, you know?

So—and that’s on one—and you have multiple things we do in the community. So yeah, it’s really make your work and build a community around the businesses so that it will be easy for people to start and scale their businesses.

Okay, is there an average type of business that you guys see?

Yes, now, no, because we have little. I have people just starting up, people building side projects.

Okay, on one hand, on the other hand, we have lines. We have talks, okay? Collections, we have bus tickets, you know?

So we have V—it's—I think that’s the beauty of payments. Everybody is affected, you know?

And in fact, the bigger you are, the bigger the pains.

So it’s exciting, man.

And so in terms of your growth over the last few years, were there particular features that made a big impact in your growth, right?

Mmm, I wouldn’t say so. I think it’s still the same—just making it work. And if even our customers have been growing themselves.

So when I was doing the fund raises, I had time to look at the data. The first court that launched in Q1 2016, by Q4 2017, they were doing Ted CX their volumes, you know?

I was even the lowest because other courts I would go faster. It’s like the businesses themselves are early, yeah?

And so, and everybody is growing at the same time. So I think it’s really exciting.

Wow, so it’s so, man, when it comes to like expanding to other countries in Africa, I assume—do you just assume that their economies function in similar ways as Nigeria’s, or do you have to get someone on the ground to figure it all out? How do you do it?

Oh, I think it’s to wait. So the first spot is every day we get people just pingas and say, when are you coming down? When are you coming?

Yeah, so there’s that, and there’s the fact that we knew that this problem is, like, continent-wide, and we know what we’ve built can work because payments is really simple.

Well, I—well, like the way we think about Paystack, it’s like a full-stack payments. What happens before the payments? What happens during the payments and after?

So 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 context.

Huh? But I would admit that Africa is really, really interesting. My favorite expansion story, I used to be very excited that, you know what, I’m just gonna scale across Africa, and then it was an opportunity to go to Egypt, Cairo, actually.

And we got to Cairo—I mean, with my friend, we got to the airport, called an Uber. I think it was about Korea.

And then it occurred to us that the Uber—that the plate number was in Arabic. I couldn’t tell which is my Uber, like, oh yeah, I’m not good to be the one.

What’s a large base like?

Yeah, I was really excited and insecure.

But like you said, I think finding the right people to help us figure this out will be very helpful.

As one of the reasons why—and just think about that Series II, we had to think about companies that have figured out scales, like Stripe, companies like Visa.

If there’s a company, the comments that have thought about moving payments from one place to another, it’s these companies.

And so we’re like really, really going to have to learn how to do this in another country.

Yeah, but we’ve made a lot of progress with Ghana, which is really close to Nigeria.

Okay, yeah, but I think as we go to other countries, it would even be more difficult. For the good thing is we understand it, we’re ready to learn, we’re ready for the challenge.

This is why we created the company, yeah?

And that is why when people say, oh, I want 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, this is why we can’t see the company, you know?

So yeah, so we’re really willing to do the work, and hopefully, we’ll see.

Oh, come on. So when it comes to scaling up, like, what does your team look like? You know, are you hiring people exclusively from Visa?

So let’s talk about what the team looks like.

My greatest, like, I used to read a lot about when this was to see his work, always be higher and all. Like, I didn’t realize that I used to wonder, like, why will he see you try higher?

But, yeah, it's like that's the only thing in my head.

So I will say right now I have about 36 people. This time last year, probably, it was about 15 years ago. It was about five.

So it’s been very interesting. We have so many problems being thrown at us every—like, across all corners.

Right now, actively looking for senior engineers to help us figure some of these things out.

I think it’s a typical thing that happens in a startup where you don’t really optimize so far down. You've built it well, now you’re having, like, billions and millions of records in your DB, and you’re wondering should I switch it?

But you can’t even switch because there’s more or less.

So like—and this is what there’s—to do. More things, build everything, so it takes some skill and some experience to figure out these things out.

And just actively looking for people that are ready for that challenge because what is it to just come help us, you guys?

Yeah, I mean, your understanding is that you’re looking for people from anywhere in the world to come?

Yes, yes. I think my goal, my vision is to build the best talent in Africa. I think there are so many talented people in Africa, and we want to have them to grow our children for us.

But also understand very clearly that because of where we're going to, we need some help.

We need people that have done these things before to show some of these things, like I once said, set a standard for engineering culture in Africa.

Yeah, but how would I do that if I don’t know how—if we haven’t seen how it’s done elsewhere?

Okay, so we think the best-case scenario for us is can we find the very best people in the world, irrespective of where they’re from?

Can they come spend time with us, about a year or more, and they obscure people?

Can we learn from them? Can we become better than them?

Yeah, you know? I know that because I think this is not happening, you know?

And the startups actually that do that now, you know, born for us.

In fact, we thought about creating a boot camp, you know?

Can we find someone to help us run a boot camp to just internal obscure people?

Because the problems that they’re—the real problem is do we have enough people that have the right experience to fix it?

Yeah, and we can’t, like, I run this company on Google. Like I said, how do you do this?

At some point, it will get more difficult to do that.

So is there someone I can just see that can just be inside and just help us because of all this?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, you can—I mean, you can definitely email anyone who's done YC before, but even that, you know?

But also the YC community has been extremely, extremely helpful.

Hey, that’s like the best part of YC. Like, I taught by sleep best fan advice. It was going to YC, okay?

In my career at Paystack, I’ve always thought the best part of YC was something else.

So I thought the best part of YC was the 120k. Very quickly, I saw the best part of YC was something else, and now, I think the best part of YC is just the bookface, just passively seeing conversations happening.

And so some of the times when I see some of these things like, oh, I saw this person talked about this three months ago.

Can I see the responses? You know, so it just feels like I'm building a company with about a thousand other people.

Yeah, so it feels like it’s really exciting. I mean, everyone’s in the same struggle, so they’re just laying habit because everyone’s been helped out so many.

Exactly, exactly.

You know that the network is really amazing, and like you said, everybody’s helpful. Helping.

Sometimes I wanna die—does this person really need to help me?

So, yeah, and when you were talking about building a boot camp, like, yeah, are there boot camps?

And there’s a common duty very well.

I don’t care.

I think that doing a bar will build—find the best people. Okay? And they do it for four years.

Yeah, but—and I like that model. I think Booble skill.

Yeah, in the long term, I think the stack now, what I was saying is, can we find the best engineers locally?

Yeah, can we find someone that can help us make them extreme?

We can find good engineers and tell them to breed amazing engineers as strong as possible in as short as three months, because I know good engineering—some things you just have to have seen the problems before you can’t really anticipate some things, you know?

You’re just having someone—a having a 10x engineer just sit with a team of five engineers, I think it helps everybody.

Yeah, it’s an interesting idea because that’s—it’s actually a common complaint I’ve heard that like companies get a lot of like junior, you know, great JavaScript engineers.

Yes, and like they can make all kinds of blogs.

Yes, I think you’re doing the more complicated stuff.

Exactly, exactly, and I agree completely.

And I think the earlier these stuff figuring this out, the better, because I don’t think our problems will reduce. I think it’s gonna get woke up together again.

What difficult.

So yeah, it’s very just—I hope—I hope we can take on this challenge by the right people.

Well, yeah, if there’s anyone listening, if there’s anyone interested in just the challenge of building in Africa, building all the best, just working with payments infrastructure in Africa, building for some of the best businesses in Africa, please reach out to me.

I’m willing to even help with the experience, just keep very good experience living in Lagos. Help with logistics, help with accommodation, help them even travel seed continent.

Yeah, it’s gonna be a good offer.

Well, if we just—big, like, can we find the best people?

Yeah, can we figure some of these problems out as soon as we can and can we just help businesses start that scale?

I think it’s awesome. You got a ton of questions. People seem very—so I want to make sure I give them credit, but someone asked about crypto, you know, and people have talked about, you know, it’s crypto exploded in the past couple of years—like, maybe it’s in these less developed markets that it will really take hold.

What’s—you know, you’re on the ground. What’s actually happening?

I think there’s a lot of activity happening. I would admit that most of the activities are around creating—you know, people are buying and selling directly.

I think the righteous case is just still being formed.

But right now, there’s a lot of trading activity happening.

Okay, okay, so that—so many people, it seems like from Nigeria are also asking you questions, and there are some of them.

Let’s just start with the basic stuff. So Creative Joe, their question is how difficult is it to get into YC?

How is it easy to get it together?

If you have a good business, I think. I think the YC process—I used to think was difficult.

I think the YC process actually like selects the right people.

I don’t know how to explain that, but if you have like all the right components, it’s extremely easy, you know?

Yeah, I think the hard work is can you clearly articulate how impressive your business is, and can you just even explain what you’re doing and can they understand what you’re saying?

Yeah, and who were—were there certain things that—I mean, maybe this was in fundraising too—where you felt that you had to educate US investors about the market?

A lot, a lot of times. A lot of times, I think it is what it is.

Yeah, yes. But I think the right investors didn’t know what to look out for, and that’s what makes YC exciting.

I told you, I was just processing $200 executive questions. We were running other things like, can you build it? Why will you build it? What’s beauty like? What is the experience?

And all that, so I think Y Combinator is in that pocket of sophisticated investors that know the right questions to ask.

So even if they don’t have the local context, they know what to look out for, yeah, which is good.

That’s why I think it’s relatively easy.

I think founders need to focus on building the businesses such that when opportunities come, it becomes easy for them to take advantage of those.

Yeah, I think in large part people are looking for cheat codes, and exactly the only cheat code is to make something right.

Exactly, yeah.

All right, so Paul Israel asks, what gaps do you think still exist in the Nigerian FinTech space?

A lot. I think there’s still a lot.

I think, just Nigeria, like we said, it’s very big. Financial services in Nigeria is very big, so I think there’s still a lot.

I think this is the opportunity for scoring credit scoring. I know a few people are doing that now, but some opportunity there.

There’s still no like Cash App. There’s something around—I know that there are also things happening there, but like they still know.

So I will say across all financial services and engines, it’s so hard to say this is the winner.

So I will say, because there’s still no clear winner in all paths, there are multiple opportunities.

Mmm-hmm.

All right, Nelson asks, are there any conventional startup pieces of advice that did not work for Paystack as their target market is in Africa?

Hmm, that’s a good question.

Well, I think—mm-hmm. I will say I think generally I found the advice I received here actually more useful because I think building a business is building a business.

Yeah, building a business is hard everywhere. I think that’s—that’s the hardest part for me—like finding people, building the business, what should you be doing, what are your priorities, and all that.

So—and I think that’s, like, constant to wherever you are.

Okay, yeah, so I will say I would say I haven’t seen any ten that, like, didn’t really work on, you know?

Maybe some things in fundraising, you know, I think things are more difficult, I would say.

But I think the principles are still the same.

Yeah, I must have been in some other interview I heard with you, but you’re kind of talking about the psychology there, but like more people were telling you like you couldn’t.

Exactly, exactly.

That’s it, exactly. So—and I think I talked about it just coming here.

Like, the psychology is—and I think that’s changing now. Two years later, I think it has changed.

But two years ago, like—alright, don’t you love giving favors coffee? Like people laugh at how your competition is afoot.

Cindy, like a 14-year-old company as a billion-dollar.

Were you like, you know, I got a lot of that?

And I’m sure people still get it that you know, why will you be the one to figure this out?

But I think that mindset is changing now if there’s a team that is focused on solving a problem.

Yeah, it’s getting easier for them to just get access to whatever they need, you know?

So I think that’s helpful.

So that mindset has changed, and I think what companies like Paystack and a lot of other companies in different industries just break in some of these barriers.

I think it’s getting easier for other people, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, man, you’re leading the way.

Whatever work, Nelson had another question I thought was interesting. What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned while building Paystack?

Oh, yeah, I think—okay, that’s a very good question.

I think your team is very important. I think it’s tied to the first question around how that courage— like, people will worry, like how would you figure this out?

But just in building Paystack, I’ve seen that you can be courageous, like just pick a big problem and solve it, but you won’t be the one to solve it yourself.

You’re good to have to find the right team to help you figure this out, yeah?

So just learning that quickly, can I find people better than me?

And I switched into that mode maybe one month into Paystack.

Like one month into YC, and everybody that has joined the team has been better than me at—because I started doing everything.

Customer success, one, a [ __ ] design, everything.

Oh my eyes, on your exam, it’ll support, like, just started disconnecting that and finding the best people.

People that can do it better than me, I think just learning that has really helped.

Yeah, I think that’s one. And then number two, I think it’s just around—I think there’s an ecosystem available.

Like try to try to do it yourself, you know?

Just can you learn how to use the ecosystem to solve some of the problems you have?

And you guys think,—do you think you fundraised at the right time?

So every time we fundraise, like, it came out I was like, you know, never. I was so—this fundraise, for example, should’ve just started now, actually.

September, I was ready to set it up for because I came—I had a conversation. I said I wanted to do it at the end of the year.

I went to a Charm School, so just cut into that mode, you know, very quickly, and so that—you know what, okay, I can spend the rest of the ages building it up for like right a September fundraise, yeah?

And then things just happen.

Yes, yeah—that’s it. It just happened.

Yes, alright. Let’s do another—let’s do another Nelson question.

They asked, what are some applications you would love to see built on top of Paystack?

Yes, I think I would definitely love to see like—a pizza P payments. Mmm-hmm.

So something like Cash App.

Okay, interesting. I think something for businesses too. I really love.

So before Paystack, while I was figuring out Paystack, I really wanted to build something like Brex actually.

Yeah, it’s like expenses, employee expenses and all that.

I really, really wanted to build all that. I thought that, well, digital infrastructure wasn’t even there, so we had to start from, like, collections and so if someone can build something for, like, expense management and all that, I think they’ll be excited on Paystack.

I had a name for it.

Okay, what about the market in general? Because there are like—all of the startups that exist in the States, for example. Like, what would you love to see over there?

Hmm, interesting.

Because, yeah, I think, yeah, so I would say actually most of these startups already exist in this—in some way, maybe not at the skill it’s, like, being executed here.

I was excited to see that—where the world's building drives, because I spent about three or four years just following Stripe, like, all the above, everything, all documentation at all.

That’s exciting, but other than that, I think most of your companies have some form—alright.

How many builds? Maybe something like—something around funds, something around games, something around—

Yeah, well, but I will say most of the things have some fun.

Okay, because there were a handful of questions around just like how the market in Africa is maturing.

Like, what’s the state of the infrastructure?

Where—yeah, okay, so I will say this is a very exciting time to be building for Africa.

Okay, I think because there’s a very young population.

I think for context in 19—ahem—okay, this is good to be ready.

I don’t have numbers on my head, but I think in 1969, Julius's population was about 45 million; Italy's population was about 45 million.

I think, and just going through 40 years of 45 years, Nigeria is going to be even more than the US.

So the population is young, active, like, have access to phones and all that.

So if this is the right time to build for these people, yeah?

So I think the market is just getting, getting there, and some foundational things are now being built.

So the payments layer has been figured out now.

Yeah.

Logistics layer is being figured out now.

What does that look like? Or is there a train network?

What’s the road situation?

That was okay. Well, yeah, there’s like—that thing doesn’t have what, right?

Every night?

Yeah, like, what’s the—what quality are we talking about?

I think it’s fair. It’s—that’s artists.

Okay, it works like now I can tell Brown's Leaf in the US.

I mean, Lagos to be honest.

It’s also why it’s—think it says “Etsy.”

Yeah, figure it out advisor.

And that’s—that’s the point.

Like, people have built stuff solving all those problems, so it’s the—no problems again.

We can forget figure that’s cool.

So you haven’t had to do any crazy hacks around like latency or wifi animate or anything like that?

I will say we have around because also when you’re designing for multiple people, you have to figure multiple things out.

You know, in fact, very quickly, we must pass the pain cards because not everybody wants to pay with a card.

So we allow people to pay directly with your bank accounts.

We allowed people to pay with—what’s that—your says these are to be forbidden.

Well, it’s something like star 77, like you dollar code on your phone.

Okay, and it’s—it’s connected to your mobile billing and mobile phone.

No, not really.

Like it’s connected to your bank.

So you connected with your phone provider, your bank account, and then you can pay through that.

Exactly, kind of like that.

Yeah, so just realizing that people are different.

Yeah, I think very interesting about Africa and Nigeria specifically is how different—there are about 250 tribes, you know?

So it’s different—like 250 languages, more than 250 languages, you know?

So when you figure into all these things out, of course, the language is English, but the cultural—you have to just design for everybody, sure.

Yeah, yeah, but it’s exciting.

I think there’s some of these things.

That’s why we know that when a good business, we know that this is good to be a lot of work!

Though we will do the work, we will figure it out and it won’t make your work.

Man, total tangent. Are your family members as happy as you are?

No, but I think things are really, really exciting.

I think five years ago this was my dream.

Like, like, turn to just be able to figure stuff out—to have old, to have like—without excuses.

Like, now I’m in a bad place. I say this because I don’t have excuses.

Like it was easy to have excuses as oh, we don’t have funny, oh, it’s hard to raise money.

Is that I don’t have people?

Alright, now I have body, little body, somehow a strong team.

I have very good people supporting us.

I have access—we have regulatory cover.

We have everything.

So the only thing we have to do is just build, which is bad.

So, it’s just really like we have to build.

That’s no excuses, and I’m excited to be honest because I know like this is just going to go as far as we want it to go.

Yeah, yeah, and how do you keep yourself sane?

Well, I think also just like moving. So I travel a lot for work, okay?

But it helps me because, like, when I’m in Lagos, like I’m just doing meetings back to back.

I come to maybe San Francisco, switches just coffee meetings and all that.

When I go somewhere else, like, switches again.

So I’m able to switch it off like very quickly.

Yeah, so maybe just—and then when I’m flying, I sleep the octave a key, like jet lag.

You just—I just sleep, alter decide whenever I get back, up I’m awake.

We were there.

Um, it’s funny, you're like—the excuses you may have had five years ago—are there any elements of your life five years ago that you miss now?

No, you’re busy, founder guy.

To be honest, I think it’s just like building deeper relationships, you know?

So I was flying in today, for example, and I just wanted to, like, respond, to catch up on like my messages.

Yeah, when I looked at it, it was silver like Doris.

So I think just—I could be very deep before. Now I still have a few deep relationships, but five is a goal.

I could like really spend more time with people, you know?

That I wish Axl, and I hope I will start doing more of that.

And that’s what I’m looking for, just more people to help me figure these things out.

Yeah.

But I think that’s it.

Yeah, but thankfully I think people understand my friends on this find, and so little opportunities we have we just catch up very quickly.

Mmm-hmm.

Do you find time to like exercise or going dating, sir?

I’m married, so that’s good, yeah.

Yeah, exercises that people would—I don’t exercise. I don’t really expect when I’m in labor.

So maybe when I’m out of town, okay?

So it’s like 100 percent work all the time.

That’s cool with you, that works?

99% work for years, so I think there are phases to this, to be honest.

I think, but just at this very crazy pace now, yeah, and I recognize that my health is also very important.

So—and I tell my team to, like, feel free to, like, just stop.

You know, sometimes there are some meetings.

Actually stop, I just text and say, you know, I’m sorry I can’t make this meeting, I just can’t.

So sometimes I do that, where I just give up, but like—and then I get my energy back, I continue.

Yeah, okay, so in terms of your personal and Paystack’s growth, where do you want to be in five years?

Well, that’s interesting.

I think—I think the Paystack specifically, I think the payments problem is still very big.

I think five years down the line, I think there are so many businesses. There are so many people building interesting stuff here in Africa, you know?

I won’t look at the next five years and see Paystack actually helping these people figure some of these things out, you know?

I want to see the very successful companies in the next five years being supported and helped, being powered by Paystack.

I think that’s going to be exciting for me, yeah, because they’re going to be winners in Africa, and I really want to be the one.

Okay, and I think if Paystack is successful, obviously, I’m probably off here.

And yeah, and then personally, yeah, my personal goals are really tied to the company’s goals.

I just want to say this work, alright?

I want to help—not even help—I just wanted—I just want to do my work, and I know that in just doing my work, a new generation of people are going to be able to do their own work.

Yeah, so I mean very interested, please.

Yeah, thank all right, man.

The question I’ve been wondering this whole time might be my last one.

It’s like I want some music recommendations.

Well, it’s like that, you know, I went to Vietnam actually, and I was thinking about it that if I ever stop doing Paystack, I’ll have to be a DJ because it’s so easy to be in Africa.

And it’s just so—I think it’s just Whiskey, Davido.

Oh, I’m some very popular artists and very interesting songs.

Tiwa Savage, Don Come, might see you like Nigerian music.

Awesome!

I just discovered this, like, I think it’s called Analog Africa.

It’s a YouTube channel that’s just, like, pulling all of these, like, LPS from the 60s and 70s, and they have some, like, even some, like black and white, like music videos.

[Music]

I love it.

I get inspired by just listening to some of these songs.

Yeah, these guys that do well.

If it did, very music, let’s do this.

Attack!

It has—the festival scene taken, like, hold there as well?

Well, I think a lot of things happen in December.

I think that’s the cleared way. There’s a lot of really activity.

So, yeah, like if you want to seize it, yes.

I wasn’t there.

Some, like, African Burning Man thing...

• All right, man!

So if someone wants to come work for you guys, where should they go?

Um, I think because it’s very origins now, just reach out to me directly—Twitter, Chawla.

[ __ ] man.

And Twitter, but send us an email, actually.

You can just send me an email, shut up, paystack.com, and say you had—this?

Yeah, looking for the best people to just help us figure this out.

Alright, man.

Alright, well, thanks for coming in.

Thanks so much.

Had a good time!