The Flip is an editorial-style podcast exploring more contextually relevant insights from entrepreneurs and investors changing the status quo in Africa. Produced and hosted by Justin Norman .
Building through crises
I’ve been really uncertain how to approach Covid-19 from a podcast content perspective. The one thing we don’t want to do is be prescriptive and try to tell you what the future looks like. At the same time – how much could any of us prepare for this? Sharing what we “should have done”, or how we can “future proof” ourselves for what may come feels disingenuous.
So instead, we’ve decided to share stories from entrepreneurs who have built through past crises on the continent, and the decisions they made for their business. As always, it’s for the listener to extract relevant lessons for their individual circumstances.
In this episode, we hear from Alitheia Capital’s ‘Tokunboh Ishmael on her experience fundraising amidst the 2008 global financial crisis; we take a trip down memory lane with Jon Gosier, and talk about how Appfrica’s Tech for Good work allowed him to bootstrap the business, and ultimately start making investments out of their balance sheet; we hear from Craig McLeod, and how his past experience as a VC compelled him to earn service-based revenue for his business, BoxCommerce; and as always, Sayo and I chat about what we think of this episode and this situation more broadly. Further reading
[April 2020] After a decade of building and investing in African companies, Emilian Popa explains why he is bullish on these five industries
[April 2020] Covid-19 and the future of African airlines: Kenya Airways and Airlink CEOs share their views
[April 2020] South African company ready to roll out low-cost ventilators for the African market
[April 2020] From Chinese meat demand to rocketing citrus prices, Covid-19 not all bad news for South African food producers