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Top 10 The Flip Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Flip episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Flip for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Flip episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
05/30/24 • 20 min
There is a $330 billion credit gap, according to the IFC. But why is it so hard to lend in African markets?
We explore that question with Chijioke Dozie, Co-founder and CEO of Carbon, and Mark Straub, CEO of Smile Identity.
This episode was recorded live from the FT Partners Fintech in Africa Summit in New York City. Download their FinTech in Africa research report, published in March 2024.
00:00 - Introduction
01:36 - The credit infrastructure problems in Africa
02:28 - Carbon's approach to lending
03:51 - SmileID's perspective on credit infrastructure
08:10 - Ability to pay vs. willingness to pay
10:06 - Private sector solutions
17:36 - The challenges of scaling lending without infrastructure
Follow Chijioke on Twitter.
Follow Mark on Twitter.
This episode was the third in our series of interviews recorded live from the Fintech in Africa Summit.
Nigerian Neobanks with Moniepoint's Tosin Eniolorunda, Kuda's Babs Ogundeyi & Fairmoney's Laurin Hainy: https://theflip.africa/podcast/nigerian-neobank-roundtable-moniepoint-kuda-fairmoney
Cross-Border Payments with NALA's Benjamin Fernandes & GTXN's Dan Kleinbaum: https://theflip.africa/podcast/why-are-cross-border-payments-so-hard
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🎥 YouTube - https://youtube.com/@theflipafrica
💻 Website - https://theflip.africa
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/theflipafrica
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📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/theflipafrica
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10/01/20 • 31 min
The very nature of a high-growth startup means that the company is always growing and hiring at a rapid rate. And for African startups, in particular, the talent question is even more acute, given the general challenges of sourcing for select roles, as well as the difficulty in competing for talent with other startups, multinationals, and companies elsewhere in the world. In this episode, we unpack the talent and recruiting situation for venture-backed startups and growth-stage companies - how do we source for newer types of roles, like product and growth? Do we hire for aptitude and train up? Do we go to where there is more talent? How does remote work - particularly during COVID-19 - play a role here?
2:50 - We discuss the current recruiting landscape with Toun Tunde-Anjous, Founder of The People Practice.
4:38 - Charles Sekwalor, CEO of Movemeback, shares his views on the talent question, and the opportunities with startups and growth-stage companies on the continent.
8:17 - We explore startup recruitment strategy with Ijeoma Oyeyinka, Helium Health's Head of HR.
10:26 - Many startups, including Helium Health, use outside recruiters, as well. Toun's The People Practice is one such firm.
11:20 - We har from Ijeoma & Mansi Babyloni, Flutterwave's Global Head of People Strategy on the hiring competition, and the pitches they make to mission-driven talent.
15:12 - Mansi & Toun on compensation and their experiences with African startups offering equity packages.
17:59 - On remote working dynamics and the opportunity to tap into a wider talent pool, particularly due to COVID-19.
20:46 - A discussion on training & development of talent, and in particular less experienced talent, on the continent.
24:23 - We hear from Aaron Fu, on the Venture for Africa fellowship program, and their endeavor to de-risk an exploration into the African tech and startup ecosystem.
28:13 - As always, a reflective conversation between Justin Norman and Sayo Folawiyo on this episode's topic.
04/13/23 • 44 min
The future of work in the African context is going to be a lot of different things. It mimics the nature of work itself for many individuals on the continent. They're taking this portfolio approach to work. Even in more "developed markets" we're seeing work become less formal and more flexible, as work becomes unbundled from employment. And this evolution of work itself provides a whole set of new challenges and opportunities.
So this episode is a retrospective on the entire season, in which we explore more of these questions about the future of work in this context. And joining The Flip's Justin Norman and Kandua's Sayo Folawiyo for this conversation is friend of The Flip, Chris Maclay, the Program Director for the Jobtech Alliance at Mercy Corps.
00:00 - Intro.
04:30 - Portfolio of work, earnings, stability, growth.
08:40 - Who gets to decide if a job is good or bad?
15:48 - Training, enablement, and platforms.
19:48 - The HustleOS and micro-franchising.
24:28 - The Future of Work is a portfolio of work.
29:54- Digital services for export.
32:57- Market sizing platform-enabled digital work.
41:39 - Should there have been an episode called The Future of Work is Universal Basic Income?
This season of The Flip is sponsored by MFS Africa.
Follow the Money
The Flip
10/07/21 • 33 min
We hear a lot, in the African tech ecosystem, that the competition is with cash. Virtually every country in the world is on some form of a journey to move from cash to cashless. Many African markets, however, are quite far on that journey. And to understand how to accelerate this trend on the continent, we first need to understand how money moves.
[04:55] - For most Africans, the mobile money experience starts with agent networks, like TeamApt's MoniePoint, in Nigeria.
[09:47] - Though increasingly, people are getting paid by employers directly into their mobile wallets. Bulk disbursement startups like Julaya, in Cote d'Ivoire, play a role here.
[13:24] - But how does money actually move, between accounts and banks? The movement of money is powered by national payments switches. In South Africa, its payments switch is BankservAfrica.
[20:06] - So now that we know how money moves, how are fintechs building greater utility into their mobile wallets, to compel users to keep money in them?
[25:56] - How should we think about the design and extensibility of mobile wallets, in the context of physical wallets?
This season is sponsored by MFS Africa.
All this season, we're exploring value chains. And in the payments value chain, no fintech has a wider reach on the continent than MFS Africa. Through their network of over 180 partners - MNOs, banks, NGOs, fintechs, and global enterprises - MFS Africa's API hub makes connects over 320 million mobile wallets across 30+ countries in Africa.
Journey to the Last Mile
The Flip
10/28/21 • 40 min
As we continue our season on value chains, in this episode, we explore logistics.
The cost of goods and food is disproportionately higher in Africa than anywhere else in the world, with consumers in some markets, spending 50% or more of their total income on food alone. A major reason for these high prices is logistics.
So how do we fix this? How do we improve the efficiency of logistics on the African continent, and ultimately drive down the cost of goods?
[04:20] - On the role of containerization and efficient ports, with Jetstream Africa's Miishe Addy.
[11:37] - After we get through the ports, our goods are loaded onto a truck. We hear from Omar Hagrass on how Trella is trying to improve long-haul efficiency in North Africa and the Middle East.
[15:26] - From the port, we move on to the wholesale distributor. As we discuss with Daniel Yu, Sokowatch is aggregating small retailers at the fragmented last-mile and offering same-day delivery of fast-moving consumer goods.
[22:37] - As the nature of retail evolves and more small merchants need logistics solutions, logistics-as-a-service providers like Sendbox are playing a role at the last-mile. We hear from its CEO, Emotu Balogun.
[26:41] - But amidst all of this tech and innovation - what about infrastructure? To what extent is the problem just poor ports and roads? The Flip's b-mic, Sayo Folawiyo, and its host, Justin Norman, call up infrastructure investor Dami Agbaje for some insight.
[32:42] - This episode's retrospective with Sayo and Justin.
This season is sponsored by MFS Africa.
All this season, we're exploring value chains. And in the payments value chain, no fintech has a wider reach on the continent than MFS Africa. Through their network of over 180 partners - MNOs, banks, NGOs, fintechs, and global enterprises - MFS Africa's API hub makes connects over 320 million mobile wallets across 30+ countries in Africa.
02/19/23 • 13 min
In the first episode of this season, we argued that the future of work is a traditional development playbook. Considering the nature of most African markets today - informal, fragmented, subscale - and considering the fact that most employment comes from the agriculture sector, the traditional development playbook says that development starts by increasing the productivity of the informal sector and the agriculture sector, in particular.
These jobs are local jobs. In the context of Africa's rising population, millions of jobs need to be created and millions of local jobs will need to be created. But where are newfound local jobs going to come?
This episode is a case study. We'll explore the decentralized renewable energy sector, or DRE, to see what job creation from a nascent industry could look like.
Where there are sectors that are growing in importance in size, like the clean energy sector, how can African markets take advantage?
2:59 - The seeds of this episode's exploration were planted during a conversation with Shortlist's Paul Breloff. There are significant opportunities for sectors that are actually creating local jobs, and one sector they are bullish on is decentralized renewable energy.
4:28 - We dig into Power for All's Powering Jobs Census, to explore the scope of DRE's local job creation, with its research director, Carolina Pan.
10:51 - Exploring the second-order benefits of DRE, including indirect and induced jobs.
Season 4 of The Flip is sponsored by MFS Africa.
Follow The Flip on Twitter @theflipafrica and subscribe to our newsletter The Flip Notes at https://theflip.africa/newsletter.
02/25/21 • 40 min
In this episode, we talk about cryptocurrency with the Co-Founder and CEO of Bundle, and the Founding Partner of Microtraction, Yele Bademosi. Beyond trading and price volatility, what is it about crypto that excites Yele and so many others on the continent?
Throughout the series of episodes, we're exploring the entrepreneurs in start-ups digitizing informal and fragmented industries on the continent. And despite the technological underpinnings of cryptocurrency as a whole, many of the buying and selling processes and use cases of crypto today are still quite informal and fragmented. In this episode, we hear from Yele about the work Bundle is doing to build products and use cases that make crypto more accessible, affordable and help bring it into the mainstream.
For those less familiar with crypto terminology, we have also published a crypto glossary to define many of the terms used in this episode. Check it out here: https://theflip.africa/crypto-glossary/
4:21 - First question, on consumer education in largely cash-based economies.
10:36 - The macro dynamics - such as devaluation of the Nigerian Naira - that help make the case for crypto adoption.
14:41 - Bundle's origin story and the goals for the business.
20:22 - An exploration of use cases for crypto beyond trading and speculation.
26:47 - A conversation on DeFi, or decentralized finance.
32:42 - On a grand scale, what kind of impact can crypto - and Bundle - have in Africa?
This episode is part of our conversational series sponsored by MFS Africa. MFS Africa's competition is with cash, and throughout this series, we'll feature other startups and entrepreneurs who are digitizing, better organizing, and aggregating analog and fragmented industries.
Follow The Flip on social media @theflipafrica.
03/31/23 • 65 min
We're dropping one more episode of our new show, crypto@scale, on The Flip's feed today. In this episode, we interview our first guests on what might be Africa's killer crypto app, stablecoins. According to data from Coinmetrics, cumulative Stablecoin volumes are at a $9 trillion annualized run rate, exceeding the volumes of all major card networks, except for Visa. Across the African continent, stablecoins are finding meaningful uptake, particularly in markets with low USD liquidity, or countries experiencing currency devaluation.
In today's episode, we're going to explore stablecoins in two parts. First, a global perspective with Joao Reginatto, the VP of Product at Circle, which is the company behind the USDC stablecoin. Second, a local perspective with Ngozi Dozie, Co-Founder of the African digital bank, Carbon.
This episode of crypto@scale is sponsored by Ripple. Across Africa, Ripple is partnering with local financial institutions and fintechs to bring the benefits of better cross-border remittances to the region. To learn more and get in contact with the Ripple team, head over to ripple.com.
00:00 - Intro. Stablecoins are the best thing since sliced bread, according to Ngozi Dozie.
02:23 - Introducing Joao Reginatto, VP, Product at Circle and product lead for USDC.
02:48 - What is a stablecoins?
04:21 - Why stablecoins?
13:33 - Not all stablecoins are equal. USDC is pegged 1:1 to the Dollar.
24:22 - What else is Circle focused on to broaden the adoption of USDC?
28:30 - Regulation.
32:10 - What's next for stablecoins?
36:25 - Joao's recommendations.
37:44 - Explooring stablecoins in the African context, with Carbon's Ngozi Dozie.
40:48 - Use cases: access to foreign exchange, hedge against devaluation.
44:05 - Carbon's FX and borrowing woes.
48:22 - Stablecoins as a platform.
52:27 - Challenges to stablecoin adoption.
1:00:06 - Ngozi is scared of the risk of capital flight.
1:03:46 - Ngozi's recommendations.
Follow us on twitter @cryptoatscale.
11/02/23 • 42 min
Today's guest is Dare Okoudjou, the Founder and CEO of MFS Africa, which this week has rebranded to Onafriq.
The new name represents a new chapter in the company, which is a very different looking company than when we first had Dare on the show back in 2020, after their acquisition of Beyonic. Since then, they've also acquired the card issuer, GTP in the US, and the agent network Baxi in Nigeria.
This current period of the African tech ecosystem is one of increased consolidation and company shutdowns amidst a fundraising downturn. And in this environment, there's perhaps no better and more experienced founder on the continent to learn from than Dare.
00:00 - Intro
01:48 - What's in a name?
04:26 - Cross-border payments
13:51 - Banks vs. Fintechs
15:24 - Onafriq's role in the payment value chain
20:27 - The people aspect of acquisitions
24:08 - On fintech consolidation
29:55 - Dare's take on the state of the market
35:03 - On fundraising
37:56 - The next 5 years for Onafriq
39:19 - Exits?
🔗 Our Links
🔔 Youtube - https://youtube.com/@theflipafrica
💻 Website - https://theflip.africa
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/theflipafrica
👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/theflipafrica
📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/theflipafrica
06/27/22 • 20 min
Read Sabi: Platforming Trade in Africa on The Flip.
We’re trying something new - an audio version of this week's partner edition of The Flip Notes, together with Sabi. Along with narration from The Flip's Justin Norman, you can hear Sabi’s co-founders, Anu Adedoyin Adasolum and Ademola Adesina, tell part of the story in their own words.
The Flip Notes Partner Editions are our occasional sponsored deep dive of a market or sector or business model, in partnership and behind the scenes with a company whose story benefits the ecosystem. You can read more about the process and guidelines of the partner editions here.
Subscribe to The Flip Notes: https://theflip.africa/subscribe.
In today's edition of The Flip Notes, we’ll tell Sabi’s story across a few different dimensions:
03:32 - Rensource and COVID’s Creative Destruction
05:45 - Understanding Value Chains
10:30 - The Product
13:42 - Platforms and The Bill Gates Line
15:52 - The Risks
18:04 - The Opportunity
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Flip have?
The Flip currently has 88 episodes available.
What topics does The Flip cover?
The podcast is about Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, Startups, Podcasts, Technology, Business and Africa.
What is the most popular episode on The Flip?
The episode title 'Tackling Africa’s $330 Billion Credit Gap' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Flip?
The average episode length on The Flip is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Flip released?
Episodes of The Flip are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of The Flip?
The first episode of The Flip was released on Nov 13, 2019.
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