Localisation, and employing local team leaders, is pivotal when it comes to expanding African tech startups into new markets on the continent.
That is according to Tesh Mbaabu, co-founder and CEO of MarketForce, a Kenya-based B2B commerce super app that allows informal merchants to source, order and pay for inventory digitally and conveniently.
Disrupt Africa has partnered the Jack Ma Foundation’s Africa’s Business Heroes Programme to release a special four-part podcast series discussing the benefits of the initiative with previous winning founders.
Mbaabu was speaking to the podcast for episode three, which focuses on African startups scaling into new markets, and said MarketForce did not initially realise how important localisation is when scaling across multiple markets, especially with the team.
“We thought our Kenyan team would lead the operationalisation of new markets,” he said. “This failed with our first expansion to Nigeria, but was later corrected by recruiting a very strong country manager, who operated as a general manager, owning the P&L and all aspects of MarketForce’s performance in that country.”
Over time, as MarketForce grew, country managers were given more and more autonomy to manage their business. Mbaabu stressed the importance of hiring strong country managers who were citizens and residents of those countries – and holding them accountable for the delivery of results in local markets.
“Country managers needed to have experience overseeing business operations, building a team, growing a customer base, and generating new revenues,” he said.
MarketForce came second in the 2020 edition of Africa’s Business Heroes, and since then has expanded to the point where it is operational in five markets – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Nigeria – with over 200,000 merchants and nearly 200 consumer brands trading on its platform.
“Through the grant we got from ABH, we have already doubled our gig worker workforce to create 250 more jobs for gig workers in 2023, by investing in digital training programmes for them and our merchants,” Mbaabu said.
Applications for the fifth edition of the Africa’s Business Heroes initiative, a philanthropic programme to support African entrepreneurs, are open here until May 12.
