A young lady shared her CV looking for a job in my company. The CV shows she has a Diploma in Records Management from one of the local universities — My first question was can you manage files in the Cloud? Do you know anything about Google Drive? To her…

A friend once crushed a business after signing an exclusivity deal with a supplier for her product to realise the supplier’s product was the worst you can have in the market. As a startup founder, you will make mistakes along the way. It is what makes startup companies interesting. Nobody…

“Miss Jane” is a series of articles on the challenges facing the education system in Africa in the age of digital transformation, changing social values and rising inequalities. This article is a follow-up to the letter I wrote to Miss Jane when my daughter Aaliyah was joining kindergarten. This article is based on actual events and encounters. — It is a year and a half since my daughter joined among the top five primary education schools in Tanzania. My wife selected the school based on their results and recommendations from other parents. I firmly believe that it takes more than a school to develop good students; hence I…

This article is a recap of the lessons learned and dissemination platform for tools developed during the Swichi Project. Swichi is a program that helps Small-Medium Media Houses (SMMH) rethink their business models and create alternative revenue streams in the digital age. — In the past eight months, Sahara Ventures has been working with DW Akademie, Tanzania Media Foundation (TMF), and grassroots media houses to support Small and Medium Media Houses (SMMH) develop a strategy to navigate challenges brought by digital transformation by rethinking their business models. Swichi Project adopted a user-centric design…

For the past ten years of my career, I have been working on mastering time management; I have tested different approaches and followed multiple people and sources. It is a summary of what I have learned. — All great people, entrepreneurs included, have one thing in common: they have mastered the art of time management. I first started to learn about time management when I was in University. At that time, I was doing a Computer Science Degree and a Diploma in Finance and was the President…

A great week in Nairobi — meeting old friends and forming new ones. In a spirit of collaboration, how can we grow together the East African startup scene? — Tunasikia “Mama” anaupiga mwingi sana.., a bolt driver, asked me about my opinion on the current and the previous regime in Tanzania. I asked him about “Baba” and “Hustler” and who is the voting for..; the guy smiled. Enough of politics; Tanzanians and Kenyans have always been “Ndugu”, and we…

Let's look more innovative than our partners. — I don't need to say this. Innovation is a buzzword, and everyone wants to look innovative but looking innovative is very different from being innovative — innovation distinguishes leaders and followers, according to the late Steve Jobs. In the innovation world, we have the three Is; Innovators, Imitators and Idiots…

Sahara Accelerator — has been a busy Q1; we started the year by onboarding seven startups and launching the PesaTech Accelerator, we have partnered with UNCDF Tanzania to Accelerate FinTech startups in the country. — Last quarter of 2021, we decided to restructure how our accelerator program operates and agreed to pay attention to quality rather than quantity. We innovated a new investment facilitation model, whereby we take a commission from the successful introduction of startups to investors instead of equity once the deal is…

I love to write controversial articles because it makes us think. Recently, the amount of startup capital coming to Africa has increased significantly, and African startups' money raised reached $5B in 2021. A few unicorns have also emerged in some of the more matured Startup African startups ecosystems, primarily Nigeria…