Joshua Bicknell On How Balloon Ventures' 'Boring Business' Portfolio Drives 0.5% Of Uganda's GDP
Episode Overview:
This episode features a deep conversation with Joshua Bicknell, co-founder of Balloon Ventures, exploring how the organisation evolved from a non-profit connecting young people with informal entrepreneurs to becoming a financial institution that's deployed over $14 million in loans to SMEs across Kenya and Uganda, while openly sharing portfolio data to prove the viability of SME lending as an asset class.
Key topics:
- The false gospel of universal entrepreneurship
- Defining and creating "good jobs"
- Blended finance and return expectations
- The power of boring businesses
- Data transparency in impact investing
- Cash-based economies and digitalisation
Notable points:
1. Their portfolio businesses represent 8% of Eastern Uganda's GDP—approximately 0.5% of the country's total GDP
2. The institution provides loans of $10,000-$200,000 bundled with 6 months of business support
3. They're helping validate that SME lending can be viable with the right approach to data and risk
4. Their model challenges the "have your cake and eat it" narrative in impact investing
5. They're open-sourcing portfolio data to encourage other institutions to enter the space
Listen in for practical insights into how traditional brick-and-mortar businesses can drive meaningful economic development and job creation in East Africa's emerging markets.
Image credit: Balloon Ventures
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41:05
Ochuko Ogra On Backbone Connectivity Network's (BCN) Nigeria Growth Strategy
This episode features a brief check-in with Ochuko Ogra, Chief Transformation and Strategy Officer at Backbone Connectivity Network (BCN), sketching Nigeria's digital infrastructure landscape.
Episode overview:
BCN has over 1,000 km of wholly-owned fibre infrastructure, primarily in the North-Central and North Eastern parts of Nigeria. Citing its stronghold in Northern Nigeria to its expanding national footprint, Ogra shares how BCN is leveraging its two decades of experience in Nigerian telecommunications to drive the country's digital transformation agenda.
Key insights:
- Nigeria currently has 8 subsea cables landing in the country
- The country's 200+ million population presents significant opportunities across retail and enterprise segments in country and to its West African neighbours
- A young, digitally-native population is driving content creation and digital service adoption
- BCN's approach emphasises customer value creation across both enterprise and end-user segments
- The company's strong presence in Northern Nigeria positions it well for national expansion
- Strategic focus encompasses education, healthcare and public sector digitalisation
- Government commitment to digital transformation includes a 92,000km fibre network initiative
- Emphasis on business collaboration over competition in emerging technology integration
Editorial Note: This podcast conversation was recorded at the fringes of NOVACOM Africa 1-to-1 Telco Summit 2024 in Franschhoek, South Africa, where African Tech Roundup's executive producer Andile Masuku attended as an independent media guest. African Tech Roundup maintains complete editorial oversight and is not affiliated with the event organisers.
Image credit: Nova Summits Limited
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10:35
Alan Knott-Craig Jr On Life After Mxit's Royal Fail (2016)
Listen in as Alan Knott-Craig Jr, son of Alan Sr, the pioneering co-founder and first CEO of Vodacom, one of South Africa's leading mobile network operators, and later the feisty CEO of challenger telco Cell C—takes us through a transformative career moment that set the stage for his future ventures.
Episode overview
This early 2016 conversation finds Alan Knott-Craig Jr in a moment of trademark forthrightness. Fresh from his tenure as CEO of Mxit, once Africa's largest social network with over 50 million registered users, he was already building Project Isizwe, a non-profit bringing free public Wi-Fi to South African townships, while laying the groundwork for HeroTel—reportedly the country's largest fixed wireless internet service providers. His journey would later lead to founding FiberTime, his current venture bringing pay-as-you-go fibre internet to townships through an innovative voucher-based model—an offering in a growing field of players serving underserved communities.
Critical points
- The fascinating disconnect between Knott-Craig Jr's prominent surname and admittedly privileged middle-class roots—his father never held Vodacom shares and put him through government schools
- His journey from dutiful son following paternal direction until 25 to forging his own entrepreneurial path
- The honest characterisation of Project Isizwe's non-profit work as "sincerely selfish"
What we know now
Viewed from 2025, this conversation foreshadowed key developments in Knott-Craig Jr's trajectory:
- The evolution from running Africa's largest social network to pioneering township internet connectivity models
- His transition through various ventures: from Project Isizwe's free township Wi-Fi network to HeroTel's rural broadband expansion, and now FiberTime's pay-as-you-go township fibre model
- The emergence of his distinctive voice on entrepreneurship, particularly evident in his strongly-opinionated social posts and entrepreneurship books.
Questions we're pondering
- Could Mxit, with over 50 million registered users at its peak, have dominated African mobile social networking if it had doubled down on being a dating platform instead of taking WhatsApp head-on?
- After writing several books about entrepreneurship over the last decade, has Knott-Craig Jr fully embraced vulnerability in "Life Lessons: How to fail and win" (June 2024)?
- Will FiberTime's pay-as-you-go model or some derivative—no contracts, just vouchers for 24 hours of uncapped 100Mbps—prove to be the key that unlocks true digital inclusion in South African townships?
Image credit: Stokoekeagan
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51:55
Building Bridges: Maya Horgan Famodu's Silicon Valley-Africa Crossing Playbook (2017)
Episode overview
This unfiltered 2017 archive dialogue captures Maya Horgan Famodu (Founder and Partner, Ingressive Capital) before she became known for straight-talking LinkedIn posts about founder insights and personal growth.
Fresh from investment banking, she was forging new pathways between Silicon Valley capital and African startup innovation via carefully-curated investor tours—laying the groundwork for the launch of Ingressive Capital's investment months later.
Listening back, you can hear how the same independence and non-traditional EQ that helped a "small girl from a trailer park" believe she could launch a VC fund was already shaping her vision.
Critical points
- The early signs of the independent thinking that would later become her trademark
- How her unconventional background shaped her approach to investment
- Why bridging Silicon Valley and African tech required a translator's insight
- The unexpected ways growing up between worlds prepared her for building cross-cultural understanding
What we know now
Looking back from 2024, this conversation reveals both professional and personal threads that would define Horgan Famodu's impact:
- The shift from understated confidence to singular public voice
- How her own story of independent creativity would later resonate with investors and founders
- The evolution from curating entrees to the African tech startup opportunity to foreign investors to leading investments
Questions we're pondering
- How has Horgan Famodu's public sharing of her personal journey influenced African tech discourse?
- What role does authentic leadership play in venture capital today?
- How has the relationship between personal story and professional impact evolved in African tech?
As we wind down 2024, we're diving into our archives to serve up some memorable throwback conversations.
Whether you're a long-time listener revisiting these gems or discovering them for the first time, these conversations capture pivotal moments in Africa's tech journey. In today's episode, we're rewinding to 2018...
Episode overview:
Join us as we eavesdrop on a fascinating corridor conversation from Afrobytes Tech Marketplace in Paris featuring Amadou Daffe, who has since transformed Gebeya from an Ethiopian tech talent marketplace into a pan-African hybrid organisation connecting African developers with global opportunities, and Adewale Yusuf, who went from leading the tech media platform Techpoint to founding AltSchool Africa, which is now expanding online tech education from Africa into Europe.
What makes this chat particularly relevant today is how it foreshadowed Ethiopia's emergence as a tech talent powerhouse and Nigeria's developer compensation dynamics.
Critical insights:
1. The "Andela Effect" on developer salaries in Nigeria and its impact on local startups
2. Ethiopia's unique developer culture characterised by quiet confidence and humility
3. The stark contrast between Ethiopian and Nigerian developer mindsets
4. An unexpected revelation about Paga's Ethiopian development roots
Standout moments:
- Daffe reveals why he chose Ethiopia over Nigeria and Kenya for his tech venture
- A surprising disclosure about Ethiopian developers' role in programming Sophia the robot
- The parallel drawn between Nigeria's music industry success and its tech ecosystem
Market intelligence (circa 2018):
- Ethiopia: 43 universities offering computer science degrees
Nigeria: Developer salaries reaching $50,000, pricing out local startups
- Ethiopian developers' competitive advantage: Similar quality at $10,000/year
Looking back, looking forward:
As we revisit this conversation in 2024, it's fascinating to see how many of these observations played out. Has Ethiopia realised its potential as a tech hub? Have Nigeria's developer salary dynamics stabilised?
We're curious...
- Did this episode resonate with your current experience in either market?
- Should we get Daffe and Yusuf back on the show to discuss how things have evolved for them as founders?
- Are you a developer from either country? We'd love to hear your perspective!
South Africa