ALEX RUGEMA

FORGET INVESTORS Pitch ready. Investor ready. But the room is empty. African entrepreneurs are trained to master the art of pitching to investors. When the time comes to meet them, the chairs are empty.   THE MYTH OF READINESS Investment readiness has become a ritual – a default checkbox. Entrepreneurs are to develop decks and rehearse pitches. “If ready, money shall come” is the assumption. If it doesn’t, it is because the entrepreneur wasn’t ready. Ready for what is the question?   The assumption is linear: Readiness leads to capital. But investor readiness only matters if there is an investor on the other side of the table. At the early stages where most African entrepreneurs sit, that someone is absent. This is the flaw - activities continue to prepare entrepreneurs for encounters for a room and people who hardly exist. The aspiration of investors for early stage African businesses doesn't match the African reality.   THE MISPLACED ANALOGY A logic analogy would that as students in education are trained to meet the demand of employers, entrepreneurs are trained to meet the demand of investors.   But the analogy collapses under scrutiny. Jobs exist (for a later post). Industries exist. At the USD 50k-200k stage, investors in most African markets barely exist. The ecosystem is teaching a language for a marketplace that is empty.   THE EMPTY CHAIR This is not just theoretical. If every entrepreneur trained in “investment readiness” were to face the investors supposedly waiting, the reality would be bleak: a crowded room of founders with only a handful of investors - if any at all. The result is disillusionment, not opportunity.   This is why a fact check is overdue. How many investors (investors and not other types of financiers) are genuinely deploying at that early stage that most current projects are focusing on? Enough to warrant the money spent on training this discipline to everyone regardless of maturity? Or is this narrative kept alive because it is easier than confronting and addressing the scarcity?   TIME TO REFOCUS The real tension is one of timing. Entrepreneurs are being readied for a capital landscape that funders hope will exist, rather than the financing they actually need - need now and the foreseeable future.   Businesses grow in stages; capital should follow those stages. Instead of collapsing everything into “investor readiness,” we need a more realistic sequence: Bankable, then fundable, financable and only then investable.   Shifting the language will not conjure new money, but it will ground expectations in reality and force us to design support that makes sense - that meets the market.   The difficult question is unavoidable: Does the story of early-stage investors reflect reality, or are we preparing entrepreneurs for empty chairs?   If the latter, then the task ahead is not more training. It is to build the finance pathways African entrepreneurs genuinely require - stage by stage, market by market, reality by reality.

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I spent years telling a number of African VCs they should get involved in building their early stage pipeline. Basically an accelerator pre funding. They have kept on explaining why they cannot Now that a16z has launched a16z speedrun https://speedrun.a16z.com watch them copy.🙄

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THE BATTLE FOR AFRICA’S FUTURE: TECH REVOLUTION OR REAL ECONOMIC MUSCLE? Most places you look, Africa’s tech scene is booming — shiny hubs, fintech unicorns, and AI startups making headlines. In stark contrast, youth unemployment in Africa remains alarmingly high — estimated at around 22% continent-wide in 2024 — and frustration is growing. Country-level extremes: ➤ #SouthAfrica: Youth unemployment soared around 52% in 2024. ➤ #Uganda: A staggering 83% of youth are unemployed—including graduates—especially in urban areas. ➤ #Eswatini & #Djibouti: Both face youth unemployment rates over 50–70% in certain estimates ➤ According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Economic Survey 2024, youth aged 18–35 who are deprived of economic activity (i.e., not working or studying) stand at 53.1% Meanwhile, the digital revolution means information travels faster than ever, opening doors to innovation but also to instability. So here’s the real question: is our obsession with the digital boom distracting us from building the economic muscle we truly need? Because yes, an app can move money — but it can’t lay down railway lines, build power plants, or run factories that employ millions. We risk becoming a continent that proudly exports code while still importing tractors, textiles, and even basic tools. The real task isn’t choosing between tech and industry — it’s making sure our digital progress fuels production, agriculture, and manufacturing at scale. We need to: ➤ Tie Tech to Industry – Incentivise startups to solve manufacturing, agriculture, and energy problems, not just payment or delivery apps. ➤ Invest in Hard Infrastructure – Power, roads, and ports are the oxygen for scaling both tech and industry. ➤ Align Skills with Production – Make STEM, vocational, and manufacturing skills national priorities. ➤ Unlock African Capital – Channel pension funds, sovereign wealth, and diaspora investment into industrial SMEs and hardtech. Otherwise, our revolution will stay online while poverty stays stubbornly offline. Your thoughts — is Africa’s future being coded into apps, or forged in factories? And most importantly, how do we turn this moment into real jobs and lasting prosperity for the youth? Africa Business Inc Africa Business Leadership Institute African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat African Development Bank Group African Union #AfricaFuture #Industrialization #DigitalAfrica #AfricaRising #VC #Manufacturing #Hardtech #AfricanTech #BuildAfrica #TheAfricaWeWant

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