Our Experience Scaling a Tech Startup to Nigeria
Starting a tech startup has never been easier than today. Through cloud services anyone can get their hands on advanced technology and hosting services at affordable prices. The rise of the Internet gives you access to a global customer base. But the downside is that competition can also come from anywhere in the world. Increased competition puts pressure on the prices and means you must scale fast and create volume to survive. Being a tech powered startup ourselves we asked our CEO, Merijn Campsteyn, about his experience growing Accounteer. And especially his choice to come to Africa.
First things first. What is Accounteer all about?
Accounteer is online accounting software made for entrepreneurs. We make it easy for business owners to take control over their professional finances. They can create invoices, track expenses and monitor how their business is performing in real time.
What sets Accounteer apart from other accounting software?
Accounteer originated from a personal need. I was looking for an accounting solution for my own business that was complete and easy to use but couldn’t find any. Existing accounting packages were built for accountants and not user-friendly. They are overly complex. So, ease of use is our first differentiator. We want any business owner to be able to use the program even without extensive financial knowledge.
A second differentiator is that Accounteer was explicitly built for the African market. We integrate with local banks, payment systems and services. This allows businesses to automate their financial workflows and reduce the time needed for manually entering transactions into their accounting system. Integration with African services is something that has been neglected by international cloud accounting providers. Plus, we also offer more competitive prices than most other accounting software.
We also provide a mobile app that allows you to run your business from your device. It even works when you are offline. So, you can continue to run your business even without Internet connection. This combines the benefits of online and connected accounting software with the redundancy of a local installation. A combination that is unique in the market.
When did you figure out it was time to expand to Africa?
From the start, we already had the idea to expand to Africa. During high school, I lived two years in Kenya where I really fell in love with the vibrant spirit of African people. Apart from the love for the continent I also identified a clear need for a product like Accounteer. Despite their hard work, many African business owners struggle to grow their companies. Access to growth capital is difficult. SMEs are overpaying taxes. And business owners don’t have the data to take the right management decision. All these problems can be traced back to the lack of accurate and trustworthy financial accounts.
The combination of a personal connection and a clear need for the product made expanding to Africa a no-brainer.
What influenced your choice of expanding to Africa especially Nigeria?
On average Nigeria has a quite mature economy compared to other African countries. Especially the Fintech space is well developed. There’s also an active startup community who’s working on cutting edge technology. We chose Nigeria because we can leverage this ecosystem to build our business. Some of the things we’re currently developing we can only do in Nigeria. Thanks to the speed at which new technologies are adopted and the openness to it. As an example, for us, it’s important to be able to connect directly with banks to exchange information. Such projects take years in Europe and the US but can be pulled off in a week in Nigeria.
How were you able to put a team together?
Assembling a great team is one of the hardest challenges. You can have the best ideas, but in the end, it’s the execution that counts. So, bringing together a pool of talent has always been on top of the list.
I did some small ventures before starting Accounteer, and I knew how hard it is to start a new company from the ground up. That’s why I said to myself that if I would ever found a new business, I would never do it alone. Before starting Accounteer, I worked four years at Deloitte. The plan was to start Accounteer with two of my colleagues. To manage the risk, I was the first one to quit his job and start working on the project full time. Hoping the others would join in a later stage. Unfortunately, that never happened. In the end, they decided to remain in their corporate jobs leaving me alone to run the company. You know this saying “When the shit hits the fan…”, well it did.
Despite detailed planning and agreement, things will go wrong. As an entrepreneur, you need to cope with change and find solutions. So, I decided not to give up and continue building Accounteer as a solo entrepreneur. As the company grew work became too much. The first profile I was looking for to add to the team was a technical person. Preferably someone local because it’s important to have someone who understands the market. However, it’s not easy to recruit someone who’s thousands of kilometres away without knowing what a reasonable offer would be for the person and a way to assess technical knowledge. During the search, I came across Andela. While they are definitely not the cheapest option for a startup to recruit, they can deliver skilled software developers with good work ethics.
Via our first developer, we got in touch with some of the other future team members. Also participating in the Ventures Platform acceleration program helped us with the recruitment. While we hardly got any applicants in the past, the exposure Ventures Platform gave us brought it a lot of applications for our job openings. Now we’re with a team of nine. A right mix of tech, business and operational people.
What challenges did you have?
There are quite some challenges to overcome when doing business in Africa.
First of all registering a business isn’t easy. Especially not if you have a foreign founder. I’m from a country where people are used to an abundance of paperwork, but Nigeria takes this to a whole new level. It took us more than six months to set up the business. I hope there will be a government official reading this article who can make doing business in Nigeria a whole lot easier.
Another challenge is getting the right talent on board. It’s not always possible to find people with the exact skill set you need. That’s why we’re recruiting for people with the right attitude and provide them learning opportunities. But being a startup company, it’s not always easy to make these investments.
How did the citizens accept your service?
It’s imperative to have people on the ground who understand the culture and help you approach the market the right way. We actively reach out to our customers. On a regular basis, we hold events to connect with business owners and understand their current challenges.
For me, it’s also essential that we generate local value. We’re not a foreign company trying to sell a product in Nigeria and take the money back out. We turned it completely around and set up a business in Nigeria, provide local employment and are even exporting our services from Nigeria to other countries.
What steps did you take to gain grounds?
What surprised me is the importance off-line sales still have. Especially in Nigeria there still is a lack of trust and understanding in online services. People don’t have a problem signing up but are reluctant to start using the software. That’s why we combine on-line and off-line in our go-to-market strategy. We call everyone who signs up on our website to guide them through the software and how we can help them manage their business. Providing excellent customer service is key to any business that wants to be successful.
What factors did you consider before expanding to Nigeria?
Any new market we enter must have some level of maturity. We sell an online service so there must be readily available Internet. There must also be a need for accounting services. In Nigeria, there is already a large group of registered businesses who run their operations professionally. And the way business is conducted and regulated is maturing rapidly. It made Nigeria the ideal place to start and expand our service across Africa from there.
