Friends of StartupBus Africa: Julian Artope

Julian Artope heads-up the African expansion of Ringier; he speaks to us briefly about his amazing journey, his take on StartupBus Africa, and gives advice to the buspreneurs.

1. Who are you?
   My name is Julian Artope and I’m currently heading the African expansion of global media enterprise, Ringier. Back in 2006 I was involved in the foundation and growth of studiVZ (Germany’s Facebook, back in the day) which became the largest website in Germany within a year. I then co-founded Shoeboxed.com in the States and afterwards worked for 4 years in London; scaling Moneybookers/Skrill as VP Marketing to 600 employees, 30M users and over 100M GBP revenue. About a year ago, I joined Ringier to drive their African expansion into digital content, classifieds and eCommerce in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. Nowadays, Ringier Africa runs 10 platforms, with +100 employees in these markets.
2. What is your take on the StartupBus Africa project?
   I think StartupBus Africa is an amazing idea to connect international experience with local entrepreneurship. Africa is full of capable minds and events like this give them a platform to develop and pitch their ideas, pushing true local innovation.
3. Is there any advice that you have for the buspreneurs as they prepare to board the bus?
   Don’t try to make money, try to build something iconic and chase a vision. Money will follow and your integrity is more important than your career in the end. Focus on your day-to-day execution, on attention to detail, on perfecting your product, but also your product language. Be precise and paranoid, never complacent. And from an investor’s perspective, especially in Africa: Don’t sell yourself under value, but don’t expect a million-dollar valuation for a concept. We unfortunately have seen some entrepreneurs with great ideas in sub-Saharan Africa who treated a seed investment like an exit and in the end had to close down shop because they were looking for personal gains more than what would make sense for their company.