Inside the C-Suite: Ken Njoroge- CEO, Cellulant

Inside the C-Suite is a new podcast focused on showcasing African startup stories. The series is powered by I-DEV International, Metta and the East Africa Venture Capital Association (EAVCA) with an aim of telling success stories and struggles behind Africa’s most innovative companies.

In Episode 3, we invited Ken Njoroge, CEO of Cellulant- an award winning digital payments and digital commerce service solutions provider- that recently raised a whopping $47.5M Series C round from TPG Growth’s Rise Fund. This episode provides a glimpse of an entrepreneur that has been resilient and bullish in his dream to build Africa’s largest fintech company.

Established in 2004, Cellulant is a true Pan-African tech company with operations in 11 countries and 338 employees. The company serves 94 banks and 7 mobile money platforms and supports 40+ mobile networks, 21+ mobile wallets, 600+ e-commerce platforms and 120 million consumers in Africa.

Here are my key takeaways:

Successful entrepreneurs backgrounds are erratic.

Can entrepreneurship be taught? Do successful entrepreneurs have a certain shared common history? Which characters make the best entrepreneurs? Vanity questions.

According to Ken, people have a misconception that you need to be experienced to start a business. He advises early entrepreneurs that the only validation they require will come from listening to the market, customer, and employees. Along with his co-founder, Bolaju Akinboro, he is proving that regular Africans can build a world-class business. Regular meaning never went to Ivy League Schools, never left the country, wholly bred & educated in the local system, no political connection, and no corruption.

When you have skin in the game you behave differently.

Main Hustle vs Side Hustle Dilemmas. Should I? Should I not? Brain Cell 1 vs Brain Cell 2.

It is difficult to be a master of your craft when you’re running two or more things at once. If the side hustle represents a big enough opportunity and you have a big vision, give it 100% attention.

Ken believes that the only reason he has outmatched his competition is the sheer hard work, time dedication that has gone into eliminating possible threats to the business.

Identifying a problem + Coming up with a solution ≠ Success

One key determinant of an entrepreneur’s success is their mental model. This refers to a decision-making system that embodies the thought process of how we understand the world. Mental models set the tone and approach to solving problems and executing tasks both in our personal and professional lives.

Listening to Ken, one thing that stood out is his bullishness, resilience, and vision when he encounters barriers. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, he has encountered numerous barriers that threatened his life’s work. For example, when Chase Bank went under receivership the company took a major hit since the bank at that time was their biggest credit line. Ken had to personally dispose of personal assets to keep the company afloat.

Fundraising is a full-time job.

Never stop fundraising. You never know when the well (economy) will dry up. You never know how long it will take to close a round. You never know the opportunity cost for a lack of investment readiness.

Despite Cellulant’s popularity within the FinTech space, it took them 2 years to close their $47.5 Million Series C round. That’s 400 presentations across the world in the process approaching 60 different investors and ultimately yielding to 1 successful investment. <2% success rate.

For a CEO, there comes a phase where day to day running of the business takes a back seat and you have to trust your team to make decisions. So from the get-go, build better teams than you from the start. Be comfortable with sharing decisions. Trust that growth (shared decisions) makes you a little bit more resilient because there are more people interested in solving the problems of the business.

Learning how to articulate yourself is real value on the table.

Unfortunately, Kenya’s and many African countries' education systems do not appreciate, encourage and support storytelling. Just how far can memorizing take you in the investor round table?

Ken believes a lot of Kenyan entrepreneurs lack storytelling skills. In fact, he adjudges himself as having been poor in the initial years and having had to invest in up-scaling himself to become a much more effective entrepreneur. He believes if he went back to the same 60 investors, he would close a 50% higher valuation.

Wishing Ken & his team at Cellulant all the best!