As an African entrepreneur, are you innovating from 0 to 1 or 1 to n?
A Review of Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future
By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves … we fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise.
Charles V. Willie
In Zero To One, author and billionaire tech investor, Peter Thiel writes for the American audience. However, his message appears directed, even more strongly, to the growing corps of African entrepreneurs.
As such, I have no doubt the book is probably the most important book for any African (student) aspiring to be an entrepreneur. If you think this describes you, then you must read the book — and I dare recommend — not just once, but, at least, twice.
As the least technologically advanced continent in the world today, Africa stands to benefit the most from 21st century technologies and opportunities. And when one factors in the fact that the continent has the highest amount of untapped resources (human talents, mineral resources and knowledge systems, just to name but a few) and unsolved problems (ill-functioning governance systems, poor healthcare, ill-developed school systems, poor infrastructure, not-well planned cities, under-developed coastal marine ecosystems, low agricultural yields, non-mechanized production systems, et cetera) it is easy to see the vast amount of space that today’s educated young Africans can explore to push the boundaries of innovation.
The good news, however, is that our young Africans are not resting on their oars. They are taking advantage of these opportunities with both hands. According to Statistica, which tracks startup foundry in Africa, the number of African startups have continued to rise significantly over the last ten years with Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt leading the pack. In 2022 alone 633 African startups raised $3.3 billion, which is 55.1% more than the previous year’s figure.
While we should celebrate Africa’s growing technology ecosystem, it is crucial to recognize certain patterns that leave any concerned individual worried about our growth trajectory and competitiveness, and how well we are harnessing the opportunities of the 21st century in unique ways to empower and transform Africa.
For example, it’s not difficult to see that most of our young entrepreneurs are not really innovating from 0 to 1, but rather expanding from 1 to n by merely adapting existing ideas from other places, notably Europe and America.
As Peter Thiel warns in the book, unless entrepreneurs invest in the difficult task of creating new ideas, i.e. growing from 0 to 1, “they will fail in the future no matter how big their profits remain today” or how well positioned they appear to be.
Even the terms we use to describe our technology ecosystems “Silicon Savannah” and “Yabacon Valley” and our entrepreneurs “Bill Gates of Africa” suggest we are more excited about 1 to n growth (copy pasting what works in Europe and America) than 0 to 1 innovation (creating new things that are grounded in our rich knowledge systems).
Take for example, Jumia, which is Africa’s largest and most-funded e-commerce company, with over 30 million visitors per month. In a recent interview, the chief executive of the company’s Nigerian operations, Juliet Anammah, says Jumia is “an African company … solving problems for Africans on the continent.” And that’s true. However, it remains to be seen how much of “an African business” the company is and how much of its ideas and policies is grounded uniquely in a desire to create wealth for Africa by going from 0 to 1.
The company was incorporated in Berlin in 2012. At the most senior level, the company is managed by foreign executives who operate almost 24/7 outside of Africa. A good number of the technicians who design and maintain Jumia’s online systems, many of whom are non-Africans, work out of Portugal. As one Financial Times analyst observed, “[H]ow [then] does [Jumia] differ, precisely, from companies such as Shell or Coca-Cola, which both employ thousands of Africans, but which can hardly claim to be African?”
While I hail the company’s growth and achievement and while I don’t think there is anything fundamentally wrong in registering a startup overseas or having foreign executives or technicians in a company, it is important to really recognize the company’s approach to innovation for what it is: 1 to n technology. Afterall, Jumia is the brainchild of Rocket Internet, a German company whose primary business model is to spin off companies that “copy paste” ideas from Silicon Valley to other parts of the world for the benefit of the parent company.
It is easy to see why African entrepreneurs will seek to innovate by following a 1 to n growth mentality. Firstly, the Western world has done an extremely fantastic job of advancing technology in the last century. In most cases, however, they have achieved this feat through comparative advantage — often by using a monopolistic production structure or by repressing and denigrating technologies from other places, such as Africa. Secondly, our system of education in Africa uses Western concepts heavily and borrows examples almost exclusively from the West. Thus, it trains us to see everything African as inferior and lacking in technology, and everything Western as technologically superior and desirable. To me, this is the greatest obstacle African entrepreneurs face in achieving 0 to 1 technology growth.
No African company will ever achieve world-class innovation by copy pasting ideas from Europe, America or Asia without creating new things, or at least remixing whatever ideas they have “borrowed” with a substantial dose of “Africanness”.
Peter Thiel offers a number of powerful strategies for going from 0 to 1 by building companies that create new things. Three of them are particularly relevant to the upcoming African entrepreneur:
Peter Thiel offers a number of powerful strategies for going from 0 to 1 by building companies that create new things. Three of them are particularly relevant to the upcoming African entrepreneur:
1 Think for yourself
According to the author, one way to cultivate the power of thinking for oneself is to develop your own set of contrarian questions — What important truth do very few people agree with you on? For the African entrepreneur, the question (to paraphrase the author) should be:
What valuable African company is no one building?
A valuable African company is one that seeks to advance Africa and create wealth for its people and for the world. Another approach is to explore solutions that blend ideas from modern technologies and methodologies (e.g. AI) and our own indigenous capacities and knowledge systems. Our ability to innovate and grow from 0 to 1 lies precisely at the intersection of the two: AI and African indigenous knowledge. Sadly, many of us feel ashamed or reluctant to identify with our knowledge systems. As a friend of mine once put it, one thing that tells you that an African has attained Western education (in most cases, the cheap version) is that they begin to despise their heritage and run away from their “Africanness.”
2 Look for secrets
Every one of the great ideas driving today’s technology — be it the Internet, genomics, and calculus — was once unknown and unsuspected, i.e. it was once a secret. Secrets, the author notes, are the bedrock upon which great companies are founded.
“Great companies can be built on open but unsuspected secrets about how the world works.”
And to found great companies, one must believe there are secrets left to be found and must earnestly go look for them.
In doing so, the author recommends two kinds of distinct questions to ask: What secrets is nature not telling you — secrets of nature or the physical world? What secrets are people not telling you — secrets about people or the social world?
“The best place to look is where no one else is looking.”
Undoubtedly, this confers a disproportionate advantage on today’s African entrepreneurs. In Africa, we have an abundance of practices and concepts that hold huge secrets for potential innovation, for example, can we bring new technologies to bear on our traditional bone setting therapy? What about the Ubuntu philosophy, which holds a key to solving most of the ethical issues we face in today’s online world? Unfortunately, we have been educated to run away from the very things that hold the secret to our technological growth.
3 Ignore competition
The book offers compelling reasons why every entrepreneur should desist from competing, but instead seek to build a business that becomes a monopoly. To drive home this point, Thiel shows that although American airlines, which compete among themselves, have a much larger market share overall, they are all put together far less profitable than Google, which shoots for monopoly because it is the best search engine. According to the author, to achieve monopoly,
You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.”
Conclusion
The fact is that the art of innovation cannot be copied, but can only be invented or remade by thinking from first principles.
As the book clearly states, “the creation of new value cannot be reduced to a formula” to be taught or copied or even applied by professionals.
The most important task facing every educated African today, especially young students and entrepreneurs, is to find uniquely singular ways to rethink the world and the place of Africa in it and create the new things that will transform Africa and make the future not just different, but better for all; that is, to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step, which is compellingly articulated in this book, is to “think for yourself.”
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