Olugbenga Agboola’s Top Tips for Building International Business Partnerships
Olugbenga Agboola is the founder and CEO of Flutterwave. Currently valued at $3 billion, Flutterwave is a successful African fintech company with offices in Nigeria and San Francisco. It has a testament to how international business partnerships can be effective and prosperous. Additionally, it has become an encouragement for entrepreneurs globally. Entrepreneurs have realized that international business partnerships can be incredibly beneficial.
With a little bit of perseverance and the right kind of drive, Olugbenga Agboola was able to come into contact with important business partners. He exemplifies how one can be anything one wants to be. He exemplifies how individuals can achieve greatness if they put their minds to it. Olugbenga Agboola attributed Flutterwave’s success to creating successful partnerships across borders. This has seen the company quickly rise from a small startup to the backbone of African fintech. Partnerships are beneficial because they increase one’s knowledge. When you are collaborating with other individuals from different regions, you are exposed to a new world of possibilities and opportunities.
Olugbenga Agboola recently revealed in an interview with McKinsey’s Banking & Securities podcast that they had not anticipated becoming the de-factor infrastructure of payments in Africa. He reported that every African fintech company is a customer, making Flutterwave the only way to pay or get paid across the continent. Using application program interfaces (APIs), Flutterwave has supported every payment and aggregator in the country. Flutterwave is an emerging market payment processor that allows banks and customers to make payments in Africa, Europe, the US, the UK and Nigeria. Flutterwave is continuing to build infrastructure to enable this global payment system.
Olugbenga Agboola highlights the significance of local expertise for tech firms to succeed in Africa. This is due to its capacity to focus on and solve complicated problems with technology. Furthermore, he mentions that Africans have an aptitude for quickly gaining access to modern technology compared to other parts of the world. Africa’s tech industry has seen increased interest from major companies, such as Twitter and Facebook, but their plans have not been without concerns. Jack Dorsey’s proposed move to the continent never materialized, and Meta’s program Free Basics was banned in India for limiting access to preapproved content.
Africa needs to take advantage of its knowledge. Agboola recommends that companies that want to thrive in Africa should ensure that they have a strong local team. He claims there is no point in wasting resources travelling the world when you already have a team from the continent. Mobile use is still growing across Africa, especially in Nigeria, and can help advance the tech industry faster.
Olugbenga contends that Silicon Valley‘s redevelopment projects for Africa have been unsuccessful due to a lack of African business partners and the inability to transfer payment systems from one nation to another. He believes the models applied elsewhere can’t be applied to Africa since the requirements of each country differ. Olugbenga previously only looked for talents that understood the company’s mission, but now he is trying to gain insight into other markets as well.
The talent in Africa is phenomenal. Engineers can view a problem and have it built, tested, and ready to go by Monday. This agility and responsiveness to customer needs are due to the talents of those employed at Flutterwave. Strong women who are highly competent in their respective roles lead the company, such as head of expansion, head of operations, and head of data science.