Popping Cristal: On How to Tap Unmet Need in Francophone Markets
Welcome to Episode 4 of Dans les Coulisses, a series exploring VC and tech entrepreneurship in Francophone Africa, brought to you by Impact Hub Dakar and The Trajectory Africa.
This episode’s guest is Tijan Watt. Tijan is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Wuri Ventures, a pan-African venture capital fund focused on pre-seed and seed opportunities. Tijan has spent 20 years as an operator, building companies in Senegal and in the US, and as an investor, working in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and private equity at Travant Capital Partners. Tijan graduated summa cum laude with a BA from Howard University in mathematics and computer science, and holds an MBA from Harvard University. Tijan writes about all things “business in Africa” at www.tijanwatt.com.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why demand is truly unlimited in Africa [1:54]
- Why rethinking a sector-centric thesis might be a good idea [9:02]
- Why the UEMOA zone has an underappreciated competitive advantage [13:43]
- How startups delivering public goods is a venture-scale opportunity [22:28]
- Why investing in the “real economy” unlocks $4 trillion in value [26:06]
- How to know if your investable trend has “legs” [28:22]
- Why affordability is the key to cracking “informal” markets [35:00]
- What drives capital flow into the UEMOA region [43:03]
- The bankability of soft power in Africa [51:32]
