Tech Startup Talks Africa: Conversing with Meghan McCormick on Entrepreneurship, Building Relations, and Thinking Africa-wide

Meghan McCormick is one of 1700+ African entrepreneurs who applied to pitch their tech startups for a chance to win $50,000. Her pitch for OZÉ — a mobile business coach, that helps businesses track when money is coming in and leaving — was one of the three winning business ideas for the 2019 MEST Africa Challenge.

As the 2020 MEST Africa Challenge launches its third call for applications, Meghan shares her insights on the impact of building relationships within the MEST network, thinking Africa wide, why a winning pitch needs a compelling story, and calls out to African women to pitch to win.

Founders like Meghan are the tech visionaries developing solutions for continent-wide and international realities. She believes that with the right resources from ecosystem players, like MEST providing mentorship, investment, and support throughout the startup life cycle, Africa’s entrepreneurs have a better chance to grow and compete.

What prepared you for entrepreneurship, specifically developing technological solutions for African problems?

My whole life I’ve been pretty entrepreneurial. So I guess it must have been my upbringing that prepared me for entrepreneurship.

What specifically prepared me for developing technological solutions for the African market was serving in the Peace Corps. I started the first business accelerator in Guinea. Through that experience, I became aware of the problems that are faced by small business owners and stakeholders.

With trying to solve those problems the solution ended up being technology. On the technology side, I’m not a technologist so I had to teach myself how we could build the solution that we were co-creating with our potential customers.

How has the local tech landscape in your country changed over the past five years? What are some of the emerging trends?

I think that technology has evolved a lot. There are more people from different backgrounds getting involved in technology and industry. Five years ago tech was mostly focused on the infrastructure that we needed like wifi network, mobile money, and foundational innovation that we need and now that we’re starting to see more penetration of smartphones and some of these foundational innovations, people are building interesting solutions on top of them.

How important are players like MEST, incubators, and accelerators to the success of tech startups on the continent?

I think it’s really important to have a focal resource, and it’s important to have connected tissue between other leading tech and innovation markets on the continent. When I first came to Ghana, MEST was one of the first organizations I reached out to. Just to talk to them and get a “lay of the land”. To figure out who else was working in the same space that we intended to work in and now that we are looking to expand beyond Ghana into other countries.

For example, the last time I was in Nigeria, I needed an office to work out of in-between meetings and because we’re a part of the MEST community, I just shot a WhatsApp message and I was able to have an office to work out of for a day or two. So I do think it’s really important that organizations like MEST exist and that they’re multinational.

What was it specifically about the MEST Africa Challenge or MEST in general that made you want to join the community by participating in the challenge?

It’s just really rare for there to be pitch competitions of this magnitude that are totally focused on the African continent, and so we wanted to be a part of that. We wanted to meet the other companies, we wanted to be a part of this movement to celebrate the innovation and the new companies coming out of the very smartest that work with MEST.

Every time I have an opportunity to build relationships with other entrepreneurs who have similar ambitions as we have in terms of wanting to create scaled companies that meaningfully make changes in the life of their customers, those relationships are incredibly valuable.

Being able to be a part of the MEST Africa Challenge, and even just spending a couple of days at an Airbnb with entrepreneurs from other countries, those relationships are really strong and it’s really exciting to be a part of that.

Were there any insights that you gained about yourself as an entrepreneur or your startup as a result of participating in the MEST Africa Challenge?

We were focused so much on West Africa because both my co-founder and I have been working in the region now for almost ten years.

We wanted to really focus on the market that we felt like we knew but something like record-keeping is so fundamental no matter where you are in the world. Being part of the MEST Africa Challenge and just hearing the — “Please come to my country” and also the feedback we got from entrepreneurs in South Africa where we thought the market might be too dense for us or in Kenya where we thought they kind of have all the digital innovations that are needed. The fact that they were still interested in this market was a really interesting insight.

What would you say were the immediate benefits to winning MEST, and how have you been able to leverage that success into even more wins?

We got a lot of publicity from the African Tech publications after winning MEST. I think OZÉ is pretty well known in Ghana but we’re still kind of under the radar in the other major African markets.

It was good to get our name out there and we met people at the MEST Africa Challenge who didn’t invest in us in this round just because of the stage they invest at but they have a very strong potential to become future investors in our company as we grow and raise more capital.

For entrepreneurs thinking about participating in the MEST Africa Challenge, what two things do they need to know about pitching to investors?

First, tell a compelling story. Figure out the story that you want to communicate to the investors, and then what numbers and actual tactical traction you’ve gotten to support that story. When we pitched to the MEST Africa Challenge, we were by no means the most advanced company. There were companies that have levels of revenue that we only dream about. I think we were included in the winners because we were able to tell a compelling story about what OZÉ does and what it can do for the customers that use it.

I think the second thing is — Go out and do something. Maybe you’ve invested the money you have into your business and you feel like you cannot afford a big marketing campaign or hire everybody you need, but there are ways to run low cost or free pilot prototype market research. The traction doesn’t have to be millions of dollars of revenue but if you can’t demonstrate that you are really willing to take action towards making your vision a reality. I think it would be hard to make it into the finals

Why do you think this is an opportunity that other entrepreneurs like yourself should seek?

I think entrepreneurship is about making something bigger than the resources that you have in front of you. It’s figuring out all the ways you can funnel resources and opportunities into creating something new for the world and the MEST Africa Challenge is one of the big ones in Africa.

There are not very many opportunities for entrepreneurs working on the continent to get a $50,000 investment at the early stage that you can get it in the MEST Africa Challenge. I think if you aren’t willing to put the effort and time in to even give it a try, probably your heart’s not in it for the long run in entrepreneurship.

Name two tech entrepreneurs that are from the country that you believe are the next startups to watch.

I really like Miishe Addy from Jetstream. I think that it still costs way too much money and way too much hassle to move goods around Ghana and around the continent and internationally. Now with the Africa Free Trade Agreement, we’re just going to see a lot more goods crossing borders which will create a lot of opportunities for her there.

And then, Paul Damalie at Appruve. It’s a startup that we work closely with. They do digital Know Your Customer (KYC). With every big opportunity that we have, we’re like oh we have to get Paul involved with this because if you can’t spell KYC you can’t spell digital finance.

There are those who still believe that Africa is still not ready to lead in tech because of our socio-political issues, what would you say to those naysayers about tech’s role in solving Africa’s development challenges?

Entrepreneurship is fundamentally about solving problems and solving them in this modern era and solving them in a way that is efficient, that’s scalable, that’s user-friendly, that intuitive. And you can’t do any of that without technology. In education, in enterprise and even just luxury and relaxation and in the service sector.

As we’re looking to advance the diversity and quality of the players in our market you can’t help but look to tech. In other markets, tech innovation can be quite incremental especially in the B2B, B2C space as opposed to the other big tech, biotech space. When you’re looking at B2B or B2b or B2C innovations in Africa because so much has to be done you can actually do something that’s new and innovative and that shapes markets. I think it’s a more exciting place to build a business.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We need more women to apply and get to the finals. I see it time and time again that I’m often the only female CEO pitching at these events or one of the few. If you can’t tell from my name, I’m not Ghanaian. And I want to see more Ghanaian women get the recognition that they deserve and need to take their businesses to the next level.

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The MEST Africa Challenge provides startups like OZÉ with the funding they need to scale along with on-the-ground business support, mentorship, and access to a global network across the entire startup lifecycle. Over the last 12 years, MEST has invested $22 million in over 60 companies across Africa. The MEST Africa Challenge pitch competition is now accepting applications from tech software entrepreneurs in nine countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sénégal, South Africa, and Tanzania. MEST is offering up to $50,000 in equity investment to the winning start-up. Apply here!