Justin Norman 🌍
@just_norm
Followers
4,915
Following
393
Media
643
Statuses
5,218
Telling stories of progress across Africa. Founder, @TheFlipAfrica .
Joined May 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#PressConMGSongKhla25xENGLOT
• 364149 Tweets
#LingOrmFMinMNL
• 351807 Tweets
LINGORM MANILA FANMEET
• 295971 Tweets
Miami
• 102686 Tweets
FOURTH SHINING IN KOREA
• 87049 Tweets
CWR x RAVIPA Jewelry
• 83121 Tweets
石破首相
• 67845 Tweets
#スパスタ3期
• 62726 Tweets
#Liella
• 58396 Tweets
ラブライブ
• 52308 Tweets
スーパースター
• 46704 Tweets
LUX PPNARAVIT
• 37332 Tweets
凱旋門賞
• 36364 Tweets
YabaniDizisi DevamEtsin
• 33913 Tweets
京都大賞典
• 29022 Tweets
ディープボンド
• 27091 Tweets
ブローザホーン
• 21198 Tweets
FORTPEAT LOVESEA FANMEETING
• 18109 Tweets
ドラゴンズ
• 17743 Tweets
ビシエド
• 16361 Tweets
立浪監督
• 14780 Tweets
シックスペンス
• 11530 Tweets
WIN5
• 11062 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
Please allow me to celebrate vanity metrics 😅
Just checked the charts,
@TheFlipAfrica
is currently the
#1
Entrepreneurship podcast in
Nigeria 🇳🇬
Kenya 🇰🇪
Ghana 🇬🇭
Senegal 🇸🇳
Mauritius 🇲🇺
Namibia 🇳🇦
Benin 🇧🇯
Sierra Leone 🇸🇱
Angola 🇦🇴
Seychelles 🇸🇨
Niger 🇳🇪
Burkina Faso 🇧🇫
🙏🙏
12
35
224
So let me get this straight - South Africa has world-class genomics labs and scientists and as a result, they are the ones to discover these new variants.
And then after they do, everyone calls it the South African variant and bans travel from SA
178
3K
8K
It will always be funny to me that the whitest part of Kenya is called Karen 😂😂
166
1K
5K
I'm playing around with an extension that shows me an account's most-liked tweets.
@jack
's most-liked tweet is Nigeria + bitcoin.
For
@patrickc
, it's a tweet on Stripe acquiring Paystack.
@stripe
's is also on Paystack.
@TechCrunch
? You guessed it.
Nigerians man ✊🇳🇬
14
285
968
Aren’t people supposed to be using the technology that everyone’s so excited to be building and investing in?
People can’t use ChatGPT to send an email?
My point here is not that I dislike "delve," though I do, but that it's a sign that text was written by ChatGPT.
724
486
6K
9
248
865
Mercury shutting down accounts from a select few countries raises the question of risk - is it actual or perceived?
Last year, I asked Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman of Access Holdings, this question about the perceived risk of African countries.
Here's what he had to say...
8
218
461
Just went looking at the market cap of banks in Nigeria in light of
@theflutterwave
Series D & $3bn valuation.
Looks like Flutterwave is now the largest financial institution in Nigeria by market cap (and I think 5th largest company overall) 📈🚀
17
110
335
Respect to the founders of
@thepeerHQ
for returning the capital when they couldn’t see a path for the company.
@TechCabal
one thing I’d love to know and see reported - how much did they spend and how much of the $ did they return to their investors?
15
85
317
@JasonDJudge
Do you know that this variant isn't already in the UK or other countries that are not banned from traveling to the UK?
The absence of evidence != evidence of absence.
8
26
294
Zoho also has an awesome origin story that I think should be a source of inspiration for African entrepreneurs.
The company was bootstrapped, is still privately owned, and now does over $1 billion in annual revenue.
It's grown into a global company with over 15,000 employees
Zoho, a lesser-known Indian rival of Google and Microsoft in the enterprise software space, has been upping its presence in Africa as an affordable alternative
1
24
74
6
98
296
I can’t help but feel malevolent sometimes...
“White guy who went to private school in Sandton (and inexplicably oversees a customer segment he presumably has no relationship with) is stunned that South African township businesses can be both large and primarily cash-based.”
15
133
255
South African companies have names like Ithemba Capital and Amandla Group but then you look them up and their directors' are like Cobus De Kok and Jan van Riebeeck 🧐
10
55
210
The ecosystem is maturing right before our eyes
A group of investors led by payment giant Paystack has acquired the Nigerian banking business startup Brass. It ends an uncertain couple of months for the startup that struggled to process customer withdrawals, prompting liquidity fears.
5
83
164
7
41
208
I was invited to speak to a class of MBA students at Columbia yesterday about Africa & one of the students asked about manufacturing.
I invoked Aig - countries (and individuals too!) need to play to their strengths.
So what's Africa's comparative advantage?
10
80
192
I was inspired by other startup ecosystems to create a centralized resource for Africa-focused opportunities, initiatives, funds, innovation challenges, etc. in light of COVID-19.
Please check it out - and help by sharing & contributing additional info!
8
107
179
Anecdote: I recently got a text from my friend - a New Yorker working in finance - inquiring about an open role he saw with Flutterwave.
- More foreigners will start working full-time at Nigerian startups. I’ve seen Paystack & Flutterwave do this well this year.
- Now, it’s mostly tackling Nigerian problems & scaling to the rest of Africa. I see 2021 having new Nigerian startups spring up to build global first.
6
42
205
2
35
177
Building a startup is just saying the same thing over and over again to different people.
2
38
175
Hot take: anything related to the purchasing power of an African country needs to come with a huge caveat about the age of the population.
The median age of Nigeria is 17.2 years old!
How much were you earning and spending when you were 17?
6
75
160
I have a personal goal to write 10-15 angel checks this year into African tech startups.
Fundraising? DMs open 📲
And more on thesis & thought process👇
10
49
162
It took a lot of begging and bargaining to get all 3 of these guys to agree to sit down together, but I'm really glad they did!
Really great conversation with
@eniolorunda
,
@Babsogundeyi
&
@LaurinHainy
🙏
⬇️
We got the CEOs of three of Nigeria's biggest neobanks together for a roundtable.
And despite the competition, it was a friendly and fun conversation, full of insights & lessons.
In today's episode of The Flip, we're joined by...
🔵 Tosin Eniolorunda (
@Eniolorunda
), the
8
68
233
6
24
134
Maybe I’m in the wrong WhatsApp groups & corner of Twitter but feels like African tech ecosystem insights are overwhelmingly fundraising related.
Much less product & hiring & company building insights.
14
26
126
Global fintechs treating users in Africa poorly part 472. This time it’s
@WorldRemit
.
I suppose making a payment in SA from a US card to my contractor’s momo account in Ghana is suspicious and grounds for my account to be deleted?🤔🤔
22
112
129
When I was in school we weren’t allowed to use Wikipedia for research. I’m pretty sure no one gives a shit about that anymore…
0
11
120
An observation: two of the fastest-growing African tech companies - Wasoko,
#1
in a recent ranking from the FT, and Wave, having raised the largest Series A by far + at a $1.7b valuation - are both operating in the physical & running a network of "offline" agents & retailers.
6
26
122
YC released its 2024 list of top companies by revenue & for the second year in a row, Wave is the only company in Africa to make the list.
While certain other fintechs talk a lot about IPOing, perhaps Wave is the one we should be the most excited about 👋🐧
Congratulations to the 2024 YC Top Companies!
The companies on this list are collectively valued at $458B, with a combined $57.2B in total revenue generated in 2023.
9
73
306
6
40
114
Picture this: you're a fast-growing fintech. You've just raised $12 million & you've got *major* traction in your market.
And then, you get hit with fraud. Significant fraud. Ruin-the-company magnitude of fraud.
What do you do?
That's not a hypothetical. It's the true story of
9
40
108
Introducing my ✨brand new✨ service for Nigerian founders: Do I Sound Like ChatGPT?
In light of this week’s delve controversy, it’s clear that Nigerian founders don’t know how to write emails that Americans will think weren’t written by ChatGPT.
That’s where I come in!
25
28
104
Hard to find a cooler job opening in African tech than this one. Chief of Staff to
@shollsman
1
79
101
I just spent 3 weeks with founders & investors in 4 African countries 🇬🇭🇳🇬🇺🇬🇰🇪. Some reflections:
➡️ It's all about incentives. The founders who are finding the most success on the continent are those who best understand the incentives of the players across their value chain.
4
19
104
People should read this book
Don’t get mad, get even. Then you surpass. If you can’t beat a country, beat the individuals one by one, and with time your country will beat their country. Even if Nigeria has to be rebuilt one Japa at a time, keep at it. Win them where they live.
41
605
2K
2
21
101
What are the best books on African business?
My favorite is Leaving the Tarmac, the inside story of Access Bank by Aigboje Aig-Imokhoude.
I find myself craving... I want to read the stories of people like Mo Ibrahim and companies like MTN.
What's out there?
9
31
98
When I was trying to interview Benji at the FT Partners summit earlier this year, we had to push the interview back multiple times because he was getting term sheets THROWN at him 😂
Big congrats
@Benji_Fernandes
&
@NALAmoney
!
Today, I'm excited to announce we have raised $40m Series A 🎉 🙏
It's been an incredible journey so far, we are just getting started, give us a couple of years, we've got some big plans.
Thread ⬇️
148
530
2K
3
10
96
I think I'm gonna take
@TheFlipAfrica
on tour in 2021.
1. Nairobi 🇰🇪
2. Lagos 🇳🇬
3. Mexico City 🇲🇽
8
5
95
Starting off 2024 on tour 🛫🌍
I'm headed to Accra 🇬🇭, Lagos 🇳🇬, Kampala 🇺🇬 & Nairobi 🇰🇪.
Who should I meet?
35
6
94
One interesting takeaway from this list is that Wave is a bigger business by revenue than Flutterwave.
The inaugural YC Top Companies List by Revenue is live! This list recognizes the companies in the YC community that achieved the highest net revenue throughout 2022.
9
56
187
3
21
93
Africa's 1.4 billion & incredibly fast-growing population is always a good thing in startup pitch decks. But what if it's powder keg?
Seriously, where are the jobs going to come from?!
Important point here, most African societies are evolving from being excessively child heavy towards young adult heavy, the next two decades are EXTREMELY urgent for African societies to ensure a valid employment landscape for all these bodies, or else, well....
4
35
77
8
34
86
Who’s doing more development in Africa? The western development orgs or Chinese factory owners?
That’s the underlying question in a recent book I read, The Next Factory of the World, by Irene Yuan Sun. (Thanks
@ponton_alex
for the recommendation)
The book highlights the
9
20
79
Tingo Mobile, Paxful, HotelOga
24
19
77
2
11
75
Can we at least be intellectually honest about why companies are shutting down?
Sure, the funding downturn may have played some role, but that’s not the real reason.
Where are the actual lessons?
20
35
72
I saw a lot of people asking how
@moniepoint
got so big so fast.
Their light blue devices are everywhere in Nigeria - how did they do it?
So I hit the streets of Lagos with Moniepoint's head of distribution - who was a former agent himself - to find out.
Watch below 👇👇
Moniepoint is one of Africa's fastest-growing companies.
As more agents & merchants started using
@moniepoint
's light blue devices across Nigeria, it raised a question: how did they do it?
There are millions of Moniepoint point-of-sale terminals in use across Nigeria.
These
3
33
114
2
10
73
Alright boys and girls...
I can finally say, new season of
@TheFlipAfrica
launching... TOMORROW 🎉🥴
7
15
71
Love this. The internet creating economic value in remote villages despite that the village itself has limited internet.
4
28
62
@JasonDJudge
You know what sounds more reasonable and sensible (and less prejudicial and discriminatory)?
Fully vaccinated travelers are allowed to travel with a negative test.
2
9
67
Burna Boy front and center on the US Amazon app, marketing to the Diaspora 👀
1
13
59
This year has been a great year of growth for
@TheFlipAfrica
- and we're hiring to take things to the next level!
We have a few roles we're looking to fill. The first, and most pressing, is -
🎬 Creative Producer to assist me with the production of our narrative-style
7
26
65
Last week in Lagos,
@skweird
and I got TechCabal, Techpoint, TechCrunch, Rest of World, FT, Stears, Semafor in a room with founders & operators for a thoughtful conversation about the relationship between media & the tech ecosystem on the continent.
For me, the fact that we're
3
14
65
It’s interesting how Bloomberg has become the publication where startups and funds go when they’re trying to manifest something
Chipper Cash, the Africa-focused fintech company backed by Silicon Valley Bank and cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is weighing options including exploring a sale
15
56
80
4
16
63
Learning about asset financing from
@Babajiide
.
I wore a black tshirt so I could be like him!
1
8
61
This is a brutal, brutal, must-read essay 👇
2
10
55
Africa still doesn’t exist.
15
14
59
One thing I'm learning...
It's much better & more fun to be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and wrong.
3
12
57
Can we talk about how dumb this thing is, where passengers have to get out of the car to go through security - but the driver and all baggage stays in the car - while going to the airport in Nairobi and Kampala
11
21
58
I literally interviewed
@fahims
last week. We talked about the plans he had for the future and his continued work to build in emerging markets. Heartbreaking 😰
RIP
4
17
57
I wrote on
@thestartup_
about how
@wolfejosh
processes information, from an incredible The Knowledge Project episode with
@farnamstreet
1
9
57
"Couldn't secure new funding" is *not* the reason why a company that's raised $123 million is going out of business...
4
19
54
I wonder if we’ll start to see more growth-stage companies act like venture builders and fund more startups through consortiums like this.
“We all have this non-core problem we need solved so here’s some money to build it and we’ll be your first customers too.”
🚀 We're excited to announce that Brass has been acquired by an investment group led by Paystack, with participation from PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, and P1 Ventures 🤝
28
364
925
3
11
56
I learned a lot about monetary policy and macroeconomics from this
@Noahpinion
piece.
Lots of parallels & implications for African countries with forex shortages + trade deficits
4
8
54
Gro Intelligence shut down this week "because it failed to secure further investment from new and existing investors".
Once again...
"couldn't secure new funding" is *not* the reason why a company is going out of business!
8
17
53
Several of Kenyan startups have struggled (despite raising a lot of $ on the back of M-Pesa hype).
I believe:
1. in the power of market-creating innovations, and
2. that M-Pesa is a market-creating innovation
Did M-Pesa not facilitate the expected increase in demand (by
13
11
52
Hey
@Mashstartup
, I have a Yoco Go that’s just been sitting in my closet, never used.
Want to help me do a giveaway to someone that’ll make better use of it than I have?
13
23
50
Is there a singular, comprehensive, one-stop-shop for startup jobs across markets in Africa?
I'm having a hard time finding one...
11
10
48
Africans
Scariest and saddest chart in economics.
Who is fixing this?
124
13
143
5
12
51
A developing thesis: decentralization, democratization, P2P is today's tech zeitgeist.
The interest in Africa as a market ought not (necessarily) be due to "final frontier" or "next billion" as much as that the opportunity for P2P & decentralization is widest on the continent.
2
14
50
1/ I'm inspired by
@JasonNjoku
's intentionality & putting it out there that he plans to take IROKO public in 2022.
I'm likewise working hard to be a guy that does what he says he's gonna do.
So I'm putting a plan for
@TheFlipAfrica
out there in the world...
Thread 👇 👇
4
5
48
@BrandonTXNeely
@xJMxJKing
@realDonaldTrump
This seems fun! Roses are red, money is green, trump has small hands, you know what that means 😏
5
2
35
@diegolainfiesta
My issue isn't with the scientists sharing information. They 100% should. My issue is with discriminate bans.
3
3
48
Look who I (literally) bumped into on the streets of NYC last night!
5
2
49
Update: Africa still doesn’t exist.
7
20
48
The highlight of my week at the
@FTPartners
Fintech in Africa summit was convincing the CEOs of Nigeria's challenger banks to a podcast together and say nice things about each other.
@Babsogundeyi
@eniolorunda
@TheFlipAfrica
0
6
48
I'm headed up to Nairobi in a few days for next week's
@AfricaTechSMT
&
@twifintech
festivities.
Who else is going to be out there?
20
6
48
So I bought a selfie stick and an empty seat next to me & conducted mid-flight interviews with
@wizaj
,
@NubiKay
,
@teshmbaabu
,
@alexroman29
,
@Dkidanu1
,
@NikMilanovic
&
@pitdesi
.
👉
In this week's edition of The Flip Notes:
Fintech Founders & Funders Having Fun on a Flight with The Flip
7 interviews aboard Kenya Airways flight 784, en route to Cape Town 🇿🇦 from Nairobi 🇰🇪.
Featuring 👇👇
1
4
33
5
10
45
I'm headed back to Lagos this week 🇳🇬
Who should I meet?
What stories should I tell?
18
1
46
I'm super intrigued by USDC cards for spending instead of having to off-ramp into fiat. Patiently waiting for
@coinbase
to let me off the waitlist 😬
At what point will [insert African fintech app] start issuing these cards instead of (or in addition to) USD virtual cards?
7
8
47
You know you've made something good when the marketing manager of a competitor messages you asking when can we make a similar video for them 😅
Moniepoint is one of Africa's fastest-growing companies.
As more agents & merchants started using
@moniepoint
's light blue devices across Nigeria, it raised a question: how did they do it?
There are millions of Moniepoint point-of-sale terminals in use across Nigeria.
These
3
33
114
2
3
45
I think the world still primarily looks at Africa as a place to do philanthropy.
Therefore, it’s important to tell stories that show this is a place to do business too.
But, increasingly, I think these stories need to come from outside of the tech ecosystem.
I recently read a memoir by Miles Morland, a prolific, long time emerging markets investor + founder of Blakeney Management & the PE firm DPI.
This is what he had to say about Bono and people like him.
2
10
19
3
9
45
Pan-African podcast The Flip seeks to raise $10 billion by 2022. DMs open.
Kenyan startup Sendy seeks to raise $100 million by 2022 to fund its expansion in western and southern Africa
3
18
45
7
3
45
Grateful to
@africatechie
for taking the time to talk all things entrepreneurship for
@TheFlipAfrica
😁
A super fun & informative conversation. Episode(s) coming soon!
3
11
45
This week,
@stitchmoneyhq
announced a $25m Series A extension, led by Ribbit Capital.
And I spoke about it (and much more!) with their CEO
@kiaanp_
.
New episode of
@TheFlipAfrica
dropping tomorrow...
4
10
43
In 2017 I quit my job and moved to South Africa.
Today is my 4 year anniversary 😅
10/10 would recommend quitting your job and moving to a new country 🙃
6
3
44
This week's newsletter was inspired, in part, by a recent conversation I had with
@asemota
.
Is OPay (or Jumia, Andela) a failure?
And what does/should success look like at this stage of a nascent ecosystem?
Read it here 👇
7
14
44
We can't talk about the "Africa has 1 billion+ people" consumer market without also talking about how to reduce the cost of food and/or how to create more revenue-generating/job opportunities
3
26
43
Is the African tech ecosystem learning from its failures or making the same mistakes over and over again?
I fear the same mistakes are being made over and over again.
Knowledge compounds, but when knowledge & wisdom & lessons are not shared, the compounding gets hampered.
I
3
10
40
I'm hiring an Operations Manager for
@TheFlipAfrica
, and I am conflicted...
Attention to detail is *crucial* in this type of role and we made that clear in the job description.
We asked applicants "Do you have a great attention to detail?"
The instructions at the top of the
21
18
42
Tourist visas and exemptions feel like such a scam.
Like, my South African partner has to pay hundreds of dollars to apply for the ability to do something that people from higher income countries get to do just by being born elsewhere?
🚮🚮🚮🚮🚮🚮
5
13
39
I'm no Mr. Beast, but I'm becoming a pretty good YouTuber 😅
This year,
@TheFlipAfrica
has leaned heavily into video.
We started as a narrative-style, audio-only podcast, and for a long time I wanted to start telling visual stories.
It always felt pretty daunting - and it's a
5
7
42
If I were the President of an African country with a rapidly devaluing currency I would prioritize tourism.
These countries are all *desperate* for forex.
Ghana's Year of the Return generated $1.9 billion in revenue in 2019.
South Africa's tourism sector contributes 8.6% to
8
13
40