Listen "140 - How Can African Founders Navigate the Challenges of Funding and Growth? - Mark Kwame Akakpo"
Episode Synopsis
Mark is an accomplished engineer, entrepreneur, and fintech leader originally from Ghana and now based in South Africa. With a background in electronic engineering and experience spanning food production, investment banking, and technology, Mark currently leads the fintech advisory at Absa Group in South Africa, spearheading efforts to bridge gaps between banks and startups across Africa. He's the co-founder of Honeybee Chilli Sauce and has a rich history of building businesses, overcoming funding challenges, and mentoring others. Mark’s unique path blends technical expertise, entrepreneurial grit, and a passion for enabling innovation across sectors.💡 What You’ll Learn from Mark's Journey: 🔸 The Value of Perseverance: Success in entrepreneurship takes time. Mark’s experiences highlight the necessity of persisting through setbacks, “dark patches,” and slow progress to build lasting, meaningful ventures. 🔸 Building Trust Before Growth: Creating new products, especially in unfamiliar markets, requires gaining customers’ trust, which is a gradual process that can’t be rushed, but pays off with loyal, returning customers. 🔸 Leveraging Diverse Experiences: Mark demonstrates how skills and lessons from one industry, engineering, food, or finance, can be transferred and applied to new challenges, fueling adaptability and innovation. 🔸 Action Over Aspiration: Ambition needs to be paired with practical steps. Mark emphasizes that translating ideas into consistent, tangible action is what separates dreamers from doers in the entrepreneurial world.You can connect with Mark on LinkedIn to follow his journey.🎥 Big thanks to VidOps for supporting Founders Voyage. Use code voyage at vidops.io for 10% off expert audio, video, animation, and photography services.👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on Patreon and help amplify more voices like Mark.#FoundersVoyage #Entrepreneurship #Podcast
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