🦄 Peter Steinberger

VCs fund clarity, not confusion. Clean audit trails and transparent data make Nigerian SMEs look disciplined and scalable. Strong software infrastructure increases trust, lowers perceived risk and attracts serious capital. Make clarity easy and not messy

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‎Setting up a merchant account with Stripe or PayPal can be difficult in many developing nations. The "global" economy often excludes the global south. ‎ ‎On Base, your wallet is your Point of Sale. ‎ ‎A developer in Nigeria (like me) can sell a digital tool to a user in Germany without any intermediary blocking the transaction. ‎ ‎This flattens the world. It unleashes entrepreneurship where it is needed most. ‎

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We asked Olamide Ilori, Lead Engineer at Prospa, a thought-provoking question: Would you teach a junior dev to code or to prompt? He shared his insights on prioritizing coding skills. In our conversation, he also discussed Prospa's mission to empower Africa's high-growth businesses and his role leading the engineering team. Notably, he emphasized AI's role as a companion to engineers, not a replacement. Full episode drops on Monday. #todayafrica #startupstories

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“…The two have now co-founded Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered software testing platform, which has already secured $9 million in seed funding, they told TechCrunch…”

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The “Almost Built” Startup I once met an African founder who was two weeks away from launching. Landing page ready, with a very large CTA button stating "join the waitlist". Developers on standby who could pull off 3000 lines of codes in 1 hour. Marketing plan locked in, that seemed like they could own 50% of the market share. Out of curiosity, I asked a simple question: “How many real customers have you spoken to?” He paused. Then said, “We ran surveys. I sent out a couple google forms to a couple communities i joined” "Surveys aren’t conversations". - I immediately said Then i prompted that he had real conversations with an identified audience who actually faced the challenges he hypothesized. When we finally spoke to people in his supposed target market, something uncomfortable happened. They didn’t describe the problem the way he had framed it. What he thought was a daily pain was actually a minor inconvenience. What he thought users would pay for was something they had already learned to live without. That moment saved him months, of wasted effort. Because before ideas, before features, before scale, there must be clarity in the problem. Not a vague “people struggle with X,” but a sharp understanding of: who is hurting, why it hurts, and what happens if nothing changes. Testing isn’t about validating your brilliant idea. It’s about validating the pain. If the pain isn’t real, urgent, and repeated across a category, the market will tell you, brutally. The best founders I know don’t rush to build. They rush to understand. At Building Africa we are making customer and problem validation easier and seamless for African founders to build startups that captures the market by understanding the nuances that actually makes up the problem that started off as an hypothetical idea.

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spoke to a tech business owner in the energy sector last week. Five years in Trading 2 million Team of ten But when we talked about the tech he used inside the business not what he sold he said something that stopped me: “Honestly… I don’t know what tech we should be using. We just bolt things on when a problem appears.” And that’s when the real issues became obvious: • Three tools doing the same job
• Data scattered across apps no one checks
• Clients chasing updates because nothing talks to anything
• Manual work that should have been automated months ago
• Security gaps quietly sitting in the background
• Teams juggling tools instead of doing their best work 
Just constant friction. The root cause? No clear tech strategy 
No rhythm for reviewing their M365 systems. 
No process to decide what tech should stay and what should go. Everything reactive. 
Everything “we’ll fix it when it breaks.” Because here’s the truth: to activate growth, these things just aren’t enough to move the needle. Now imagine working with a team who * Help you reach your goals and provide freedom from noise * Partners with you to review how you work could be replicated using M365 apps Once we mapped what the used within m365 • He saw which tools actually drove value 
• Cut workload in half 
• closed silent risks no one knew existed 
• Simplified the tech stack so the team could breathe 
• Created a routine that keeps systems clean, secure, and scalable Suddenly, he wasn’t drowning in apps. 
He was in control and had immediately saved 30k. Others deal with day-to-day IT tasks. We deliver strategic technology insight that moves your business forward.

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New audio episode: The Nigerian Developer’s Guide to Building Globally Competitive Software My biggest lesson after building multiple platforms end-to-end: global-grade products are driven by founders, not fancy stacks. Two traits I see in every winner: 1. Patience + stage-by-stage roadmaps (MVP → adoption → feedback → iteration) 2. Ridiculous cost-to-value—so good it feels irrational not to subscribe I break down how founders can set the right cadence, price for adoption, and keep teams shipping smart. Watch/listen: https://lnkd.in/dw3K8FJe #NigerianTech #AfricanTech #SaaS #ProductStrategy #StartupFounders

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Can we build a borderless economy for the 60% of Africa that's offline? To reach the next billion users, we have to build for the infrastructure people actually use, not just the ones we wish they had. I and my team have been refining OfflineBridge: a USSD-to-Blockchain infrastructure that brings blockchain liquidity to basic feature phones. No internet required. 💡 How it works: 1️⃣ Zero-Data Access: Using GSM protocols to trigger on-chain transactions. 2️⃣ User Experience: Non-custodial "Ghost Wallets" generated instantly via USSD. 3️⃣ The Handshake: A seamless bridge between telecom logic and smart contract execution. I’m looking to partner with teams focused on financial inclusion and stablecoin accessibility in emerging markets. If you're building in this space, let's connect! 🚀 #Web3 #FinancialInclusion #Base #Solidity #USSD #BuildInPublic

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Afrikrea - Retro of a tech-cofounder The Technical Decisions That Carried Us Through Explosive Growth Without Breaking When Afrikrea went from startup to Africa's largest e-commerce export platform, our early architectural choices made all the difference. BORING TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY While competitors chased shiny frameworks and micro-services, we chose proven, battle-tested technologies. Modular Monolith with Rails for backend stability, PostgreSQL for data reliability, Redis for caching, chef for automatic provisioning. Not exciting, but unbreakable under pressure. => Boring always wins! BUILDING FOR REAL WORLD We designed for Africa's infrastructure realities from day one: - Network-resilient payment flows that could resume after connection drops (think async) - Progressive enhancement from basic phones to modern devices - Graceful degradation when services went down => Real world beats perfect code! INTEGRATION ADVANTAGE Instead of bolting features together later, we built comprehensive integration from the start: e-commerce + 2 way sync messaging + walleting + payments in & out. This prevented the architectural nightmares that kill growing platforms. => A strong base from day one wins! ZERO DOWNTIME DEPLOYMENT PHILOSOPHY From month one, we deployed multiple times daily without breaking user sessions. Our solid foundation meant new features could ship fast without fear. => Ship daily, break nothing! ARCHITECTURE FLEXIBILITY STRATEGY We built clean interfaces and proper abstractions early while keeping things simple. When business pivots happened - marketplace to SaaS to multi-channel - our core systems adapted without rewrites. => Design for change, build once! SCALABILITY TEST Our infrastructure scaled from hundreds to millions of requests seamlessly. The secret? We optimized for consistency and predictability, not just performance. => Consistent beats clever! Next: The pivot that transformed us from marketplace to Africa's first multi-channel SaaS platform. #TechnicalLeadership #AfricanTech #StartupLessons #SystemArchitecture #FounderJourney #ScalableArchitecture #TechStrategy

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It’s not a bootcamp. It’s a BuildCamp. Because we believe the real learning starts after the tutorial ends. This July, we’re launching something different — something built for African youth ready to stop watching and start building. Welcome to Summer BuildCamp 2025. An 8-week learning-by-building experience designed to take you from ideas to execution. Powered by DelTech Hub and a network of passionate mentors and partners. Here, you don’t just learn. You build — with structure, with mentorship, and with purpose. What makes Summer BuildCamp different?🎯 Tailored Learning Paths: Each track follows a roadmap created by mentors — not copied from courses. You get daily tasks, weekly goals, and clear milestones. Real Mentorship: Primary mentors guide you weekly, and are available to support you throughout. Secondary mentors (industry experts) step in to review, advise, and inspire. Live Weekly TrackMeetUps: Not just Q&As — real-time working sessions where tasks are broken down, explained, and implemented. Recognition Culture: Every week, top builders and impactful mentors are spotlighted. Excellence is seen and celebrated. The Final Challenge 🔥 After 8 weeks of building, it gets real. You’re grouped into a team of 7 across different tracks — Web Dev, App Dev, UI/UX, Cybersecurity, and Product. Together, you’ll build something that solves a real problem. You’ll pitch it live. And the most innovative team walks away with the prize. Top mentors are also awarded. The best projects are deployed online. This is more than just skills. It’s real collaboration. It’s real mentorship. It’s real confidence. This is where learners become builders. And builders become leaders. Are you a mentor who wants to give back? 💼 Do you have 2+ years of experience in: Web or App Development UI/UX Design Cybersecurity Product Strategy Do you want to guide and grow the next generation of tech talent in Africa? Or are you a learner ready to stop consuming and start creating? 📩 Reach out now: deltechhub237@gmail.com Or send a message to DelTech Hub | Delbert Kimbi | Andigema Joyce Ani to get involved as a mentor or participant. Let’s build the future — one builder at a time. #SBC2025 #BuildToLearn #TechEcosystem #Mentorship #DelTechHub #Innovation #AfricaTech #BuildNotJustLearn #ProductChallenge #Techpreneurs

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One thing we’ve learned working with 100+ early-stage founders across Africa at Zuri VT is this: Funding conversations usually fail long before money is discussed, for one simple reason: because most startups haven’t been engineered to be engaged. What investors, partners, and institutions are really assessing isn’t passion or even "vision". - Is the business structure solid, or will it crash under the weight of funding or demand? - Will this become big enough? - Is there absolute clarity on the risks, and HOW to mitigate them? - Can this business survive scrutiny outside the pitch room. That’s where Fullstack Commercial Engineering (FCE) comes in. FCE is how we think about preparing startups properly for the ecosystem. Not just for fundraising, but for real engagement with: - Angels and early-stage funds - Venture studios and operators - Corporate and institutional partners. It’s about doing the boring, unglamorous, but important work early, to de-risk startups: - Making sure the market case is solid - Stress-testing revenue logic - Clarifying commercial risks - And aligning the business with how capital and partners actually think. We’re super excited to be kicking this off with a Funding Readiness Webinar next Tuesday, and hosting two powerhouses in African business and global funding, Teslim Bello-Osagie MSc. ACCA and Sofya Mesh. It’s for founders who want to stop guessing and start building businesses that are more likely to scale, and therefore easier to back. And for ecosystem partners who care about working with startups that are actually ready. If you’re building, supporting, or funding early-stage companies in Africa, Zuri VT is one partner to commit to. Details in the flyer.

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The Average African Fintech’s ideal customer isn't Nigerian businesses, it's Visa's M&A team. That's not criticism, that's rational response to capital structure. What we're not building: - African acquirers with $500M+ war chests - Permanent capital structures (holdings companies, family offices, sovereign wealth allocating to tech) - Platform companies that consolidate sectors domestically before expanding - Secondary markets where employees can sell equity without company exit The deepest damage isn't the exits themselves, it's that our best operators learn American exit playbooks instead of Korean chaebol or Chinese BAT strategies. We study how to be bought, not how to buy.

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A 3-person Nigerian startup just ranked 4th globally in AI benchmarks. No funding. No #Silicon Valley address. No "advisors" with blue checkmarks. Meanwhile, Nigerian founders with $2M raised are still "in stealth mode" after 18 months. The gap between builders and talkers has never been wider. Some of you need to ask yourself a hard question: Are you building a company or building a #LinkedIn presence?

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Let me say something most founders don’t want to hear. Your developers are not incentivised to care about your success. Not because they’re bad people — but because of the model you hired them under. Outsourced devs? They juggle multiple projects. Their goal is delivery, not outcomes. Finish tasks. Move on. Invoice. Repeat. And that’s why you feel: 🔴 Out of control of your product 🔴 Stressed by “it’s more complex than expected” 🔴 Like your business depends on people who don’t actually care if it wins or fails Hiring a developer is not leverage. It’s delegation without accountability. What founders actually need is leadership above the code. Someone steering tech toward revenue, speed, and risk reduction. Developers build. Leadership steers.

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How Crowdfrica Got Back to Their Mission 🚀 Crowdfrica wanted to help African communities through crowdfunding. But managing their growing platform was taking up all their time. The problem? Too much focus on fixing tech, not enough on growing impact. That’s where we came in. We handled all platform development- from making it stable to ready for future growth. Their team finally had time to focus on their mission. The outcome: ✔️ Stable platform ✔️ More time for outreach ✔️ Bigger impact across Africa Now, Crowdfrica is building communities, not just code. #CaseStudy #TechForGood #Crowdfunding #StartupGrowth #WebDevelopment #SocialImpact

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EPISODE 19 IS LIVE! What happens when you trade Silicon Valley success for a fintech revolution in Africa? Join the Becoming Radical Podcast Host Michael Gaizutis as he sits down with Tayo Oviosu, founder & CEO of Paga Group Ltd , to unpack how he’s rewiring payments for over 26 million users across Africa. 💵 From building trust in a cash-first economy to creating the infrastructure that powers 200+ businesses, this episode is packed with real talk on vision, innovation, and impact.Africa is rising. Tayo’s making sure it thrives. 🎧 Tune in now! (Links to Listen in Comments) #BecomingRadical #FintechAfrica #TayoOviosu #Paga #MobilePayments #DigitalFinance #MichaelGaizutis #Entrepreneurship #EmergingMarkets

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Since 2022, we've been building products and growth systems for businesses across Africa's digital economy. Today, we're formalizing what we've always done under two focused divisions: SAVA Studio: Proprietary products for African consumers SAVA Lab: Growth systems for fintech, crypto, and e-commerce businesses Two divisions. Same mission. Bigger scale. Learn more at sava.global

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