Quote: “You always have to balance mission and competence when you're picking your team.”

The Afropolitan Podcast highlights Afropolitans who embrace the unknown and walk with purpose. Through this podcast, we aim to empower Africans in the Diaspora to maximize their potential and contribute to the development of a vibrant and progressive black community.

In this episode, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, the General Partner and Co-Founder of Future Africa, joins us. Future Africa is a platform that offers capital, coaching, and community to mission-driven innovators who convert Africa's biggest challenges into business opportunities. Iyinoluwa is a serial entrepreneur with a degree in Legal Studies. He is passionate about partnering with visionary talent and capital to create an African future.

Iyinoluwa previously served as the CEO of Flutterwave, a business focused on building payments technology and infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy. He led the company to become one of the fastest-growing payments technology businesses of all-time, processing over $2 billion across over 50 million transactions with annual revenues of millions of dollars.

Prior to co-founding and leading Flutterwave, Iyinoluwa co-founded Andela, Africa's largest engineering organization with over 1000 software engineers. The organization has received investments from notable individuals such as Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures.

Tune in as Iyinoluwa shares his journey, experience, and knowledge of building startups, knowing when to step back, and staying driven. He also highlights the importance of balancing mission and competence when building a team.

Show Notes:

1:56 Iyinoluwa's journey into entrepreneurship

9:17 Transitioning to Andela

15:21 How Iyinoluwa's family reacted to his venture into Andela

18:27 Building bonds during the initial startup journey

19:37 Iyinoluwa's involvement in Afropolitan

22:59 Realization and transition to becoming a serial entrepreneur

23:35 Moving from Flutterwave to Future Africa

30:44 Finding fulfillment and joy

31:39 Transitioning to the crypto space

32:49 The role of decentralization in Africa's future

35:21 Encouraging founders to engage more with the government

39:20 Advice to founders on building a team

The Afropolitan Podcast is hosted by Eche Emole, co-founder of Afropolitan. Listen and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Jamit, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect with Afropolitan:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/afropolitan

Website - https://www.afropolitan.io