I had a conversation recently with a startup operator turned executive at an entrepreneurship support organization. We were talking about the caliber of startup applications for a program another organization was running. This person told me that many of the startups were pitching a business model that did not work for the startup for which this person previously worked. 

The current applicants to the startup program were employing a failed business model.

I wonder to what extent there is a larger implication - that lessons aren’t being shared or learned at the ecosystem level. In robust ecosystems, each new iteration should build and improve upon a prior cycle. But if the same mistakes a startup made in 2015 are being made in 2021, it’s a problem.

A couple of other founders have shared a similar sentiment - that founders aren’t giving back to their local ecosystems, either in terms of support or investment. Or, at the very least that pertinent, iterative lessons simply aren’t being shared.

A bias towards collaboration and sharing isn’t just benevolence, it’s how ecosystems develop and it’s how innovation happens. (Just look at the open source movement for proof.) And when that happens, all who participate in the ecosystem benefit. 

But I understand that’s not that simple.

Scenius is a term coined by musician and producer Brian Eno to describe the small groups of people who end up having a disproportionate impact on the world - groups of communal genius. The Renaissance, Bell Labs, the Manhattan Project, Silicon Valley. What was it about these communities, in a fixed geography and time in history, that enabled and engendered such innovation and impact?

In his essay on scenius, Kevin Kelly lays out four ingredients: mutual appreciation, rapid exchange of tools and techniques, network effects of success, and local tolerance for the novelties. Not Boring’s Packy McCormick argues, in Conjuring Scenius, that it's not just these ingredients that are required, but the right set of environmental conditions, as well: emergence from catastrophe; competition; place-based ritual; and tolerance for novelty. 

And Entrepreneur First’s Matt Clifford explores another consideration: business model. 

For scenius to flourish, people of extraordinary ability need time and space to work on projects that may not yield immediate value. Historically that’s required some sort of concentrated wealth: patronage or government. Excitedly, there may not be a more scaleable alternative: distributed patronage. 

In a recent podcast episode, The Ownership Economy, our exploration of web3 in the African context, The Flip’s b-mic Sayo Folawiyo spoke of a “frustration problem-solving” experience that attracts civic-minded African entrepreneurs to technology in general, and web3, in particular. These entrepreneurs, like participants of scenii throughout history, are trying to have an outsize, positive impact on their environments. And our ecosystem of entrepreneurs largely possesses most of the ingredients laid out above.

So this raises the question - whether the proverbial “ecosystem” passes the scenius test or not - about the degree to which the characteristics that enable rapid development and innovation can be fostered for the benefit of the ecosystem’s collective objectives. To what extent can we “open up possibilities for… scenii” from African markets?

I often think about this type of question in the context of the African tech ecosystem. How can we compel and incentivize experienced founders and operators to share? What needs to be built? And do we do it at scale?

While tech folks generally have a mutual appreciation, “rapid exchange of tools and techniques” bent, I suspect the environment of African markets, in which a legacy of colonialism and economies primarily powered by zero-sum commodities, creates challenges to the sharing ethos. 

Is there a business model for incentive alignment? 

Investing is one model. The founders-turned-investors phenomenon is not only a function of liquidity but a function of experience. Successful founders are often best placed to help a new cohort of founders and their ability to participate in the upside as investors creates tremendous incentive alignment. 

And as the ecosystem flywheel spins, we’re seeing this more often with founders like Flutterwave’s GB Agboola, PiggyVest’s Odun Eweyini, Paystack’s Shola Akinlade, Helium Health’s Goke Olubusi (through Magic Fund) who are high-value strategic investors for the new crop of startups and who participate in the upside as investors, as well.

But this requires both liquidity and risk-seeking behavior. How can we incentivize and unlock latent insights from others?

I am particularly interested in DAOs and digital organizations as a mechanism for coordinating activity on this front. An investment DAO may lower the barrier for entry for participation. A tokenized mechanism to reward those for post-investment support could create incentives above and beyond an investment itself.

And - especially in the context of the recent struggles Africans have had with US banking platforms - DAOs could create the incentives for an otherwise agnostic group of builders to come together and build for the common good. Let's call it open source with less benevolence required, and where specific experiences - which may be of value horizontally across an ecosystem - can be leveraged for the benefit of the ecosystem.

Having spent the last few weeks in events and summits in Nairobi and Cape Town, I'm also thinking a lot about events - and what Packy called place-based rituals. Prior to the Africa Tech Summit, Sherpa Ventures held a founder retreat in Diani; likewise, NALA's Benji Fernandes has had a few informal YC-founder retreats in Zanzibar. And the week after ATS, investors and startups were in Cape Town for the Raba investor summit and Stitch startup showcase.

It's one thing to have events and give founders and operators a platform to broadcast their expertise. It's another thing to design an environment in which they can share their struggles and failures too. Speaking about the British Parliament building in 1943, Churchill said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” The same can be said about experiences.

And from my perspective, content creation is a crucial element to making this work at scale (particularly if the events in question are necessarily intimate). I've worked to build The Flip into a platform where founders can share both their successes and their failures, and where perspectives can be shared in a more editorial manner without the constraints of more traditional media. (I hope it is perceived a platform of this kind.)

While media is a leverageable tool for startups - and our contributors, I think, get residual benefit from their participation -  I am thinking more about how content strategy can be explicitly designed to further these objectives. A content series on failure, perhaps?

So I'll leave you this week with a call to action - if you're a founder and an operator with a lesson to share, or if you're a reader/listener with an idea, please reach out, and let's do even more on our own part to help build this ecosystem together.

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✌️ Justin

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