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I turned a year older. Starting a thread here on things that took me a long time to learn.
A Sudanese number plate almost crashed into me trying to over take last night.
James Gichuru has the oddest mix of junkie kids fueled with adrenaline + other man-made chemicals racing around with no care for other people on the road.
Thank you.
Replying to @mrstephendeng
So here's what I suggest in our next year of existential crisis:
1. Aim to have at least half of all conference agendas include highly technical / operational topics. Fill them with most elite operators in that topic area. Pick moderators who can speak to granular detail. The serious capital allocators will be starving for this kind of content. I know I am.
2. Flood side events with good founders, even the early-stage ones. These can still be exclusive, but the allocator:operator ratio must get closer to 1:1. Maybe less suits.
3. Encourage open rebellion against the old narrative. We need to increase the frequency of debate and disagreement. A conference of people nodding yes from start to finish must be seen as abject failure. Create panels exclusively for this kind of discourse.
What do you think?
asif khan retweeted
So here's what I suggest in our next year of existential crisis:
1. Aim to have at least half of all conference agendas include highly technical / operational topics. Fill them with most elite operators in that topic area. Pick moderators who can speak to granular detail. The serious capital allocators will be starving for this kind of content. I know I am.
2. Flood side events with good founders, even the early-stage ones. These can still be exclusive, but the allocator:operator ratio must get closer to 1:1. Maybe less suits.
3. Encourage open rebellion against the old narrative. We need to increase the frequency of debate and disagreement. A conference of people nodding yes from start to finish must be seen as abject failure. Create panels exclusively for this kind of discourse.
What do you think?
asif khan retweeted
Please give me your green curry recipe….ill be thinking of you when I eat it @andodelivery @asayf
Agreed. Twiga over-estimated market size, no one verified this. They then over-invested in infrastructure and technology to serve a market that simply wasn’t big enough to support the economics. The irony is that the hard part - sourcing, cold chain, distribution and volume - already existed in businesses like Fruit & Juice & even Zucchini. The better strategy may have been to buy the infrastructure, preserve the cash-generating business, and build the tech layer on top.
They failed at strategic level, and tried to then validate that by building more and more white elephants.
Fruit and Juice [also called Beyond Fruits] has had an advanced facilicity at Limuru for this since early 90s.
-They supplied Nakumatt, Tuskys, naivas etc and still supply till today
-Today they have their own branded outlets called beyond fruits shops 30+ outlets
-They focus on logistics and proper sourcing & distribution across Kenya. They do very little farming mostly of mushrooms and herbs at Ndeiya
-They also import oranges, mangoes, kiwis, berries, and other exotic fruits and have an elaborate cold chain
-Twiga did not get to this scale in volume and throughput
-In 2020, the Entire Fruit and Juici operation was valued at Kes. 1 billion. A PE called Barak was looking at putting in Capital
So Fruiti and Juici, highly profitable and efficient with a visible business model is worth 1 billion. Twiga spent kes. 25 billion trying to become Fruit and Juici. They should have just spent 5billipn to buy off Fruot and Juice and keep Change. Call Paresh Shah for a chat
More than that you need platform managed luxury. Tech-enabled luxury operators managing premium, decentralized residential inventory with 5-star hospitality standards [check-in desks, private chefs, & daily servicing etc].
We were looking for a room for one of our partners coming to Nairobi. Marriot is closest to our office and probably the best hotel in Nairobi right now. Zero availability.
Went down a rabbit hole; comparing luxury hotel supply to daily airport traffic:
🇮🇳 Mumbai: 10K keys | 75K pax
🇰🇪 Nairobi: 4K keys | 22K pax
4,000 keys for 22k daily arrivals means Nairobi lives in extreme binary: impossible to find a premium room in August, heavy discounting in May.
The biggest opportunity in East Africa right now isn't building traditional hotels, it's flexible luxury supply.
I think you don’t understand the difference.
€1m in South of France is effectively buying you a farming project. In Nairobi, it buys you the world’s best weather and luxury.
[Of course this house is not worth €1m in any sense - can get much better in Nairobi for that].
What €1M gets you in Kenya 🇰🇪
vs
What €1M gets you in the South of France 🇫🇷
How did we get here?
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