Knowing Daniel quite well (and this having being my approach to development for years being an exporter in Tanzania), I’d dare say on the financing side it’s the “right” capital that’s hard to find. There exists already much of the capital around, however it’s all very low risk debt funding and small grants that make it hard to scale. And we aren’t talking about VC scalability typically, which again makes it hard to fall in that pigeon hole.
In terms of why is it only Westerners? I think you’ll find it’s not, lots and lots of local (and many Chinese) businesses operating, but in the end of the day you need many, many more. And the ones that come from Western founders are possibly higher likelihood of scaling due to the cultural influences that bring systems into companies and allow them to build trust internally outside of family circles.
On paper the absolute perfect people to do this are the diaspora: people who are both sufficiently familiar with local languages and cultural norms and challenges and sufficiently Westernized to be good at dealing with Western consumers and importers and funders.
Obviously some are doing this, just wondering if there’s much [Western] support infrastructure to help people trying to get into it?
Sure, but I don’t think diaspora are better equipped from what I’ve seen over immigrants. Already lots of support for these specific groups, but in general always need more.
Knowing Daniel quite well (and this having being my approach to development for years being an exporter in Tanzania), I’d dare say on the financing side it’s the “right” capital that’s hard to find. There exists already much of the capital around, however it’s all very low risk debt funding and small grants that make it hard to scale. And we aren’t talking about VC scalability typically, which again makes it hard to fall in that pigeon hole.
In terms of why is it only Westerners? I think you’ll find it’s not, lots and lots of local (and many Chinese) businesses operating, but in the end of the day you need many, many more. And the ones that come from Western founders are possibly higher likelihood of scaling due to the cultural influences that bring systems into companies and allow them to build trust internally outside of family circles.
On paper the absolute perfect people to do this are the diaspora: people who are both sufficiently familiar with local languages and cultural norms and challenges and sufficiently Westernized to be good at dealing with Western consumers and importers and funders.
Obviously some are doing this, just wondering if there’s much [Western] support infrastructure to help people trying to get into it?
Sure, but I don’t think diaspora are better equipped from what I’ve seen over immigrants. Already lots of support for these specific groups, but in general always need more.