I have a question about your cost competitiveness and scale, a hypothesis about your counterfactual impact, and additional questions.
Are the fees lower than those of other providers, such as MoneyGram? The last time I checked, the total for a $100 transfer was lower for MoneyGram. The difference should be greater with larger transfers since Wave charges a percentage whereas MoneyGram a flat fee.
I may be mistaken, and it may depend on the country, but I never saw Wave in Kenya. I saw Western Union and MoneyGram frequently at banks and elsewhere. I also saw M-Pesa and Safaricom agents at every corner.
Your impact competitive advantage can be the coverage of otherwise unbanked clients. This seems to me based on the TechCrunch+ article (francophone market). However, I am not sure about your unbanked (e. g. rural) vs. transfer density (e. g. outcompeting providers in cities) decisionmaking.
Even if it is unwise to seek to make money by significantly serving remote locations, an important argument for investing into Wave as opposed to other payment providers is your funding of non-profit development specialists.
In addition, your marketing seems to be gender inclusive and focused on helping people send money for a good price. This can be compared to the marketing of your competitor Paga, which may seem to perpetuate prospects of reflecting power structures that do not aim for inclusive advancement. Assuming positive personal intentions may prevent conflict at places where such is based in suboptimal/rejecting/aggressive interpersonal relationships. This speaks further for investing into Wave.
Is any of this accurate?
Also, what is your perspective on fiduciary duty? Can shareholders agree to maximize metrics other than profit (e. g. social benefit)?
Also, what do you think of 100% for-good investments? People are ‘hired’ to work on a venture (e. g. business ideas in East Africa) and advance normative change to resolve locally identified fundamental problems (in addition to their primary focus). For example, an agricultural products processing business can also remind people to buy nets, take preventive healthcare measures, keep learning to innovate local efficiencies and gain global job market skills, consider animal welfare, address and report bullies, and invest profits wisely.
Is it accurate that for most ventures in emerging markets, the Founders Pledge report does not hold true: it is that if a particular investor does not fund an SME (e. g. <$10,000), the venture is not advanced, since the innovators are not trained in Silicon Valley/‘Western’ pitching and have limited connections to affluent persons?/It is always possible to find counterfactual opportunities?
What do you think of working with governments on proposed investments adding conditions that should extend to entire industries, for example, safety standards in mining (p. 19) or shifting the national dynamic comparative advantage from potentially negative externality industries, such as a slaugterhouse for export (p. 39), to neutral or positive ones, such as a fruit factory (p. 41)?
Reading this report, you may be also interested in Micropay (U) Ltd. (p. 79) and the Agrikatale Mobile App (p. 82).
Hello Ben,
I have a question about your cost competitiveness and scale, a hypothesis about your counterfactual impact, and additional questions.
Are the fees lower than those of other providers, such as MoneyGram? The last time I checked, the total for a $100 transfer was lower for MoneyGram. The difference should be greater with larger transfers since Wave charges a percentage whereas MoneyGram a flat fee.
I may be mistaken, and it may depend on the country, but I never saw Wave in Kenya. I saw Western Union and MoneyGram frequently at banks and elsewhere. I also saw M-Pesa and Safaricom agents at every corner.
Your impact competitive advantage can be the coverage of otherwise unbanked clients. This seems to me based on the TechCrunch+ article (francophone market). However, I am not sure about your unbanked (e. g. rural) vs. transfer density (e. g. outcompeting providers in cities) decisionmaking.
Even if it is unwise to seek to make money by significantly serving remote locations, an important argument for investing into Wave as opposed to other payment providers is your funding of non-profit development specialists.
In addition, your marketing seems to be gender inclusive and focused on helping people send money for a good price. This can be compared to the marketing of your competitor Paga, which may seem to perpetuate prospects of reflecting power structures that do not aim for inclusive advancement. Assuming positive personal intentions may prevent conflict at places where such is based in suboptimal/rejecting/aggressive interpersonal relationships. This speaks further for investing into Wave.
Is any of this accurate?
Also, what is your perspective on fiduciary duty? Can shareholders agree to maximize metrics other than profit (e. g. social benefit)?
Also, what do you think of 100% for-good investments? People are ‘hired’ to work on a venture (e. g. business ideas in East Africa) and advance normative change to resolve locally identified fundamental problems (in addition to their primary focus). For example, an agricultural products processing business can also remind people to buy nets, take preventive healthcare measures, keep learning to innovate local efficiencies and gain global job market skills, consider animal welfare, address and report bullies, and invest profits wisely.
Is it accurate that for most ventures in emerging markets, the Founders Pledge report does not hold true: it is that if a particular investor does not fund an SME (e. g. <$10,000), the venture is not advanced, since the innovators are not trained in Silicon Valley/‘Western’ pitching and have limited connections to affluent persons?/It is always possible to find counterfactual opportunities?
What do you think of working with governments on proposed investments adding conditions that should extend to entire industries, for example, safety standards in mining (p. 19) or shifting the national dynamic comparative advantage from potentially negative externality industries, such as a slaugterhouse for export (p. 39), to neutral or positive ones, such as a fruit factory (p. 41)?
Reading this report, you may be also interested in Micropay (U) Ltd. (p. 79) and the Agrikatale Mobile App (p. 82).