Finding, attracting, and retaining top talent is a big challenge for tech startups in Africa.
In the early years of Sokowatch, an e-commerce platform for informal retailers in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda, founder and CEO Daniel Yu wanted to find a way around this. A software developer originally from California, he understood the tech ecosystem in Silicon Valley, where he says talented people frequently leave big companies to work for small startups, with employee stock ownership plans serving as a major draw.
“How do we get people to leave jobs at Safaricom or at other big or multinational companies to work for small startups? It’s gotta be because they see something in it for themselves,” he says.