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Failing to Win
- Hard-Earned Lessons from a Purpose-Driven Start-Up
- Narrated by: Mike Quinn
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's Summary
In 2009, Canadian entrepreneur Mike Quinn packed his backpack and moved to Lusaka, Zambia, on a mission to find African entrepreneurs building scalable, high-impact businesses. There, he stumbled across two South African brothers, who had founded a business to help unbanked smallholder farmers receive mobile payments in a market where cash was king. After convincing his retired parents to mortgage their house and lend him $100,000, Mike joined as a co-founder of Zoona and became CEO for nine of the next 10 years.
With his partners, Mike built a network of more than 3,000 entrepreneur agents across Zambia and Malawi that enabled millions of unbanked consumers to send and receive $2.5 billion in money transfers and remittances. Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Zoona raised over $35-million of venture investment and operated on the leading edge of Africa’s emerging fintech ecosystem.
Mike’s remarkable story gives a rare and honest glimpse into the workings of a pioneering African startup through the lens of a purpose-driven entrepreneur who went “all in”. Zoona faced tremendous adversity along the way: currency crises, investment round collapses, ruthless pushback from the major mobile network operators, and a continuous internal struggle to discover and execute a growth strategy that matched the company’s billion-dollar ambition. It was by failing to win that Mike learned what entrepreneurship is all about, and it was what motivated him to double down and try again.
Critic Reviews
"This raw, honest account is a must-read for anyone thinking about starting a company and for every entrepreneur who feels alone in the journey." (Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder and General Partner of Hustle Fund)