I have just arrived in Nigeria

I have just arrived in Nigeria, one of the most powerful countries in Africa. But this country wasn't supposed to be like this. For years, Americans have been warned about coming here. Travel advisories, corruption, inflation, a business environment so difficult that most people would never even attempt to build. But to the surprise of many, Nigeria has become home to some of the richest people in Africa. Billionaires who built empires in banking, oil and gas, tech, and real estate. So the big question is, how did they do it and why are these Nigerian millionaires and billionaires so successful? Let's go find out. Guys, we're on our way right now to our first interview out here in Lagos, Nigeria, and the person we're about to interview did something insane and changed the game out here in Nigeria forever. Do you know what a unicorn is? A unicorn is a business that grows to become a billion dollar company. The person we're about to interview was the youngest person ever in all of Africa to build a billion dollar company. But the story gets even crazier, cause he built not just one, but two billion dollar companies out here in Nigeria. And we're about to go interview him where he made it all happen, to figure out how he got rich and made his billions. You guys, come on. How you doing my friend? Nice to meet you. I just saw your missed call. My friend, nice to see you. Nice to see you. How are you doing, sir? Very well. How are you doing? I'm good to meet you, man. I'm happy to be out here. Yes, yes, you know. This is my first interview ever in Africa. Amazing. Yeah, so good to see you. It's great to see you as well. And you've had an incredible career already. How old are you? I am just 35. Is it true that you were the youngest Nigerian to build a unicorn, to build a billion dollar company? Well, I'm not counting, but yes, it seems so. You built not one, but two billion dollar companies. Yes, I did help build out Andela and Flutterwave, which are both billion dollar companies. Congratulations, man. Did you have any idea growing up that was gonna be possible, man? No, no, actually, I wasn't intending to build billion dollar companies. But you know, I just thought if people elsewhere in the world could do it, there was no reason why somebody here in Africa couldn't do it as well. My man, well look, I came all the way out here from America to make this interview happen, to make this content happen. I have one rule for all my interviews. Tell me. There's no holding back. We're gonna give the younger generation a blueprint on how to build a billion dollar company in today's world. Can we make that happen? Of course, absolutely. No holding back. Let's do it. Did you come from a lot of money growing up? No, no. My father is actually a pastor, so I didn't come from a lot of money and we started out very humble, but in this neighborhood, um, God's grace, I've been where we are today. What country are we in right now? Yes, we're in Nigeria. We're in Yaba specifically, and Mark Zuckerberg actually walked these streets about 10 years ago when he came to visit Nigeria. So this is a very interesting neighborhood, famous for technology. My first time ever here. Exactly. Welcome to Nigeria. Why Africa? Why are so many successful entrepreneurs coming out of Africa? Well, that's because Africa has the largest proportion of young people under the age of 30. Wealth is a function of your productivity, right? So what's happening is you have a lot of young people with a lot of needs, and you've got a bunch of other entrepreneurs who need to meet those needs, and that's how you're seeing a lot of wealth grow from Africa. And this trend is gonna keep going for the foreseeable future because that's just how the world works. Have you done business in America as well? Yeah, I went to school in Canada and I spent a lot of time in the US during cooperative education terms, like, you know, working and learning. My companies, all my companies are incorporated in Delaware. So I actually know America really, really well. What's the biggest difference between business in America versus Nigeria? Very interesting. In Nigeria, if you don't make other people money, you don't get to make money. In America, if you don't make money, you can't make other people money. So it's very different. It's very different. But here, sustainable wealth comes from helping other people. So for me, I, we took people who were earning $100 a month, either on a government job or even unemployed, and took them to into careers where they're earning $300, $400,000 a year. That's life changing and that's how I became wealthy. So it's a, it's a remarkably different place. What was your turning point becoming an entrepreneur, man? Honestly, I watched The Social Network and I was like, Mark Zuckerberg's just my age, you know, he built this business at 19. I can do the same. And right there in college when I watched it, I decided I was gonna become an entrepreneur. Now you had two companies that reached billion dollar valuations. At those businesses, what was the most amount of money you made in a single year? I mean, both businesses have done well over $100 million. What was your secret to scaling? Well, it's all about systems. So when you want to scale, the most important thing that you need to do is you need to make things automatic. So for example, I recruit every week, every month, we onboard new employees, new talent every quarter, and at the end of the year we do a review. Once you can get to a systemic thing like that, you can go on for years doing the same thing and you just keep growing if nothing breaks. So building systems and aligning people, very important. One day my mentor, his name is Joel Lansdale, takes me out to dinner at the MoMA in New York, and he says, E, I want you to remember this. A billion dollar company is just a bunch of people who could have individually built $10 million businesses, who decided to come together and build one business. So the way to build a billion dollar company, you gotta get, it's the team. Exactly, it's the team. The most important thing is the team. I never forgot that.