Tips from a successful Ghanian exit: Q&A with Saya Mobile founder Robert Lamptey

Last year, the Ghana-based developer of mobile messaging apps for feature phones, Saya Mobile, was acquired by Kirusa from the States.

Founded in 2011, Saya has received wide exposure for its instant messaging app called Street Chat. The platform includes social network integration, location-based and group chat across multiple phone platforms including J2ME, Android and iOS.

With a focus on over 30 high-growth markets in from Southeast Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa, Saya has become super popular by being responsible for cheap mobile messaging to people who do not have smartphones in emerging economies.

We recently caught up with the company’s ex-CEO and founder of Robert Lamptey (pictured left) to share some golden nuggets with us.

Ventureburn: From your experience with Saya, how would you describe the perspective of foreign venture capitalists in African startups?

Robert Lamptey: At the time we started raising funding, what we were doing was relatively new in the market and we had to look elsewhere to find money to do what we were doing. Once we went international, a lot of people started looking at Africa, especially Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya.

There is this curiosity from investors. They are curious about Africa and the things that are happening here. Some of them are coming to Africa and are making investments; others are not able to invest as a result of legal frameworks which made it impossible for them to invest outside United States.

VB: Business-wise and product-wise, what do you think was really unique about Saya that made it attract global attention?

RL: I wouldn’t put it to one thing but there was this anger for success by the founders. We were sure we were going to succeed no matter what. We had that at the back of our minds and it kept pushing us to try to succeed. If you want to succeed no matter what, our mantra was that you don’t say no, you say yes, yes, yes to success.

You eat, you sleep, you dream, and you focus on that. And you build yourself to that level. The mindset to succeed was there. We were ready to dish some things that weren’t working to get to the next level.

VB: A lot of co-founders eat, sleep and dream about success, but not all of them are successful. If you are asked to give a startup founder a guaranteed nugget for success, what would you say?

RL: Success is a process, you don’t say you want to have success today and you are successful. You have to work at it. Some things work, some don’t. Sometimes you need to motivate yourself, sometimes you need to motivate your team.

You may need to move out of your comfort zone. Those who are successful are people who move out of their comfort zone and do take risks. If you don’t take risks, you wouldn’t be successful. You need to push yourself. You need to motivate yourself; you need to convince yourself why you need to do that.

Like a company, you want to get to 1 million users in X number of months. How do you do that? You figure out what to do, you don’t just sit down and expect it to happen.

VB: Let’s talk about the startup community in Ghana. It’s not as popular as that of Nigeria, why is this so?

RL: The reason is Nigeria talks, Nigeria talks too much. Nigeria is similar to Kenya — they say they are going to do this, we have this, [and] we have that. They say it before they do it.

In Ghana, we don’t say. We do before we say. You hear about very few of us but when you hear of us, we’ve done what the things we are saying. If someone in Nigeria will stop talking, then do it before talking about it, then we have a fighting chance.