The 12th annual Innovation Africa Digital Summit (IADS) held recently in Gambia in western Africa highlighted the growth of ICT infrastructure and innovative services in the region. 

Gambia has the highest teledensity in Africa, and despite its small size, punches above its weight when it comes to ambitions and targets. Industry and government agencies indicated at the conference that the country plans to become an ICT hub in the next 3-5 years. 

According to a recent Media Monitor International report, Gambia displays a great enthusiasm towards entrepreneurship, as reflected in its investment in youth, competitions and awards for entrepreneurs. The Children and Community Initiative for Development (CAID) and Africa Youth Panel (AYP) have rolled out a range of capacity building initiatives for youth. 

The Gambia Investment Export and Promotion Agency (GIEPA) conducts an annual Business Plan Competition for MSMEs. The ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment has also launched an innovation grant as part of the Social Development Fund, to commercialise local projects. An estimated two-thirds of Gambia’s economy is powered by MSMEs. 

MNCs such as Intel and Microsoft have announced initiatives to invest in local startups in Africa. The companies are promoting local app development as well, considering that much of Africa is a ‘mobile first’ economy when it comes to ICTs. Gambian ICT entrepreneurs such as Muhammed Jah have been covered prominently in local and international media such as the BBC. Jah is the founder of QuantumNet, an ICT company with over 300 employees, and was recently estimated to worth around $156 million. 

Momodou Drammeh, enterprise director at GIEPA, explains that Gambia is one of the safest countries in Africa, a melting pot of eight different ethnic groups, competitive in its labour force, stable in economy, and speaks English as an official language. Gambia’s membership to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) trading bloc ensures market access to over 300 million people. 

International players are also active in Gambia’s entrepreneur movement. Africa Startup, based out of Norway, has launched two projects in Gambia: MyFarm (a one-hectare farm-based educational centre focusing on ‘seed to business’ agri-activities) and MyFarm Produce (to promote better packaging of agricultural produce). 

Gambia is already a cultural hub with a unique blend of local and international music, with a range of fresh talent also using digital media for music discovery and promotion. Notable musicians include Jaliba Kuyateh, Foday Musa Suso, Tabou Diop, Jalimadi, Pa Bobo Jobarteh and The Kaira Band, to name just a few

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Smart cities are the big bet of the future and startups as Gestion Nueve (G9) are trying to become a reality. Juanjo Martin is the founder of Gestión Nueve, a startup in the scaling phase that know what it is to sell its services to cities.


1. Describe G9 in under 50 words
G9 is a startup which goal is building a triangle which connects users, city services providers and payments in an urban environment. We put our focus in creating great value for both the users and, of course, our clients (the service providers).

Tell us the G9 story. How and why was this project born?
G9 has just become 3 years old. It was born in April 2011 after a failed project, on which we made nearly every possible mistake in the process of forging a business from an idea. I spent a couple months analyzing our mistakes and I got quite a few lessons learned.  That greatly helped me to keep focus when starting the G9 idea. I wanted to explore a few ideas focused on easing the city-citizens relations and sat down with a couple of developers involved in that previous failed project. We narrowed the focus and built a proof of concept (MVP). We took it to Telefonica Movilforum program and they invited as to become partners of the program at no cost. We found our first early adopter customer, SMASSA, signed a contract and started building the first version of the service. Ten months after the project started, our first service was put into production.

Why is G9 going to get success in the field of Smart City? What are you doing different from your competitors?
I think that the main difference is that we clearly know WHY we are doing what we do. There are many other solutions out there trying to solve the same or similar problems, build by the services operators themselves, traditional systems integrators and generalist IT consultants. We think these solutions don't solve the problems they try to solve because they focus only on part of the problem. Either they only create value for the provider or the user. Sometimes even to none of them. Since the very beginning we always thought our service has to create value for the service provider, enabling new services, reducing costs and creating a new channels with their customers. And at the same time provide the users a solution that really eases the service usage and let them take informed and instant service usage decisions. We put a great effort in understanding the whole service life cycle and the users interaction with it.

What is the most challenging part of building G9?
For sure, finding the right people. I've been involved in the foundation of quite a few business projects in the last 15 years, but this is the first adventure I started just on my own. In the beginning financial resources are scarce and my best bet to get people on board, once I found the right ones, was being able to convert my vision into a shared vision. I admit that during this journey I was quite lucky and, although there were really hard (even harsh) moments, now we have the best team I have ever been part of. I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to Eduardo, Alejandro Vera, Ismael and Alejandro Gómez, David, Sergio and specially to Daniel and Higinio (they both are on this since the very beginning), for being such great travel companions and for being so patient with me.

What kind of partnerships are you achieving?
At the beginning getting heard and achieving some trust was really frustrating. We were (and are) very ambitious with what we want to create and it was difficult to make established actors understand that there is a better way to do some of the things  they do. Making them believe that we were able to help on that was hard. Now we are getting traction and we have deals on place or being negotiated with players on every process or area involved in our product: urban services providers (both public and private ones), credit/debit card processors and financial institutions, city planning consulting companies, which will help on developing the service pouring their knowledge on it, Telefónica as a strategic partner, system manufacturers and integrators… After three years pushing we start being taken seriously by players. We will keep pushing hard as we believe our services provides value to all of them.

After 3 years, you are about to scale doing bootstrapping. How did you get it?
When I started G9 the previous failure was recent (and I had not fully recovered self confidence). I didn't wanted to involve external capital or strangers until I had some level of validation. We started doing some consultancy and used that revenue to build the foundations of G9. With those resources we built the first MVP, presented the idea to SMASSA (Málaga Parking and Services Local Company) and Telefónica and they immediately agreed to sign a contract with us which helped us a lot to build the first version of the service. After that, I got in touch with a few people and raised some seed capital and partners on board. Overall, the company financial resources are sourced from bootstrapping by nearly a 90%. The hardest part of bootstrapping is choosing the right works to do. Those which provides both financial revenue and strategic resources to the project. Sometimes it was hard to say "No" to certain proposals, specially when we were financially constrained, but it’s very easy to lose focus if you don’t choose the right path.

Where do you see G9 in 5 years?
Think about what happens when you switch the light on. Something that looks so simple works because there's a huge structure and armies of people taking care of electricity to arrive to our houses. We want to do something similar with the cities services. I really believe that we will be involved in many different urban services, making their usage as easy as switching the light on. Probably users won’t know we are there, but we will be an invaluable part of making their lives easier. G9 will be a place where people will love what they do and we will all have a shared vision. That was the main idea when I founded G9. Now I think that idea has become our dream.

Your startup is located in Marbella (Spain), a paradise to live but with a lack of entrepreneurial ecosystem. How are you coping with that? What do you miss in south of Spain?
Building a project in Marbella has a big plus. The weather, the city and the people is awesome. Our offices are 5 minutes to the beach and you can see how that changes the way the team think, acts, create… It adds salt and pepper to everything we create.
On the other hand, as you say, there’s a great lack of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. That really raises the difficulty of building a startup. It’s difficult to find the right people, the right resources, the right investors. It's difficult to find people to share your ideas with and exchange opinions. There’s a lack of value creation culture. Things have changed in the last 3 or 4 last years, and will keep changing the next years. I hope people responsible of pushing for that don’t forget that building an ecosystem goes beyond creating accelerators and incubators and that quality should prevail over quantity.

Your involvement with the startup ecosystem is awesome. You are always willing to help entrepreneurs. What moves you to do this?
Since I started my first company 15 years ago I’ve run into every possible problem and did every possible mistake you could imagine. And those mistakes come at a high personal cost. In Spain we are not educated in failure and failing can be a big sin. I want to put my bit in changing that. I believe my experience can help others in having higher chances of success and in case they fail, do it in an orderly way.

Your big mistake?
Not measuring the risks of failure correctly. Many times, we are so in love of the ideas, projects or products we develop that we forget that we can fail. Failure is a keystone in the learning process. But, if you are not ready to fail, even a small mistake can transform a whole project into an epic fail.

What one piece of advice would you like to give to those who want to transform an idea into a business?
Always question yourself. Find the real reason for doing everything you do and always keep and eye in the mid and long term.

James Haywood Rolling Jr. is associate professor of art education and leadership at Syracuse University. He has served on the board of directors of the National Art Education Association, and has authored three other books on arts and creativity. His recent book is Swarm Intelligence: What nature teaches us about shaping creative leadership (see my review). Rolling joins us in this exclusive interview on human creative behaviours in swarms, group intelligence, adaptive entrepreneurship, and music and Pixar Studios as examples of intersection between arts, science and entrepreneurship.

YS: How was your book received? What were some of the unusual responses and reactions you got? 
A: The largest and most general audience for the book is those readers interested in cultivating their own creative growth or aiding the creative development of friends and loved ones. Swarm Intelligence also targets those who are interested in the power and potential of 21st century tools and techniques for developing and expanding their social networks or the effectiveness of their organizations and affinity groups, whether in face-to-face interpersonal interaction, in business circles, or over internet social and gaming networks. Swarm Intelligence will appeal to readers of books like Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, and James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. However, what distinguishes Swarm Intelligence is its exploration of six crucial areas of human interaction through which individual creativity can be collectively fostered: social networks, systems, swarms, superorganisms, stories, and schools. It is interesting to note that the concepts in Swarm Intelligence have been equally provocative to arts policy makers on the West Coast, as evidenced by their response to a talk I was recently invited to give, as it has been with a totally unrelated group of children’s book authors. So there has already been a wide range of influence since the release of the book in November 2013. 

YS: What are the typical challenges creative people face as they scale up their company from an innovating firm to a mature corporation? 
A: The greatest challenge is in attempting to forge a path ahead as if a successful business was the hallmark of individual achievement alone. It is not. In the six years after Thomas Edison established his Menlo Park laboratory facilities in New Jersey, approximately 400 inventions were patented in his name. We like to talk of Edison’s individual genius but fail to recognize the collective intelligence of his team, one of whom has noted that Thomas Edison was so in sync within this hive of activity that “it is difficult to distinguish his actions from those of his colleagues.” Francis Jehl, one of his long-time assistants, also divulged that “Edison is in reality a collective noun and refers to the work of many men.” 

YS: How are social media like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest creating new kinds of swarms? 
A: Online social networks enabled by Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest create new kinds of creative swarms that are not solely the domain of any individual member, but also of the entire network of individuals. However, collaborative social networks have creative consequences. Sometimes what a network learns benefits only itself and is at the direct expense of its neighboring swarms of thinkers and doers. We can easily lose our ability to connect across networks and detach ourselves from the joy of common purpose, as we hide behind our network firewalls. 

YS: What are some ways in which creative people can show their leadership in swarms? 
A: There are actually four natural laws of swarm behavior that are also demonstrated by the best creative leaders. As a creative leader, you must first learn to: 1) chase after those directly ahead of you in the lead ranks; 2) separate from those too close for comfort; 3) align with those pacesetters moving right beside you; 4) and cohere with the cloud of peers around you as you all converge together toward a common and mutually advantageous target or goal. 

YS: Are swarm effects generally short-term effects, or do swarms have long-term impacts? 
A: It is crucial to understand that swarm intelligence is a problem-solving behavior that does not need to be altogether simultaneous, with all individuals working together on a single project outcome and arriving at one collective “aha!” moment. Rather, this collective intelligence may just as readily be distributed over time, with each individual ultimately contributing a separate outcome longitudinally toward a deepened overall understanding of the wide range of possible outcomes, extending the vision of every group member in the process. This is how cultures are formed; it is a long-term undertaking

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This is the claim of Alexis Christodoulou, cofounder of Locish with Grigoris Zontanos. Locish is a  Greek promising startup that is also set in San Francisco showing a clear service in a big and rapidly growing target market. Now, it can and wants to scale to the establishing.

Describe Locish in under 50 words
Locish is a Q&A mobile app enabling users to ask like-minded people for real-time recommendations on new places to eat, drink, and have fun. Each response is specific to the user’s individual inquiry and matched to their personal preferences.
 
Describe yourself in one sentence
Entrepreneur at heart, creative by nature, engineer by choice, eternally humble and always driven by the motto “do, learn, repeat”. 
 
Tell us the Locish story. How and why was this project born? 
Everything happened on a road trip from Vienna to Budapest, when my co-founder and I found it impossible to discover the city’s hidden gems despite the gadgets and apps we had available. All information was either outdated, in the local language, or very touristy. Frustrated, we were trying to find somewhere to go when the idea struck us. We needed an app that enabled travelers to ask locals for tips on where to go, helping them experience a new city with an insider’s perspective – avoiding tourist traps.

And so it all started. We agreed that upon our return back home we would start developing the app, and so we did. Once we’d made a start everything happened very fast. Within the first 6 months we managed to secure 60K euros in funding from Jeremie Openfund II, and soon after we launched the app in Athens (Greece), New York, and San Francisco. We got valuable feedback from our users. Following a more recent cash injection of $820,000 from venture capitalists, we’re now relaunching the app; overhauling its functionality, and creating a brand new look and feel. We made a bit of a pivot in the sense that the app is no longer solely aiming at helping travelers. We now more open, social, and interactive, and the app’s aimed at anyone in search of place to go and enjoy a meal or have fun.

What are you doing different from your competitors?
We believe that the generic ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to online recommendation systems is well and truly broken, because they do not acknowledge the individual needs of each user. This is what we want to change with Locish. We use a smart algorithm to match users based on their interests and tastes, enabling them to get real-time recommendations from like-minded people who are not in their extended social network. Most apps rely on their users’ friends and acquaintances. To us, this is not important. We believe that the best people to get recommendations from are those who have the same tastes as you. But we’re not just a Q&A application, we believe in having context among our community (read our blog post here for more).

What technologies have you used to build Locish? What was technically the most challenging part of developing Locish?
Our app is native iOS and Android written in Objective-c and Java. Our backend is build with raw PHP on nginx web server connecting to a MySQL database. All these are running on AWS instances, as also our static files are stored on Amazon S3. We are currently looking to the scenario of moving from PHP to Hack & HHVM, the new language and VM recently announced by Facebook, since it's much more promising for performance issues. As for the greatest challenge we have come across this is the real-time matching. When someone asks a question, Locish finds all the right/like-minded people, who score above a pre-defined threshold, and routes the question to them. This score is generated by our matching algorithm in real-time that is based on a very smart and complex design as it has to effectively route the hundreds of concurrent questions.
 
You have completed a pre-seed funding round that closed at 60K euros and you recently closed your seed funding round at $820K. Which were the main three factors to achieve it?
We found fundraising a tough and demanding process, but also a very rewarding one when successfully completed. As soon as investors agree to meet with you it means that you’ve already attracted their attention, so it’s important to make sure that you capitalize on the opportunity. As they invest their valuable time in you, in our experience, you need to make sure that you are very well prepared, confident about your product, have a clear vision about what you want to achieve, and can demonstrate great determination in achieving your goals. 

What’s the startup ecosystem like in Greece?
The Greek startup ecosystem encourages a new way of doing things, which is considerably different to the traditional one. People get together talk business and are much more open and humble. They have meaningful interactions; exchange information, share experiences, seek feedback and learn from each others’ success and failure. Competitors help one another – encouraging healthy competition with the sole objective of growing by improving the quality of their products and meeting their customers’ needs more efficiently. And this is already showing results. The Greek startup community, although relatively new and small, is growing at a very fast pace – success stories include Bug Sense, Taxibeat, and Workable, to name a few. I would say that the Greek startup scene is very promising, a sign of change and a great example of how things should be happening in the business world. 

If you could come back to the past, what would you do differently in your startup? 
I wish I’d read a bit more before executing the app – I could have saved some valuable time. There’s so much information out related to startups – ‘dos and don’ts’ case studies, technical advice, tips on how to do things differently and more. This is a lesson learned and now that I have realized the importance of it I read as much as possible, which has made me considerably more efficient in many ways. 

Your big mistake?
It may sound weird, but I wish I had pushed myself to make more mistakes. I am convinced that without making mistakes you cannot learn new things and this eventually makes you stagnate. “Do, Learn, Repeat” is a very wise quote, which has been driving my attitude from the day I came across it. The more things you try, the more mistakes you make, and the stronger you get. This is part of the magic of a startup. 

You should not be scared of failure, but you should be able to get back on your feet soon after, stronger than before. A mistake should help you learn something new, so it has to be seen as a source of knowledge that will make you better. 

What one piece of advice would you like to give to those who want to transform an idea into a business?
Be a doer. Don’t stay at home making plans eternally. Success comes only after we get our hands dirty by trying things for real. So I would say get out and start building your dream with actions and it will take shape much quicker than you expect it to. Try different things, experiment as much as possible, be humble and try to learn something new every day. I am not implying that there should be no preparation, but this is not the most important part when building your own startup. 

What are you most excited about at the moment?
With no second thought, I would say the forthcoming re-launch of Locish in New York City, San Francisco, and Athens (Greece) in mid May. Following the cash injection of $820,000 we are all now working to overhaul the app’s functionality and create a brand new look and feel for Locish; getting ready to offer our users a great experience.  
In the meantime, we invite you to submit your email address on our new redesigned website at www.locish.com and be among the first to experience the all-new Locish as soon as it launches.

Finding The Right Problem 
The genius lies not in finding the right solution, but in the right problem. An enabling problem, as Thorpe puts it, allows imaginative solutions to spring up that are far removed from your original expectations. Aim for the impossible, but don’t look to the impossible to solve your problems. For example, a disabling problem would be wanting to fly like a bird by flapping your arms. But an enabling problem would be anything that gets your feet of the ground. Finding the right problem will expand your horizons and stretch your thinking. A disabling problem will only impose restrictions and negativity. 

Breaking The Pattern 
Humans are creatures of habit. The human mind is loath to do anything that takes it out of its comfort zone. Hence, people feel reluctant exercising, learning a new language or any such thing. Thorpe writes that Einstein was most successful when he was willing to consider anything, particularly ridiculous ideas. Breaking patterns tears you out of your rut by generating novel ideas that people are usually too practical to consider. Constantly pushing oneself to doing and trying new things every day is how patterns are broken and greatness achieved. As the quote goes, “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It will take you places.” 

Breaking The Rules 
Breaking rules is not a sign of rebellion which you must adopt to distinguish yourself from the majority. Rather, Thorpe comments, it is a focused, deliberate and systematic way of finding solutions. When you have exhausted all acceptable alternatives in your quest for the perfect answer to your problem, the only option is to break the rules and see what solutions it yields. Moreover, the kind of thinking that pathological training and compulsion to obey rules produces is not one that changed the world. Of course, obey the traffic rules and respect each other’s privacy. But in everyday life it is essential to break away from enforced norms and regulations to realize your true vision. 


Grow The Solution 
Einstein’s labour of love, the theory of relativity, was eight years in the can before it could be released to the world. Chances are, you already know how you are going to make your mark in the world. The prospect seem impossible, or difficult at the very least, because the idea is raw and obscure. It has to be protected, nurtured and nourished it in your own special ways so it can take root and flower. It requires effort, preparation and perseverance. The mass media would have us believe that all innovators are solution superstars who woke up with the perfect idea one fine morning. Einstein earnestly asks you to believe otherwise. ... read more on yourstory.com

Andrés Sánchez dreamed concerts live music, like football, would eventually be enjoyed with friends in the living room or favorite pub. And a year ago I think Living Indie to make that dream from London, with a partner in Galicia, Jorge Fernandez, and one in Málaga, Alfonso Fiz. Since then this startup have offered 15 concerts in Spain and London, with over 30,000 views and a community of 5,000 users. A work that caught the attention of Wayra, Telefonica Accelerator, which selected for Living Indie Academy of startups in London earlier this year to start their acceleration process. It's the time of #validation to be able to move into scaling.

How would you define Living Indie?
 
We are an online streaming platform offering a new way to experience and enjoy live music. We aim to be the Netflix of live concerts.
 
Tell us the Living Indie story. How and why was this project born?

The origins of Living Indie stem from when I was doing an MBA at Cranfield School of Management. Before the MBA I used to run a small music festival called JamonPop with some good friends, so during the MBA I started working on an idea that would offer something new and exciting that also incorporated the current mega-trends in music consumption, live concerts, streaming and video. During this time some classmates helped me shape the idea and build an initial business plan.

At the end of the MBA I decided to follow up with the idea. Jorge Fernandez, an ex-colleague and programmer, joined the project. We launched in April 2013 and in May an old friend of mine, Alfonso, joined the project too. One of my fellow MBA students, Niels Footman, got progressively more involved and recently became a partner too. 
 
What are you doing different from your competitors?

We think that the simplicity of the idea is one of its great strengths. Unlike some other startups, who may at first find it hard to convey clearly exactly what it is they offer, everyone gets us straight away. Regarding the competitors, while they all offer fantastic stuff, we provide, via our own portal, a new, more socially oriented way to experience live music. We have quite a specific niche, targeting high-quality, cultish or up-and-coming bands that can't usually get this kind of exposure, and we offer our users a curated way of discovering the latest trends in contemporary music. Our ultimate aim is to become the Netflix of live concerts, and we feel there is no one delivering this at the moment.
 
What kind of partnerships are you achieving?

We are working with all the parts of the music industry, from the labels, to the promoters, from the venues to the media and we also partner with brands interested in music. It’s a quite complex environment and we think we offer a win-win approach for all the parts involved  

What are you most excited about at the moment?

The potential of the UK market is amazing, it’s a hard one but we’re finding our way. We are really excited about broadcasting live what is happening here in London. This is the hottest spot in music in the world together with New York and we want to offer to the music fans the possibility to follow the new sounds and cool bands that are playing here and that are defining the music of the future.

Recently, you have become part of the accelerator Wayra in Uk. Which were the main factors to achieve it?

I’d say that is the idea but more importantly how you’re executing it and the team you build. Apart from that you’ve to be really careful with the application, provide good research data, make it really professional and spend time to impress the jury. Also at the end the pitch is crucial, so you better get ready.

Which are your main challenges in this phase?

We are all small startups so the challengue is to provide a service that provide a valuable experience and generate buzz to get to be known.

How can the Internet help the music industry?

Well, it’s long time that is helping to musicians to spread their works but as always big corporation try to get the most of it and squeeze the artists. I’d say that for the user this revolution has been great but it has blown away the music industry. Right now we are setting the roots of the future industry, there are many opportunities but also many competitors and it will never be the same. It’s a much more complex market and to monetize is not easy at all.

You are based in Spain and England. What’s the startup ecosystem like there in each country and what differences have you noticed? 

I know the UK scene quite well but not that much the Spanish one. Before coming to UK I was not that involved in the startup scene but we could do a parallelism with the music industry. Here in London the scene is like 5 times bigger so there are more opportunity and at the same the competition is harder. Anyway the economic situation in Spain has raised the entrepreneurship spirit what is really good. Creativity is a part of the Spanish people so hopefully great ideas will come up from there.  

What one piece of advice would you like to give to those who want to transform an idea into a business?

If you are in the early stage, you need to do lots of research. You may think your idea is unique but it’s not. Identify the size of the market, is it growing exponentially?, what are you going to do differently from any other player? And by the way, how are you going to make money?