Daniel Yu On Building A $625 Million Business By Transforming Informal Retail In Africa

Daniel Yu has been championing a huge problem in what may be one of the biggest markets in the world. His startup, Wasoko, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Avenir Growth Capital, Binny Bansal, Catalyst Fund, and Growth/Expansion.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Africa is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets on the planet
• Startup fundraising
• Creating and maintaining company culture at scale

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About Daniel Yu:

Daniel Yu is an entrepreneur and software developer with extensive personal and professional experience working and traveling across 65+ countries, primarily in emerging economies (Africa, the Middle East, Central America, Brazil, Southeast Asia, and China).

Daniel embraces opportunities to explore markets and develop the network and cultural knowledge to effectively launch new technology-driven businesses. He is conversational or better in eight languages: English (native), Mandarin, Swahili, Arabic, Spanish, Cantonese, Portuguese, and French.

Daniel is the founder and CEO of Wasoko, a tech company transforming the $600 billion market of essential goods sold through mom-and-pop stores in Africa through on-demand ordering, delivery, and financing.

Backed by Tiger Global and other leading investors, Daniel is based in East Africa with the ultimate responsibility over all businesses serving tens of thousands of merchants across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal while partnering with leading manufacturers, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

Connect with Daniel Yu:

• Crunchbase
• LinkedIn
• Forbes
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So very excited about the guests that we have today I mean quite ah quite a global entrepreneur. You know that we have you know I think that listening to today’s episode is going to help us to make the world a little bit smaller and we’re going to be you know learning about all the good stuff. That we like to hear building scaling financing and everything in between so without farther ado let’s welcome our guests today Daniel you welcome to the show. So originally born in Southern California I mean that sounds like a pretty amazing upbringing. Give us a little. Ah.

Daniel Yu: Great to be here.

Alejandro Cremades: Walk through memory lane.

Daniel Yu: Yeah I was born and raised in Camar Rio California which is in Ventura County about our north of l a I come from my international background my my father’s originally from Hong Kong but I’ve got family in a few different places and I think was always. Given the perspective of the world being bigger than just the suburb the neighborhood where I grew up.

Alejandro Cremades: So so at what point do you start to develop hey you know like this this interest for traveling for like the world for I mean I’m sure that you know your your your mom from the us you’re that you know from Hong Kong as you were saying I’m sure that you were kind of like brought up you know in that day. In that environment of of of really you know understanding there was that there was much more than than than California but they but yeah, tell us about that.

Daniel Yu: I think so I I definitely had that sense of the the multicultural fabric of the world obviously from the family background but even from the environment obviously a lot of Latino influence where I was. Ah, but also was blessed to have the opportunity of my family. My parents loved to travel and took us on trips. You know, even as kids overseas both the visit family and also go to Europe and other places and I think what? what always struck me was a fascination with cultures and and languages actually and that even kind of led to me in university. Ah, ending up studying arabic doing these study abroad programs over in Egypt which is ultimately where my entrepreneurial journey got started.

Alejandro Cremades: And you studied everything but you know what you were really passionate about you know software. So why? So why was that the case and at what point do you start to develop that interest you know around technology and then also software.

Daniel Yu: So technology I’ve always viewed as as a tool and I think I had a really influential friend still to this day. Ultimately, he became a investor in my my company who basically ah. Told me about his background similar interests. You know he he loved traveling all over the world also came from ah, an immigrant family and had left the us actually dropped out of school originally to to move to India start a business there and then was successful. Came back to the us and. Ah, continued at university which is.

Daniel Yu: My interest in tech came from ah my friend actually at university who strangely enough was quite a bit older than me I think he’s about 10 years older than me but he actually had taken time off of school moved to India started his own business. There was was was ultimately quite successful and then moved back to the Us. Ah, where where I then met him and the thing that he told me was that if you really want to do a highly impactful venture out there in the world these days you know technology and specifically knowing how to code is one of the most helpful things that you can do because regardless of. What business you get into knowing how to code or being able to manage people who who code is going to be part of of what you do and that really inspired me to basically say well if if I am going to bring my ideas. Whatever they end up being into the real world then having that technology background and skillset is. Clearly going to be critical to that process and so actually from there I started originally just kind of self-learning um figuring out how to how how to how to code build out simple websites stuff like that myself later on took took a few independent courses but that is ultimately how I got the the initial background as ah as a software developer. Ah, that ultimately became quite useful down the road when I started getting going with wassocco as well.

Alejandro Cremades: And they you know we’ll we’ll get into that in just a little bit but we see the idea you know started with a a trip to Egypt. So what happened there in Egypt.

Daniel Yu: Yes, so that summer I was actually doing an intensive arabic study in the in the Middle East and I had a little bit of extra time at the end and I was just living by myself in this village in in rural egypt and I got to know. Ah, some of the shopkeepers who are around there. A lot of a lot of my neighbors and and other people in the town and I realized that they actually had this challenge with ordering goods for their stores. So all these small mom and pop stores the the bodegas these little shops. They’re selling rice and soap and sugar and everything to the to the people in the town but when they ran out of those products and they needed to restock. They actually had to drive all the way to the city many hours away by the products that wholesalers transport them back. It was a whole very long painful process and this. Got me thinking on shouldn’t it be possible to build out a technology platform a technology solution that can help solve this problem of knowing what goods are needed where in good time.

Alejandro Cremades: And you know who would have thought because you go back to into ah the University of Chicago and they who would have thought that one of the initiatives that they have to really foster. You Knowation is also a nice initiative to invite people to drop out of school because they did the business plan Competition. You ended up winning and then you decide that it’s time to ah to get out of there. So. So so I’m sure that your parents were not happy.

Daniel Yu: Yeah, definitely not I would say initially they were quite hesitant about what I wanted to do, especially you know my my father’s from more more traditional background and you know education has always been very very very highly prized and and important. And but you know I made a strong case I would say what I how I pitched it originally was oh I’m just taking a a short leave of absence to pursue this this project and if it doesn’t go well then you know immediately I’ll be back to school and I had discussed with the University officials everything the flexibility they they. They they gave me that guarantee that okay at any time you want to come back just reregister for classes. No Problems. There’ll be no restrictions. All of that. So So I had a very low downside case that I was able to make you know thanks to the University and and and their flexible policies. But yeah that that was definitely. Ah, kind of a bold thing for me to do and you know to this day I’m I’m grateful to my parents for for giving me the chance to make it happen. But I think these days they’re they’re pretty happy with how it’s been going.

Alejandro Cremades: So how how nerve raking was say it dropping out of school and what was that process of starting to reaching out to potential partners and to start to polish this further.

Daniel Yu: I think the most no bracking part was definitely the the call I had with my dad. But once I got through that then the the the process moving forward was pretty straightforward I think I was quite excited. There was a lot that I wanted to do in terms of my own. Kind of coding development getting the initial platform prototype built out I was very excited happy to be going to all the entrepreneurship events one of the things that I think I actually took advantage of quite well was that even though I dropped out. Of classes and and didn’t have the kind of university schedule I still stayed in the university neighborhood and was able to take advantage of all the resources so they would have these entrepreneurship events at the the booth business school all the time and there were these professors that I was able to work with talk to to get advice on what we were doing. And so I had all the benefits of of being in college without actually having to go to class which was basically a dream so that that was really helpful in the early days as as I was just starting to get this idea even basically figured out.

Alejandro Cremades: And they just for the people that are listening what ended up being washoka. What is the business model and how do you guys make money.

Daniel Yu: Yes, so wassoko as it exists today is an e-commerce company that connects large manufacturers. So think Procter and gamble Unilever Nestle but also ah regional manufacturers. Ah, who are producing products locally in these countries across Africa with the mom and pop stores. So these small bodegas these kiosks that are selling these essential goods to over ninety percent of the the local population. And so basically what we do is shops are able to order through our app. So there’s a wasoko app where they can browse and scroll and find the rice soap sugar toilet paper whatever products they need they place an order just like any other e-commerce platform and then we as wasoko actually arrange. Free same day delivery for those goods to get to their store and restock them as quick as possible. So that people in the community are able to go to that shop and get what they need on the back of that we do a little bit of other stuff now in terms of providing flexible payment options for those stores. Um. We’re looking at kind of building out other products and tools and services that those shops can be empowered with through our app as well as we’re also looking kind of upstream at other interesting things we can do in the supply chain. One of the things that’s quite exciting these days is ah we’ve been launching our own private label products.

Daniel Yu: Ah, so you think kind of like Kirkland with Costco and the own in-house brands. They have to kind of meet consumer needs at even kind of better value in pricing than the traditionalitionally branded products.

Daniel Yu: Upstream side. We are on the upstream side. We’re starting to do things like private label where we’re actually directly contract manufacturing our own products similar to Costco with their Kirkland brands and stuff like that and that’s helping us to get goods for even better value. Ah, to our customers across 5 african countries now as well.

Alejandro Cremades: so so I guess a out of all places. Why Africa.

Daniel Yu: Yeah, so if you look specifically at the space that we’re in which is fast- moving consumer goods and specifically informal retail. There’s there’s no other region that is as reliant on informal retail as Africa as I said over 90% of all goods are bought and sold through these small informal retail shops and really the the problems the pain points that those shops face are much higher than even small shops in other markets and so this kind of core challenge of as a shopkeeper when I need to restock on rice or soap. Having to leave my store go to a different town or downtown in a big city to buy goods transport them back myself waste all that time pay the pay pay the the fees lose sales while I’m out of my store. This is a really significant pain point and on the other side. As ah as a brand as ah as a manufacturer you have this really opaque series of middlemen who are there’s usually 3 or 4 layers between the manufacturer and the actual shop themselves and so you don’t really have a way to ensure that your products are even getting to those stores in the first place you’re just kind of handing them over to a big distributor and hoping. Ah, that they that they move your product and so really I think that the the pain point the opportunity given that this is an over $ 700,000,000,000 a year space in the fastest growing continent in the world is is really something that is a huge opportunity for tech to bring efficiency to and ultimately to save money.

Daniel Yu: Um, for the one point five billion people who live in Africa.

Alejandro Cremades: And they and in this case, how was it like you know the the arrival as an outsider because I mean ultimately you know you’re a foreigner you know coming there starting the business. So how was that process like.

Daniel Yu: Yes, so thankfully we actually did have a a very strong welcome and introduction the reason or ultimately how we ended up launching the business firstly in in Kenya which is in East Africa was because we had the invitation from a number of. Brands and and and companies their offices over here and so there was a whole process where once I built out the platform and I was able to kind of do some demos and and and and show different companies and and offices across emerging markets. What what the platform could do. Um, there was a very strong interest that came specifically from East Africa and and Kenya and I think that had to do with the fact that Kenya at least at the time was the world leader in mobile money. Um sort of there. There have been these systems in place for actually over 15 years that allow for basically text message. Money transfer so without even needing a smartphone or an app you’re able to just send money directly to anybody as long as you know their phone number and I think that kind of system. The fact that that was already widely established meant that there was interest in other types of digital ordering platforms in this case. Ah, for for shops to kind of order and restock for their for their goods as well and so having that invitation where I had a couple calls with some companies that are based here in Kenya and went through the system and they basically said hey if you come out here. We’ll be the first people to try them out.

Daniel Yu: That gave us a very kind of strong foothold to to come in and be able to focus and and know what we needed to do. It wasn’t like I was just out here running around without any kind of structure or any kind of interest already Settled. So. That Anchor was really helpful in getting us going and then from there we were able to quickly bring on other companies who were interested in using the platform to list and sell their goods as well.

Alejandro Cremades: And then also what was they? what was that experience of going through a pivot because you know like everything the business model that one launches you know, Obviously you got to see how the market reacts You always need to adapt yourself to the market. So how was that for you guys.

Daniel Yu: Yes, we had a significant pivot in the first year or so of operations once we got going in Kenya and that was specifically to move away from a pure marketplace model to an actually integrated first -party logistics model. And what that basically meant is before or what I initially envisioned was being able to just have a platform where companies brands would list their goods and then these shops would order them. But then the logistics the delivery would be handled by the brands. The manufacturers themselves and we realized. Ah, pretty quickly that that was not working or at least it was not working well enough there was something like half of the orders that were coming through were just not being delivered by the company or their distributor and once we dug into it. We realized there was a reason that made sense which is that a lot of these orders were quite small. You are seeing. Ah, shops that we’re ordering only say one box of ah of a company’s products. You know one box of soap that kind of thing and with these kind of small items. You know that can be worth only you know, five 10 dollars and what that meant was that in order to actually. Figure out how to do reliable logistics. We had to get involved in doing it directly ourselves and so we ran a small pilot with that where we asked a few of the brands hey, what do you think if we try doing some of this delivery this logistics ourselves.

Daniel Yu: And this is actually before the days of dark stores and on-demand quick delivery so it was a little bit of ah of an experiment with without precedence certainly in the markets where we were but we were able to demonstrate that when we did do our own logistics and we were able to get to you know 95% plus successful delivery rates. Um, that that indeed did lead to a successful and positive customer experience and something that customers were then excited to use and rely on and so we made the the at the time what was ah a pretty bold decision. To say you know what we’re going to go into doing all of these logistics ourselves which wasn’t something that we knew how to do at the time and so that was ah that was a big big move big investment to actually set up our own warehouses our own last mile delivery. But once we did get that going. We We saw significant growth. Um, that has continued to this day and that’s been the model that we’ve relied on.

Alejandro Cremades: And then from ah from a capital racing perspective. How much capital have you guys raised to date.

Daniel Yu: Um, in total we’ve raised approximately a $40,000,000 today

Alejandro Cremades: And what has been that the journey of raising this money because I mean you guys have raised from players with very deep pockets out of the us like tiger global and others. So how has it been that process of being able to get the. You know those big players that are so far away to get comfortable with the idea of investing in a company out of Africa.

Daniel Yu: It’s been a long process for sure. We started off our operations in Kenya in 2016 and it was only two years later that we were even able to raise our seed round which was a $2000000 round led by. Um, some specialist investors focused on technology in Africa Forty x ventures and and a few other folks and even that process at that time was very difficult. We had 1 investor that before that gave us a term sheet but then actually two weeks before they closed. Ah, there was a scandal that broke out and the fund had to close down and so we thought we were about to get $2000000 from that first investor but then ended up almost going bankrupt because they collapsed and we were running out of runway. So lots of crazy drama in the early days to even just. You know, get the the basic seed round level investment done. But thankfully since that round things have been much smoother so we were lucky to show a lot of strong growth. 2019 into 20 interestingly we closed our series a which is a $14,000,000 round led by quona capital. In February of 2020 so just before covid nineteen hit and shut down the world. So once again, kind of quite lucky to to get that done and then we were able to show kind of very strong growth on the back of that into 2021 22.

Daniel Yu: And February Twenty Twenty Two is when we led that series be ah ah led by tech globalbal and avanir capital.

Alejandro Cremades: So then in this in this case, you know how was the um, the expectations. How did the expectations shift you know, over time you know to us you were going from 1 financing or 1 cycle you know to the next.

Daniel Yu: I think there was a lot of education that we had to do with our investors. Certainly if you look at the series b folks tiger global avanir these are us-based investors that. Um, have done very very little of any investment in in Africa to date and so there was a lot that we had to do to explain the dynamics explain the potential which is something that I think is is unparalleled. Um, you know there is no other billion person market out there that is yet to be transformed by technology. Africa is really kind of final frontier when it comes to inflection points for for for tech investing and so given what we’re doing at the foundational level to really build out ecommerce focus on this b two b channel which happens to be the largest ah consumption channel. On the continent. That’s really something that takes some time to understand the dynamics around. But I think we were able to show you know through our unit economics through the the kind of efficiency in our operations that we have which match up very well compared to ecommerce operators in the rest of the world. Um, that this is really something to get behind and that the potential the tailwinds given the growth of Africa overall are something not to be ignored.

Alejandro Cremades: And then in terms of executing there. You know in in Africa I mean what have been some of the some of the um obstacles that you guys have experienced along the way as you were scaling this thing up.

Daniel Yu: A lot of obstacles for sure I’d say that some of the biggest challenges that we have currently are with the suppliers with the manufacturers. We have very large volumes of goods that we are. Selling and distributing on a day-to-day basis and we of course need to keep very tight inventory and working capital in order to optimize on those operations but we have a lot of challenges with stock outs at the supplier level where we place the purchase order for 10000 boxes of soak. But the supplier only delivers 6000 boxes and this is obviously something that’s hugely frustrating first and foremost for our customers but also for our operations where we don’t have the stock on hand that that we’re looking for um and so it’s a lot of this kind of stuff where unfortunately um, you know the the working capital financing that. Would usually help to smooth over a lot of operations across the supply chain is really just not as mature as what you’d find in ah in other countries and I think that that problem which fundamentally comes down to financing you know credit. Um, inventory across these markets is is really what holds us back but is something that we’ve been able to work around and slowly over time kind of find solutions to improve some of these issues.

Alejandro Cremades: And what about the culture on the team I mean how how many people do you guys have on the team right now.

Daniel Yu: We have over 1000 people on our team.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow And when you have like so many people. How do you go about culture values and making sure that everyone is say standing by them.

Daniel Yu: It’s quite tough obviously having that many people on the team and I think from something like 20 different nationalities spread across 6 different countries. This is not an easy thing to do to kind of build a cohesive culture I think we’ve really tried to do this by. Being explicit about what our values are what what it means to to to be part of wassoko and what our mission purpose ultimately are as a company and you know through that through repetition. You know, bringing it up tying back these values to. Our operations bringing them up in in meetings and and and pointing out behaviors. Both positive and negative that that that affect that culture. Um, you know that that’s the only way to to build up. A culture at this scale you know in the early days when it’s just a yeah, a dozen people sitting in a room you know culture is something that happens. Naturally, you don’t have to really point it out. You don’t have to be explicit about it. But at the scale across so many different locations you have to have a structure around it. You have to be explicit. And you have to continue to repeat it every day so that people really see it in their in their daily work.

Alejandro Cremades: So imagine you were to go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the were the vision of Washoco is fully realized what does that world look like.

Daniel Yu: That world would be 1 in which every shop across Africa has the wasoko app and is using it to serve people in their communities. Not just with cheaper goods. Then what they’d get otherwise you know a single mother who is able to get rice for you know, 10% less than what she’d be able to otherwise without wasokco providing goods to her community to to the shop that she goes to um, but also ah wasoko. Being able to provide access to so many more services than just the physical goods as well. Some of the things we’re working on are going to allow people to access financial services through mosoko shops that otherwise probably wouldn’t be available in their community. We’re looking to kind of open up the infrastructure that we have to allow other companies. To to to provide their products through our logistics and through our our our technology channels as well. And so I think ultimately what what soco is doing is setting up the omni channel infrastructure both the tech as well as the physical logistics to help access and and distribute goods and services. As many people as possible across the african continent and ultimately if that’s done. That’s a huge boost in economic activity and hopefully well-being livelihoods for the one point five billion people who live on the continent as well as a huge opportunity to enable other businesses to be built on the back of the infrastructure.

Daniel Yu: That we have as well.

Alejandro Cremades: So then? so then also you know one thing that I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that are listening that are wondering how is being an entrepreneur in Africa you know, perhaps you know in your case, you’re insensibar. But. How is how is it different from let’s say being an entrepreneur in the Us. .

Daniel Yu: Um, great question I would say that the biggest difference is the need to build out a huge number of services. And and tools directly yourself. So if you look at the example of the pivot that we went through where we came into the market just imagining that we could be a marketplace platform not thinking that we would have to get involved in anything with the logistics or anything as well only to discover that the. Logistics Services distribution that was being provided was not at the quality that we required and that therefore if we wanted to do it right? We would have to do it ourselves. Um, that kind of necessity is a fact of life as an entrepreneur across a lot of the the areas that. You need as a business operator. Um, and so this kind of requirement because these business ecosystems especially in the technology space are less robust they’re they’re they’re not nearly as big as what you find say for example in the us that means that you have to do more of these activities yourselves and. Um, you can view that both in the light of okay that’s going to slow you down. It’s going to be more costly. What have you but you can also be in the light of this is really foundational and provides a huge barrier to entry for anyone else. Once you scale up and actually get these activities and operations working properly and that’s definitely how I see it.

Daniel Yu: Um, you know in in our sense and what I’d also say is if you look at it from an overall ecosystem impact um whereas in the us um, you can build a big business just by optimizing some process. You know, let’s say um, you know a click through advertising conversions if you can improve those by 1 % you know that that’s a multibillion dollar business for sure. But it’s really not transformational in the sense that there are already you know lots of quickthrough advertising optimization services out there and you know ultimately what impact is that going to have you know for those customers for those users who are going to be impacted whereas for us to build out these entire supply chains and. And provide you know delivery services to shops that previously had to spend you know half a day you know ten twenty hours a week going to source their products getting limited options. Bad pricing all that and to suddenly be able to provide on-demand delivery. With a wider selection of goods at the best prices around you know that ultimately then goes out to so serve tens of millions of people you know that’s the kind of thing that’s only really possible in a market like like the ones that were in in Africa and so I think it also depends on. Who you are as an entrepreneur in the sense of you know, do you want to optimize on something that already exists in an established big market. Um, or do you want to transform something in a place that might not have any services of the kind that you’re trying to do previously whatsoever.

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s say you know now I mean obviously we were we were talking earlier about the the way that you envision the future. You know how things you know you you find them to perhaps crystallize or hopefully they crystallize in that in that way that you are all envisioning with the team. But. Let’s say now you know we’re looking towards the past you know more than the future and I’m able to bring you back in time in a time machine. You know able to bring you back in time. Let’s say nine years ago where you were you know, incubating the thought of starting something that would eventually you know materialize into wasoko. So let’s say you’re able to have a sit down with that younger so that younger so that maybe it’s even thinking about dropping out from the University Of Chicago and you’re able to sit down that younger Daniel and you’re able to give that younger Daniel one piece of advice before launching a business bow that be and why given what you know now.

Daniel Yu: That one piece of advice would be to just get working just go to the ground talk to the users talk to the customers talk to the Partners. Don’t Wait. Don’t double guess yourself think That. You’re not ah capable that you’re not skilled enough or experienced enough to to take on those challenges and and and to learn about them I think that there are so many things in the world that and so many people that are held back. Um, by their own kind of self-doubts and and misbeliefs that they’re not qualified ah to to to work on a certain problem or area and I think I spent a lot of time being perhaps a bit more hesitant than I could have been otherwise in just diving in and starting to work on things. And I think if if you take on that spirit and you were willing to be agile. Um you know make mistakes quickly and learn from them and try out other things that you can then learn from and and quickly adjust from from there then ultimately you know there’s no way that that that you can ultimately. Ah, you know, stay off the track for too long eventually you will find your path onto something that um you know is really adding value for people in their lives and you know that’s ultimately a discovery process that you know can’t be can’t be skipped except for by trying to go out there and do it yourself.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it so for the people that are listening. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

Daniel Yu: Yeah, so I’m actually very much off of social media I would say the the only platform that I’m using regularly. These days is is Linkedin and regularly is a strong word. There. So. I’d say definitely please if there’s something relevant reach out on my Linkedin should just be there Daniel Yu: Yu wasoko um you know happy to support, especially other entrepreneurs building. You know, great things to help people in Africa which as I said I think is really the. Final frontier for technology and transformation on on this planet and you know excited to see what happens in the ecosystem for the next few decades to come.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing! Well hey Danny of thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today. It has been on on earth to have you with us.

Daniel Yu: Thank you! It’s been a pleasure.

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