[vagrantJin]

The problem space in Africa is quite interesting. For more US/EU style products maybe countries like South Africa are a better bet since they have good infrastructure down there.

Nigeria's infrastructure is not that bad but bad with respect to eurocentric standards. Part of the issue is a lot of capital is spent keeping old infra together. If you have ideas in big, economically innovative infra projects - that's the place to go.

Another bit is Africa keeps skipping stages of development - kinda like products and services don't always come from within, driven by pressing needs, rather just sort of fall from the sky or an American landing in the airport. So while a 22 year old Nigerian kid can say he's never seen a bank cheque because he banks digitally, he may also have no proper sewage and barely any electricity. The juxtaposition may not compute to a silicon valley would-be guru.

So while transplanting tech from industrial nations may work sometimes, it's really the nuanced ideas that solve a real problem that get a lot off support and those are not always super technical projects. For instance, the problem of data costs cuts off a lot of would-be products so you will find tech companies here always have those limitations top of mind when building consumer facing stuff. Mapping just dies in most areas so there goes the geolocation services. Addressing and city planning for route optimization? Good luck.

Just a side note, there are startups in a lot of these problem spaces already - it's just that private funding and venture capital are for practical purposes very tiny to non-existent for consumer facing startups...for very very very obvious reasons. I don't think it's an entirely bad thing but just an FYI.