Ekechi Nwokah is the CEO and founder at mines.io, a startup that provides technology infrastructure which enables local institutions such as banks, mobile phone operators, retailers in the emerging market to offer credit to their customers.
Mines use a combination of big data, AI and Machine learning algorithm to provide on-demand credit ratings and decision-making where there is no existing credit history.
In 2018, Mines raised $13 million Series A funding from several VC within and outside Africa.
I have a strong view and criticism against micro-lending businesses, especially in places where the poor pay disproportionately high-interest rate, Ekechi made a strong counter-argument to my criticism and offered a good explanation that changed my mind on a lot of them.
Ekechi has PhD in computer engineering and has extensive experience working as a software engineer at Amazon
In this episode you’ll learn:
- Lessons from his early days as an upcoming musician in the United States
- How he fought depression after his music career did not take off
- How was MINE-IO ideated?
- Why did he go back to paid employment for 8 years?
- How and why did his milk importation business from Uganda to Nigeria fail? What were the challenges?
- That Ekechi tried for ten years to create a successful business before he finally hit with Mines.io
- What was driving him in the midst of all that failure and challenges?
- Moving back to Nigeria, the challenges and overcoming them.
- How to mitigate business risks without the support of a strong legal system.
- Why does he think the banks do not need to be disrupted?
- The importance of local founders in building the Nigerian future
- The importance of partnerships in the success of a business
- At Mines.io, how do they intend to deal with the challenge of people not paying their loans?
- What delivers business success in Nigeria?
- Taking tech built in Nigeria outside the continent
- And more
Selected links from this episode
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