Welcome to African Hustle! Your bi-weekly dose of inspiration and smart insights into African entrepreneurship — featuring real stories about tech, culture, startups, founders, and innovations shaping the future of the continent.

Businesses received $155 billion in mobile-money merchant payments globally in 2025, up 42%, according to GSMA. East Africa accounted for roughly three-quarters of the growth in merchant payments.

On New Year’s Day in 2021, Femi Aluko spent hours trying to get a meal delivered in Lagos.

He had tested positive for COVID-19 the night before and could not travel home. The delivery services he tried were unavailable over the public holiday. When he eventually found an option, he says he paid four times the usual amount.

That frustration prompted him to investigate. He initially approached delivery as a technology problem, but soon realised that building a dependable service required a better understanding of daily operations.

Aluko and his co-founders, Olumide Ojo and Lanre Yusuf, pooled their money, bought three motorbikes and recruited three riders. Weekly conversations with the riders helped them understand what happened between a customer placing an order and receiving it. They launched Chowdeck in 2021.

Five years later, that experiment has grown into a delivery business serving Nigeria and Ghana.

Chowdeck operates in 14 cities, serves more than 800,000 active customers and works with nearly 9,000 vendors.

It processes approximately 1.2 million orders a month, with services extending to groceries, parcels and tools for merchants.

Chowdeck announced a $2.5 million seed round in April 2024, followed by a $9 million Series A led by Novastar Ventures in August 2025, with Y Combinator among the participants.

For an African entrepreneur reading those numbers, Chowdeck’s success can open a world of possibilities for their business.

A restaurant can serve customers who cannot visit.

A beauty retailer can send products across town.

A small manufacturer can test demand beyond its neighbourhood.

In each case, delivery offers a way to complete sales that distance, inconvenience or uncertainty might otherwise prevent.

That wider reach also brings competition.

The same customer who can order from your business can buy from a seller elsewhere.

Local businesses gain opportunities to expand, but proximity alone becomes less of an advantage.

This made me think about something I recently read!

South African DJ and entrepreneur DJ Zinhle had opened an eighth store for her accessories brand, Era by DJ Zinhle.

Physical expansion gives a brand more places to meet customers.

For another business, a strong online presence and reliable delivery could provide a less expensive way to reach a new area.

A shop lets someone inspect a product, try it on and take it home immediately.

An online seller has to build enough confidence for that customer to order from a distance.

Many businesses can benefit from offering both. But how important is physical presence when most shopping experiences are going digital?

One would say the opportunity also varies across markets. And that is a caution to entrepreneurs trying to treat the whole continent as a similar market.

Simbisa Brands shows us just how diverse Africa is.

Simbisa is a restaurant group behind brands such as Chicken Inn and Pizza Inn.

It ended the financial year to June 2026 with 352 counters in Zimbabwe and 257 in Kenya.

A comparison of its FY2026 delivery figures published by data journalist Farai Mudzingwa shows a substantial difference between the two markets.

Kenya recorded considerably more deliveries despite having fewer counters.

Why does delivery account for such different shares of sales within the same group?

Affordability, payment options, service coverage, customer habits and trust are among the factors worth investigating.

A lower delivery share could reflect limited demand, obstacles to ordering, or a combination of both.

For your business, that investigation can begin with the questions customers ask before buying.

Someone discovers your clothing brand on social media, likes a product and accepts the price. Can they easily find out where to collect it? How much does delivery cost? Will it arrive before the weekend? What happens if the size is wrong?

For a food order, the questions change. Will the meal arrive hot? How long will it take? Will the packaging keep it secure and intact?

Every unanswered question gives the customer another reason to postpone the purchase or look elsewhere.

Clear delivery charges, realistic arrival times and a workable returns process remove several obstacles to a sale.

Choosing how to provide that experience starts with identifying where your business is struggling.

A marketplace can help you find customers and fulfil their orders.

South Africa’s Takealot, for example, accepts third-party sellers and offers delivery to customers’ addresses or collection at pickup points.

A courier handling orders from your website or WhatsApp serves a different purpose. It gets purchases to customers you have already found.

If you receive plenty of enquiries but struggle to dispatch orders reliably, a dependable delivery partner could help turn existing interest into revenue.

If you already deliver efficiently but have too few buyers, access to a marketplace’s audience may be more valuable.

Either approach can help you test demand from your existing premises.

A restaurant can serve another neighbourhood.

A retailer can sell into another town before taking on the rent, stock and staffing costs of a branch.

A marketplace can introduce you to buyers who would never have discovered you otherwise. The value of that exposure depends partly on whether they return for your products or simply choose whichever listing is cheapest.

Accurate descriptions, consistent quality, recognisable packaging and good service give customers reasons to buy again. Delivery becomes part of your reputation because the customer experiences one purchase, even when several businesses help complete it.

Chowdeck’s beginnings capture that opportunity. Aluko wanted a meal, restaurants had food to sell but arranging the journey between them proved difficult.

The network that grew from that frustration now connects thousands of vendors with customers.

For your business, how many willing customers are currently too inconvenient to serve, and what would it take to make their next purchase possible?

Mastercard’s September 2026 Dreamonomics report found that 43% of surveyed SMEs in the Middle East and Africa use AI or machine-learning tools to automate work.

For someone with software or business-operations skills, this suggests a service worth testing: helping smaller firms connect the tools they already use.

A salon may need bookings linked to appointment reminders. A garage may need a reliable way to follow up on quotations. A wholesaler may need invoices, payments, and overdue accounts in one view.

The service could include setting up existing software, moving records, training staff and providing ongoing support. Where AI helps draft messages or organise information, build in a review step so mistakes do not reach customers.

Start with one type of business and one recurring problem. Ask owners how they handle it now, what goes wrong and what fixing it would be worth. Then test a paid pilot with a clear measure, such as fewer missed appointments or less time spent preparing invoices.

There may be a business in making somebody else’s working day easier.

Its Portuguese influences sometimes obscure its South African beginnings.

Nando’s traces its story to Rosettenville, Johannesburg, in 1987, when two friends visited a Portuguese eatery and decided the PERi-PERi chicken deserved a wider audience. The flavour’s history reaches into Mozambique, where African Bird’s Eye Chilli is grown.

Something familiar in your community may be distinctive to customers elsewhere.

What do people around you take for granted that someone in another market might pay for?

Applications are now open.

Gain practical experience in trade, finance and development through the Afreximbank Internship Programme.

Open to students and postgraduates from Afreximbank member states and the African diaspora. Placements last up to six months.

Apply by 31 October 2026

Read more and apply for the African Export Import Bank internship opportunity here

Moonshot returns to the National Theatre in Lagos later this month. The conference brings together people building and investing in African technology businesses.

If you run a technology business, sell services to startups or want to meet potential partners, it is one to consider.

Go with a purpose. Identify the customers, collaborators or investors you want to speak to beforehand. Prepare a short explanation of what you do and a specific question for each meeting. Set aside time afterwards to follow up.

An event can introduce you to someone. Turning that introduction into business takes further work.

View the programme and ticket options.

An August 2026 forecast puts Africa’s gaming audience at 406.25 million people in 2026. It projects $1.98 billion in games revenue, with mobile games accounting for 81.8% of that total.

Its three leading African markets by projected revenue are:

This week, our shoutout goes to the Zimbabwean founders building agricultural tools for farmers who cannot depend on an internet connection.

Their company, eAgro, won $60,000 after placing second in the sustainable agriculture and food systems category of the 2026 FINCA Ventures Prize Competition. FINCA announced the winners on 7 October.

FINCA, eAgro combines AI, satellite analysis, soil science and local advisory systems to provide agricultural guidance. Farmers can access that guidance through basic mobile phones without needing their own internet connection.

Congratulations to Tafadzwa, Golden and the eAgro team. This is African technology being designed around the people expected to use it.

Haba na haba hujaza kibaba.

Little by little fills the measure.

Much of the progress in a business comes from work that looks unremarkable on the day you do it.

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