Building Boost: To Thrive in the Good Times, Design for the Bad Times

A series where we share learnings from our journey of building the business of Boost.

The tech world is drowning in bad news. Valuations are down, layoffs are up and recession is everywhere. In Africa, the wave is hitting with even more accentuated inflation peaks and currency troughs. 

At Boost, we have always believed that the secret to building an everlasting business was to design it for the bad times. My co-founders and I have all lived through enough cycles to know that what goes up must go down. So, at one of our very first virtual calls back in April 2020, we aligned on a set of founding principles for how we wanted to build our company. Here are three of them:

• Only the fewest right people: We resist hiring ahead of the curve and default to smaller teams of highly capable people who are rigorously screened. We only expand our circle when new roles are clearly defined and deemed absolutely essential.

• Digital-led, tech-enabled and asset light: We lead our customers with digital solutions, prioritising adoption and usage above all else. We build fit-for-purpose technology as a means and not an end, and we resist accumulating physical assets at all costs. 

• Enable the entrepreneurs: When faced with challenges, we always start by asking if there are entrepreneurs with skin-in-the-game who we can enable as customers or partners. We avoid insourcing and internalising solutions whenever possible.

We have stuck by these principles, knowing that they were true but not knowing the extent to which they would be tested. Fast forward to November 2022, and the results speak for themselves: 

With a low, flat cost base, Boost has grown monthly order volume by 20x in the past 9 months across 4 African markets. We have now processed 100k orders for 10k active retailers with 90% monthly retention. 

The truth is we are only getting started on our journey to power growth for distributors and retailers in Africa’s trillion dollar convenience economy. To stay posted, please follow Boost on LinkedIn and Twitter, and subscribe to our blog! :)