012: How to Embrace Failure with Wiza Jalakasi

Young African Entrepreneur

Wiza Jalakasi is a serial entrepreneur and current head of international expansion at Africa is Talking. You can connect with him @wizaj on Twitter and via his website http://wiza.jalaka.si. By 16, Wiza had already founded his company, Mwtunes, an online music distribution platform that was ahead of its time in his home country of Malawi. At university in Nairobi, he and his cofounder set up Djuaji, Research, a market research company that paid survey participants via mobile money. It held a lot of promise. It was innovative, cost effective, and accurate. Early on, Djuaji raised seed capital from Savannah Fund and participated in its elite accelerator program. It all seemed to be going well. Until it wasn’t. Wiza and his cofounder were running out of cash and they weren’t close to figuring out how to make the business viable. He made a tough choice: He resigned and returned to Malawi. Shortly thereafter, he spoke with Sam Gikandi, founder of Africa is Talking, an API developer, who offered him a job to set up the Malawi office. Wiza had some reservations about working for someone else, but he quickly overcame those doubts and has never looked back. Africa is Talking recently raised $8.6mn for its expansion into new markets, including Cote d’Ivoire, which Wiza will be spearheading. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Wiza. He’s extremely eloquent and a fount of knowledge about the emotional roller coaster of being a young African tech entrepreneur. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Wiza Jalakasi.