#80 - Daniel Yu - On Vertical Integration in B2B e-commerce and Early Lessons from M&A

Building The Future Podcast

This season of Building the Future was made possible by Moniepoint

My guest today is Daniel Yu, founder and CEO of Wasoko, a B2B e-commerce platform serving over 220,000 informal retailers across the continent. The first time I saw Daniel, he was playing the keyboard as part of a live band in Nairobi. Since then, we've met at more serious events where we've shared banter about pan-African expansion philosophies for startups on the continent. Daniel is a true global citizen, having worked in or traveled to 70+ countries, and speaks Mandarin, Swahili, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, and French.

Wasoko raised a $125M Series B in 2022 and opened a new regional hub in West Africa. In December 2023, they announced a merger with Egyptian B2B e-commerce company, MaxAB.

In this episode, we discussed:

• Daniel’s learnings from the M&A process, including the importance of trust and alignment for mergers and acquisitions, as well as the intentionality required to successfully combine company cultures.
• Key hypotheses in FMCG value chain innovation, including Wasoko’s approach to customer prioritization, vertical integration, and gross margin optimization in a highly competitive market.
• Frameworks for prioritizing markets for expansion, identifying regional differences, and lessons from Wasoko’s first attempt to build a new regional hub in Francophone West Africa.
• The key leadership skill of ‘listening’, which he applied from his experience as a member of a performing band

Transcript

Recommended Book: Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading by Chris Anderson

Quote: “I think that the startup stereotype, at least if you're coming from a California Silicon Valley background [...] is much more, ‘okay let me do this thing for maybe three or four years. And then, Google or Facebook will acquire the company and I'll start the next company or go on to something else.’ And I think what has become apparent to me, and the advice that I give to all founders considering building in the African ecosystem is, ‘are you ready to do this for a decade?’”

CREDITS

Host: Dr. Dotun Olowoporoku
Produced by: The Subtext
Editing: Osarumen Osamuyi, Chinedu Anatune
Show Notes: Grace Obaloluwa
Design: Jonathan Nwachukwu
Voice Overs & Project Coordination: Damilola Teidi
Season Intro Video: Chukwuka Ezeiruaku