Execution has been commoditised, so what now?
Our thesis.
Hi, I’m a founder of an AI-powered startup. It’s nice to meet you. Oh, that’s interesting. You’re also a founder of an AI-powered startup? And you’re revolutionising the way people work by building agents that can optimise business workflows, thereby ushering in the future of work? What a coincidence!
Maybe I overheard that conversation somewhere. Maybe I didn’t. The fact is, if you’re familiar enough with the startup landscape right now, then it sounds like deja vu. AI tools have changed the world, and there’s no going back to what it was like before. As has been the case for the past few years, the people at the forefront of this evolution are the builders. The ones who take it upon themselves to bring their crazy ideas into the world: founders like you.
Work that took multiple engineers, and now it takes just one really cracked engineer and a Claude Max subscription. Execution has been commoditised. The startups that made the difference used to be the ones that could ship the fastest, and moving first was the moat. Now, that gap is a lot thinner.
At the same time, here’s what’s happening: founders are picking up a camera and speaking directly to their users. They’re tweeting more than ever before, putting their thoughts out there. People want to hear from and see the people behind the companies they're using. This is true for companies of all sizes, but particularly for startups today. When the product alone no longer sets you apart, the person behind it starts to matter a lot more.
What do you get when you cross over these two situations? A new reality: it’s not enough to just build the thing anymore, or to just execute the idea. A lot is riding on the context in which you’ve built it. Why is it important? Why now? Why you?
It goes beyond the occasional company announcement. It’s everything you do. Save for a few companies at the bleeding edge of making new things, the reality for many African companies is that it’s more about the context and unique environment in which the solution exists. Your solution might exist somewhere else in the world, but likely not in the way you’ve built it, or with the context that makes the way you’ve built it the most important thing.
Our thesis is that storytelling is the new moat. It’s not enough to do the thing anymore. You must bring people along for the journey. Give them a reason to root for you, instead of the thousand others who are like you. For African founders, this can be a way to instantly stand out from the crowd. Here’s what this builds for you in practice:
The funding moat
Do you remember a year ago, when all you kinda had to do was change your company URL to .ai, and you’d automatically raise thousands to millions of dollars? It felt like a cheat code, and suddenly everyone was building an AI company. But what was really happening was that everyone was riding on a story.
Adding AI to your business name or proposition told a particular story. It implied that you were at the forefront of whatever industry you’re in and that you were thinking about the future. For a while, it didn’t seem to matter if it was really AI, ML, or just a ChatGPT wrapper. The story sold.
That’s what storytelling does. It shares a narrative that’s impossible to ignore. Of course, it doesn’t have to be AI. It’s about you, so find the you factor. Nathan of TerraHaptix consistently introduces himself as the 22-year-old dropout who’s pioneering the security infrastructure for Africa. Well, he uses some more industry-relevant terms, but from that sentence, you get who he is, why it matters, and why now. You immediately want to root for him. That’s the same story he sold to investors that got him funded.
The community moat
The other really great thing storytelling does is build a community of superfans for what you’re building, sometimes even before the product is ready. What storytelling does, at its core, is open up ways for the right audience/customers to connect with you, while those for whom your product isn’t for can quickly move on. In this case, it becomes super exciting when they see someone who’s like them, building to solve a problem they’ve had but didn’t realise a solution existed for.
Think about the founders you follow online. Chances are, you started following them before you ever used their product. Maybe it was a tweet about a problem they were frustrated with. Maybe it was a video of them showing an early prototype. Whatever it was, by the time the product launched, you were already invested. You weren't just a user. You were rooting for them.
That's the community moat. It's not built by a launch post. It's built over time, by consistently showing people what you're building and why it matters to you. And it compounds. Every person who connects with your story becomes someone who shares it with someone else.
So what does this mean for you?
If you're an African founder reading this, here's the honest truth: the thing you're building probably isn't the only version of it in the world. But the story behind it: why you built it, who you built it for, the context that makes your version of it matter, that's yours. Nobody else has it.
The founders who figure out how to tell that story clearly, consistently, and in a way that makes people feel something are the ones who raise, build communities, and get remembered.
Execution got you to the table. Your story is what keeps you there.
If you want a practical place to start, we put together a free guide for African founders on how to tell your story at the moments that matter most: pitching investors, launching a product, and acquiring customers. You can grab it here.
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