001: Ethiopia Humbles You. Says Feleg Tsegaye. It Makes You Resilient.
Episode 001 features Feleg Tsegaye, founder and CEO of Deliver Addis.
You can connect with him at @fegul on Twitter.
Feleg is a first-mover in Ethiopia’s tech and logistics sector. In 2012, he moved to Addis Ababa from the US to launch his first startup a SIM card rental agency, Arifmobile. It failed. But he used those lessons to springboard to his next business, Deliver Addis, which is now Addis Abba’s leading restaurant delivery service. Feleg is a World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Shaper, and has attended the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos. He was a member of the inaugural class of the eFounders Initiative – a partnership between UNCTAD (the UN trade agency) and Chinese e-commerce giant Ali Baba to train 1,000 African entrepreneurs over the next 5 years.
I really enjoyed my conversation with Feleg. We chatted about growing up as the son of Ethiopian immigrants in suburban Colorado in the US, battling assumptions about your market and customers, how he got to proof of concept for Deliver Addis with minimal downside, what he did when the Ethiopian government shut down mobile internet, and the best advice he ever received for starting a business in Ethiopia. (Hint: Those wishing to make a quick buck will be disappointed.)