Semiloore Akoni: Growth Truths for African Markets

Growth leader Semiloore Akoni argues most marketers get retention wrong—it's decided before a user signs up, not after. If someone joins for a discount or hype, they leave when the incentive ends. True retention comes from product-market fit at acquisition. He also says companies localize words, not behaviour. Real growth requires understanding how African users spend, trust, and decide.

His biggest experiment: shifting focus from sign-ups to time-to-first-value. By obsessively measuring how long it takes a new user to complete their first transaction, and removing any friction delaying that moment, product activation jumped from 1.6% to 3.4% in three months. Retention improved naturally because users experienced real value early.

A failed bet that revealed a winner: trying to grow a digital pooled savings platform (ajo/esusu) via offline markets and field agents was financially unsustainable. The insight—target the group administrators instead. One admin controls multiple users, creating leverage. He'd try that physical market approach again to find that distribution layer.

He warns African founders to stop obsessing over downloads. Downloads measure interest, not value. Track instead how many users reach a meaningful first action, how quickly, and how many repeat it.

On payments, he identifies the critical friction: the gap between intent and completion. OTP codes, redirects, and app-switching during checkout cause drop-offs, especially with unstable networks. Removing those steps could recover significant revenue.

For founders and growth teams: Are you optimising for sign-ups or first-value moments? Are you translating behaviour, not just words? Is your unit economics model built on leverage, not brute-force acquisition?

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/04/03/quick-fire-semiloore-akoni/