Ep 80 // Pivoting with Tech CEO Alex Bram

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 00:00 pivoting sounds like such an easy thing to do. But we are creatures of habit. We love staying in our comfort zones, you could say we are almost designed or have been evolved to be comfortable. Our routines make us secure and we hate failing. That is why today I am so excited to share this week's episode with the Cannan founder who is not afraid to try new things and is constantly constantly pivoting, and a country where change is often resisted. If you want to hear how you can overcome your own internal resistance and work through others to get new things done. Keep listening. Hello, and welcome to the open door conversations podcast. My name is Akua Nyame-Mensah. I also respond to Aqua and Akua. I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised learning and organisational development facilitator, speaker and former startup executive. And I am so excited because this year I'm celebrating five years of working for myself five years of supporting leaders. And I am so grateful because I've had the opportunity to partner with amazing organisations, from hydro startups to multinational brands all around the world. In 2022. Alone, I serve over 600 Yes, over 600 leaders around the world. And in this podcast, you will have the opportunity to learn my three step leadership framework. I actually break it down in Episode 71. I use this framework with my high achieving and entrepreneurial minded clients that are juggling a million responsibilities so they can easily build wealth. This three step framework is going to teach you how to leverage your innate personality to learn how to prioritise and maximise not just your time, but also your money. You don't have to work harder or turn into someone else to get more God. Let's tune into this week's episode. Alex, I am so excited to have you here. I think there's so much that individuals can learn from you as an individual right, as I like to call you, Professor Alex, I think there's there's that sort of part of you. Yes, Professor Alex is incredible. I've seen him in action. And then there's also like, you know, Alex as a businessman. So before you introduce yourself, I would love to share one of the accomplishments that you included in the the intake form. And this first one on here, I think is honestly massive. And I think so many people, especially in Ghana, entrepreneurs in Ghana can learn so much from you, can you tell us a little bit about you know, co founding, SME HGH and bootstrapping it to $25 million in eight years? Tell us a little bit about that valuation. Unknown Speaker 03:02 So it started from the very idea to start a company, I think we didn't start a company to make money to buy a PA, to maybe buy a few material things. I think we started a company on very noble ideas. We're kids, and we're really obsessed with this having a successful company. And as deny from us, you know, ns and I, we've known ourselves for many years, we're in the same classroom in St. Augustine's college. Yeah. And we, we tried to start a magazine with some of our friends and it didn't work out. And then we tried to start when we went to secondary school, we were also roommates. So we tried to start a facility management company, we tried to do some event management here and the success was mixed. So I think quietly, we're both very obsessed with having just a successful company that is able to employ people be a nice place to work, be a decent employer, be a game changer in an industry just be innovative and just have that you know, appreciation that we are being useful to society. And so that is what you know, has been the driving force behind behind hotel from from our very start. And so when even when we started making money, success came very early, I must say. We started out in in May of 2005. By October, we had made our first sale. I remember it was a sale of 500 CDs, and by December we had sold about $6,000 worth of services to companies with you all of it into the business as usual. The next year came we did the same work very hard to a lot of people to that really opened doors to us at that time. You know you have these two guys who We're so driven to keep going. And we keep selling our products and knocking on doors to convert companies to go mini data with bulk SMS. And everybody wondered who is driving these two guys who people kept as you own the company and will lie about the ownership of the company to say some guys, and we just sales people and, and we had a lot of support from corporate Ghana, a lot of people know, as they open their doors, they've given us opportunity to present our proposals, and also the early days. So our second year was very, hugely successful again, the second year helped us to get an office, we furnish the office and moved in where the little sofa bed that will convert into beds that in the office and NS and I lived in the office for six years. I didn't. Yes, we did. And yeah, I remember wake up, most of the staff didn't actually know because we wake up early, sometimes clean up the office, clean up the desk, wipe finish, everything is clean. We did that for for six years, too. We made enough money to buy our first homes and, and then we finally moved out of the office. But by the time we were moving out, the company was very successful. But we somehow had still kept our modesty about Cassata point we're so scared of, you know, we're going to lose this, will it and when we lucky, you know. And it wasn't like it was really hard. Again, this was it was a real deal. Up until we had several investors knock on our door, we had a very juicy offer in 2014, we almost took that offer. But the only reason we did in tickets was that we had the money the investors were coming to give us we had six, sorry, about three times of that money in the bank. So we were like, no, then we'll use our own money. company because in 2014, it was obvious our big run. So we kept growing over 100%. Year over year, there was this particular year, between 2002 1010 and 2011, we grew by 230% year on year. And previously was always more than 100%. My biggest jump obviously was from the first year to the second year, where I can't really multiply it was probably we moved from 6000 to over $200,000 in year two. So we have been hard working before. So be lucky because a lot of people are working a lot of dose to allow us to come present and sell our product and ideas and solutions to them and give given us a lot of ideas. So yeah, haptics is very much a Ghanaian company built by, by Ghanians with the generosity of a lot of people that will put in a lot of doors for us to ideas and, you know, shifting the ideas for us to do this. Akua Nyame-Mensah 08:03 I love it. I love it. And every time I hear you tell this story, you always add something new. I didn't know. And I think it's so important to celebrate these accomplishments and just want to segue into the second accomplishment. And you sort of started to allude to this. But I think one thing that's also been very incredible about what you've done is you've pivoted as well, right? You went from SMS G H to hub tell, can you tell us a little bit about what was the rationale to that pivoting that rebranding? And why do you think it's one of your top three accomplishments that you wanted to share? Unknown Speaker 08:39 So in, in 2013 to 2014, we recorded our slowest growth ever have about 30% year on year growth. And that hit me so hard was like, Whoa, because I'm, I'm a growth oriented guy. I love to. I love killing numbers. I love to see you. I love 100% growth and fast growth and all of that with and when we're not doing that I'm always a bit worried. So I started muting the idea that no something is happening is what's happening with SMS, like the market is really slowing down. So we started looking at different innovations. But two years before that, we are already started looking at payments, were one of the first companies to deploy a POS based payment system. We did that with ECG. We deployed one for ECG in 2011. I believe we rolled out at that time, the largest point of sale network in Ghana, that we used to collect payment and all that and then we looked into agency model for mobile money because no one when he was just starting we looked at can we become an aggregator for the mobile money model, but it was all happening not aggressively. So in 2016, we decided to go really be aggressive. And that's when the pivot for tours have started, we finally had our first cut or first products that we called heptyl on our birthday in 2017, five years after we had started, so by 2017, we rebranded SMS GH, to call it hub tell because it was obvious the messaging led business was significantly slowing down. So if we're going to go into the future, we needed an encore that was fast growing, that was stronger that the market really found useful, that the market would would embrace. And it will also help drive. You know, we've always been obsessed with providing businesses with the tools that they need to do more for their customers. So we needed an ankle and payment, it felt like the mark, it was going to bring us closer to that vision faster than the payments was. So faster messaging was going to do so it was a very easy decision to pivot. But the actual pivot didn't have been as smooth as you know, as you would find in any pivot. It was very, it was very turbulent. Okay, it was really terrible. And because our first product that we tried to pivot, horribly failed, didn't work had a lot of performance issues, people that had been used to have to, you know, many didn't understand where the company was going, we had to pick ourselves up, it became very obvious in 2018, that we had completely failed, we quickly had to put together and try to build a new one. And we did 29 It was our first full year on this new platform. So although have noticed the importance of using payment to drive the vision of the company, we really into the party late because we were not the first company to go public or to come out study, we process payment and all that there were so many other companies that were ahead of us. But you know, we came in with all the experience and all the zoo and everything that is typically have tell are typically ICMS GH culture. And yeah, we came started in 2019 with our new platform, and today, I'm happy to say we are one of the biggest if not the biggest fintech. Yes. Yeah, Akua Nyame-Mensah 12:29 yes. And that brings us actually to the last accomplishment that we were going to, you know, talk a bit about and that is growing into Ghana's biggest fintech. And I, you know, I just really love I always love hearing you talk about, you know, hub till SMS GH. And I love these points of how important it seems to focus on value and to focus on vision and sort of using that to help you work through some of these hard times that are definitely going to come up. Unknown Speaker 12:53 Yeah, it's I mean, it's, it's a very important ingredient to building anything, you have to learn to focus. And throughout the years have been many opportunity for us as a company to do so many other things. One of the key things that we have been great at especially after, you know, the lessons we learned in 2016 2017, was to really to learn to focus and be good at something. And so, I mean, just drawing from from those lessons has been very, very crucial for the company. Despite all the temptations, we mean, we've been very focused about what we want to do from day one. And we have stuck to it. And we have used the tools available to get us to where we are Akua Nyame-Mensah 13:40 today. I love how you refer to it as temptations, right. So you talked about sort of the temptation of selling your business or bringing on investors, which is not something that you ended up doing the temptations of probably lots of other innovations or other types of technology that you can leverage. Is there anything in particular that you remind yourself of? Or that you know, that you do even with your team with the other executives to help you sort of stay on track and stay focused? Unknown Speaker 14:08 Yeah, I think it's this it has to do with having real and difficult conversations about where we are, there are a lot of slots of fitness in tech right, then that can easily make you feel like a kid in a candy shop. So he has a lot of temptation. For example, there's a temptation Oh, like, it's always nice to say I'm a tech company that is scaling on across Africa. And I'm opening here and I'm hoping in the world, you have to really look at that as temptation very well. There is also the temptation of a this guy, this other company just launched this product, and it's working really well for them. So should I go copy and do the same? We try to avoid quite a number. I remember. There was a strong argument for us to look at like banking, providing software as a service for banks. That pays very well. We just didn't have the disposition for So we dropped it, learning to say no to these temptations is one of the key ingredients, I think for being for running a successful tech company in Africa, then there's also investors do you really need to take investors you need to really, I'm not saying taking on investment is bad by me any stretch, but you know, you have to really look at your circumstances and how you're going to utilise this. But in my time in tech, I've seen a lot of tech companies also raise money didn't need to some that had fundamental problems that they should have faced before they bought other investors, it's so easy and tempting to say, Let's hide this part. And let's hide that part. Let's not really, let's gloss over it. And then you know, just to get some investors or get some into ourselves into some space, I think the key thing is we have really avoided those those temptation and are being very intentional about the direction we want to take the company. Akua Nyame-Mensah 15:57 I love that. And one of the things I talk to my clients about all the time is the importance of saying no, to your point, it can be so easy. And once again, I love how you use that word temptation, like it can be so easy to be tempted. But once again, sort of, you know, reflecting on what are my values? What's that vision I'm holding for myself? And I think one of the things that seems to also drive you correct me if I'm wrong is also people, right? Because one of the things I think I always hear you talk about is, you know, the people that you've built this with, I've watched a presentation where you share like pictures of, you know, the sort of SMS th sort of team. And I love that writing, keeping them in mind as you're building this business. It's not just about you, but there's a lot of other people involved as well. Unknown Speaker 16:41 Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of the biggest lessons that I think Autec enterpreneurs, have come to accept. And the most successful ones of all known as people is the centre of tech. You need to have structures that can bring out the best in people who otherwise you can't even thank you i tech company, I mean, tech is all about people, ideas that disrupt industries. And those ideas come from people. And when you get the ideas, people that will turn the idea into a product that is going to be acceptable by the market. And if you think about it, computers were invented in perhaps in the late 40s. Also, they were on the shelves for many, many years in labs for many, many years. Until, you know, because they were in the lab for the single reason that they were built for people to come and learn how they work. the computing industry really started or the tech industry where computer tech or computing technology, as an industry really started when people just change their mindset that instead of teaching people how to understand computers, how about we rather teach computers, how to understand people, and to do that you need a lot of people. And so it's to build any good, great tech company, you need people. So I'm very happy that our people and you know, we have to we do everything to make sure that the people are first of all taken care of well, that we have the culture that brings out everybody. We have the culture that support our interaction and engagement. Because I find that throughout our history every time we haven't done that well, though it shows in a in a bad product team. In a bad system, a bad feature. It just means people we're not talking to each other very well. People, we're not bringing out their best people. We're not bringing out the authenticity, people we're not being truthful. So I always like to, you know, ensure that we are very high on people. And you know, we please people and interactions and engagements are the centre of everything that that we do here. Akua Nyame-Mensah 18:55 I love it. You're speaking my language. And I realised that I got so excited to jump into this conversation with you that I actually didn't give you the opportunity to introduce yourself. So So Alex, for people who are listening to this, who maybe never met you before, can you please let us know a little bit more about yourself. Unknown Speaker 19:13 So I was born and raised in Ghana. My parents were typical low middle class people. I went to very average schools. I was born in his home. So I attended primary school there. My parents moved to Accra and I attended St. Anthony's in Accra, and then I moved on to St. Augustine's College. From there I went to Ken ust in Kumasi. It wasn't much earlier much later into my my career that I got the chance to attend Stanford Graduate School of Business. And then I've had courses online with Harvard Business School. And I've been a tech enterpreneurs since 2005. I still did chemistry in university? And yeah, what else? Am I savage as they come? Akua Nyame-Mensah 20:07 You're just so honest, I was modest as they come. And, you know, I guess one thing, I think that'd be really interesting maybe for people to hear a little bit more about and you sort of talked about this a bit before is that it sounds like you've always been interested in building things and solving problems for people. So how did you go from chemistry to tech? What What was it that sort of helped you to bridge that gap between? Yeah, you know, studying one thing and sort of ending up in a completely different space? Unknown Speaker 20:39 Yeah, it, I think it was largely curiosity, I was quick to, I mean, it was quite obvious that I couldn't do much with chemistry, the prospects from, you know, studying chemistry and trying to apply it in the real world to generate value was very limited. I didn't think that I will be as useful to society just being a chemist, because it's just not, it's just not a Ghana thing. So right from when I got the, into the chemistry class, I just told myself, I have four years to figure out what to do. So that's why part of a good part of the time I was in tech was spent just being curious, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life after after university. So yeah, so on the day, we finished who I was, I was sold on starting a company, that it was the best way that I could be useful to society that what better way to be useful than to go to people and, and sell them something or ask them, you know, guide them to a particular in a particular direction, in a way that creates value for them, and they appreciate the value and then they will pay you. And yeah, that's what we try to do. Or I tried to do most most this to ask, how would I be useful to, to some industries or some organisation, some company, or to people in general? Akua Nyame-Mensah 21:59 I love it. And, you know, we've covered I think so much in this conversation, I'm just looking back over my notes. And I feel like we've hit all these points, we've learned about your background, a bit about your journey, some of the important lessons, how your business has evolved over the years, what advice would you give to to founders and CEOs, especially those maybe even specifically in Ghana, in West Africa, about, you know, whether it's rebranding expanding into new markets, what do you think has been something that's been critical to your success? Unknown Speaker 22:35 I think authenticity is key. Okay. Yeah, it's really key. There are quite a number of, you know, businesses that just want to be businesses, right. And even we, we have, you know, lost our ways, sometimes to just worry too much about having a business or being a business that we forget why the business actually exist. There's a level of authenticity that I think is is lacking, right. And I see a lot of startups do that here. Some, I see some startups, they are more obsessed about their brand and their branding than actual products that they're putting in. So one, one advices, bring your authentic self be truthful to yourself, because one thing I have learned, the biggest lesson I have learnt is that the leader of a company, or the founders of the company have to be like, if it's a body, they have to be the heart that beats truth. And the truth has to be like the blood, you have to be as truthful as you can be tuned in to the company. So the company becomes getting to be in tune or in touch with with the people that it is serving. Because it's so easy, you know, to start a company to have a brand and I see so many intrapreneurs are more obsessed about their company, the brand, the makings of it is my office, this is my this, this is my bad, this is my bad. It's so easy to forget why, who you're doing it for. And that's what we are lacking here. And we can see it in the quality of the product. Yes, I see before previously, we all used to think it's also we had bad branding. Yeah. And all Western companies had better branding. So now we are all into branding. And it seems we are forgetting about the real content of of their brands over one advice. That's what I would tell enterpreneurs to also spent a lot of time focusing on what it is that they actually doing and the content of it and how it is helping people. Akua Nyame-Mensah 24:37 Oh, I love that. I love it. From my perspective, that is a lot of like cultivating your awareness. Right. And I think another part might also be and I think this really speaks to what you've built and the fact that you're open to pivoting right really, truly solving a problem as opposed to sort of falling in love with the solution. Unknown Speaker 24:58 Yeah, yeah, that's that's very Key. I mean, we live in very dynamic times these times. Yeah. So and there's move very fast. So you have to be willing to make little pivots here and there. Like one thing we're pivoting right now is the culture, the work culture, we have adapter, okay, we're starting to ask questions do we all need to come because I cry, it's quite a difficult place to run a tech company. Oh, I'm Akua Nyame-Mensah 25:23 so excited about what you're going to share right now. Unknown Speaker 25:26 Oh, if we, if you, I mean, think about it, all of us wake up, and we're all heading towards one building in Kokomo. Namely, and by the time we get there, we've been to traffic, we've had to first of all, we can't figure out what we're gonna wear. By the time we get to where we're probably taking 1000 decisions, so we get the tire already. And I mean, there has to be a limit to the number of good decisions we cannot take in a day. So one of the many pivots we're doing is, you know, for example, we looked at can we have satellite offices close to people, and then we use some good internet and modern technology to flute video in across all these satellite offices. So I mean, the lesson here is, you know, you need to be in tune with people's needs, and be willing to make little bold changes and little mini pivots along the way, because it's just the times we live in, yeah, you can do so much with a good idea or a good decision well as a kid, and once you do that, you can see you can just see the instant drive. And we've seen that too, we've seen that so much after like, we've gone from being one of the last fintechs to really take off to being the biggest by far, I think, because of some of these little mini pivots. And because of our big pivot in 2017. And generally the push of the leadership of the business to change, we are not scared of change. We're very bold about little mini pivots. And I think these are just the times for that kind of leader. So it's another big, big lesson for all of us as intrapreneurs, that you have to be willing to make little pivots here and there don't be too stuck into what you think makes up a company. Like we could just be saying, you know, all of us gets, let's get to the office, let's go to the office. Akua Nyame-Mensah 27:20 Right? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 27:21 yeah, we don't have to do anything we we need to just do what makes sense to ourselves. Akua Nyame-Mensah 27:27 Oh, I love that. And I look forward to following up with you to hear how that experiment goes with rethinking where people work, but most importantly, giving them the resources, right, because that's one of the biggest things that people talk about it, especially in West Africa, more so even in Nigeria, right? Where people have electricity while they have the right amount of bandwidth. And I think that's amazing that you're willing to experiment and try something different. Unknown Speaker 27:50 Yeah, that's, that's it. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm looking forward to see how it goes as well. So we're giving it all and yeah, if it works out, I'll let you know. Akua Nyame-Mensah 28:01 I love it. For my almost last question. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about expansion. Can you share because I think this is probably a question especially Ghanian entrepreneurs will have Yogananda founders will have can you share a little bit more about your thoughts around expansion and just the Ghanaian market? Is it a place where a business can make money? Unknown Speaker 28:23 Yeah, so again, it's up to the business and, you know, half tell has been we tried to expand on the continent. But, you know, we expanded out of Ghana, open offices in Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, specifically, when it was even trying to explore getting into Francophone Africa, through Cote d'Ivoire, and then Francophone Central Africa through Cameroon, there is a business there, but I have to say, I mean, Africa is a very complex place to do business to just move money back then from Ghana, to Kenya, you had to convert it to dollars and and send it there, you'd find all these little obstacles in your way as a tech company. But those obstacles now and you know, that's significant. But what I would say is, you know, again, you have to be authentic. It's not everything you read that you must also do. I know the entrepreneurs who are dying to say, oh, I want to just go to Nigeria, look at them, like, are you ready for Nigeria, and a lot of tech companies that are just, you know, planting flags, planting flags across the continent and thinking it is really a continent wide expansion. What we have decided to do is to backtrack a little bit. Try expanding into Ghana first. One of the biggest mistakes that we made was to try to open an office in Kenya when we didn't have an office in Kumasi. Akua Nyame-Mensah 29:51 Interesting. Unknown Speaker 29:52 Yeah. And we hadn't even tried opening an office in Tamale and we didn't even know who I mean if you don't know that. So many other towns and cities in Ghana, if you don't have customers there who are really excited about you what I do in in Nairobi, or what I do in the in Kampala, or in any other half LRB channel, only goes to Abidjan or Ibadan or wherever. So that's the route we have taken that, you know, we don't care how long it takes, we are not for the show, we're not to show that a apple is here, hotel is there, we want to really be sure that we build a product that is useful that people really love, and that it's solving a real need. And if the time comes in his right is to go to the other countries, but it hasn't affected our growth in any way. We are one of the big fintechs on the continent, I think he can rub shoulders with any of the investor backed firms. They can come to Ghana and do even a quarter of what we are doing. Yeah. And we if they ever come to Ghana, they a small player, because we're big here, very significant player here. So it's it's all about consolidating your, for us is about consolidating, base here. And then from there, we'll see we'll see if we can plant our flags in a manner that we think would be more natural, and more authentic. Akua Nyame-Mensah 31:20 I love that. And I think you know, what you've just shared is a great segue to my last question, which is, you know, what's next, for hub? Tell? Or maybe even what's next for you, as a leader? What are you excited about? Unknown Speaker 31:32 I'm excited about the growth of happy, excited about the stuff we're doing, excited about the prospects, I think there's a lot more, there's a lot more that people can expect from this company, we will still going to do what we're doing. I can't wait for us to firm up everything that we need to fame appear in Ghana, only to see us try our hands out at new markets. And that's coming, it's coming really fast. But when it comes, it's going to be real, and it's going to be very fast. Hopefully across the continent, you'll see us planting a lot of flags in, in different cities and towns across Africa that can't wait for us to see as go directly to the stock market is something that the board has been looking at for quite some time. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Akua Nyame-Mensah 32:19 Or I'm I'm excited. I'll be following you the entire way. And you know, I could also talk to you forever. But I do try and keep my episodes to a certain amount of time. So So Alex, you know, how can people find out more about you? Or about Hotel? What's the best way for them to get in touch? Unknown Speaker 32:39 Our website helped calm or you can follow us on social media at hub tell if you want to follow me I need the Alex Brown. Yeah. And that's always a cool way. The best way to is if you're in Ghana, you can download our app, we're trying to be the most useful tech brand in Ghana, because quite a number of things that you'd find useful. So yeah, download the app. And let's hear from you. Akua Nyame-Mensah 33:06 I love that we'll make sure we link all of that in the show notes. But Professor Alex, thank you so much for your time. For your honesty. You've always been very direct, I would say I think, since meeting you many years ago, always been very direct. And I just yeah, I really appreciate your insight. And I think many of our listeners will appreciate it as well. So thank you. Unknown Speaker 33:26 Thank you. Thank you too, so much. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for this course. Akua Nyame-Mensah 33:30 Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, please share this episode with someone who can benefit from its contents. If you found this episode helpful, I want to ask you to leave a review. This makes it easier for other people to find my podcast and also allows me to bring on even bigger guests, and even more fascinating stories. Thank you so much for listening again. Stay safe and stay sane