{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"African Tech Roundup Podcast","title":"Prince Nwadeyi of SAG Ventures: Building solutions corporates need but won't execute themselves","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2247,"description":"Episode overview:\r\nPrince Nwadeyi spent years providing market research that unlocked South Africa's R600 billion (~USD 34.4 billion) informal economy for blue-chip clients. The likes of Swiss Re, Liberty, NASPERS all wanted the insights. Few wanted the execution risk.\r\n\r\nIn conversation with Andile Masuku, Nwadeyi explains why his holding company SAG Ventures stopped selling insights and started building businesses. From Mustard Finance Group (formerly Setana Capital) providing working capital to township spaza shops (micro convenience stores), to Purchase Pal embedding funeral cover into everyday groceries, Nwadeyi's ventures share a common thread: aligning incentives across entire value chains whilst playing a longer game than quarterly-focused corporates can stomach.\r\n\r\nHis journey from UCT postgrad researcher to operator deploying millions in credit with a claimed 99.9% repayment rate offers a masterclass in strategic patience and the power of granular consumer understanding.\r\n\r\nKey insights:\r\n- On why insights alone don't create impact: \"We realised that some of the executives were not willing to take the risk, not for any risk of their own, but really just how the incentive structure set up within corporate.\" Nwadeyi discovered that knowing differently doesn't translate to acting differently when bonuses hang in the balance. The solution? Stop asking permission and build the innovation yourself.\r\n\r\n- On aligning incentives to unlock impossible markets: Working capital finance to informal retailers seemed impossible until Nwadeyi mapped the ecosystem. Wholesalers wanted more sales but couldn't offer credit. They did have transaction data. \"Can we build a technology solution that interprets that data at scale to enable unique insight that traditional finance institutions don't have access to?\" The result: finance the stock purchase to the wholesaler, the SME repays over 14 days, everyone wins. One of their spaza shop clients recently scaled from one store to...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/wTDUhb1kfdVqc_mrE6iErzNBxf93XiLPsPKqDs3m-xg/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kOGJi/MWMxMWNiYjRjOGVm/MjNhNDgxYzI3NjU0/N2ZlOC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}