1. Could you kindly introduce yourself?

I am Yao Baku, President of Pennysmart. I’m an entrepreneur with passion for building technology for financial and wealth management services. I’ve spent the last 3 years learning about the industry, taking the Ghana Stock Exchange course and examination and building a fintech company. Technically Pennysmart is my second company, co-founded with my friend, Joshua Oguntade. I’m a board game nerd, a tennis enthusiast, a closet conversationalist and a backpacker.

• Tell us all about Pennysmart and what you do?

Pennysmart offers wealth management services through a platform that enables individuals and businesses to save towards their goals, at their own pace and schedule. This includes other ancillary financial and wealth management services delivered to our customers both online and offline.

We built a customer intuitive service enabling over 200 users save anytime at any place with no cost. After validating the need and becoming a member of the Ghana Cooperative Susu Collectors Association which makes us a Tier-4 Operator under Bank of Ghana rules and regulation of Microfinance activities, we launched in January, 2019.

OUR MISSION

We are on a mission to bring smart financial and wealth management services for Africans, regardless of their background or net worth.

OUR VISION

We envision a world where everybody is financially independent and can live the kind of life they want to live.

• How long have you been running this business?

Pennysmart started operations in late August 2018 and but we launched after obtaining a license in January, 2019.

• What gave you the idea for your business?

An average Ghanaian, the underserved,  does not have access to smart financial and wealth management tools and services. The ones that exist, the mutual funds, are still not marketed to the masses but rather the institutional investors. In 2018, I went to the AGM for 2 prominent money market funds and the core of their discussions were “We are focusing on the institutional investors, the pension and the insurance companies. They have the cash”.  The services that are available to the masses have very high cost of transaction and account maintenance. Buttressed with the KYC and the outdated mode of accessing these services birthed Pennysmart.

• Did you tell people about your idea? How did they receive it?

We created a spreadsheet and sent it to our friends and their networks and we got 20 people ready to save that instant and over 80 people interested in a digital susu box.

• What kind of market did you have in mind for your services?

The potential market for our services is the youths in Africa as a whole but for a start, we focused on young workers and the students in Ghana. Then to improve accessibility, we are looking at the market women and people in the rural areas with our simple offline service in the nearest future.

• How difficult was it to start?

It was quite controversial starting. This was at the brink of when Banks were merging, shutting down and being consolidated. This was the same era of the Mensgold saga and other cryptocurrency platforms duping folks so yes, skepticism was and is still very high. This means we had to work 5 times harder hence why we focused on acquiring the license before launching (to give us credibility). Growing the user base wasn’t that difficult, everyone wanted to see where their money was going and how much they have. They also wanted the ease of accessing their money in a twinkling of an eye and that’s what Pennysmart is offering.

It’s not rosy building a wealth management service in such a time but we believe in the mission and vision of Pennysmart. Irrespective of the instability in the financial sector Pennysmart is growing averagely 8% week on week of both users and money saved.

• What challenges do you face on a day-to-day basis?

Scepticism is the major challenge we face everyday. Constantly fixing bugs and sending potential users our membership form or paperworks for them to be sure Pennysmart is safe. As a two man team running a very fast growing startup, you can agree that spending time on the phone every other day is not the best. However, there’s an upside, that is, the people we speak always tend to become evangelists.

• What has been the worst experience of running your business?

I’d say the payment gateway we were using in the past. We were losing about GHS900 in daily savings because the payment gateway was down and users couldn’t save. Those were the most frustrating days. Imagine acquiring new user but your payment gateway decides not to work at that moment. So you’d have to keep in touch and keep the user warm till the payment issue was fixed. We were stressed to the core. Now that we have switched and settled with one of the biggest payment gateways in Africa, those “worst days” are behind us.

• What has been the best experience?

Watching Pennysmart organically grow. This is the first elaborate essay or extensive talk about Pennysmart. We actively focused solely on user engagement on social media and on our personal blog. Yet, you see very random people signing up and saving without even asking to speak to any of the founders. Basically because our users are evangelising the Pennysmart gospel. It’s the most fulfilling experience seeing our users, people of pennysmart, actively selling and convincing their friends to use Pennysmart.

• How do you market your business?

The services of our company is marketed on our secured website https://pennysmartapp.com, our facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram pages (pennysmartapp) and sometimes on Whatsapp. Most of marketing is via word of mouth or referrals.

• What has the response to Pennysmart been so far?

Impressive especially in the financial era we find ourselves right now. We have been achieving growth organically and our user meetups are contributing to the growth our services. However, it would be pride to say we are where we want to be. There’s a lot we have to do, to create awareness of our contribution to financial inclusion.

• Do you have any employees? What does someone have to do to work with you?

We are a lean team. 2 founders handling the various aspects of the company. However, we would not mind anyone who is interested in working with Pennysmart be it a collaboration or partnership. Send us an email or call our numbers.

• How does entrepreneurship compare to a regular job?

If you can take being disappointed, frustrated and sometimes depressed but still get up and fight for the vision especially in the earliest stages then become an entrepreneur. Regular job gives you security, entrepreneurship in the initial state doesn’t. You can lose everything.

Entrepreneurship has lots of good things especially when you “make it”. (Truthfully whether you are worth a billion or a thousand dollars, you’ll still hustle). I love being an entrepreneur because the speed of experimenting new things is supersonic and the way the users of Pennysmart gives me fulfilment, there’s nothing I’d rather do.

• What have you learnt about running a business that no one could have told you before you started?

Money is not always fulfilling. At this point in my life I’m more fulfilled by the little impacts of Pennysmart. Having a user call you in the middle of the day sounding super excited that Pennysmart is the best she had ever come across is something no one could have told me about running a business.

It gets lonelier and too crowded sometimes. No one can ever tell you all the things about running a business. Some of them you’ll learn on the job and grow. Well, one thing if no one has told you is get a good support system; network of entrepreneurs, mentors, advisors and an understanding partner. IT IS KEY!

• What can government do to help young entrepreneurs?

Be proactive in providing regulatory sandbox environment to enable fintechs and crypto tech grow. It will help the government learn more about the services being provided so they can tailor regulations to favour them. Government should also leverage the existing techs developed in the country as compared to redeveloping existing local tech or outsourcing it to a foreign company. We have to grow and push our own.

• Any advice to other entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs?

Don’t start a business with the mindset of becoming the next Zuckerberg or Jobs. Start a business because of the passion you have for it. When you not making money yet, customers are churning, lots of inactive users or runway is low, are you still willing to continue?

That passion for what you are doing or want to do it the core of everything. Before fame and money, be fulfilled. Always seek fulfilment in the process not the outcome. The trip on the road is what makes road trips adventurous  not the destination.

Find mentors or a network of entrepreneurs going on the same journey as you

• How can someone get your services?

Pennysmart was built by people like you for you. So reach out to us let’s talk through any of the means below:

Email: support@pennysmartapp.com

Website: https://pennysmartapp.com

Location: Impact Hub Accra, Osu.

Facebook: @pennysmartapp

Twitter: @pennysmartapp

LinkedIn: Pennysmart

Instagram: @pennysmartapp

• Anything else you’d like to share?

You can never be in your element, if the energy in the environment is toxic. Select the right people and surround yourself with them. When in doubt, ask or seek help. If you’re not sure, seek clarity either by asking someone who has done it before or for the lack thereof, experiment very fast.

Take care of your health and mental being. Learn about spirituality not religion and increase your awareness. Read or listen to podcasts to build thought leadership. Take a vacation and don’t forget to live whilst hustling. Life’s too short.