— Contribution by our Talent Manager, Ruth Ndwiga.
Why Africa Doesn't Need More Founders. It Needs the Right Founders.
"What business should I build?"🤔
It is probably the most common question aspiring founders ask.
I think it's the wrong place to begin.
After walking alongside entrepreneurs over the past years, I've become convinced that the more important question is one we rarely ask:
Why you?
Not because every founder needs an extraordinary story.
Not because only experts should build companies.
But because every enduring venture begins with a human being whose experiences, convictions and capabilities uniquely position them to solve a problem that matters.
Too often we romanticize the "perfect founder."
We imagine someone who already has the technical expertise, the network, the confidence, the capital and the roadmap.
In reality, we've rarely met that person.
The founders who go the distance are usually those who possess something less obvious but far more important: a deep connection to the problem they have chosen to solve.
At Rootical, before we spend significant time talking about business models or financial projections, we ask founders to examine something more personal.
Hannes seated with the Rootical founders during a discussion session at the Tanzania Bootcamp.
We call it TEAM YOU.
Before building a venture, build an understanding of yourself.
✔️What is your personal mission?
✔️Why this problem?
✔️Why now?
✔️What experiences have shaped how you see the food system?
✔️What do people naturally trust you with?
✔️What values will remain non-negotiable when the pressure mounts?
✔️Where are your gaps?
✔️What unfair advantage do you already possess that no competitor can easily copy?
The answers rarely come immediately.
Sometimes founders discover that their greatest strength is not technical knowledge but years spent living the problem they want to solve.🤷♀️
Sometimes they realise that what they once considered ordinary, a childhood on a farm, years working with farmer groups, or navigating food insecurity is precisely what gives them credibility and insight.
Lived experience is often the most underestimated form of founder capital.
Ideas can be copied.
Technology evolves.
Markets shift.
But no one can replicate your perspective, your convictions or the lessons life has taught you.
Finding your edge is therefore less about discovering a brilliant opportunity and more about uncovering why you are uniquely positioned to pursue it.
The African food system doesn't simply need more entrepreneurs.
It needs founders who understand themselves deeply enough to build with clarity, humility and purpose.
Because the most regenerative ventures are rarely built by people chasing trends.
They are built by people answering a calling.
And perhaps that is where every founder journey should begin.
Not with the question:
"What business should I build?"🤔
But with the quieter and far more demanding question:
"Why am I the person to build it?"
