Nghombombong Minuifuong: 'The power of travel can shape different perspectives and transform lives'
Q&A with the tech entrepreneur on learning from the West, on how funding is the ultimate pillar of business, and the importance of having a clear vision as a founder.
Nghombombong Minuifuong is the Founder and CEO of Bongalo, a booking platform for affordable and comfortable accommodation across African cities, with mobile wallet payments. Bongalo was recently selected for the first-ever Google for Startups Black Founders Fund Africa.
What fundamental belief system inspired the creation of Bongalo?
The fundamental belief is quite straightforward: Build for Africa by Africans. As Africans, we need to have certain products and services that are built by us for us. Instead of being dependent on the West, we must also produce and build our own. Now the reality is there is a lot to learn from the West. At Bongalo, we learned how AirBnB works and tweaked our product to be contextual to the African continent.
What’s something you do every day that is non-negotiable for you?
I should work every day. I need to get up every morning and execute, strategise, and execute. I will also ensure that I achieve or accomplish something every day. This accomplishment could be sending just one email to someone or learning a new skill.
What are the formative ingredients in your childhood that came to create your perspective?
My parents taught me a lot about caring about people and the importance of hard work. Growing up in a religious household also informed my sense of morality.
Considering that I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I had to work extremely hard, even after school, to make ends meet. These experiences helped cultivate the thought-process that the successful way to live through life is through hard work. What’s interesting about this philosophy is that the harder one works, the luckier one becomes.
What do you consider to be one of the greatest challenges for developing a business on the African continent?
One that is general to every single business is financial capital. Most young people across Africa do not have access to funding. The older generation with the wealth usually does not understand the new way of doing business. Business has always been commerce for many years- which is buying, selling, and making a small margin. This is why when you look across African countries, you realise that most wealthy people do not have businesses in other countries. The concept of scale is foreign. Unfortunately, this makes investing in tech businesses a tough decision to sell. Funding is the ultimate pillar of business for young entrepreneurs on the continent.
Building a company from scratch takes grit. What drives you on?
I believe it’s initially important to have a clear vision. And that vision needs to stick in the mind of the founder. When we first started Bongalo, my vision was to become the Airbnb of Africa. This means we want to see our product serving every country across the entire continent.
No matter the difficulties, we revisit the vision and wonder what we can do to enhance travel. Enhancing travel requires people to use our platform, which provides affordable places to stay with more convenience. We are also driven to make this vision a reality because the cost of hotels prevents most people from traveling, and we are happy to provide an alternative to increasing accessibility.
There are a tremendous number of opportunities on the African continent. How do you stay focused on your journey?
I’m quite interested in traveling. I’ve been across 10 African countries already and several countries outside of Africa. My interest in travel and education, coupled with technology, helped me see how the power of travel can shape different perspectives and transform lives. Essentially, combining my three distinct interests ultimately led to the launch of Bongalo.
If you could do it all again, what would you have done differently?
I would have gotten a job first and garnered more working experience. Taking this route would have mitigated the financial constraints associated with building Bongalo and supporting myself. However, I would have built the same business over and over again!
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Jeph Acheampong leads Blossom Academy; an edtech company that provides world-class data courses and transforms careers.
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