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Failing To Win: Hard-Earned Lessons from a Purpose-Driven Startup
In 2009, Canadian entrepreneur Mike Quinn packed his backpack and moved to Lusaka, Zambia on a mission to find African entrepreneurs building scalable, high-impact businesses. There he stumbled across two South African brothers who had founded a business to help unbanked smallholder farmers receive mobile payments in a market where cash was king. After convincing his retired parents to mortgage their house and lend him $100,000, Mike joined as a co-founder of Zoona and became CEO for nine of the next ten years.
With his partners, Mike built a network of more than 3,000 entrepreneur agents across Zambia and Malawi that enabled millions of unbanked consumers to send and receive $2.5-billion in money transfers and remittances. Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Zoona raised over $35-million of venture investment and operated on the leading edge of Africa’s emerging fintech ecosystem.
Mike’s remarkable story gives a rare and honest glimpse into the workings of a pioneering African startup through the lens of a purpose-driven entrepreneur who went “all in”. Zoona faced tremendous adversity along the way: currency crises, investment round collapses, ruthless pushback from the major mobile network operators, and a continuous internal struggle to discover and execute a growth strategy that matched the company’s billion-dollar ambition. It was by failing to win that Mike learned what entrepreneurship is all about, and it was what motivated him to double down and try again.
“This raw, honest account is a must-read for anyone thinking about starting a company and for every entrepreneur who feels alone in the journey.” — Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & General Partner of Hustle Fund
“Startups are hard. Most people understand this. However, most people don’t understand why. Mike’s story is a rare glimpse into how challenges present themselves — and ultimately how to overcome.” — Matt Flannery, Co-Founder of Kiva & Branch
“In a rare look behind the scenes, Mike shares a vivid picture of the other side of leadership we don’t talk about enough. As he aptly describes ‘founding, failing and winning’, this book highlights the risk of taking that all-important first step, embracing failure and ensuring you learn the transformative lessons critical to success as an entrepreneurial leader.” — Fred Swaniker, Founder of African Leadership Group
“This story is a gift for entrepreneurs and indeed anyone wanting to learn about the first generation of African fintechs that paved the way for future companies to thrive.” — Katlego Maphai, Co-Founder & CEO of Yoco
“Mike’s humility, resilience and depth of knowledge of how to build a pan-African business are unique, and his testimony of experience is an important short history of the fintech boom on the continent.” — Elizabeth Rossiello, Founder & CEO of AZA
“Failing To Win is a captivating account of an incredibly talented and unusually forthright entrepreneur who built an ambitious purpose-led company that started in Zambia. At Oxford I have taught the Zoona case study to countless MBA students to show how fundamental principles of entrepreneurship can be meaningfully applied in a novel context. It just takes courageous and smart individuals who are not afraid of failing (in order) to win.” — Thomas Hellmann, DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Oxford’s Saïd Business School
“Innovation has gone global, and is transforming people’s lives around the world. But startups are risky. Sometimes they scale and sometimes they fail. In Failing To Win, Mike shares insightful lessons from his journey at Zoona about what it takes to operate with integrity, impact and inspiration in the new Frontier of Innovation.” — Alex Lazarow, Author of Out-Innovate: How global entrepreneurs – from Delhi to Detroit – are rewriting the rules of Silicon Valley
₵145.00 – ₵160.00Failing To Win: Hard-Earned Lessons from a Purpose-Driven Startup
₵145.00 – ₵160.00 -
Shining Ever Brighter: From Nothing to Something
Born into a family of seven children to two semi-literate parents, life was not perpetually smooth, but somewhat cushioned by the perks and safety net of her father’s employment ina multinational mining conglomerate. At age 14, her world was thrown into a free-falling spiral arising from the voluntary retrenchment taken by her father, throwing the family of 9 into an unforeseen instability and untold hardships over the next decade. With an unremitting desire for education and a deep faith in God instilled in them by their mother, Asantewaa and her six siblings fought to stay in school, find a suitable place to lay their head at night and food to put on the table.
This is the story of Asantewaa’s journey from a life of poverty and need in Accra, Ghana all the way to the miracle of a scholarship to pursue a PhD in Canada. This is a story of hardship and persistence, of hunger and kindness, of disappointments and triumph, and an unending trust in God.
₵50.00 -
Our Daily Bread: 2023 Annual Edition
Fill each day with everlasting hope and trust!
About Our Daily Bread
Our Daily Bread is distributed around the world and is translated into more than 50 languages. Each month millions of readers turn to the pages of this beloved devotional for inspiration, comfort, peace, and hope.
₵46.00 -
Daily Guide: A Daily Devotional Guide for Adults (2023 Edition)
Scripture Union is serving God’s Church in this country by producing booklets which give a Bible reading every day throughout the year. These booklets help to make daily Bible reading easy, exciting, and meaningful, leading to true conversion, victorious living, fruitful service to the church and society. Become one of the thousands of happy Christians in the SU Bible reading family in Africa by using Daily Power (Youth/Family) or Daily Guide (Adults).
Scripture Union Ghana’s Daily Guide has been used for many years by Christians in Ghana and abroad for Quiet Time.
Remember the mantra from Daily Guide: No Bible, No Breakfast.
₵35.00 -
Daily Power: A Daily Devotional Guide for Youth & Family (2023 Edition)
Scripture Union is serving God’s Church in this country by producing booklets which give a Bible reading every day throughout the year. These booklets help to make daily Bible reading easy, exciting, and meaningful, leading to true conversion, victorious living, fruitful service to the church and society. Become one of the thousands of happy Christians in the SU Bible reading family in Africa by using Daily Power (Youth/Family) or Daily Guide (Adults).
Scripture Union Ghana’s Daily Power has been used for many years by Christians in Ghana and abroad for Quiet Time.
Remember the mantra from Daily Guide: No Bible, No Breakfast.
₵28.00 -
The Supreme Task of the Church
As much as believers want to hearken to the Great Commission, we seem to shy away from this call. Restricted with limited resources on ways to approach, strategies to pursue, and how to win souls and make disciples of them, we let our generations down.
This book is a great resource containing biblical, experiential, and practical knowledge that empowers every believer to fulfill the divine mandate to win souls. It answers frequently asked questions we encounter as we set out to obey God regarding this call.
₵15.00