Does blitzscaling work in African markets?

Here's some context. In 2019, OPay, a multi-purpose ride-hailing, food delivery, and financial services app operating in Nigeria, raised $170 million from marquee Chinese investors, including Meituan Dianping, the super app that competes with WeChat.

OPay proceeded to take Nigeria by storm with a flurry of aggressive promotions, incentives, and subsidies that certainly resemble the speed-to-scale approach described by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh in their book Blitzscaling.

A few weeks ago, however, ostensibly due to COVID-19 and a change in regulations in Lagos, the company was forced to change its strategy.

In this article, I explore the firm's history and its attempt to 'blitzscale' in Nigeria. As I write here, "the key unanswered question is whether such an approach is suited for the African markets of today."

Read more 👉 here.