{"id":81396,"date":"2026-02-08T16:27:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/890534714"},"modified":"2026-02-08T16:27:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:27:45","slug":"founders-in-focus-spotlights-andra-de-wet-and-the-real-economics-of-building-tech-for-emerging-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/08\/founders-in-focus-spotlights-andra-de-wet-and-the-real-economics-of-building-tech-for-emerging-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Founders in Focus spotlights Andr\u00c3\u00a9 de Wet and the real economics of building tech for emerging markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a time when most startup success stories focus on hypergrowth, burn rates and Silicon Valley playbooks, a new book is taking a more grounded approach. Founders in Focus: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs & Their Game Plans<\/em> brings together the stories of twelve founders who built enduring businesses by solving problems others overlooked.<\/p>\n

Among them is Andr\u00e9 de Wet, founder and CEO of Flood, and the only African founder featured in the book \u2013 a distinction that reflects both his personal journey and the relevance of the problems he has spent two decades trying to solve.<\/p>\n

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De Wet\u2019s chapter does not begin with Flood. It begins with failure.<\/p>\n

After dropping out of medical school to start his first business, he built and sold a company by 27 only to lose everything a year later. That experience, he writes, reshaped how he thinks about risk, resilience and execution: \u201cTechnology gave me the ability to create something from nothing, and to do it at scale,\u201d he reflects.<\/p>\n

That mindset led to PriceCheck, which grew from a South African startup into a platform used by more than five million people, winning App of the Year internationally in 2013. It later took him to iflix, where he helped scale the streaming platform across eight emerging markets.<\/p>\n

But it was what he saw repeatedly \u2013 across telcos, banks and retailers \u2013 that ultimately led to Flood.<\/p>\n

While consumers across Africa, Asia and other emerging markets rapidly moved online, most local retail did not. In fact, around 95% of retail activity still happens offline, largely because small merchants lack the tools, budgets or skills to digitise \u2013 and because the underlying infrastructure needed to support digital commerce remains underdeveloped in many markets. From fragmented logistics networks to inconsistent last-mile delivery, getting products to customers can be difficult, unreliable or simply not possible at scale. In this context, the challenge is not only about merchant readiness, but also about the broader ecosystem required to enable modern retail. At the same time, banks and telcos sat with massive customer bases, but limited ways to create daily engagement or new revenue beyond their core services.<\/p>\n

Flood was built to sit precisely in that gap.<\/p>\n

Rather than launching yet another consumer super-app, Flood took a different approach: Enabling banks and telcos to become the platforms. Its SuperApp-as-a-Service model allows large institutions to embed local commerce, loyalty and discovery directly into their existing apps \u2013 no new downloads, no new behaviour required. The results have been telling. In one early market, Flood is now used daily by 28% of the population, turning apps that were previously opened a few times a month into platforms used almost every day.<\/p>\n

De Wet\u2019s chapter also revisits one of Flood\u2019s defining moments: The 2020 lockdowns. As thousands of small businesses struggled to survive, Flood onboarded 8,000 merchants and launched 360 merchant apps in just three months, giving informal and small retailers immediate digital visibility inside apps people already trusted.<\/p>\n

Today, Flood has processed over $400 million in GMV across 14 million transactions in six countries, quietly powering local commerce ecosystems behind the scenes \u2013 not by replacing informal trade, but by making it visible and accessible in a digital world.<\/p>\n

What makes De Wet\u2019s contribution stand out in Founders in Focus<\/em> is its refusal to glamourise entrepreneurship. Instead, it offers a practical, emerging-market view of what it actually takes to build at scale \u2013 where distribution matters more than innovation, execution matters more than strategy, and success is measured by impact, not hype.<\/p>\n

The book features founders from sectors spanning construction, healthcare, travel, media and consumer goods, but De Wet\u2019s chapter is the only one rooted in Africa\u2019s informal and offline economies: A reminder that some of the most meaningful innovation is happening far from traditional tech centres.<\/p>\n

Founders in Focus: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs & Their Game Plans<\/em> is now available internationally on Amazon as of 3 February 2026. The Kindle edition is available immediately for just $0.99: https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Founders-Focus-Unstoppable-Entrepreneurs-Their-ebook\/dp\/B0GGTT6T37\/<\/a><\/p>\n

For more information on Flood, visit www.flood.finance<\/p>\n

About the author<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Founders in Focus: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs & Their Game Plans<\/em> is written by TJ Avazona<\/strong>, a bestselling author CEO of Avazona Ltd, a best-selling author, and a leading voice in PR, branding and digital strategy. He has helped over 1,000 brands build global visibility, securing thousands of features in top-tier outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Vogue, IBTimes and VCPost. Founders in Focus<\/em> brings together voices from multiple industries and geographies, offering a grounded look at what sustainable entrepreneurship really looks like in practice.<\/p>\n

Other founders featured in the book include:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n