This post was getting very long, so I broke it into two parts. This post (part one) covers the history of WeChat, chronologically going through its founding story and product evolution. Part two will cover some of the themes of WeChat.
It's tough to say. I know much less about Africa, but two observations.
1. I think one of the reasons it was easy for China to "copy" was that western apps were banned in China. As soon as they saw something working outside of China, they knew it wouldn't be able to get past the firewall so they could copy, and since China had a large enough population, just winning China == huge business in a way that few other countries can provide.
In theory, WhatsApp could have been the killer messenger app or Twitter the killer social network for China, but because those apps were banned, it gave WeChat and Weibo the chance to dominate. It's tough to know the 'counterfactual' of the great firewall not existing but that's one theory.
So how's that related to Africa? Well.. Africa doesn't have a great firewall and as a result, Facebook, WhatsApp, Tencent (WeChat and all their investments), etc. are pushing their products into Africa. Asian tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba are making big investments in Africa (along with the Chinese government via Belt and Road). Jack Ma recently said, "Today’s Africa is the China of 20 years ago!” (https://www.theafricareport.com/22056/jack-ma-todays-africa-is-the-china-of-20-years-ago/)
2. If you read my prior posts, you might notice that Uber lost in Southeast Asia to Gojek and Grab, well why's that? Ridesharing is a very physical business that benefits less from the global network effects of e.g., Facebook or YouTube and so I think those businesses could work great for copying by African entrepreneurs. I feel like I've already seen some "Plaid for Africa", "Stripe for Africa", etc. businesses popping up. Banking infrastructure, for example, is really tough. So if you could build the Stripe for Africa, it could either (a) be a huge standalone opportunity or (b) something Stripe can eventually acquire.
Thank you so much Ryan for your response, I appreciate the perspective and will look more into this, and yes there's a 'stripe for Africa' which stripe also invested in Paystack, theyre very similar.
Hey, what an amazing article, do you think Africa should do what the East did to West, by copying them to the point where the West copied back?
Thank you!😁
It's tough to say. I know much less about Africa, but two observations.
1. I think one of the reasons it was easy for China to "copy" was that western apps were banned in China. As soon as they saw something working outside of China, they knew it wouldn't be able to get past the firewall so they could copy, and since China had a large enough population, just winning China == huge business in a way that few other countries can provide.
In theory, WhatsApp could have been the killer messenger app or Twitter the killer social network for China, but because those apps were banned, it gave WeChat and Weibo the chance to dominate. It's tough to know the 'counterfactual' of the great firewall not existing but that's one theory.
So how's that related to Africa? Well.. Africa doesn't have a great firewall and as a result, Facebook, WhatsApp, Tencent (WeChat and all their investments), etc. are pushing their products into Africa. Asian tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba are making big investments in Africa (along with the Chinese government via Belt and Road). Jack Ma recently said, "Today’s Africa is the China of 20 years ago!” (https://www.theafricareport.com/22056/jack-ma-todays-africa-is-the-china-of-20-years-ago/)
2. If you read my prior posts, you might notice that Uber lost in Southeast Asia to Gojek and Grab, well why's that? Ridesharing is a very physical business that benefits less from the global network effects of e.g., Facebook or YouTube and so I think those businesses could work great for copying by African entrepreneurs. I feel like I've already seen some "Plaid for Africa", "Stripe for Africa", etc. businesses popping up. Banking infrastructure, for example, is really tough. So if you could build the Stripe for Africa, it could either (a) be a huge standalone opportunity or (b) something Stripe can eventually acquire.
Thank you so much Ryan for your response, I appreciate the perspective and will look more into this, and yes there's a 'stripe for Africa' which stripe also invested in Paystack, theyre very similar.
My pleasure! Shoot me an email if you ever have more questions :) rrodenbaugh at Gmail dot com