前言
From a conventional investment perspective, the main crypto user groups that the market first reaches are generally in Europe, the United States, or the Asia-Pacific region where the number of users has surged in recent years. Mature crypto markets basically have mature financial orders and systems, as well as user groups that no longer need education. It seems that the total user activity is positively correlated with the economic development level of the region. The African market, Latin America, or Southeast Asia often lacks understanding of cryptocurrencies and a stable financial system. In contrast, emerging markets are eager for cryptocurrencies to bring them stability and new trading scenarios.
Behind the gradual fondness of crypto products in emerging markets like Africa is the fact that exchanges and a large number of traditional financial and Western institutions have gradually noticed this undeveloped continent that they have never touched. The long-standing lack of desire has finally turned into soaring funds and new users.
Based on this, Jambo has expanded its business to more than 120 countries and regions including Brazil, Vietnam and Turkey, and launched the worlds first Web3 Earn phone, JamboPhone, at a price of only $99. As of July this year, more than 460,000 JamboPhone units have been sold worldwide, and users have activated more than 1.8 million non-custodial wallets, marking a significant growth in its ecosystem. It provides users with a brand new path to embrace web3 at a very low cost price. In addition, the Jambo ecosystem currently covers more than 50 live Web3 projects on seven major blockchain networks.
The name Jambo comes from the Swahili word for hello, symbolizing that Jambo is welcoming global users with a friendly gesture.
The first episode of DripEcho, a cryptocurrency and blockchain talk show produced by Waterdrip Capital, specially invited James, the founder of Jambo mobile phone. The Jambo project was founded in early 2022 and is headquartered in Congo. In just one year, it successfully completed a $7.5 million seed round and a $30 million Series A round, covering almost all the top Western crypto funds. As the founder of Jambo, James has rich experience in the African market. He transformed this unique background into innovative web application scenarios, which promoted the rapid development of Jambo in the crypto field.
James Z: From Congo to Web3 Pioneer
James grew up in Congo, and his family has lived in Africa for three generations. His mother tongue is French, and he speaks Chinese with his parents. He was exposed to the social environment of Africa since he was a child, and later went to the United States and China for study. He grew up in an environment intertwined with the conflict and integration of multiple cultures, which coincided with the impression we had when we first met James. While studying computer science at New York University, he first came into contact with cryptocurrency and bought his first Ethereum. After graduation, he accumulated rich experience in the investment field and eventually came up with the idea of founding Jambo.
For James, the inspiration for starting a business may come from his upbringing that cannot be erased. Friends listening to this video, you can first think about whether you have been to Africa. Why dont Africans work in Africa? Why dont Africans do business? Because anyone who does business in Africa will know that you cant transfer money to those in need, you dont have a bank account, these common problems in emerging markets, China and the United States have also had decades ago.
So when you grow up in these places and your parents have all these difficulties in doing business here, these problems are ingrained in your mind. Then when I went to the United States and studied computer science and finance at New York University, I didn’t need to be a genius to see the differences between the United States and Africa, and these differences were just because no one was solving them. Then I took the opportunity to do it.”
The original intention of starting a business: the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of project owners
Talking about the original intention of starting a business, Actually, it started out of boredom, James said with a smile, If you want to invest, you should invest in things that you really want to do, but at that time there were no projects suitable for emerging markets in the market. His goal is clear: to solve the problems of cross-border payments, remittances and the unbanked, which are common pain points in emerging markets.
At the beginning of 2022, the market was experiencing a round of Southeast Asian GameFi craze, but few people paid attention to the African market. We see that many people in African countries do not have bank accounts, but they are in urgent need of cross-border transfer services. The launch of JamboPhone is to solve this problem.
Being chosen by new users or being abandoned by old users is the ultimate destination that all web3 project parties cannot escape, and it is also a must-answer exam paper. Everyone needs new users, its that simple. James answered this question without hesitation.
“To be honest, the character portrait we envisioned is what every web3 company is thinking about. No matter how great your project is, you want to be listed on an exchange. If we are a web2 technology project now, you also want to be listed on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.”
How to avoid being abandoned by retail investors and exchanges is the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of many project parties. What does listing need? New users, and new users are in emerging markets. James continued to explain, They need new people, how can they get new users? They dont even know what web3 is.
Jambo’s rise in Africa: Gaining trust
In 2022, Jambo successfully completed a $7.5 million seed round and a $30 million Series A round, covering almost all the top Western crypto funds. Talking about the difficulties, The initial challenges we encountered in the African market were huge, James recalled, No one there knew what crypto was.
In order to break this dilemma, James and his team adopted the most primitive promotion method. Two words: push on the ground. James began his story with a concise and powerful answer. This promotion method is not unfamiliar to Chinese people, but it is unheard of in the Western market. Alibaba has achieved todays success by bringing hundreds and thousands of people to promote on the streets. James recalled, We also use this method to develop the African market. They explained the advantages of JamboPhone to users over and over again and helped them earn income on the platform. The initial promotion was not easy. In Congo, no one knew what cryptocurrency was, and residents were full of doubts about new things. You have to make them believe that you can change their lives, but they have been deceived too many times. James said, Help them make a lot of money, only when the money is really in their pockets can they believe you.
Our users are mainly young people. Imagine a 20-year-old boy in Nigeria buys our mobile phone, and you will see 15 pre-installed software. Jambo is just your wallet. This precise user positioning enables Jambo to quickly capture the market in a short period of time.
Our goal is to create new Crypto users for the market
Perhaps it was his lucky upbringing that made James see the huge potential of Africa when the market generally believed that Africa was a backward continent. Africas population is very young, with an average age of only 18, which means that a large number of young people are curious about and receptive to new technologies and applications. James explained, The same is true for our entire user base. If we help these young people make money, they will become our loyal users. James said frankly, I think any founder who does this needs to grow up in several different countries to really know what is happening in that country. I grew up in Africa and saw many problems and needs that are different from those in developed countries. This background allows me to more keenly capture the pain points of emerging markets.
In a region lacking a modern banking system, crypto payments and blockchain technology have found unique application scenarios. 4G users in Africa are growing rapidly and are expected to reach 300 million by 2025, James said. This huge user base provides huge room for development for our business.
“Our goal is to create new crypto users for the market, not just duplicate existing users,” James said.
The following are excerpts from the interview:
JoyChen: What was the reason that got you involved in crypto in the first place?
James Z: Because I grew up in Congo. The environment in Congo has exposed me to a lot of injustice and difficulties. After growing up in Africa, I went to school in New York and studied computer science, while all my friends studied finance. I thought there was nothing to learn about finance at first, and then I started studying computer science. Around 2015, I first came into contact with Ethereum and thought it represented the future. So I bought some Ethereum, made a little money, and it didnt matter if it fell, and I slowly learned about this technology. If I had been bolder at the time, I would have started a business when I graduated in 2017, but maybe because I was too young, no one would recognize me, so I am very grateful to my sister, who suggested that I start a fund first. She is now my co-founder. I joined the industry as an investor as soon as I graduated. Before going to college in New York, I had never heard of crypto when I was in Africa. The atmosphere in Africa was not strong at the time. Crypto didnt become popular until 2016 and 2017, when Bitcoin rose a lot, and retail investors entered the market and began to pay attention.
Looking back, we are now in 2024, and no one really knew what crypto was. Digital currency was only accepted by retail investors in 2016 and 2017 because of the rise of Bitcoin. No one believed it at the time, because you have to make money to believe in something.
JoyChen: Have you considered doing other industries during this period? For example, traditional finance?
James Z: Because I was at NYU, most of my friends went to business school and worked in the financial industry. But because I grew up in Africa, I had no interest in the financial industry. I thought it was all created by humans. If I didnt do what Im doing now, I might play professional basketball.
JoyChen: Did you choose to start from the African market based on your idea of making a mobile phone? Or did your experience in Africa make you want to do something in Africa first, and then you found that mobile phones or infrastructure were a good start? What was the order of priority?
James Z: Lets first talk about the problem we want to solve, why we do this and how we do it. The problem we want to solve is very simple, which is the problem of cross-border payments, especially in emerging markets such as South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. There is a common problem in these markets, that is, most people use mobile phones directly, skipping the computer stage.
We focus on how to acquire users through device distribution. VCs usually dont invest in hardware because hardware is not as scalable as software, but we choose to do hardware to achieve the goal of distributing software to users. Our phone sells for $99 in emerging markets, and the cost is equal to the selling price, so we break even. Our goal is to distribute as many phones as possible so that Web3 software can be pre-installed on them.
From the beginning, we knew that to really enter these markets, we needed hardware support. But hardware startups are very difficult and require supply chains and distribution channels. The purpose of pre-installing our software in hardware is to better promote Web3 applications, and to reach cooperation and incentives with multiple companies so that users can earn coins in the pre-installed software after purchasing a mobile phone, and then exchange them for legal currency through the Jambo platform. The advantage of our platform is that we can provide distribution channels for users in emerging markets and work with strong partners to provide high-quality content.
JoyChen: In the process of expanding your market in Africa, you actually encountered many difficult moments. Because I have never been to Africa, I am not quite sure whether the market there can be promoted in the same way as the North American, Asian or Southeast Asian markets. In the beginning, how did you sell your first mobile phone?
James Z: Two words. Ground promotion. Its that simple. When Chinese people hear it now, they think ground promotion is normal, but Westerners dont understand how deep the word ground promotion is. For example, its not just Jambo. Lets talk about web2. Alibaba, Meituan, and Dianping also register users through ground promotion and give users incentives. This is ground promotion, from first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to second-tier cities, and then to third-tier cities. Web3 doesnt have such people to promote it, because web3 is very close to money. Its possible that you have issued coins and done many things, but no one has really done ground promotion to bring these users to the web2 real business model.
If you go to our website, youll see that we have three key numbers. One, which countries we sell phones in, and we sell phones in over 120 countries right now, which means global coverage. Two, how many phones have been sold, and right now its about 500,000, although the goal is more. And three, how many new wallets have been created.
When we first started promoting crypto in Congo, no one knew what crypto was. Congo has a population of 150 million. If you look at the map, Congo is one of the largest countries in Africa, but it is very backward. There are only two countries in Africa that are at the forefront of technology, one is Nigeria and the other is Kenya. The rest of the countries are very backward.
In Africa, the problem we had at the beginning was that nobody cared about you. You told them you could change their lives, and they would say they had heard it ten times before because they had been scammed so many times. Anyone in an emerging market has been scammed so many times. I have been scammed so many times myself. It is easy to get scammed when you need money so badly.
Our marketing strategy is that you dont need to do anything, just your time. Give me a chance and spend your time on our platform, whether its a mobile phone or software. Even if you dont have our mobile phone, you can download our software and make money. We attracted a lot of people through this strategy. You have to be very good to the initial users, help them make a lot of money, and make them believe in you. Unfortunately, they only believe how much money you help them make. If you dont help them make money, they wont believe you.
JoyChen: You just mentioned that you fly to some markets where you are concentrated every once in a while, so where are you going to go next? Why did you open your first offline store in Brazil?
James Z: Our biggest markets right now are Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. Our first offline store was opened in Brazil, not just to sell phones, but more for publicity, to let people know about our existence and how many users we have, and to promote our partners.
We chose Brazil because it has the most users. Although the languages in these places are different, Brazilians speak Portuguese, other South American countries speak Spanish, and some African countries speak French or English, this does not affect us because the main problem we want to solve is cross-border payment and remittance. These problems are common in all emerging markets.
Although these markets speak different languages, the main problems they face are the same: insufficient banking services, difficulties in cross-border payments, and remittance issues. These problems need to be solved for both individual users and corporate users. Digital currency and Web3 technology can help us solve these problems.
We didnt invent digital currency, we use it to help users. Its very difficult to educate users because people dont want to admit that they dont understand new concepts, so we need to start courses in all universities to teach people what digital currency is and let them know that learning these can help them make money. So, no matter where the market is, what users need is roughly the same. This is the service we want to provide.
JoyChen: What is the biggest difference between the living environment in Africa and your early years in China or later when you were in college in the United States? Is there anything that makes you feel that if you had not come to Africa, you might never have this idea or thought?
James Z: There are so many things like this. What is Africa like? Why cant I be born in Africa, even if my family has been there for three generations, because a mosquito bite can kill you, there is malaria. In addition to mosquitoes, there are many invisible viruses. You may die before you are three years old. It is very dangerous in Africa. Why dont Africans work in Africa? People who do business in Africa know that digital currency can help them solve their pain points. People who do business in Africa will know that you cant transfer money to those in need, you dont have a bank account, and all the problems in emerging markets have existed in China and the United States decades ago. So when you grow up in these places, your parents also do business here, facing these difficulties, these things are already in your mind.
Then I went to school in New York, studying computer science and finance. In a developed country like the United States, you don’t have to be a genius to see the gap between the United States and Africa, but no one is doing it.
JoyChen: Would Jambo still be successful without the experience in Africa? Or would Jambo have the current number of users if it didnt have a founder with your background?
James Z: I often think that if it wasnt me doing it, but my friends or other people, they might have been more successful a long time ago. This may be a problem for founders, always feeling that there are things they havent seen or done well. A lot of things happen every day. For example, if I didnt watch Twitter and crypto this weekend, I would have missed a lot. So I think if it wasnt me doing this, but other people with similar growth backgrounds, they might be more successful. It takes a person to grow up in different countries to truly understand what is happening in these countries. For example, when we raised funds in Africa, we raised 7.5 million in the first round and 30 million in the second round. Tiger Fund and Coinbase both participated. When we were raising funds, I increased from 95 kilograms to 125 kilograms because of the huge pressure. No one has ever done this before. How do you convince investors to invest tens of millions of dollars in you? When you are only 26 years old, no one believes you can do this.
JoyChen: If you were asked to choose a city to live in now, where would you choose?
James Z: I may not choose to stay in a certain country permanently, but the place I will definitely not stay in is Congo. I grew up in Congo and experienced two civil wars and evacuated overnight, so many people asked me if it was easy for me and my sister to start a company together. We have experienced life and death together, so our trust will always be there.
JoyChen: Did you create Jambo because you wanted to change the status quo?
James Z: I am just an ordinary person who saw an opportunity. There are a lot of injustices and disparities in the world, especially in the financial system. I just saw an opportunity to change something. Otherwise, you can buy digital currency and dont move. You may make several times or even dozens of times more in ten years. But starting a business may fail.
JoyChen: Let me share a word I learned from a friend, called within the value. If you want to be responsible to LPs and investors and make money, this is actually within the value. But there is a part that is outside the value. If you can really make some changes, what is the highest level you hope to achieve in the future?
James Z: The changes that any crypto founder wants to make are the same. The market for Bitcoin is less than one-tenth of the market for gold. I think we are all very early. If someone hears this video now and says that I don’t like what James said so much, but I just buy digital currency and hoard it. Then you can do this, you don’t need to buy Jambo. I am not here to make people buy my products. I started a company in this industry to solve problems.
If you ask me if I will continue to start a business, I may never do it again, because it is too difficult. We now have dozens of developers for programming in three different countries. I am in Asia, and I have nothing to do from 3pm to 6pm, but I am very busy from 6am to 3pm, and then from 6pm to the evening, I am also very busy communicating with people in Europe, the United States, and Africa. Being a founder in crypto is much more difficult than in web2, because if you are in web2, your time is the American time, working from 9am to 5pm. If you work in China, you may have social events in the evening.
But in web3 there is no such time limit. I have never heard some of my partners, founders who are much smarter and more workaholic than me, say that they are tired because they work from 6 am to 11 pm. This is the norm. So what we want to do is the same. If you are listening to this video, you probably already know what we want to do. Believe in digital currency, and hope that more people can come in to understand and participate.
For the full show content:
Xiaoyuzhou podcast: https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episodes/ 66 a 36 c 0 d 7349 f 7 a 557 b 95349
YouTube： https://youtu.be/xuxkCGgOPLg
This article is sourced from the internet: Positive-sum game of crypto ecology: the battle for new Web3 users begins in Africa | DripEcho Episode 1
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