(In memory of Dave Norval, who taught me that silence is where real builders breathe.) In 2018, years after the eTranzact lesson, Nsano received its first major award. A partner we respected chose to recognize our work. It was a proud moment for the entire team, as this was one of our first and hardest-won partnerships. Cameras flashed, speeches flowed, and Nsano’s name carried through the hall. But that same night, after the applause faded, I checked my phone and noticed tha

In the early days of eTranzact, I was the marketing guy. Fresh. Ambitious. Ready to prove myself. We were operating fine. One major client—UBA. Heritage Tower, third floor. Everything running smoothly. But I couldn't understand why we weren't making “noise”. So, I did what any ambitious marketing person would do: I placed an ad in the newspaper. Then, I organized a press conference in our conference room to explain what we were about. The story was published the next day. Wit

"Is your CEO a woman?" Back when I was still leading Nsano, that question came up more than once. People looked at Solace leading operations, Priscilla running business development, Linda in customer service, Akosua managing integrations, Jessica as executive assistant—and assumed the CEO must be a woman too. I never did media interviews. I stayed behind the scenes. The women I'd hired became the visible face of Nsano. The question was evidence that we'd built something diffe

Some deals teach you more by collapsing than by closing. In 2016, Nsano was breaking out of survival mode—expanding into new markets and ready to go pan-African. Then came AA (I'll call him that), a man whose confidence filled every room he entered. He promised to take us continental. I believed him—for a while. Back then, I believed raising investment meant we'd made it. Time proved me wrong. Our first meeting was at his mansion, the kind designed to impress. Every detail ca

People hear "friends and family funding" and imagine big checks or inheritance windfalls. My reality? Countless moments of: "Chale, I need money for this." "Chale, can you spare GHS 1,000?" Again and again. By the time Nsano pivoted to financial services, we'd worked with Vodafone but hadn't been paid. We'd outgrown our small Busy Internet space. So, I turned to my friend Ernest for a soft loan of GHS 50,000 to rent our first real office at Asylum Down. Things got even tighte

“You will be the same person five years from now as you are today, except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read.” That line stayed with me. Without direct access to mentors, I turned to books, studying those who built success and the systems behind it. In my early days of entrepreneurship, I lived in survival mode—firefighting, patching crises, keeping the lights on. Doing teaches you to solve today’s problems, but learning equips you to anticipate tomorr

Every entrepreneur remembers their first resignation letter. Mine was a gut punch that taught me everything about loyalty, systems, and when to let doors stay closed. When we started Nsano, we were a band of believers weaving code and hope in equal measure. Every late night carried more than deadlines; it carried trust, sacrifice, and the fragile belief that we could build something extraordinary. Then Peter (an alias) left. Peter wasn't just another hire - he was family.

In 2011, a few of us were working out of Busy Internet, convinced we were building Ghana’s next big e-commerce platform. We called it Launchpad. The name was already taken, so we became Nsano — a name we worried was too local for our global ambitions. What we didn’t know was that the detours ahead would matter far more than the plans we had on paper. One such detour came through a friend from my eTranzact days. He had an idea: a USSD sales-tracking tool that would let salespe

I was angry and heartbroken. The $80,000 had already gone into paying debts, salary arrears, and initial costs. And it wasn't just about money. It was about respect and honouring agreements. John Addo, Head of Corporate (later MD) and Mary Brown, the DMD, advised me not to walk away. "You've come too far," John said. I slept on it, went back to the MD, and accepted his terms. His response was curt: "Good, good, let's continue." No gratitude. No acknowledgment. Just business.

Nsano cut its teeth building mobile banking and ancillary solutions for financial institutions. We had a standard "Money Merchant" proposal we shopped around. The price? 12,000 cedis flat. After some success deploying for Adehyeman and Opportunity International Savings and Loans, we set our sights higher and approached Prudential Bank (PBL) in 2014. Our team was directed to Frank Ankamah, Head of e-Business, who glanced through the proposal, laughed and asked who the CEO was.

We had a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. To some, it was daring and inspiring. To others, just naive optimism. The goal? To be the single point of access for mobile money platforms across Ghana. By 2014, Nsano needed to scale its technical capabilities. Banks wanted to connect to mobile money. Mobile money operators needed integration partners they could trust. I knew we needed someone with deep mobile money experience to join as our technical co-founder. I found what seemed like t

"My name is Kofi, and I'm here to see the Head of Mobile Money." That single sentence began what turned into an almost 7-hour wait at MTN. I woke up that day with one goal: make a connection at MTN Mobile Money. No appointment, no name – just sheer determination. It was a roller coaster of emotions watching others get ushered into meetings, and the day waning away. Around 3PM, a business executive, let’s call him CO, came and led me into a meeting room. I explained that Nsano