#FoundersConnect: Abdul Hassan, CEO & Founder of Mono, Backed by Ycombinator

Abdulhamid Hassan is the CEO of Mono, a data startup that is “powering the internet economy” in Africa. Mono is the modern financial infrastructure for Africa, backed with $17M from Tiger Global, Entree capital, Target global, DST, SBI Group, and powering companies like Carbon, Tangerine, Renmoney, Identitypass and so much more. Mono is currently live in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya.

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Video timestamps

0:00 Introduction 0:59 Abdul shares his background 2:35 What’s your favorite childhood memory growing up in Ijebu Ode? 3:24 You went to Europe to school, but how did your Dad take it? 5:36 Tell us about Oya Pay. What was the idea and how did it start? 9:11 How long did you spend at Voyant before Mono clicked? 13:23 What has been the biggest challenge so far? 16:44 When Mono started, it was a B2B, but at some point, you switched. Please talk about this. 18:33 Aside the mission-driven company you are building, what else about Mono brings it into that legacy you are building? 20:22 What kind of people do you look out for when you’re hiring? 21:25 How are you guys on the consumer end managing the data collection on the platform? 23:20 What has been your biggest lesson so far building all these companies? 28:30 Have you ever been afraid of the Mono’s growth? 29:35 What’s your non work-related wildest dream right now? 30:00 When you’re not working, what do you do? 30:47 What is one city that you haven’t been to yet but would like to visit and why? 31:09 Who would you say has had the biggest influence on you? 32:11 What would you say to people who want to enter the tech ecosystem?