When choosing a country to do a startup

 I came upon this article recently that talking about choosing a country in Africa to pilot your startup. I instantly connected with the article because in my conversation with different people about social entrepreneurship, I've heard many people say that they want to do a start up in Africa. As we all know Africa is continent of cultural, social, and economic diversity, no two countries are the same. So when choosing a country to pilot your project it seems difficult to choose. You could pick a country out of a hat, but their is a systematic process one can take when choosing a country. I like how this article lays out a decision framework for choosing the best country to pilot your startup. Although the article talked about specifically African countries, I feel as if this decision framework could be applied to developing countries around the world.

This article does a very good job of really going beyond surface level factors when choosing a country to conduct you startup. In Africa, countries such has Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa seem to get all of the attention. Although it seems as countries such has Somalia and the DRC that face horrific human rights violations are brutally overlooked. Not only countries within Africa but emerging markets in the Caribbean, Latin American and South-East Asia that do not see innovation on the same scale as Africa.  In all what the article does is create an opportunity to think outside of the box when launching your social venture. It gives your a holistic framework in assessing the the viability of your social venture in particular countries.

I especially like the paragraph about "Being Global" it's a great opportunity to think about how your social venture can scale to communities across the world to make impact. M-Pesa is a great example because not only is it an innovative technology that a market is being created around, it's a technology that takes into account the unique contextual requirements of people of the society, Kenyans. Most Kenyans may not have access to computers, but they have access to phones. The creators of M-Pesa took into account the increasing mobile penetration rate of Kenyans, which is why m-pesa is so successful.

The article can be found here : http://afrinnovator.com/blog/2012/01/18/which-african-country-is-best-to-do-a-tech-startup-a-decision-framework/