Meghan McCormick, a fintech entrepreneur in Ghana equipping entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions — Lionesses of Africa

Tell us a little about your team

My Co-founder, Dave, and I both served as Peace Corps Volunteers in West Africa. He led the expansion of Dare to Innovate into Benin and then became the CFO of the global organization. Tite, our head of Data and Analytics has a PhD in Economics from MIT. He builds models that allow OZÉ entrepreneurs to borrow capital affordably. Lyke is leading our expansion into Nigeria and is supported by Paul who makes sure that entrepreneurs all over West Africa know about how OZÉ can help them grow. The management team is supported by developers, designers, business coaches, business development associates, and activators who make sure that the app is easy to use, works flawlessly, and leads to business growth.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

Both my parents are small business owners and my siblings all work for/run start-ups so I think that entrepreneurship must have been in the water growing up. I’ve been a social entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. I founded my first social enterprise at age 10. Even when I was employed in the Peace Corps, I founded a social enterprise that I ended up scaling. What was new (and scary and exciting) about founding OZÉ was that it was my first experience working in tech. I set out to solve the problem of youth unemployment and my journey led me to creating a technology-based solution. It was never my intention. For the first time in my life, I was managing people doing a job that I didn’t have the slightest clue how to do. Honestly, I’m still figuring it out but now with the help of people who know what they are doing. For example, before we hired a full-time designer, I spent hours watching YouTube videos on how to use design software to create products. Everyday I’m failing forward, learning more, and pushing myself and my team to build a product that transforms what it means to run a small business in Ghana, Nigeria, and beyond.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

The problem that I am trying to solve with my career is the catastrophic level of youth unemployment in Africa and around the world. Every year 11 million African youth join the job market and 2 out of 3 are unemployed or underemployed. It’s not fair to themselves or to our world to waste the talent and energy of youth. I believe one of the major contributing factors is the fact that +90% of small businesses in Africa are run by solo-preneurs who don’t create employment. That’s what we are specifically trying to solve at OZÉ. How can we reliably help entrepreneurs grow their businesses so that they create jobs and wealth. To achieve this, I am working so that OZÉ becomes the leading small-business management platform in Africa and that if an entrepreneur uses OZÉ and joins our community they will be more likely than not to succeed.