 When I heard that your company is the biggest venture company in Angola, I was expecting to see an old man. Old man? Old white man. Old white man. Old white man. I love that. So I'm Wilson Ganga. I'm an entrepreneur here in Angola. I have a dream to bring millions of jobs in Angola and also a big dream to build up Africa and bring education and financial inclusion. We have a company called Pay Pay Africa which is leading the fintech here in Angola and I'm very excited for you guys to hear a little bit about me and thank you for all of his team and for choosing to interview me. So thank you guys and I hope you guys enjoy the show. Cheers. You guys did this. We did. We did it. How? Hard work, knowing the market, studying, being able to study outside. And having education from America also opened up the ideas. And we have a good young team. Good young team and good people, good family. And then the last six years, the Angolan government also opened the laws. They made it easier for young entrepreneurs to be able to apply for a license for a fintech and we did it and it's going good. I think people watching us don't know who you are. I just want, first of all, my first question will be like, what makes it the biggest fintech company in the whole of Angola? It's the biggest because of transactions, the number of customers that we have. We have about already one million paying customers that are transitioning every single day. And it's one of the first also too. The biggest is also one of the first, you know. And we have many services to imagine. From our local currency, you can pay Netflix, Apple Music, you can pay services outside from our local currency. So it's big for our customers. It's good. I want you to explain this. Yeah. What does your company do? Yeah. So it's a mobile app, a digital wallet app, where we connect with all the banks in Angola. And with it, you can make payments via SMS transfers, payment by QR code. And that's pay-pay. And then inside our group, we have Dilever, which is the biggest electric car company taxi in Angola, which connects to pay-pay. So inside pay-pay, you can get your Dilever, you can get your taxi, you can order your food, you know what I'm saying. So it's a big, it's pretty much a super app. You can do anything. So that's why it's important. And you are saying it's the first ever in the country? Yeah, it's the first in Angola. So if it means that something that did not exist? It didn't exist before. Where did the idea come from then? I mean, traveling, touring, and also coming from solving problems. As we talked about before, if you go to ATM in Angola, there's many, many people trying in the line to get out cash, right? And many, many, many, many of Angola is just always cash, cash, cash. So we try to make a way to make payments more secure and able to have financial, to have your financial services more in your hand, you know? So, thank God we created this idea and it's going good, yeah. If you have the biggest FinTech company, I want to ask how many people have you guys employed so far? In the FinTech right now, this company is probably the least people at 40, but in a group, overall, it's 10,000 people. From the mobility company, Tileva, from Tupuca, which is the on-demain delivery service, which were so many restaurants, supermarkets, everything is connected to our system from the tourism app. So we have about 10,000 all young people. Okay, I'm the oldest, maybe at 31. What do you mean you're an oldest? At 31, you know, but all of them like 20, 25, 26. So we're doing things pretty good here in Angola market. No, I don't want us to rush this. I want to know the history, the dream. Who started this whole dream? It was started at, okay, first it started with me back in America. You know, I feel like I was very fortunate enough to go get a better education. You know, my parents were able to pay in education for me outside. And I was like, wow, like, Africa, there's a lot of poverty. There's a lot of lack of education and lack of job opportunities. So my dream overall was trying to bring the education I was experiencing there and bring value here, right? So that was my goal of bringing jobs, you know. So it's like, because many people that maybe didn't have this opportunity before, maybe building an economy by bringing jobs, bringing education, then people were going to be able to also start making money and start investing in the economy. So that's where the dream came from. How long did you live in America? I lived there for 17 years. But ever since I've been back here, I've been obsessed with Angola, you know. I don't understand how you get the chance to go to America. Yeah. I lived there for 17 years and decided to come back. In Africa, we have a question that we normally ask, is everything okay with you? Exactly, exactly. Is everything okay with you though? Or you want me to check? We've got to understand that America is not ours. Like, at that time Angola was in war. So the education system wasn't good. So many families, they couldn't, they put their kids outside to get a better education. But America is not ours. Our home is Africa, man. You know what I'm saying? And we have a lot of natural resources. We have a lot of opportunities. We're very, very smart. People just need a chance. You know, it sounds like, man, if I could go back and give people a chance, bring jobs, bring ideas, bring innovation, maybe I could help build, I'm doing my part. Maybe I could do my part and help build the economy. And we've been doing so. How long have you been back? Back now, about 10 years. Will you say it's worth it coming back? Of course, man. I think Angola is, you know, it's difficult. But it's your home country. It's your love. You're born here. This is your soil. This is your land. No one's taking you out. I believe that since you're playing on home grounds, you're scoring more goals. Exactly, exactly. So it's for people. And people look at you as a hero. And as an example to them. So that's why whenever I can share my stories to people, right? I try. I try my best. Sometimes I'm busy, but I try my best to go out and give speeches, right? At advance, try to do something on YouTube just to share my experience. Because I may spark a light bulb on the next entrepreneur that also is looking for ideas and motivation. You never felt like a hero in America? I mean, I played sports in America. I played football. I felt like a hero. I was very good at football and basketball, you know. But it's American. It did its job. But man, any African that's going outside and getting a better education, okay? You must come back and do your job for your economy. The economy is us. If we can't complain that Africa doesn't have the infrastructure, we need to come back and fix. Like if everyone does their part, you're going to have a big, rich economy like the Mansa Musa days as it was before, you know what I'm saying? But everyone has to do their part. We can't run away from this. It's like, thank God for the first world country that do our part in getting a better education. But we must come back and fix our economy. It needs. I really want to go around your office at a moment, but I want to ask you something. When you hear the name Africa, what comes into your mind? Opportunities, you know. Opportunities, rich, natural resources. Like I'm talking about, you can go down the street here and you'll see a palm tree. You know what I'm saying? A palm tree. Or a coconut tree, you know what I'm saying? You take this, and this grows coconut tree. Naturally, like this is natural. Without you doing anything, you can just take this coconut and you can sell it. There's countries in the world that don't grow coconut trees. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's crazy. I can go to the ground and I get a diamond. You know what I mean? The first world country is looking for this type of, you know what I'm saying? Everything grows here, but it needs us too with our knowledge to be able to explore this. If you have a message, since you also came from the diaspora, if you have a message for the diaspora, what would that message be? I mean the diaspora is anyone who was born in Africa, left, and they're not thinking of coming back home. Stop playing games. Time to come back, man. Get your education, get your degree. Come back and let's do this shit, man. It needs all of us, okay? I'm doing my part here in Angola, and many other Angolans are also motivated in doing their part. But in the future, we can create one big African economy, like as it should be. We see the first world, and they did it very, very well. But it's our time, man. And it's because our older generation, they're getting old. My parents are like 60s, you know what I'm saying? So we're going to be the future. So it's like if we don't do something now, maybe our kids are going to be living the same thing that we did. So it's time for us to make a change. Yeah. I want you to take me in there, man. Okay, good, good, good. So. Oh, thank you. Yeah. So I basically want to know how this whole system works, the apps that you have, how it works and all of that. Yeah, it's, like I said, it's one app. You download the app. It's three different apps, but all built in one. Now it's pay-pay. So it's one FinTech app, which you can buy your telephone services, TV services. You can buy, you can buy water bills, all the stuff like this. You can actually call your taxi. I guess the best way is to explain, you know? So here you can call your taxi. You can scan by QR codes. You save your money. So it's, you can do many different things inside of the pay-pay app. And we're always trying to bring more services inside. How many services are you guys running so far? I think we have like hundreds of different services, you know? But different services where you can just pay directly in the app, but from merchant standpoints in Angola, maybe we have 2,000 merchants, you know, that we can go and just pay with your phone. So without having to take out cash or paying card, you know what I'm saying? It's cash is very tricky now, you know? Yeah. Maybe the notes are fake. Maybe even the machines, it's a lot of fraud and stuff going on around the whole world with the card. So the goal is to make payments more secure. How many users do you guys have? About a million people. I've already downloaded and active users using it every single month. Wow. Yeah. Would you say just creating this app is so worth it, man? Yeah, it is. It's going good, you know? It's cool. It's alright, you know? I'm talking to a young billionaire. Not yet. Not yet. I think I wish. How soon? Yeah. Maybe 40. The goal is 40, you know? 40? Yeah. So this is off. This is off. This is some people working. Some people working here. Are people upstairs in open space? Yeah, we can go in open space, yeah. Chinese is for development, making sure that our system is secure. So you guys own this office? Yes, yes, yes, yes. The whole office? Yes, yes, yes. This part, this is our part. This part. Okay. Here we'll go to the open space, the marketing and sales team. Right now, most sales people are on the streets. Yeah. Oh, okay. Most people are on the sales street. Yeah. This is the marketing director. This is the other marketing guy. This is their little thinking area. Sometimes we do podcasts and things here. Oh. Yeah. So it's like marketing and sales. And I think we can go here. It's more like IT and customer service. Okay. I think some are having lunch right now. Oh yeah. Some are working here. I came out at lunch time. How? See, you have people that like you, right? You know me. Wow. I've been in China, right? Yep, yep, yep. I follow your videos. Wow. That's nice. Nice to see you. Good to meet you too. Yeah. Let me, let me hug you, man. Thank you. I see. I think your last, you were in Namibia. Yep. And wondering that you didn't know. The Angola, I just walked to Angola, but I couldn't get the visa to enter. But I'm here now. Yeah. So Elders are CTO. So here in charge of all the technology, the system, make sure things are working perfectly. Oh, nice. Let's take a picture. I'll take it, I'll take it here. Thank you for sure. It's good. Yeah, make good content. Here, one, two. Good, good, good. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, so I'll walk you here. Yeah, so this is a little bit of just the paper office. That's the area where they eat. Then we'll walk down here. This is my office. So this is the goal. So I guess my dream is this, you know. Okay, one young artist painted this for me, but it pictures what we're trying to do here. You see, okay, Africa, there's an Angola, but we're trying to build this. You know what I'm saying? Like we, Africa needs to be like Dubai or the next big metro city starting from Angola. But of course, the Angola is not the end point for us, right? It needs to be the whole of Africa, all the entrepreneurs to be together. So this in general is, I like to put this here. So then sometimes when you're very tired and maybe you feel a little bit unmotivated, you can look at this and be like, all right, we need to get shit done. Yeah. What has been the major challenge setting this up in Angola? Dealing, adapting to the education in here in Angola. We have a lot of people that are very motivated that want to work, they want to get jobs, but they don't have the work ethic and they don't have the skills. So it's the ones that do have the skills and educated maybe their salary range is very, very high and affordable for us. So it's like we try to work with people that are, okay, they might not have the skills, we build skills, right? We build skills, we can help with education, but we look for people that can do or die. They'll ride or die with us like midnight to midnight, they're ready to work, right? But then we'll help them grow. But at the beginning, most of the problems we have is because of this lack of skills. So it just sits, because the older generation, the education wasn't that perfect. We're losing with this, right? I know some countries like Ghana or Nigeria, the education, I know the people are very, very more skilled, but it's happening here. It just takes time. I think you have to give them a little bit of context of what he's saying. I think people don't understand. This is a country that has gone through war for over 20 years. So for him to say that, I believe that is a meaning because so far I've never been through what they've been through. It was like 30, 40 years we went to war for colonization, which was Portuguese. Once we got to country, then we went to war between ourselves. So it ended in 2002. So at that time, of course, we didn't have the best doctors, the best educators, of course. So it's just from 2022, that's when the country started building. So the country is really only 25, 30 years old. So it's not the country's fault, we're pushing. It's the generation that's coming from outside. We need to do our part in trying to make it better for the next 20, 30 years. But you know what, I'm so inspired. You look so young and what you've done. I believe that there's so many young people out there that will be so inspired of what you've done. If you speak to a younger guy watching this video right now, what will you tell him? It's time to work. I'm all about entrepreneurship and creative jobs, so we need to understand that not everyone has that skill. It's normal. If you don't have the skill to create and be a business person, then okay, find a good employer and try to do your job and try to be the best worker and give it all to them every single day and help them accomplish the dream. For those who are young and you want to try to build something, do it. You can fall. At least you're still young. When you wake up and brush your shoulders off and do it again, until that door finally opens. How many times did you fall? A lot. We still fall every day. But now I like falling. You know what I'm saying? You start getting bored and you just want to risk. Before, the first risk was always the most difficult. After the first risk, you're like, shit, I need to work. Every crazy idea, let's do it. You don't have that fear anymore. Some people have that fear. Once you let go of that fear and just jump, if you die, okay, you die, it happens. But if you don't die, okay, you get up, then you get up and do it again. I don't believe that you really want to take this business to a different part of the continent. But that's definitely a challenge. Of course. That's what I'm saying. As we said before, I think all the leaders, the politicians, need to sit in Africa. As we business people do, you sit, maybe one guy in Nigeria, remember the guy in the central, I'll tell my president to try to do this. Invite all the leaders here for a network. And they have good food, good wine, and this has a closed dialogue with each other. We all sometimes depend on support from other different African countries. But we need to open this shit up. We need to be free, right? Free, free between borders, each border. Even though we're trying to make money, okay? Let's just be open, right? For me to go to Nigeria or Ghana, I should need a visa. For you to come here, you should need a visa. You look and go on. You know what I'm saying? You look and go on. You look and go on in 10 days. 10 days of you, you're like, come on, it doesn't make sense, right? So things need to be open. And once we have this happening, I think we're going to have a lot of business between us. Maybe we can be self-sustained. As an African continent, we can be self-sustainable. But it takes someone to just do it. That's why it's like we need to go younger. Leaders need to start going younger, because I think younger people, especially the coming from different countries, you understand you need to network. For me to do what I'm doing is I've networked a lot. And I have friends that go out and go see, and you talk. And maybe our leaders right now are very political and military. You know what I'm saying? So when it's military, military people are more strong. You know what I'm saying? They have to... That's how they were born. That's how they were grown. It's not their fault, right? But I think now we're at a different level of doing business. Now needs to be networking relationship. We need to open up the market. Are you hoping that someday businessmen will run Africa? It needs to be ran by business people. Like I said, I see sometimes in the evening, politicians are going to strong positions to be minister. I'm like, what is he going to do? Once he starts making errors, it's not his fault. It's like, who appointed him in the first place? I can't appoint a doctor. For example, for my accounting, I can't appoint the guy that's a sales guy. Sales guy like money. They like commission. He can't be an accountant. If I put a sales guy in accounting and then the books are looking weird, it's my fault that I made this error. You need to find exactly who studied accounting. Who's the best? Who has a passion for it? Put them in that position. It's simple. But it takes education. That's how it needs to be. Why do we see your company in the next 10 years? In the next 10 years, man, it's a unicorn. I hope we can be all over Africa, competing with all the other African countries where it's like, even you from Ghana can have pay pay, but you can send money to your other account. I don't know other accounts you have in Ghana. It needs to be free. For me, my company is like, I'm not worried about competition, but I always try to have the best service. If everyone has my service, I'll be happy. If you had a chance to turn one thing in Africa, what would it be? I wish we had better teachers. Because through all the problems, all the big problems we have from wars, it's all miscommunication, right? It all goes by education. Education is the root. My kid is two years old. I'm seeing as a baby how these girls, education, you have to be on top of it. If you're not on top of it, he starts going right. You have to keep pushing him every day to go left. Education is the root of all of our issues, war issues from ego, from anything is education. I wish we can have the best teachers. I wish all governmental, all African countries, instead of 70 or 80% of their budget being military expanses, right? I think they should invest in having the best teachers here. Because after you have the best teachers and people are very smart, then we're going to start creating, we're going to start mining, then we're going to start producing, then we're going to start creating factories from our head. We'll think for ourselves, right? Because you can spend so much money on military, trade on things that don't matter. When people are smart, they can just do it way cheaper. Education. Are you saying there's something wrong with our education system? It's, like I said, because of war, most of the African countries, long years of war, it never built up as it should, right? So that's the biggest problem. So I think we need to step back and invest most in this. Because through everything, it's like if you have, if the kids, like Angola has 35 million people, but 70% are 15 years old and under. If these kids don't grow smart, the next 15 years, you see, we can have a flying city like Dubai, flying cars, flying everything, right? Or we'll have an economy depending on Chinese, depending on American, bringing things here. So that's why it's very, very, very important. But I heard that Angola is really heavy on imports. It's heavy on imports because, like, for example, why are we importing food? Think, why am I importing rice? When I can go to Malash, where you went? Okay, put some seeds, put some water and grow rice. You know what I'm saying? Why? But it's like, we lack education for our culture. So I feel even for me, once I came back here, I started backwards. I came from a technology, I love the America, I love Google, I started coming from this technology and I built my technology apps when I was able to bring 10,000 jobs just from this. But I think, man, Angola didn't need this, you know what I'm saying? Okay, it's good, it's a need, people are using it, but it's like, now I'm going backwards. I started taking, I'm starting a studying farm. It says, once I started making money, I bought a farm, at least 5,000 acre farm. I don't know shit about farm, but I'm learning. I'm doing what? Study and I'm starting to, all the best farmers in Angola, which do not much, starting to have lunch, start having dinner, going to the bars, just to feed off how they did it. So it's like, I think if, maybe since I, the way I motivated many people from the technology standpoint, if I do the same thing from agriculture, maybe all the young generation will start also farming. You're looking forward to investing in agriculture. Yes, yes, yes. Because we import, we import everything. You know what I'm saying? Like we import chicken. We import chicken, we import salt, everything we import. I guess the only thing you guys don't import is remote beans, man. Yeah. It doesn't make, it doesn't make sense. Like everything we grow, we can grow any product here, but like it's like, we need the education, because it takes time. Education goes, because when you're building a company, it takes patience. It's like, you need to know the products. It's like, it's all about the herd, you know? So that's, I think everything is agricultural. I believe that funding in Africa is extremely tough. Yeah. So my next question will be like, how did you guys fund this whole company? Yeah, so every, just like the way the American dream is, right? It's everything we, first we'll start, the first business started with the pulka, and then, okay, it was us and my four partners and each family member, two thousand, three thousand, like family fund, right? Everyone from the four founders did the job, and I think we had like $60,000, and we were able to like buy the app and buy a couple motorbikes, right? And with our head, because most of all the shareholders were from outside. One was Russian, the other three also were coming from America. So with our head, we were able to start. I mean, all of you, I'm going on bone and you came back? Yes, yes, yes. All of them are back. Yeah, all of them are back. That's what I'm saying. Were you brothers? And I didn't know who they were. What? I didn't know who they were. I was coming from America, and because in America, I opened up my delivery business too, in Indiana. And I was coming here, and I was starting to build my, I wanted to build it here. That was my dream, sort of doing the business plan. And you look at the competition, I put Google and golden food delivery online. And I see a guy named Eric said, shit, this guy's trying to do the same business. And he's giving a speech to his school. Yeah. And in LA, like his business plan, you know the school to end the university, you have to give a big project. Yeah. His was delivery. Okay. Shit. This guy's also doing it. Now this is where education comes. I could be like, screw these guys. These guys. Yeah, I'm not, I'm gonna do everything to be the best at the computer. I go on LinkedIn. I look at them up. Eric said, hey, how you doing, bro? I'm Wilson. Yeah. He was like, I don't know who you are, you don't know who I am. But I'm coming from America. This is my company. Trans and delivery. I've done this, you know what I'm saying? And I see that you guys are trying to do the same thing. So maybe we should try to sit. Sit. You know, so we sat at a hotel. We drank a coffee. We talked. And he had the same dream. I said, I'm trying to do this too. I'm trying to do this too. It's like, say, man, I already have some business partners that I'm doing this with. But it's like, I need, I want you in. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like me too. And I tried to network other people. It's like, man, I need people to have the same vision. So I was like, let's sit down and do it. So you met next day, the other partners that you had with, asking me so many questions. So I was like, I know the business, man. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like now, guys, let's do this. Eight years later, can we have 10,000 workers? And but this is just, if I would have been like, you know what I'm saying? I want to be alone. Yeah, man. Like we don't, you can't be greedy. You can't do shit by yourself. You need team, you know what I'm saying? The thing is I hate is doing things by myself. I was like, I need team. I need, who can help me, you know, I need a family for this business to go. That's how things happen, man. I want to say, I'm so proud of you. Thank you. And I wish I could meet all the team. But anyway, I guess you represent all of them. And my brother, thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. And I will see you at the other side. I would love to introduce some people to you. I think we'll network a lot. Definitely. In different countries that are also doing similar things. And I think they don't have the app. So probably you can just give them the whole idea. See? I don't know, maybe you might have paper in Côte d'Ivoire. Yeah. Very soon. Anyway, all the fans are going to paper. You guys want us to go there? And what? That's what I'm saying. Like, are you looking forward? Let's say somebody wants to be maybe a partner from Ghana. I want to bring a paper to... I don't know Ghana market. I have the system. I know the business. And I have a very ambitious mindset. Okay? I don't know Ghana. So it's like, I'm not going to go to Ghana and do business in Ghana without someone that's from there. So I'm like, hey, come here. I have this. I need a guy that knows the market, that can open this up, that knows the local blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying? Hey, how are you going to do it? 50, 50? Okay. 50 is this side. 50 is your side. The same way we did here, connect and let's move. You know what I'm saying? I don't need everything by myself. I don't know what I want to do. What does partnership means to you? Huh? What does partnership mean to you? Like, what am I going to do with like a hundred billion dollars? Nothing. You know what I'm saying? Like, nothing. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, if you have five, he has five, he has five, he has five. We're all just chilling. I want to be a business partner. Yeah. So we're going to go to Ghana. We're taking pay pay to Ghana. I'm there. And we're just going to talk. I'm going to give you my contact. We'll talk and see how best we can take pay pay to, I mean West Africa. I mean, I'm not a shareholder.