There was no honest playbook for building in Africa. So we wrote one.
There was no honest playbook for building in Africa. So we wrote one.
A lot of entrepreneurship advice comes from markets that work very differently. But African founders build around different customers, capital, infrastructure, and opportunities.
So what changes when Africa becomes the starting point?
Markets Don’t Lie explores what entrepreneurship looks like across African markets and where common startup advice does, and does not, fit.
It draws attention to the lessons founders across the continent are already learning.
And it asks:
What would entrepreneurship advice look like if we started with Africa?
For founders, investors, ecosystem builders, policymakers, students, and aspiring entrepreneurs.
For anyone working with African businesses or trying to better understand how entrepreneurship works across the continent.
And for the simply curious who want to learn more about the people, markets, opportunities, and challenges shaping African entrepreneurship.
Access to our community of like minded people
The first two chapters of the book for free
The upcoming chapters as soon as they are ready
Venture builder, operator, teacher, and writer, Khalil has spent eight years on a single problem: why capable African founders build real companies and still never reach the capital that should back them.
His reading turns the usual logic on its head. The constraint is not money or talent. It is execution and a system that never thinks to look for these founders in the first place.
The work came before the theory. He has assessed thousands of entrepreneurs and companies, worked closely with more than a hundred, and collaborated with dozens of investors, accelerators, incubators and entrepreneurship programs, across at least twenty African countries.
A research paper on investment in Africa grew out of that work. It was never published in a journal. Yet, founders, investors and the media picked it up anyway. His conviction is that the subject can only be understood up close, beside founders, investors and governments at the same time.
He founded the Pan African Center for Entrepreneurship to do the work, and Markets Don’t Lie is where he makes the case.
Everything you need to know before preordering
The full release date will be announced soon. If you preorder, you’ll be among the first to receive the book once it is released.
You’ll get early access to the first two chapters and secure your copy of the full book ahead of release. You will also get:
The first two chapters will be sent digitally after you preorder. You’ll be able to start reading them before the full book is released.
Mainly digital, with a limited physical release that will be announced later.
The book is for founders, investors, ecosystem builders, policymakers, students, and anyone interested in entrepreneurship across Africa. It is especially relevant if you have ever questioned whether common startup advice actually fits the market you are working in.
No. It is also for anyone interested/investing in, supporting, studying, or working with entrepreneurs across African markets.
No. The argument is not that we should stop learning from other ecosystems, but that we should be more careful about what we copy, what we adapt, and what actually fits African markets.
No. African markets are too different for one single formula, and this book does not try to create one.
Preordering gives you early access to the first two chapters and puts you among the first readers to receive the full book. It also helps support the launch before the official release.
Yes. You can preorder from anywhere in the world.
