Letting go of anything you are heavily invested in is a tough decision for most people to make. Through blood, sweat and tears, entrepreneurs build businesses and sacrifice a lot to see them grow. So much is put into growing this “baby” that stepping away from it is a decision few willingly make. In 2018, Abu Musuuza made the decision to step down as the CEO of Village Energy, a company he had dedicated the better part of the last ten years of his life to. However, as a social entrepreneur, Abu moved on to co-found FLIP Africa through which he hopes to tackle another challenge in Africa – unemployment. He was gracious enough to speak to us about making the tough decision and what is next for him.
On Letting Go
About two years ago, after a conversation Abu had with two friends on the challenges they were facing regarding hiring talent, the idea of creating an avenue for young people to book jobs was birthed. Abu also grappled with the fact that 281 million young people across the continent are either unemployed or underemployed and going to great lengths to escape this, even if their lives would be in danger.
Abu had spent almost ten years growing Village Energy to what it is now. This was starting to take its toll on him.
“I went through all of it. We faced a lot of cash flow challenges. There were times people walked out on us because we couldn’t pay them. A team of 8 could quickly be reduced to just 3 people.”
They went through a cycle of highs and lows before eventually getting on their feet.
“After all this I eventually got to a point where it was obvious to me that I wasn’t the best person for the job any more. I was no longer motivated to deal with finer details and operational aspects because I was exhausted,” he said, “My co-founder, Jay and I were fighting over the same things. I was also too attached to the business and could no longer be objective about many things.”
This experience taught Abu how important it is for founders to hire someone else to run their businesses, if they can.
This experience taught Abu how important it is for founders to hire someone else to run their businesses, if they can. This isn’t a foreign concept for larger companies; for example Facebook has Sheryl Sandberg running the business and not Mark Zuckerberg, who is the persona and the vision bearer.
“Even if I had all the money in the world five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have stepped down as CEO because I was blinded by passion.”
Abu has since learned that you don’t have to be the one to plant the flag on top of the hill. In his opinion, a social entrepreneur in Africa should do more than one business in his/her lifetime, otherwise the world is robbed of many solutions. They should set things up, find the right people to run them, then focus on solving the next problem – which he has tried to do with Village Energy and hopefully eventually with FLIP Africa.
In addition, Abu was excited at the possibility of turning around the fortunes of millions of young people in Africa by helping them get the opportunity to earn more.
On Having an Exit Plan
“At the time I started Village Energy, passion and vision made me believe I would run it for the rest of my life. The only exit I imagined was a buy-out. However, as I matured, that changed.”
Even though the idea of stepping down lingered in his mind for about 8 months, he buried it because he was conflicted. He felt guilty for walking out on Jay and all the people who had given up a lot in order to work at Village Energy.
“I eventually realized that passion could only take us so far. Someone else needed to take this business that I love even further.”
“I realized that passion could only take us so far. Someone else needed to take this business that I love even further.”
Abu had a moment of transcendence during a conversation with Jay and it was clear to him that he needed to step down.
“Jay had been sounding the war drums for a while. During this particular conversation, I studied our interaction and I knew it was time,” Abu said, “Saying this to him was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do because I wasn’t sure how he’d react.”
However, Jay was calm about it and wanted to have a more in-depth conversation to understand his reasons. With time, it made sense to him as well. This was not an easy decision for Abu and he admits that he was scared.
“I wasn’t going to get paid anymore. Where would I get the money to do all these things I wanted to do? All these thoughts played in my mind.”
After telling Jay, he started sliding it into conversations with the team during team meetings to mentally prepare them. He would encourage them to build capacity because he wasn’t always going to be there. After repeatedly saying this, they started to suspect it before he officially made the announcement.
“Some were disappointed while others contemplated leaving as well. It also mattered a lot who replaced me.”
On Finding a successor
Waringa Matindi replaced Abu after he stepped down as CEO of Village Energy. He is now the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
When he stepped down, they looked for a successor that would be a good cultural fit and shared similar values as them. They also wanted someone who had an excellent operations background. Luckily, most of the people in the Acumen community tick off most of these boxes, which is how they found her. They were also in luck because she was transitioning out of her previous role at this point in her life.
“She has had to make many tough calls since she joined. Decisions I couldn’t make because I was too emotionally attached to everything, including the employees, especially those who’d been with us since the start but were no longer performing.”
Often times, a change at the top has a negative effect on the perception of the business as a whole. However, this wasn’t the case for Village Energy.
“We were praised for hiring a woman to run an energy company because there aren’t that many in Uganda,” he said, “The idea that the founder left and hired a new CEO also showed that we were serious about growth.”
“The idea that our Founder stepped down and hired a new CEO showed that we were serious about growth.”
On Lessons Learned
This experience showed Abu the kind of entrepreneur he is. He learned that with an endless number of problems to tackle, he is not one to be with something for 20-50 years. However, he also learned how difficult it is to leave. To a large extent, most of us define ourselves by what we do.
“I struggled with this a lot. If you take Village Energy away, then who am I? It is very difficult to separate yourself from what you do, especially when you have spent the past 10 years of your life building it.”
“It is very difficult to separate yourself from what you do and most of us define ourselves by what we do.”
After stepping down, he logged himself straight into FLIP Africa because he was afraid of not having the identity as the CEO of Village Energy.
“I don’t know if I have totally dealt with this. I still have residual anxiety as I start FLIP Africa.”
Abu also had to be intentional about giving Waringa the space to do what she was supposed to. At the start, it was very easy to slip back into the business operations because people would find it easier to come to him for certain problems and not Waringa. He is learning to build this distance in order to give her the space to step into her role.
“We had to define what my relationship with Waringa would be. Initially I was supposed to come in every week to ease the transition. In essence, though, there would be two CEOs and initially they’d be a tendency of leaning towards me in times of crisis.”
They then decided that it would be strictly a Board-CEO relationship. As Chairman of the Board, Abu will measure her success solely based on the numbers. Are they growing? Are they attracting more investment?
“I have been coming in once a week since October to meet with her. During this meeting, we discuss what’s happened during the week, any issues etc., with the focus being on the numbers mainly. This will gradually turn into a monthly meeting and then a quarterly one.”
Moving Forward with FLIP Africa
Abu co-founded FLIP Africa with Neha Pandya in 2018. FLIP disrupts traditional hiring systems and redefines work by tapping into the potential of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector—creating a platform for jobs that are currently invisible and which fall outside traditional full-time employment, while providing the requisite social protections that are often lacking in this space. It democratizes access to these jobs through its ratings-based job-matching platform.
“I have always admired Neha. She is very astute when it comes to operations and has taken us further than I would have on my own,” he said.
Going forward with FLIP, Abu hopes to bring a few things from Village Energy and to do others a bit differently.
“I will hire much slower. At Village Energy, we didn’t utilize the per square meter of people we had. As soon as a new team member came in to fill one role, we were on the hunt for someone else to fill another one. Instead of paying a whole Shs. 2m for someone else to come in and do something else, why not pay an extra Shs. 800k to the same person to do more?”
At FLIP, he will utilize people a lot more and hire more roles on a short term basis. He will also keep a strong culture of storytelling to build their organizational culture.
“As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time pitching to investors, potential partners etc. but not to our staff so they really never understand where we are coming from, why we are doing this and how the work is an extension of ourselves. Therefore, there isn’t that much openness in the workplace.”
At FLIP, Abu has told his story to Neha and she’s done the same with him. They plan on doing this for all their hires because it is a great way to know who will be a good fit in the organization. What events in your life have led to this point? How does this role contribute to the general direction of your life? Such a connection creates loyalty to you and the company.
A culture of story-telling at the point of hiring new team members helps you know who will be a good fit in the organization.
Onward, Forward!
This year is important to FLIP because it is an MVP year for them as they test their hypothesis.
“I am also excited to see Village Energy growing. I expect us to lead the movement on productive uses of energy. I am also looking forward to sitting on the board and not having to deal with the daily operational details.”
We are excited to see the great things Jay, Waringa and the entire Village Energy team will accomplish and wish Abu, Neha and everyone at FLIP a world of success as they raise this new baby!
Songa Mbele!
*Flowers to Abu for sharing his experience with us!