Two Jamaican Angel Investors walked into a cafe here in Kingston, Jamaica today, I was there working. We spoke. One is white, British, been living here for decades.The other is what we call Jamaican white. Both obviously yet understatedly rich, propertied ad established in the business community with their various business holdings. They are new Angel Investors. One of them knew me before this impromptu lunch meetup.
After asking me what I do, he asked if I am in tuned with the entrepreneurs in the tech space. I said yep, here in Jamaica, across the Caribbean and Diaspora too. Been so for 11years and will continue to be so. They then said they are Angel Investors here in Jamaica and I hurried to ask which startups have they invested in and who do they like.
They proceeded to share the name of two startups that I am familiar with and I go hmmm…Ok. I knew them both. Then after sharing what they liked about the startup ideas-they said…well you don’t really invest in startups, you invest in the Entrepreneurs. I agreed. Then there came the big but.
THEM: “we have an execution problem here…Entrepreneurs love to see themselves in the press and feel good.
ME: YES, YES and YES! Shaking my head violently. And then in my head, Fuck what you’re about to do. Tell me about your customer and how much money you made. I could not care less how many goddamn competitions you have won and which blogs love you…sure that’s all nice and shit, but you know you ain’t shit that if after two years all you can put on your startup website is a list of competitions you won and number of press interviews you did and can’t share the metrics that really matter.
So lemme ask you this. Caribbean Tech Entrepreneurs: Do We have an Execution Problem!!?
And having produced and hosted over 100 Caribbean Tech events and listen to and judged over 1,000 Caribbean startups from eight Caribbean countries over the years, I had kinda declared that we are now, after 11 years in of the development of the Jamaican tech ecosystem, that we are now officially in the hype phase… What I mean by that is…we are in the space now where the real entrepreneurs separate from the pack and the hypsters are left behind.
This is a good thing by the way. It shows a maturing of the ecosystem and in the process, we see the few, the bold, the brave, the battle scared and the excited rise from the shadows. This is where we will see who remains on the grind of figuring out their business and how are left in a heaping pile of hype dust.
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