The economic components for a digital economy

On Sunday, a well-known founder in Nigeria’s startup ecosystem asked me an interesting question. 

“Hey Tokunbo, random question. If you were building an economy from scratch, what would be the key components?”

“Hmm”, was my first reaction. This was my favourite type of question because it forces one to go back to the foundation of the structures that we now take for granted. It’s the type of deep thinking that allows your mind to redesign the wheel. 

The question was not a random one. As all great minds do, this founder was trying to build. He wanted to understand the necessary layers for Nigeria to create a functioning digital economy. 

If you haven’t noticed, the world is in the middle of a big transformation. And I found an article from TechCrunch that articulates the shift perfectly. 

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular