Oct 3, 2026 · 57 min · 12 segments
Building the Bloomberg of Africa with Preston Ideh, Co-Founder & CEO, Stears (@stears\_data) and Host of The Star Network Podcast, Zephia Ovia-Ikem In this episode we discuss 📌 Raising capital and…
Preston IdehGuest
Zephia Ovia-IkemHost
Most importantly, what I really appreciate is you saying that you should have a bit of traction because That was something that I really took out of the points that you've raised that sometimes maybe startups position as, look, I'm new.
Where is the traction that what you're actually building one is in demand? Like you said, you had started something.
You are able to demonstrate that what Stez is putting together, there's product market fit, people who are willing to pay for what you're providing, which means that it is valuable, which means that it is something that is probably going to be sustainable in the next five to 10 years.
So it wasn't just, hey, I have an idea, come and give me money, but why should I give you money? And what I'm hearing is the ability to demonstrate that the idea that you have is actually worthwhile.
And it's almost like people want to see that you can also put some money into your own business or you've generated some sort of revenue before they can trust to invest into that thing.
And you also mentioned just who are the founders, right? Because like you said, the business doesn't have legs, which is interesting to use.
But you as a person, and I'm starting to hear that... a lot in conversations with people who are in the VC space where they say they look at you they look at the founding team okay what is the history from the work experience of the CEO or the CTO and people actually look at things like that so as well having credibility as a person in terms of what you've done they can sort of they can sort of like project and say This is where I see this company going.
The other day I was having a conversation with someone and we're talking about education.
She said, why do you think Harvard has people like presidents that come out? Why do you think schools like where we went to LSE has people like presidents? They bring out the best people.
And she said, no, the minute that they submit an application from the person's historical on that application, The university can already project this person is likely going to be president before giving them the acceptance.
They can project this person is going to sit at the UN table, right? And I am starting to feel like that's pretty much the same mindset as you know venture capitalists like they must look at certain based on this track record and who this person is i foresee and they kind of like project into that so i like that you've raised that and i hope you know i'm sure like the audience will get like a lot from it yeah
Most importantly, what I really appreciate is you saying that you should have a bit of traction because That was something that I really took out of the points that you've raised that sometimes maybe startups position as, look, I'm new.
Where is the traction that what you're actually building one is in demand? Like you said, you had started something.
You are able to demonstrate that what Stez is putting together, there's product market fit, people who are willing to pay for what you're providing, which means that it is valuable, which means that it is something that is probably going to be sustainable in the next five to 10 years.
So it wasn't just, hey, I have an idea, come and give me money, but why should I give you money? And what I'm hearing is the ability to demonstrate that the idea that you have is actually worthwhile.
And it's almost like people want to see that you can also put some money into your own business or you've generated some sort of revenue before they can trust to invest into that thing.
And you also mentioned just who are the founders, right? Because like you said, the business doesn't have legs, which is interesting to use.
But you as a person, and I'm starting to hear that... a lot in conversations with people who are in the VC space where they say they look at you they look at the founding team okay what is the history from the work experience of the CEO or the CTO and people actually look at things like that so as well having credibility as a person in terms of what you've done they can sort of they can sort of like project and say This is where I see this company going.
The other day I was having a conversation with someone and we're talking about education.
She said, why do you think Harvard has people like presidents that come out? Why do you think schools like where we went to LSE has people like presidents? They bring out the best people.
And she said, no, the minute that they submit an application from the person's historical on that application, The university can already project this person is likely going to be president before giving them the acceptance.
They can project this person is going to sit at the UN table, right? And I am starting to feel like that's pretty much the same mindset as you know venture capitalists like they must look at certain based on this track record and who this person is i foresee and they kind of like project into that so i like that you've raised that and i hope you know i'm sure like the audience will get like a lot from it yeah
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