LIONESS WEEKENDER COVER STORY
Easy Solar, a fast-growing off-grid solar company in Africa powering over 1 million people
Nthabiseng Mosia is a trailblazing African social entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Easy Solar, one of the fastest-growing off-grid solar companies in Africa. Easy Solar distributes and finances high-quality solar solutions for those with limited access to the grid. Created in 2016, Easy Solar has powered over 1 million people, while creating jobs for more than 800 in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
As a South African-Ghanaian dual-citizen, Nthabiseng (Nthabi) is Pan-African at heart, passionate about building community-driven solutions to Africa’s development challenges. Nthabi is a sought after global speaker and thought leader. She has taken centre stage at numerous world stages, including President Biden’s Leaders on Climate Summit. Nthabi was named Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2019 by the World Economic Forum, Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year by Forbes Africa in 2020 and an inaugural Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst in 2021.
Lioness Weekender spoke to the inspirational and impact-driven Nthabiseng Mosia about her entrepreneurial journey, her shared goal of reducing energy poverty, and her ambitions for the future,
What does your company do?
Easy Solar is a leading energy distribution company in West Africa, providing financing on high-quality solar systems and appliances for those with limited or no access to the conventional grid. Customers can finance their purchase over time by paying in weekly or monthly installments, with the option to pay via cash or mobile money. To date, Easy Solar has reached more than 1 million people, distributed through our extensive network of +400 agents and outlets across Sierra Leone and Liberia.
What inspired you to start your company?
Born in Ghana and raised in South Africa, I am a Pan-African at heart who is passionate about building homegrown solutions to the continent’s most pressing development challenges. I was cognizant from a young age about the centrality electricity has in daily life as South Africa's national grid would go down in my home, leaving my family and I scrounging around in the dark. While I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to electricity services, I've also become acutely aware, through my travels around the continent, that many Africans (in fact two-thirds) lack access to electricity and are still using expensive, polluting and at times toxic lighting alternatives. These influences inspired me to pursue a Masters in Energy Finance and Policy at Columbia University in 2014, where I met my co-founders and subsequently started the company.
Why should anyone use your service or product?
Easy Solar is focused on some of the most energy deprived parts of the world, namely Sierra Leone and Liberia, where 75% of population are not on the grid. Despite low income levels in these markets, we found that households and SMEs are making bad investments in stopgap technologies, like diesel generators, candles, torchlights, and kerosene.
We make power accessible for all through a last-mile distribution network of community-based agents in rural areas and shops in urban hubs. These distribution outlets are all provided with a smartphone, where account activations and payments are recorded and tracked through a pay-as-you-go application, that is synced with a centralized CRM hub.
We make power affordable for all through a range of solar solutions available on credit. Because solar is modular, clients can start small, build their credit history and migrate up the energy ladder.
Our ethos is to meet people where they are, both physically by going to the last mile, but also at a price point and flexibility of payment plans that fits their pocket, all enabled by smart IOT technology embedded in the hardware, and a fintech software platform that allows for remote monitoring of payment profiles.
Tell us a little about your team
Our team is made up of incredibly talented individuals across the two markets we operate. Our C-Suite is comprised of:
Alex (CEO)
Leads strategy, fundraising, and business development. Alex has 5 years of experience in M&A, Strategy and Financial consulting. Following two Master Degrees (in Advanced Computing and Energy & Telco), he did an MPA program to transition into the realm of people who try to make the world a better place.
Matthew (CFO)
Matthew is an experienced Finance Professional, Big 4 trained; held CFO, Head of Finance and Group Financial Controller positions in multinational, multi-site organisations in Africa, ASEAN and UK Plc. and Limited Company environments. Background in Renewables, FMCG, and Managed Services, within IFRS, UK GAAP, US GAAP and ASEAN accounting standards.
Zorah (CPO)
Leads people & culture department. Zorah is highly skilled with over 15 years in Executive Management, Human Resource Management, Succession and effective Workforce planning and Employee Relations, Networking, Leadership, Negotiations, Project Management, Organizational Development, Budgeting and Financial Analysis.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
The idea of entrepreneurship was something that always seemed far away from me initially. As the first generation of children to participate in South Africa's new democracy, the expectation was that we would all aspire to well-paying jobs and respected professions. Entrepreneurship as such was always seen as something done when you've already had a career, savings and the established networks.
In many ways, I was lucky that the idea for Easy Solar originally arose while pursuing my Masters at Columbia, because the school and its entrepreneurial ecosystem nurtured and supported us through grant competitions, mentors and accelerator programs. You had to work hard, but for those who did, the ecosystem was ready to support and I think that's one of the privileges of being able to attend a prestigious program like that. Sadly not enough of those are available on the continent yet.
When we decided to pursue Easy Solar full time, my friends, family and fellow graduate students, while mostly supportive, thought I was crazy for passing up the potential for a well-paid, secure job in order to start the company in Sierra Leone, but I’ve always felt like somewhat of a square peg in a world full of round holes.
While this is my first entrepreneurial endeavour, I have always had an adventurous spirit, and have striven to push the envelope and look for creative solutions to challenges. My co-founders and I submitted our business plan for the idea to several different competitions and we were fortunate enough to win two major ones, along with a couple of hackathons around New York. These grants allowed us to conduct an energy survey of ~1,500 households across Sierra Leone and pilot our business to customers from March to July 2016. Our business plan has seen many iterations but we remain true to our goal of reducing energy poverty.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
Easy Solar aspires to be a pan-African provider of energy services and life-improving products. We are looking to expand into Guinea and other African markets in the near future, and deepen our penetration in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Furthermore, we seek to expand our offer to more productive uses of solar, and scale up our commercial and industrial services to larger clients looking to become independent of the grid.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
Running a business over the last 7 years has been a challenging journey, with many hurdles and pitfalls along the way. If anything, the one thing you can be assured of, is that the next challenge or fire to put out is always around the corner. But I stay and endure because I deeply believe in our mission and vision. Energy is a fundamental human right, and the fact that almost 600 million people of the continent lack access to modern energy, to me is a grave injustice, especially when you consider that electricity is the foundation of our world today. It's at the centre of communication technology, financial services, AI, modern agriculture, industry, education. Our continent and people will never fully compete and take place on a centre stage until we have the foundation of any modern economy, which is affordable, reliable and consistent electricity.
At an individual level, for many of our customers it's their first time having access to any form of electricity. To listen to them share their stories (whether it's how their children can now study better at night, how they feel more secure at night, or how they appreciate the customer service and dedication that our sales team provides them with), that gives me this humbling feeling that I've created something beyond myself; that the work that we do as a company has meaning for our customers and their families.
In addition, the challenge of having to constantly learn on the spot, of knowing you'll feel uncomfortable and uncertain on a day-to-day basis is also such a rush. Everyday looks different because you have to respond and adapt and give your all. That's something I find incredibly satisfying to wake up to.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Never apologize for wanting a seat at the table and pursuing your dreams. For African women in particular, there will be times, in fact more often than not, when you look around a room (whether it’s of investors, fellow entrepreneurs, or potential partners) and wonder where your place is in this world. Don't let feeling like an outlier deter you from being the change in representation that you want to see in the world.
In my opinion, being daring enough to create something that makes people’s lives better means that you belong there, because that's courage. And courage and perseverance in entrepreneurship are everything. It's not going to be easy and that's not necessarily because you're a woman, that's because entrepreneurship is not for the fainthearted. Being a woman can make it harder, and that means you have to have a doubly thick skin.
Try to seek out mentors and safe spaces that can help you deal with the challenges that are unique to being an African woman in a western male-dominated space. I have found that this makes all the difference and can help the tough times seem a little less darker and lonely.
But most of all, my advice is jump. Find an ecosystem to nurture your ideas, because going at it alone is virtually impossible. Go after what you want. Dare to go after your dreams, no matter how ridiculous they or the notion of you being the one to achieve them seems.
To find out more about Easy Solar, contact Nthabiseng Mosia via email: nthabi@easysolar.org and visit the company’s website and social media channels.
Website: http://www.easysolar.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/easysolar.sl
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/easysolar_sl
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/easysolar.sl
YouTube or Vimeo Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzNXUXyg_h7uyfYqt3J34Q
