About Today’s Guest

John Armah is an award-winning entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of  Orios Group. Orios Group is a holding company with 3 subsidiaries namely GCEEI, and Orios Foundation committed to redefining wealth creation in Africa.

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What We Discuss In This Episode

• [1:10] How John grew up from his humble beginnings as a teenager struggling to pay his school fees to building skills and experience in diverse fields by taking up roles in many places which eventually contributed to his decision to start Orios Group.
• [5:55] How John, despite having many passions decided to focus on what he could do to provide value to businesses and startups through Orios group.
• [8:00] How John leveraged LinkedIn to attract the high profile people he currently works with.
• [9:50] What motivated John to start a company which helps startups create more jobs.
• [12:05] How John raised initial funding to start Orios Group
• [13:56] John talks about Patient Capital and why Orios is focused on helping startups raise patient capital
• [17:24] John shares his opinions on whether Ghana and Africa and going to be one of the forerunners in investing in startups.
• [19:25] John talks about Orios capital and how they are helping startups by providing them with patient capital to help them develop proof of concepts so as to attract bigger investments.
• [22:05] John talks about his motivation to start GCEEI, the subsidiary of Orios group which runs a startup school to train entrepreneurs and shares success stories from the startup business school.
• [27:00] John talks about the challenges and experiences he has faced along the way and how those experiences have shaped him.
• [29:10] John talks about the factors he considers when hiring people to join his team.
• [30:20] John shares some advice with people with ideas who want to get started with their own business.

Key Takeaways

• It is important to go beyond just being passionate about something to figuring out how you can deliver value.
• Social media is key to building networks. It is important to leverage platforms such as LinkedIn to find partners who can help your business grow.
• Local businesses are only willing to support when there is an intrinsic support business when there is an who have the money are always looking for proof of concept
• The government has a role to play in creating an ecosystem for startups to thrive.
• Emotional intelligence and knowing how to manage relationships among partners is an essential skill to have.
• The best people to hire are those who share your vision and the way to know that is to look at their attitude.
• Luck doesn’t happen. It takes God and it takes preparation.
• Strong governance structures are important to ensure that your startup thrives.
• Focus on building skills and developing yourself personally.

Resources Mentioned

• Orios Group
• GCEEI Startup Business Schools
• Patient Capital

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