ANDELA’S BUSINESS MODEL (My View)
Description of Andela’s mission
History, Mission And Future
Andela was founded in the year 2014 in Lagos Nigeria by a group of technology leaders with the knowledge that there exists a global talent shortage of software engineers, and that huge gap can be bridged by a large amount of untapped talent with a background in computer science on the African continent. These technology leaders include Jeremy Johnson, Christina Sass, Ian Carnevale, Nadayar, Brice Nkengsa and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji.
With the belief that “Brilliance is evenly distributed but the opportunity is not”, these technology leaders set out on a mission to advance human potential by powering today’s teams and investing in tomorrow’s leaders. They started in May 2014 when they did a pilot application for young technologists to spend time in the company and then work for global companies. The company received 700 applications in the first cohort. Today, applications to the fellowship now come in hundreds of thousands, with an acceptance rate of less than 1% of the pool of applicants.
U.S. venture firms are increasingly investing in African startups, and with recent visits from people like Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the world is beginning to pay serious attention to tech on the continent.
In preparation for the next phase of growth and expansion within the African continent and the world beyond, in January 2019 she completed a USD100million series D funding aimed at expanding her tech talent base to over 1000 talented software engineers, and also provide partner companies with data to proper manage engineers in their distributed teams of engineers.
Business Model
Value Proposition And Key Activities
Her strength lies with the ability to harness untapped human resource. She has grown over the years with a keen eye for spotting the best technical talent.
“Andela is a network of technology leaders dedicated to advancing human potential. We help companies build high-performing distributed engineering teams by investing in Africa’s most talented software developers. Backed by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV and Spark Capital, Andela is catalyzing the growth of tech ecosystems across the African continent while solving the global technical talent shortage.” — Andela (Global Onboarding Document).
The value proposition for software engineers is simple in that the company offers the most talented technologists a platform to work with some of the world’s top engineering companies and teams and grow professionally within a short period of time. With initiatives like the Andela Learning Community, vast opportunities abound with learning resources, mentorship and more.
Distributions Channels
It is estimated that over 1.2billion people live in Africa and it is a home for 7 in 10 of the world’s fastest growing internet populations. Andela trains the best software engineers in Africa and then supplies them to work remotely from Africa for tech startups in the USA and other technology companies around the world.
Customer Relationships/Segment
In solving the problem of remote talent accessibility, she uses the distributed model of work. Top engineering brands like Automattic, Stack Overflow, Github and Atlassian have fully switched to this model so as to access the best high performing talent in a cost-effective manner.
Taking the case of IntroStellar, Andela’s Shittu started out as her MEAN stack developer and helping them complete tasks with an astonishing completion rate. Eventually, he added Java to his stack and started taking more tasks off their plate, helping them cement a relationship with Andela as a result of his high flying performance.
Revenue Streams
When Andela supplies an African developer to work for any company in the world, she collects his full-time salary and sends of the salary to the developer. The remaining two-thirds is then used for sales, marketing, overhead costs and expanding the company. Forbes estimates this revenue to be close to $20 million — https://bit.ly/2ECuRhb
Key Financial Stats:
- JUNE 2015: $12M Series A (led by Spark Capital),
- JUNE 2016: $24M Series B (led by Chan Zuckerberg with participation from Google Ventures),
- OCT 2017: $40M Series C (led by CRE),
- JAN 2019: $100M Series D (led by Generation Investment Management)
Key departments how they contribute to the company’s mission & revenue
Talent Development:
Led by VP Evan Green-Lowe, the talent development team is helping Andela shape the next generation of technology leaders by creating a channel for applications through programs like the Andela Learning Community to vet over 100,000+ applications while championing the growth of successful applicants through mentorship and curated learning paths.
People:
Responsible for recruiting people for Andela through available channels like social media and direct referrals. This team is led by Melissa Feldman with over 1,500+ employees recruited in the past 4 years.
Operations:
They have the task to create a friendly and growth inspired business environment for her software engineers and partnerships. VP Operations, Seni Sulyman is on a mission to lead teams responsible for Andela’s engineer recruitment and development, and Africa operations across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and Egypt.
Technology
The technology team is saddled with the responsibility of designing and building internal tools for Andela. Subdivided into the Apprenticeship, Core Products and Engineering teams, Chief Technology Officer David Blair has to lead these teams to success in innovating new and differentiated products, optimizing and rebuilding teams, and creating value for partners.
Marketing And Communications
Positions company brand in an attractive manner to be able to attract software engineers and partners by telling the Andela’s EPIC story of excellence, passion, integrity and collaboration.
Finance, Accounting & Legal
Responsible for financial planning, risk-averse and complaints.
Other departments my team interfaces with and how
Information
This department builds out and manages networking structures at all Andela locations. My team interfaces with the information department when network or access right issues emerge.
Success
The success department is responsible for driving Andela’s mission of placing developers on partner engagements and ensure they succeed. The VP Success Wambui Kinya is already ensuring my team and other 1000+ developers successfully exceed client goals while constantly growing and progressing as full time distributed team members.
Partnerships
They are on a mission to find partners to connect my team members and other software engineers. The partnership department plays a key role in the shaping of our future technology leaders with well over hundreds of partner companies (spread across 55 cities and 11 countries like the UK, UAE, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, France, Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand), multinationals like Viacom, Mastercard Labs and high-growth tech companies like InVision, Cloudflare, Percolate and GitHub.
How my work and my team adds value to Andela’s mission and/or revenue
I understand that Andela is an investment and that each one of us as a team is committing to invest our time doing work that will make a clear difference. We are not here to take the easy road, nor are we here to do work that doesn’t matter. We wake up every day to build a legacy, not simply to do a job.
It is also our duty to embody the EPIC values in any situation we find ourselves.
The 5 W’s and How philosophy and how it relates to my work
This philosophy refers to a simple but concise fact-finding method used in writing. It helps ensure the information I am gathering is done in the right perspective with important notes and relevance to whoever will be reading my work. To further buttress my point, here are the simple questions;
Why?
Particularly when am communicating about vision, values, broad concepts like the Andela brand, I ask the why question. E.g: Why was Andela established?
What?
When my messages are more concrete and follow a curated path, I begin with what. E.g What is the company’s revenue model?
Who?
This question takes a step further to be more direct in broad areas. Take for instance phrases or words like “technology leaders”, “software engineers” have been replaced as required in questions like “who founded Andela”, etc
Where?
In asking where I specify information I want to retrieve. For example, “where was Andela founded?”
How?
It may be last on this list, but the “how” should hardly be considered the least. The how is usually the “workhorse” of my plans and guides my information retrieval tasks and tactics. It’s also the place where discussion and even debate of ideas are more elaborate. An example can be cited in this subtopic — The 5 W’s and How philosophy and how it relates to my work.
A short list & description of the business tools
Slack:
This is the major communication tool used by Andela. Its robust features enable it to bring the majority of other tools like GitHub, pivotal tracker and others into one place. It gives everyone a shared workplace where conversations are organized and accessible.
Important notes:
- It is used for internal communications,
- Messages should be responded to in threads,
- @here and @channel are used to deliver time-sensitive information e.g when a team member is stuck in the elevator,
Zoom:
Zoom is for making conference calls. It is an important desktop app that brings teams together in one place. It has support for video calls, audio calls, chat, screen sharing and more.
Grovo:
A microlearning solution that helps team members leverage short bursts of tutorials for constant growth and development. It promotes faster and easy growth. Content is split into one that suites:
- Personal growth and development
- Departmental content
- Content for every Andelan
Canvas:
This is a simple learning management system for fellows in Andela. It supports feedback, assessments and advancement.
BambooHR:
This tool is an online human resource software service that eases people management. “Its goal is to get users out of tracking employees in spreadsheets and into a personalized software that frees up work time”. — Technology Advice.
References
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-the-5-ws-in-writing-uses-examples.html
