Written by Jacques Coetzee | From VentureBurn
A new Ghana-based startup wants to give small African businesses a leg up via an online portal that provides tools and resources for financial management.
While studying Economics and Management Studies at Princeton University, Start Smart founder and CEO Juliana Taylor became interested in emerging markets and business development within those regions. “I enjoyed the prospect of being in an environment that was unpredictable and would constantly challenge me,” she explains.
After graduation, she moved to Ghana where she started working for Google, with the focus largely being on SME outreach programmes. During her work there, Taylor identified a need in the country that she felt she could help with: cheap yet professional access to consulting, training and bookkeeping solutions for businesses.
“My work brought me into direct contact with many entrepreneurs and in the process, I was able to infer that many of the challenges that they faced were tied to inadequate access to appropriate tools and training resources.” This lead her to launch Start Smart in January 2014 — a “startup for startups” that offers entrepreneurs with the advice, training and tools that they need to succeed.
Based in Ghana, Start Smart (not to be confused with South Africa’s StartSmart) is an online financial management portal, developed specifically to support the growth and development of African businesses.
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