People

Small on purpose, and staying that way.

Small on purpose. Everyone here has built something and had something fail, which turns out to be the useful combination when you are starting companies from scratch.

The studio team

Usman

Managing partner

AW

Partner

Feyisara W

Build54 Programs Coordinator

Mukthar Y

Design

Toby

Design

D. Mwangi

Head of engineering

S. Kariuki

Design lead

F. Otieno

Go to market

R. Wanjiru

Studio operations

Venture partners

Not on the payroll, and they show up.

Independent advisors we bring in for one thing they know better than we do. They sit outside the studio, take no salary from it, and are usually the reason a venture gets through a wall six months early.

[email protected]

Ecosystem partner

Opens doors in a market we are new to: regulators, incumbents, the person who can unstick a licence in a week rather than a quarter.

Sourcing partner

Sees founders and problems before anyone else does, and sends the ones worth an argument our way.

Strategic partner

An institution with distribution, or a problem big enough to build a company against. Sometimes both.

Technical partner

Deep in one domain, on call for the week a venture hits the part nobody in the room has done before.

Operating partner

Has run the thing at scale already. Steps in for a stretch when a company outgrows the people in it.

Open roles

We hire builders, not analysts.

If you want to start companies but not alone, this is the closest thing going.

Founding engineer

Full stack, in the room, on whichever venture needs you most this quarter.

Nairobi · full time

Product designer

Brand one week, onboarding flow the next. Comfortable drawing badly in front of people.

Nairobi · full time

Venture lead

Run the pressure test, then run at the wall with the founder for six months.

Nairobi · full time

Sales lead

First revenue for whichever venture is closest to it. You will be closing, not enabling.

Nairobi · full time

Go to market

Own the launch: channel, pricing, the first hundred customers. Different market every quarter.

Nairobi · full time

Operations

Incorporations, filings, payroll, the residence and the Monday demos. Nothing slips.

Nairobi · full time

Hardware engineer

Benches, boards and small runs. For the ventures where the product is a physical thing.

Nairobi · full time

Research engineer

Data, models and instrumentation for the ventures working closest to the frontier.

Nairobi · full time

Speculative

Nothing above fits but you keep starting things anyway? Write to us regardless.

Always open

Want a desk at the long table?

Whether you are joining the studio or starting a company inside it, the first step is the same.