Weathering the Storm  Bamba Lô, CEO, Paps    It was during his time as a university exchange student that Bamba Lô, CEO and founder of Paps, had his first taste of Senegal’s business world. He decided that he would, one day, move to Dakar. Now, the whole of Africa is well and truly in this insatiable Senegalese entrepreneur’s sights. After graduating business school (IDRAC, Paris), Lô first worked in video conferencing software publishing before going on to a banking and insurance consultancy firm. The second startup in his portfolio after a foray into outsourcing services, Paps is Francophone Africa’s first on-demand delivery company, connecting private clients and individuals with delivery drivers. Just six years after its inception in 2016, over 10 million deliveries have already taken place. Its community of “Papsers” , or delivery drivers, connects customers from Dakar with Senegal’s villages on a daily basis. Now a leading startup in Francophone Africa with $4.5 million raised in January 2022, we are proud to bring you these excerpts from our interview with Bamba Lô as part of our Weathering the Storm series.     How did you come up with the idea for Paps?  Paps is the result of an experience rather than an idea. I once worked with a call centre in Senegal that sold subscriptions. They noticed that a significant number of purchase intentions did not translate into actual sales. The reason for this was mainly due to physical limitations, particularly travel to branches. So they decided to outsource this service to the company I was working for. We realised that there was a lot of potential in this area and almost no competition – or at least, formal competition. With Paps, we can provide a formal delivery service to companies that need it. We devised technology solutions that allow us … Continue reading “We want to connect Francophone countries”