African Startups can mitigate failure through psychology-driven framework – Aderinwale

…suggests structured founders’ evaluation.

A startup expert, Zainab Aderinwale, has identified the reasons why many young African business startups fail during the early stages of their ventures, attributing the trend to inadequate evaluation of the internal structures that define sustainable businesses.

Zainab Aderinwale in a business chat with media highlighted that despite increasing access to ideas, mentorship, and funding, many ventures continue to experience premature failure due to the frequent neglect of structured founder evaluation.

In her critical analysis of startup fundamentals, she explained how approximately 90 percent of startups globally, as revealed in a 2019 Tech Startup review, fail during their early stages.

She explained: “Research and insights from founders, including analyses by the SkyNova team, indicate that startup failures are often attributed to limited funding or insufficient investor interest.”

She further noted that the Startup Genome 2022 Global Startup Ecosystem Report confirms that most early-stage startup failures are often caused by internal factors rather than external market conditions.

“In Africa, despite increasing access to ideas, mentorship, and funding, many ventures continue to face premature failure.

“A critical element frequently overlooked in these analyses is the structured evaluation of founders themselves. Conventional approaches typically emphasize ideas, market traction, or funding readiness, but rarely assess whether a founder’s intrinsic motivation, problem understanding, and solution design are aligned with the venture’s long-term success,” she said.

Aderinwale stressed that startups can be restructured and founders can learn from mistakes and rebuild, yet failure is often treated as a final outcome.

“This raises an essential question: should structured founder evaluation occur from the very inception of a venture in order to develop founders capable of learning from failure, iterating, and sustaining their ventures over time?

“As exemplified by Aliko Dangote, one of Africa’s most successful entrepreneurs, repeated failures across sectors such as telecom, textiles, and airlines provided the experience necessary to achieve long-term success with his cement business.

“Startups require founders with resilient mindsets, persistence, and a willingness to iterate. These are some of the essential qualities that structured evaluation can identify and cultivate from the earliest stages,” Aderinwale added.

To address the challenge of premature startup failure and under-evaluated founders, Aderinwale developed the Passion, Problem and Solution (PPS) Founder Acceleration Framework, a psychology-driven methodology for evaluating and developing startup founders.

The framework is currently implemented at FirstFounders Venture Studio, led by David Lanre Messan, a distinguished entrepreneur and mentor recognized internationally for supporting startups and helping early-stage ventures raise more than $10 million in funding with industry impact that speak volumes.

According to Aderinwale, the PPS Framework evaluates founders across three interconnected dimensions that collectively assess founder readiness, strategic alignment, and venture potential.
She explained that the first dimension, Passion (alignment and resilience), evaluates whether a founder’s intrinsic motivation, values, and long-term commitment align with the venture.

“Organizational psychology research shows that founders’ passion and resilience strongly correlate with startup performance, particularly in high-uncertainty environments. By assessing psychological readiness and alignment with venture goals, this step ensures that mentorship and capital are directed toward founders who can endure early-stage challenges.

“At FirstFounders, this assessment has helped identify founders who remain fully engaged throughout acceleration programs, reducing attrition and ensuring resources are efficiently allocated,” she said.
The second dimension, Problem (validation of market significance), evaluates whether the venture addresses a validated market need and whether the founder deeply understands the problem.

“Many startups pursue ideas that are interesting but lack sufficient market demand or significance. Using structured market research and behavioral insights, PPS assesses the urgency, impact, and relevance of the problem for the target audience.

“For instance, the fintech startup Syarpa, which leverages digital asset solutions to innovate payments in Africa, successfully closed a $500,000 pre-seed round after its founder was evaluated and supported using the PPS framework. Similarly, Ucard, which enables digital commerce for offline retail markets, was guided through PPS evaluation, contributing to broader funding successes exceeding $10 million for multiple early-stage ventures.”
The third dimension, Solution (feasibility and strategic fit), examines operational, technical, and market feasibility.

“It integrates systems thinking and innovation strategy to ensure ventures can deliver measurable outcomes and scale effectively. This step allows venture studios to prioritize investments in startups with the highest likelihood of success while mitigating early-stage risk.

“Implementation at FirstFounders has helped founders refine strategies, achieve product-market fit, and prepare for investor readiness, creating measurable value for both founders and investors,” she explained.

According to analysis from FirstFounders Venture Studio, since its implementation the PPS Framework has been used to evaluate more than 20 early-stage founders, with over 10 startups successfully launched and ventures collectively securing more than $10 million in early-stage funding.
Aderinwale added that the framework has become a standard evaluation methodology within the venture studio.

“Grounded in psychology and operational rigor, the framework provides a replicable model for structured startup support across Africa,” she said.

Reviewing the broader implications for the African venture ecosystem, the startup expert noted that the PPS Framework offers a systematic, evidence-based approach for founder evaluation across Africa. “By combining psychological insight, market validation, and operational feasibility, it bridges the gap between intuition-driven support and structured decision-making,” said Aderinwale.

“Venture studios, accelerators, and entrepreneurship programs adopting this framework can improve startup success rates, optimize capital and mentorship allocation, increase investor confidence, and promote sustainable high-impact ventures.

“As African startups increasingly compete globally, structured founder evaluation ensures ventures are innovative, resilient, and market-ready, providing a model that can inform startup development across emerging innovation ecosystems worldwide,” she said.

In conclusion, she emphasized that startup success ultimately depends not only on ideas or funding, but on the founders themselves.

“The PPS Founder Acceleration Framework provides a rigorous, psychology-driven method to evaluate and support founders, ensuring alignment between passion, problem, and solution. Its adoption at FirstFounders Venture Studio, under the leadership of David Lanre Messan, demonstrates measurable impact and offers a model that can inform startup development practices across Africa and beyond.”

“By adopting structured evaluation frameworks like PPS, African startups can scale smarter, attract stronger investment, and become globally competitive.”