Last week 25 professionals and entrepreneurs gathered in the upstairs dining room at the Green to discuss business and technology links between the UK and Africa, all over a delicious meal and wine. We were happy to welcome Leslie Onyesoh, CEO of Kwanji, to speak about his entrepreneur journey in this space over dinner.

Kwanji is a UK based tech start-up working to simplify foreign exchange mechanisms for small businesses. Leslie started his business to make a change in the way international trade and payments are carried out, a system that, according to him, is unfair and unethical. In his insightful after dinner talk he covered the importance of building a good team, selling to your neighbour, racism in fundraising, international expansion plans for Kwanji as well fielding questions from the room.

Here are some helpful tips we picked up from Leslie for succeeding with your business:

1. Expect to get your hands dirty

2. Be passionate. Expect knock backs and deal with them!

3. Give people access to your product

4. Find key strategic partners

5. Your customers know best -see how they use your product

Here are some photos of the night to enjoy, taken by Peta Grewal from Kwanji:

We dined on a lovely 2 course meal courtesy of the Green in Clerkenwell.

Thank you to Rackspace for partnering with us.