Venture into untapped markets, it's how the best businesses are built.

The best businesses are often built by becoming the dominant player in a market that everyone else overlooks. If you're trying to create a monopoly, you don't start by competing in an overcrowded space. You find an untapped market, one that is under explored and execute relentlessly. 

Paystack is a perfect example. They entered the Nigerian fintech space at a time when digital payments were still largely under served. There wasn't a Stripe equivalent focused on Africa in 2015. Eventually, Stripe saw the same opportunity and acquired Paystack for over $200 million rather than building from scratch. 

The former CTO of Paystack, Ezra Olubi, in 2015, mentioned on a discussion board that there was no equivalent of Stripe on the continent: https://radar.techcabal.com/t/uber-killing-our-local-startups/2267/78

While government policy can slow innovation, I don't believe that's the only reason some markets remain untapped. Many opportunities simply haven't had founders willing to spend years refining the right product. Builders often chase proven categories instead of asking what large market everyone else is ignoring.

For years, people have complained about Nairaland's user experience. Search for [“Nairaland” "improve"] on X, you'll find countless feature requests and criticisms. Yet despite the demand, no modern alternative has reached meaningful scale.

I think many founders underestimate the economics of the internet. The largest internet companies are built on attention. Advertising remains one of the biggest business models online, often generating more long-term value than transaction fees alone because it compounds with user engagement. If you can build a product that captures attention at scale, monetization becomes much easier.

The next billion-dollar African company probably won't come from copying yesterday's winners. It will come from identifying a market everyone acknowledges is broken but nobody has been willing to solve well enough.

That said, what are you building?