Interview with the Cofounder of Helicarrier (Formerly, Buycoins) on Crypto in Africa

Tomiwa Lasebikan is the co-founder and head of Product at Helicarrier, a company with the mission to financially connect Africans, anywhere they are in the world. Helicarriers are makers of some of the most innovative crypto products in Africa including Buycoins, a crypto exchange and Sendcash which helps users in the US send money back home using crypto.

Before Buycoins, Tomiwa was a software engineer at Microsoft, working on Azure and Hololens. In this video, Tomiwa talked to me about his background, getting a scholarship to study in America, working at Microsoft, starting Buycoins and many more.

Watch the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z5y29Hn1Rg

Video timestamps

1:27 Tomiwa shares his family, educational, and career background

5:18 How did Microsoft happen?

6:44 How did BuyCoins find you? How did you leave the US for BuyCoins?

10:48 How do you guys consistently build and create different things?

17:05 How do you balance in a way that no product is suffering in a bid to move fast?

24:05 What are the challenges you have faced with BuyCoins over the years?

37:04 Tell us about what you're doing outside BuyCoins with Aleph?

43:16 Asides from Jeff Bezos, who else inspires you?

45:45 Outside of work and tech, who is Tomiwa?

47:00 What's the fundamental life principle you have built your life upon?

50:02 Solving problems and fundamentally changing the things that you met here, has this always been you?