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Apply here (you can also reach out to their COO Andrew Ma at andrew@stitch.money if you have any questions).
Head of Product
Why this is a great job
You’ll be the first product hire at a fast-growing company in an exciting emerging market. You’ll be a key early member of the the team looking to build the next infrastructure unicorn for Africa. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to move to Cape Town, voted the best city in the world for seven years. If you're a future founder and are passionate about building frontier products, then this is the role for you.
The nitty gritty
Company website: www.stitch.money
Location: Cape Town, South Africa (remote to start, but South Africa long-term)
About Stitch
Stitch is a fast-growing fintech API startup led by a team experienced in building the leading pan-African API and fintech products. Building fintech in Africa can still take months (even years in some cases) and is extremely costly and compliance-riddled: Stitch provides the APIs that let fintech companies in Africa build and deploy solutions days out-the-box.
In doing so, Stitch provides the infrastructure for businesses to capitalize upon the fastest growing market in the world - the IFC reports 19 of the world’s top 20 fastest growing countries are in Africa and that Africa will make up 40% of the world's workforce by 2050.
Stitch already works with leading African fintechs such as Paystack, Yoco and Chipper Cash in South Africa and will be expanding to Nigeria and other African markets within the year. To support their mission, they've raised $4M in seed capital from leading African and global fintech VCs and are backed by key founders and operators from Plaid, Coinbase, TrueLayer, Revolut and Venmo.
About the Role
Until now, Stitch has primarily been an engineering-led early-stage company that has built a number of financial data APIs that allow clients to access read & write permissions within users' bank accounts - such as users' accountholder information, identity, transactions and balances. Those familiar with Plaid, Tink, and Belvo will recognize a lot of the same products that Stitch has built over the first 12 months of its time, most of which have gone to supporting top financial technology companies in Africa.
Coming out of stealth earlier this year with $4M in seed funding under its belt, Stitch has recently opened the doorway to payments with its Payments Initiation API, which has seen tons of demand in a continent where digital conversion of cash and e-commerce grows at skyrocketing rates.
As part of its mission to support business growth in Africa, Stitch is looking for a Head of Product to help define the vision & strategy for its API products, at a critical juncture as the startup moves beyond early product market fit. You'll be responsible for defining and leading the products which will shape the future of how people transact and engage with financial services on the continent, starting with South Africa.
Responsibilities
Engage with customers to understand product painpoints and opportunities
Define a product marketing function and work with sales to prioritise product enhancements and fixes based on revenue opportunities
Create an manage product strategy, drive internal roadmaps & project plans, and execute on the product lifecycle from start to finish
Act as an evangelist of all product areas to build awareness within the organisation
Have an eye and ear for product ideation and testing, including low-cost, fail fast prototyping, and constantly question whether 'there's a better product' to be born
Be constantly proactive in understanding product and customer trends, suggesting new features & optimisations
Define and build innovative & robust product processes to support the continued evolution of our products
Be the defender of knowledge & process management of your products, managing our internal product directory & wiki
Deliver customer value iteratively by managing products through various launch phases and follow-on releases
Qualifications
4 - 6 years of experience, with a mix of product & strategy (our ideal candidate looks like a ex-management consultant / investment bank / startup operator who has recently decided to focus on building out a product leadership skillset)
A history of launching API or technical products
Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to use tools and platforms (Powerpoint, Miro, Figma, etc.) to weave compelling narratives
Leadership and organizational management experience
Top-tier technical acumen, curiosity, and familiarity with new technologies, APIs, Developer Experiences and databases
Ideally: MBA from a top school
Ideally: Strong subject expertise in financial technologies
Ideally: Experience managing or leading a business and owning elements of a P&L or product / technical roadmap
Ideally: Experience or interest in emerging markets with similar underlying fundamentals incl. Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia