Rethinking Marketplaces in Africa: Lessons from a Decade in the Trenches

Over the past decade, I’ve operated property portals across five African markets—Mozambique, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Mauritius. I've launched a startup in Maputo worked for a pan-African corporate like Ringier, and now I run a small (but profitable) portal in Mauritius. The journey has been shaped more by hard lessons than easy wins.

The TAM Fallacy: When big numbers mislead

One of the most common misconceptions among venture-backed operators in Africa is equating large market size (TAM) with opportunity. Drawn to the continent’s booming demographics, rapid internet adoption, and urban growth - the majority failed with the incorrect belief that TAM would lead to success in the African Market.

But we all misunderstood a key factor: wallet size matters more than population size. While Africa has scale on paper, real monetisation is difficult. There are a few misconstrued demographic tailwinds at play:

• Big numbers ≠ big revenue: large user bases mean little if buyers lack purchasing power.
• Informal markets: limited professional ecosystems make consistent monetization difficult.
• Small wallets: low income translates to small advertiser spend.
• Unsustainable economics: ad spend and OPEX often exceed revenue, without funding, portals fail.

This is why many global investors and large corporates - Naspers, Seek, Ringier, FDV - entered Africa with ambition but eventually exited after burning through millions in venture capital. Growth was achievable, but sustainable monetisation wasn’t.

Below: Bryan Wester talks to The PPW Podcast about his experiences running real estate portals in Africa.

Mauritius: Small Market, Big Value

In contrast, Mauritius has shown me the power of operating PropertyCloud.mu in a small but structured market. Despite its size, Mauritius has high-value transactions, a professionalised industry, and regulated frameworks. This creates a very different ecosystem with the right ingredients for success:

• Lead quality translates to sales.
• Agencies are more willing to invest in portal advertising.
• Customer LTV justifies higher ARPU.

‘Success’ here has come not from chasing scale, but by delivering consistent value and staying lean.

The 'DAPs' Framework: Why Africa Falls Short

At PropTech & Portal Watch in Bangkok earlier this year, EIV founder, Malcolm Myers laid out the DAP (Dominant Advertising Portal)
framework. His presentation expounded the conditions that a real estate portal needs to be a dominant player with a pure advertising model. Most African real estate markets fall short of three of the six criteria on his slides before we even consider things like audience.

• Market value: 75% of real estate transactions must be above $75,000.
• Agent penetration: agencies must manage at least 50% of transactions by value.
• Agent readiness to spend on portals: there must be a structured, professional, ad-spending agent ecosystem.

From what I've seen, many businesses underestimate how hard it is to extract value from fragmented, low-value markets. They have overstaffed teams with inflated burn rates. They have weak unit economics and their marketing spend outpaces revenue and advertiser retention tends to be too low without much thought for product-market fit.

On top of that, a lot of the time informal and irregular sales channels often bypass these portals.

So What Actually Works in African Real Estate Portals?

Some of these points just sound like common sense but they aren't necessarily the way that big marketplace operators have gone about business over the last ten years.

• Start small, and stay lean.
• Focus on unit economics, not vanity metrics.
• Deliver leads that convert, and clients will keep paying.
• Provide more value to extract more revenue.
• Scale only once monetisation is predictable.

VCs may not find this model attractive, but founders willing to play the long game can build sustainable businesses—especially if they’re content to grow slowly, profitably, and with focus.

Bryan Wester is the Managing Director of PropertyCloud.mu, a leading real estate portal in Mauritius.