By Zianah Nyiramanza Muddu
Last week, I paused to reflect on my journey with gratitude. I saw how every piece, experience, and lesson quietly shaped what came next.
It all began at True African; those thirteen years shaped everything. It wasn’t just a job but a school that taught what no classroom could. I learned how money moves through technology, how ideas become products and services, and how trust is earned. It starts with the first customer willing to test a concept before the market does.
Everything started with one question: “What if we did this differently?” We shared perspectives, sometimes clashed, stretched ideas, then put in the work long days and longer nights with a shared commitment to getting it right.
Working with banks and telecoms, I learned early that anyone can be your customer if you meet a genuine need. We signed agreements; everyone gained, but the risks were unequal. Downtime hurt everyone, but hurt us more. We were smaller, SLAs were strict, and each hour of downtime brought penalties. Every failure tested trust.
Every transaction counted, I remember reconciling hundreds of entries line by line until the numbers matched. That’s when I understood there is no easy money.
During our end-of-month financial reviews, THE BOSS always said, “If a partner won’t pay for a service or pay you on time to keep your business afloat, that’s not a real partnership.” After hearing this, I started sorting the partners I brought on board.
I was taught that real businesses are built on trust, in detail, discipline, time, rigour, teamwork, accountability, and good partnerships.
That mindset shaped everything I did afterwards to date.
Learning the Fundamentals: Where Discipline and Trust Are Built
When I moved on, I wanted to help innovators bring ideas to market. At Innovation Village, an entirely different world, I connected with creative developers, learned new terms like ‘ecosystem’ and ‘airdrop,’ picked up a touchscreen laptop, and joined social media.
We worked and played, and for a moment, it felt like I had arrived at my destination, being “Manza Zee.”
I leaned into my network, reconnected with old contacts, and said yes to every opportunity, just as I had always done. However, things were different. There was no full team; sometimes it was just a developer and me trying to deliver.
Here, I saw a different side of the ecosystem: grants from donor partners and investors’ pitch decks, rather than loans from banks, family, friends, and bank overdrafts, the model I was used to. Products were built to attract investors, not customers. Visibility was celebrated, and traction was measured by attention, not transactions.
I remembered what my former boss asked with every marketing budget: “Show me where a like turns into a shilling.” That question is louder than ever.
From Hype to Value: Rethinking What Growth Really Means
Around the same time, I reconnected with a childhood friend from primary school. We had an honest conversation. She said, “Nyiramanza, you have always known what you want. You wanted to be a wife, a mother, and a CEO.”
I laughed because somewhere along the way, that version of the dream had changed. The ecosystem had found me. I had become an advocate for change, a connector, and someone driven by impact and purpose, something she would never understand.
With this new self-understanding, I shifted my focus to “FITSPA”.
Together with the interim Board, we set out to build a home for Uganda fintechs where regulators and investors share knowledge, opportunities, partnerships, and have a uniform voice.
We built relationships with regulators, opened doors with banks and telecoms, and created pathways to real market opportunities.
Over time, the community grew as our values became clear.
We fostered trust, collaboration, and shared growth, contributing to something greater than ourselves: Uganda’s fintech ecosystem.
As work evolved, so did my world. Social media became an asset, forging connections with other fintech players across borders. Then came the Nigeria FinTech Conference, where we showcased our fintechs and explored new opportunities.
At the FinTech Leaders Roundtable, I felt proud. Uganda was ahead in many ways, but no one, not even our own Ministry or regulators, knew what was happening. As the conversation continued, it became clear we all faced the same challenges: regulation, cybersecurity, talent, capital, and infrastructure. None of us could solve these issues alone.
Hence, the birth of the Africa FinTech Network, a platform built on a simple belief that when ecosystems connect, everyone rises.
This puzzle was beautifully chosen for me; I am still connecting the dots and learning.
The writer Zianah Nyiramanza Muddu is a fintech ecosystem builder. She is also the Team Lead at the Financial Technology Service Providers Association of Uganda (FITSPA)
