Seeding a revolution in Kenyan farming

As with any tech startup, there were multiple pivots, especially early on. Apollo was offering small-denomination loans — the average is roughly $170 — in the rural areas of a country slightly larger than France. To keep expenses low, founders hoped to reach customers via phone, but quickly learned that customers needed an in-person visit before closing a deal. So they adopted what Mastors, the company’s head of people, described as an Uber model: part-timers who earn a commission for every sale. It now has thousands of sales agents. The company also experimented with renting trucks to deliver seeds and fertilizer to farmers before deciding it was better to use the country’s well-developed network of local suppliers and improve their efficiency with technology. 

From the start, its mission has served as Apollo’s North Star. Everyone from potential funders to friends suggested Pollak start with a country where the challenges weren’t as great as in Kenya. Focus first on larger farms, which would prove less risky. Yet Pollak always had the same answer: the “massive opportunity” was with the small-scale farmers who represented 90 percent of the agriculture sector in sub-Saharan Africa. 

“There were all these questions and decisions that we didn’t struggle with,” Pollak says, “because we were focused on the way to have the greatest impact from the start.”

The company’s strong mission proved to be an asset for recruiting, especially at a time when new generations of workers are looking for more than a paycheck. “There are a whole lot of deeply talented, very hardworking people who are willing to choose a job based on more than just money, because they believe deeply in our mission and want to help improve the world at scale,” Pollak says. Most of Apollo’s 115 full-time staffers work in Nairobi, but to help recruit engineering talent, St Sauver, who serves as the company’s chief technology officer, opened an office in the Netherlands.