Too Many Products, Not Enough Focus

"As a startup working in Africa, trying to raise capital while doing something fundamentally different was always a challenge," Mitchell explains.

Convincing central banks and traditional financial institutions to embrace blockchain-based stablecoins, years before the technology gained mainstream acceptance, was always going to be difficult.

"Imagine me, five years ago, going into the Central Bank of Rwanda and telling them: we're going to digitise your currency, create a stablecoin and put all your transactions on the blockchain. The idea was met with more than a little skepticism."

Mitchell De Young

What seems commonplace now — Africa has become the region where stablecoins are used the most — was revolutionary in 2020. Convincing central banks to digitize their national currencies required not just good technology, but credibility.

"For them to see that we were involved with Mastercard added some credibility to what we were trying to do," Mitchell notes.

Uncomfortable Truths and Lasting Relationships

By the time SPENN joined Lighthouse, Mitchell understood that its value would be directly proportional to the effort SPENN invested. "You only get what you put into it," he says, a principle that would define the company's experience throughout the program.

Rather than isolated advice or one-off introductions, Lighthouse exposed SPENN to a broad network of experienced operators, advisors, and industry leaders. The real value emerged through sustained conversations — challenging assumptions, stress-testing strategy, and forcing clarity around priorities.

Some of the most impactful moments were also the most uncomfortable. Several advisors independently reached the same conclusion: SPENN was trying to do too much.

"Not even a Fortune 500 company has this many products."

Mitchell De Young

As Chief Product Officer, the feedback was difficult to hear. "You start to fall in love with all of your products," he admits. But the external perspective was precisely what the company needed. The program forced hard decisions: shutting down initiatives, narrowing focus, and concentrating resources on the offerings with the greatest potential for scale.

Beyond the formal structure of the program, Lighthouse also created long-lasting professional relationships. Years after the cohort ended, Mitchell remains in contact with several people from the Lighthouse network — an outcome he attributes to mutual commitment rather than transactional mentorship.

"They're taking time out of their schedules. You need to show up. You need to respect their time."

Learning to Think at Scale

Beyond specific connections or funding, Lighthouse created a fundamental shift in how SPENN approached its mission.

"If you really want to get the interest of investors, if you really want to make an impact at scale, you need to be thinking differently. Looking back, I think that's what I recall thinking the most — I need to be thinking much bigger, and I think that's what Lighthouse did for us."

Mitchell De Young

That mindset began to influence decisions across the organization. SPENN raised its internal standards, from hiring practices, to team structures, to competitive positioning. Leadership began framing growth in terms of future competition with the region's largest incumbents — not just peer startups — which forced a new level of discipline in systems, processes, and execution.

Momentum, Recognition, and Start Path

During the three-month Lighthouse program, SPENN added more than 100,000 new users, and the company's overall performance earned recognition as SPENN won their Lighthouse Massiv cohort.

This success opened doors to Mastercard's Start Path program, a more intensive engagement designed to accelerate commercialization through strategic partnerships and co-innovation opportunities.

"Participation in both Lighthouse and Start Path accelerated fundraising," Mitchell notes. "For investors, Mastercard's involvement reduced perceived risk and validated SPENN's long-term potential."

In markets where trust and legitimacy are prerequisites for progress, these programs helped SPENN move discussions forward that would otherwise have stalled.

A Partnership That Opened Doors

Winning the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV cohort in Spring 2021 was more than a recognition milestone — it catalyzed a formal strategic partnership between SPENN and Mastercard.

The collaboration was grounded in a shared financial inclusion mission: bringing one billion people, 50 million micro and small businesses, and 25 million women entrepreneurs into the digital economy by 2025. The partnership enabled the launch of a Mastercard virtual card for SPENN mobile wallet users — the kind of product Lighthouse mentors had been recommending since the program. With the card, SPENN users could make payments globally, including e-commerce transactions, directly from their mobile wallets.

The rollout began in Zambia, where users gained access to payments at more than 15,000 Kazang devices, a significant network for underserved communities. From there, expansion was planned into Rwanda, Tanzania, and Nigeria — markets where SPENN had already been building trust and infrastructure.

From SPENN to SpennX

Today, SPENN continues operating across multiple African markets, providing mobile banking services to unbanked and underbanked populations through tokenized local currencies, with a focus on domestic banking solutions.

Mitchell has since founded SpennX, a separate company applying lessons learned from the SPENN experience. SpennX focuses exclusively on cross-border payments, has tokenized 82 currencies (enabling instant conversion between any pair), and operates globally across 17 countries.

Notably, SpennX has also implemented a virtual card product — powered by Mastercard. "The product that was most strongly recommended for SPENN is something we now have at SpennX," Mitchell notes.