In 2008, Agosta Liko, the founder of Pesapal and Ticketsasa had just come back to Kenya from living in the U.S with a dream to start a travel network. He set out to build the website, and just when he was about 90% done, he realized he would need to be able to facilitate online payments to close the loop.

He set out to find someone who would provide him with an online payment engine, and to his shock, not only could he not find a reliable supplier locally, but his attempts to get international payment companies such as Paypal to provide him this service were futile.

There was only one option for him, to build it himself. As he set out to build the payment engine for his travel website, he realized other e-commerce websites in the country were facing the same challenge. A business opportunity beckoned. This is what ushered in the birth of Pesapal, Kenya’s largest online payment services company.

10 years later, Agosta is finally making his travel website dreams come true through his popular Ticketsasa.com website where he is providing online booking for holidays and travel packages.

Agosta Liko was a guest at founders drink up in October 2018. Get a copy of any of our podcasts by celebrated Entrepreneurs for only Kshs 250. Email dream@wearefounders.co.ke