Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Valerie Bowden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Valerie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission is to increase trade with Africa by 1%. That’s because Africa only has a 2% market share of world trade. If we increased that by just 1%, it would generate over $ 70 billion USD in annual revenue for the continent. That’s 3X more than the continent receives in aid.

In 2013, I backpacked across Africa by myself. It was just me, a tent, and my backpack. I was blown away by how amazing (and safe!) African countries are, and I moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia afterward. I launched CRDLE after living in East Africa for almost a decade. I saw so many incredible products that I knew customers back home would love! After COVID-19 and remote positions became common, I realized that I could also connect African talent, like developers and virtual assistants, to these work-from-home positions to create win-win partnerships on both sides.

Valerie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My background is in Social Work. I first came to the African continent wanting to help orphans and work with charities. But after spending so much time in African countries, I realized that the best way to reduce poverty and prevent orphans from becoming orphans in the first place was to create good, sustainable jobs.

I help clients who want to do good business AND make a social impact at the same time.

One way I do this is by helping clients fill remote positions with African talent. It’s great for the clients because a developer or a virtual assistant living in Africa costs about 50% less than in-house talent. That’s because the cost of living in African countries is significantly less so we can pay the African resource,a great and fair salary while still helping our clients save money. For the African resource, it offers them a great opportunity, meaningful work, and an exciting career ladder.

I also connect people who want physical products (for their store or for dropshipping) source ethical, environmentally friendly products from Africa like private label roasted coffee, tea, textiles, fashion accessories, and more!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson I learned is that you often fail because you didn’t dream big enough.

Before I started CRDLE, I had other smaller startups that did well, but never achieved the level of success I wanted. That’s when I realized, it is because I was dreaming too small. What I really wanted to do was something bigger. That’s why I launched CRDLE.

However, I still did not believe in myself enough. So I started it with a partner. But that led to several compromises, and before I knew it, CRDLE was nothing that I envisioned it could be.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I knew I wanted to lead a better example of being brave and doing meaningful work that made the world a better place.

I spoke to my business partner and worked out a win-win deal that allowed CRDLE to be solely owned by myself.

The next month I made more revenue than I had the previous year.

It taught me another big lesson. You have to believe in yourself, take big leaps, and have a big vision.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I started becoming a guest on podcasts whose audience was my ideal customer and business really took off!

But finding and applying to be a guest on the podcasts was really time-consuming. I hired a virtual assistant from Ethiopia (because that’s what I help my clients do!) and tasked her with setting up 1-2 podcast interviews per week.

Not only do clients contact me after listening to my podcast, but often the podcast host will refer me to a client or offer me a second opportunity of speaking to a smaller mastermind.

I highly recommend others, whatever your niche, to begin guest podcasting! It takes a couple of months to really see the impact, but it’s really effective once you do!

Contact Info:

• Website: crdle.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/crdleafrica
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrdleAfrica
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/crdleafrica/