Profit-making idea is a series of short posts, each with a piece of information that we think you might find useful: for investment, for growing your company or to start a new business. Read our previous posts here.

How we made it in Africa asked Andrea Tucker, director of South Africa-based home loan aggregation platform MortgageMe, to identify one untapped business opportunity in Africa. Here was her response.

“Building a platform is a way to benefit from the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work, and play. Platforms connect diverse parties (producers and consumers) with one another through the value chain, and enable them to transact (or just interact!).

“Platforms have the ability to unlock new and previously unanticipated value. A profit making idea in this decade is to be able to identify and solve for a consumer problem in the industry in which you operate.”