This June, Anuj Tanna, co-founder of MESH, spoke at the TED Countdown Summit 2025 in Nairobi. The theme for the event was sustainable futures - and according to Anuj, there is no sustainable future without including the millions of young people working in the informal economy.
Africa’s booming youth population is often seen as a ticking time bomb—a jobless generation. But in Kenya alone, young people are already adding over $530 million a month to the economy through informal businesses.
Anuj Tanna, challenges us to rethink this narrative. What if the informal economy isn’t a problem to fix, but a powerful engine to fuel?
Watch the TED talk here or on TED.com or read the full transcript below.
The Universal Career Script — And Why It’s Breaking Down
Get a degree, get a job, build your future. No matter where you're from, it's like page one of the universal parenting handbook. And if you grew up with parents anything like mine, you knew it was one of those, you know, just casual, non-negotiable suggestions that they had for you.
But no matter what our parents might say, it's a path that for many, just doesn't hold up. Not here in Kenya, not across the world. Every month, more than a million young people enter the workforce across Sub-Saharan Africa. Fewer than one in four will get access to a formal job.
A Crisis or An Opportunity?
At first glance, it looks a lot like a crisis, right? Like this jobless generation. Honestly, I used to see it that way too. I'm a third generation East African. I've always believed in the power of business and technology to fuel development. For the longest time, I thought that meant one thing: helping to create formal jobs.
After more than a decade of working with young people here in Kenya, I started to see something very different, right? People like Kelvin running his cyber cafe. Or Melissa, with her hair salon. Or Mercy, with her auto repair shop. And the thing is, they are not outliers. They are part of this powerful engine. Millions of young people contributing over 540 million dollars a month into Kenya's economy.
Why We Built MESH to Power the Hustle Economy
The informal economy is an engine that is already turning. It’s how 85 percent of people across Sub-Saharan Africa and 60 percent of the global workforce earn an income. A few years ago, a couple of colleagues and I decided to take a step back, ask ourselves a different question, not, how do we pull people out of the informal economy, but what if we invested in it and helped it grow more efficiently and at scale.
That’s what led us to build MESH in 2021. It's this platform to help this hustle economy grow. It's a professional social network where today, more than 800,000 micro entrepreneurs come to connect and learn and trade and access a marketplace of opportunities each month.
Our Three Big Lessons from Working with the Informal Economy
As we built MESH, we started to see these patterns and behaviors start to emerge that often challenged some of our long-held assumptions, but also revealed some of the levers that really drive growth in the informal economy. I wanted to take this opportunity to share three of our big lessons with you today, because if we're serious about building a sustainable future, we can't ignore the billions navigating the informal sector.
1. Identity Is the Most Powerful Growth Lever
Our first, and honestly, possibly coolest, lesson that we've learned is that the most powerful lever for income growth in the informal economy is identity. Young people have been told an incredibly unhelpful story for most of their life: That success means getting a formal job. And when that path doesn't open up, it can be paralyzing.
When identity shifts, behavior shifts. When they stop seeing themselves as unemployed or jobless and actually as entrepreneurs, things change and pretty quickly.
Take Brian. Brian studied to be a teacher, but he spent years bouncing between gigs, and he will be the first to tell you he never saw himself as someone who could run a business. One day he was chatting with a connection he made on the platform, a woman named Eunice. At some point she said, "Honestly, Brian, just why not business?" Something eventually just clicked for him. He said, "I started admiring her business. I thought maybe I could do that too." And he did. He started small, selling fruit, then donuts, then he moved into charcoal. Today, Brian is running three small businesses and he's saving up for his own permanent stall.
Brian wasn't alone. When we started measuring this more closely, we were blown away by just how powerful this shift in identity could actually be. Seventy-eight percent of our MESH members were telling us that they had either started a brand new business, or improved by adding to an existing one, often within just a couple of months of signing up for the platform. Amongst that group, the number earning more than national minimum wage more than doubled.
When I see myself differently, I act differently. When that happens amongst our peers, that change can often be contagious.
2. Design for the Real World, Not the Textbook
Our second big lesson was really about the importance of designing for the real world. The best example of that that I have is how we approach skills development. Most programs aimed at the informal economy assume that growth looks a lot like a ladder, right? You study hard, get a certificate, use that to get the job, to build credentials, to move up step by step. The learning systems are all designed to match this, right? Longer courses, modules, quizzes, formal learning pathways. That's how we approached it too.
The problem is, that's not how growth really happens in the informal economy. Growth here is often entirely non-linear. It's characterized by rapidly shifting needs or new opportunities that you need to jump on. It looks a lot less like a ladder, and it looks a lot more like a jungle gym.
My favorite example of this is Caroline. Caroline graduated with a degree in analytical chemistry, but she could not find a job. She started a business selling clothes, saved up some money, and fashion wasn't her thing. But she spotted a new opportunity that she really loved, hair. She invested in a one-month wig making class and she just ran with it. She built a business. She picked up pricing tips from other MESHers. She learned digital marketing skills to build and grow her online sales. When she needed to, she picked up basic bookkeeping to help her manage her cash flow.
Today, Caroline's a full-time entrepreneur, but she didn't climb a ladder. She moved across this jungle gym, one business and one pivot at a time. All along the way, she invested in the skills she needed to keep her growing.
We saw this happening all across the platform. Young people were not engaging with our formal learning tools, but their incomes were growing. Sixty-six percent of our MESHers tell us that they have learned a new skill, which has improved their business on the platform, but not from a course, often from a peer. Another micro entrepreneur, just two steps ahead, just sharing what they'd figured out. The learning itself is so practical, it's so immediate. It's like a 90-second video on how to price your sandals, or a group chat on how to save water in your agribusiness. One of our favorites, "Why bad loans are a lot like bad boyfriends and how to spot the red flags."
It is learning that just mirrors real life.
3. Trust Is the Currency That Keeps It All Running
Our third lesson is a pretty fundamental one. It's about trust. In the informal economy, there are no contracts or insurance policies or formal protections. If a deal goes wrong, it's on you.
Take Alfine. Alfine trained to be a photographer. She saved up painstakingly to get her first camera. One day a client reached out. They paid a deposit, it seemed legitimate. She showed up for the shoot, and within minutes, her gear was stolen. It set her back, she was set up, and she had to start all over again. This is why a lot of micro entrepreneurs choose to play it safe. They stick to trusted circles. When we asked our MESH members, "How do you know who you can actually trust?" The word that we hear most often is "serious." "I look for serious people." "I knew he was a serious guy."
It's shorthand, right? For someone reliable, for someone who shows up. We wanted to understand that a little bit better. We ran an experiment. It was really simple. We brought 30 micro entrepreneurs into a room. No profiles, no CVs. Everyone got a blank poster and a marker just to describe who they were in their own words. Then everyone got five post-it notes to put on the profiles of the individuals that they would most like to work with, and to tell us why.
Consistently, the most sought-after profiles weren't the ones with the highest education or the most established businesses. They were the ones who wrote about helping others, mentoring peers, supporting their communities, the ones with social capital.
Because in the informal sector, trust and reliability aren't about what you have, they're about what you contribute, seriously. That kind of social capital is what makes the informal sector function. It's how you know who you can work with, lend to, buy from.
The problem is, it isn't really bankable beyond your immediate circle, and unfortunately, least of all at the bank itself. But that is a massive opportunity. When young people are able to build visible, trusted identities online that showcase all the ways that they show up, it unlocks a whole new world of peer-to-peer trade.
Why This Matters Beyond MESH
This is a massive opportunity for the formal world. For lenders, for corporates, for organizations that are looking to assess trustworthiness, if we lean into these models, all of a sudden we can begin to lend with more confidence, or find talent, or offer gigs in ways that just have not been possible before.
In the informal economy, what we're seeing is that this is absolutely working. Today, when we do surveys, markets are expanding on MESH. Forty-nine percent of our audience are telling us that they have now begun to work with and earn from other MESH members on the platform. What we're seeing isn't just a way to facilitate trade or establish trust in the informal sector. It's a glimpse into how more resilient economies could work.
When we think about a world facing climate constraints or rising inequalities, economies that reward this type of contribution, rather than just consumption might be one of the most sustainable shifts that we can actually make.
The Informal Economy Is Not a Problem to Be Solved
We've learned a ton over the last five years. The most important lesson is this.
The informal economy is not a problem to be solved. It is this phenomenally powerful engine to be supported.
I'm not saying jobs don't matter. Of course they do, right? But the road to those jobs and to broader economic growth might just run through the informal economy first.
What we’re seeing goes beyond MESH. From digital lenders experimenting with social and behavioral data, to renewable-energy companies leveraging community distribution models to expand their reach and sales. When we design for the informal economy, we unlock massive new possibilities. Whether that is growing new markets or expanding livelihoods, or even accelerating climate action, this generation and the economy that they power are central to all of it.
The solutions that we build have to work for them here and now.
The real opportunity here isn't to fix the informal economy. It's to fuel it.
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