Some of the most important deals in business are the ones that never happen. A founder has a real idea and a willing supplier in front of them, but the numbers do not line up on the day, so everyone shakes their head and walks away. We made a short film to show what it looks like when that deal happens instead – and what FlexUp does to make it possible.
The scene is a busy open-air market in Nigeria. Tunde, young and ambitious, is about to launch a potato-chips factory. He pushes through the crowd to Emeka's stall, a seasoned potato merchant, and asks for a full tonne of potatoes. It is a big order, and Emeka is happy to sell. Then Tunde says the hard part out loud: "I don't have enough cash to pay you everything upfront. So how can we make this work? I don't want you to lose out."
That single sentence is where most early-stage businesses get stuck. It is also where FlexUp begins.
The usual choice: all the cash, or no deal
In a conventional transaction, Tunde has only bad options. He can pay the full price in cash he does not have. He can borrow it, assuming a bank will lend to an unregistered business with no track record – it will not. Or he can shrink the order down to what he can afford today, and launch his factory at a fraction of the scale he planned.
Emeka has only bad options too. He can demand full payment and lose the sale. He can extend informal credit and hope to be paid, carrying all the risk himself with nothing to show for it if the factory stumbles. Or he can walk away from a customer who, if things go well, could buy from him every single month for years.
The deal is good for both of them. The structure is what is missing. Cash is treated as the only acceptable form of payment, so a shortage of cash kills an arrangement that everyone actually wants.
What FlexUp changes: the supplier becomes a partner
Emeka does not flinch. "No problem at all," he tells Tunde. "You pay me half in cash, today. The other half, I invest into your chips business."
This is the heart of the FlexUp model. A payment does not have to be all cash or nothing. It can be a flexible mix of cash and equity. Tunde pays half the price of the potatoes in cash now, and the other half is converted into a stake in his business. The unpaid balance is not a debt hanging over Tunde's head – it becomes a real investment in his project.
Emeka explains what that means in plain language: "When your factory starts making a profit, you pay me back, with a share of the profits. If your business grows, we both win." The potato supplier has just become an investor. He is paid back from profits when the business can afford it, and he shares in the upside if the factory takes off.
Notice what has happened to the risk. In the conventional version, one person carries all of it – either Tunde overcommits to cash he cannot spare, or Emeka ships goods he may never be paid for. With FlexUp, the risk is visible and shared. Both men have skin in the game, and both win together if the business succeeds.
Aligned incentives, not an adversarial deal
The deeper change is in the relationship. An ordinary creditor wants one thing: to be paid back, on time, regardless of how the business is doing. The moment the factory hits a delay – and early businesses always do – that creditor becomes a source of pressure rather than support.
Emeka's incentives now point the other way. Because part of what he is owed is tied to Tunde's success, he wants the factory to thrive. He is no longer just a vendor squeezing a payment out of a struggling customer; he is a partner who profits when Tunde profits. And Emeka is exactly the kind of partner an early founder wants: he knows the potato trade, the local market, and the suppliers. The capital arrives with knowledge attached.
This is what we mean when we talk about aligned incentives and collaboration over negotiation. Instead of haggling over a price and parting ways, the two men have built a relationship designed to last.
No registered company? No problem
There is one more obstacle that would normally end the conversation. "I haven't registered my business yet," Tunde admits. "I don't know how to set up a deal like that."
In most of the world, this is a genuine wall. Structuring an equity arrangement means lawyers, a registered company, shareholder agreements, and weeks of cost and paperwork before a single chip is sold. For a founder standing in a market with half the cash for his first order, it is simply out of reach.
Emeka's answer is the whole point of the film: "No sweat, brother – we do it with FlexUp." He lifts his phone and speaks the deal into it: one tonne of potatoes, sold to Tunde for his chip-making business, at 1 000 ₦ per kilo, paid 50% cash and 50% equity, with a profit share once the factory is profitable. The order is created in seconds. Tunde scans a QR code to join and connect, fills in his details, and the partnership is live.
Tunde did not need a registered company to begin. FlexUp provides the legal framework and the contracts behind the scenes, so the structure is handled for him. He can focus on building the factory while the arrangement with Emeka is recorded properly from day one.
Why structure beats a handshake
It would have been easy for these two men to agree all this on a handshake. The reason they do it on FlexUp instead is that the platform records everything – what was ordered, what was paid in cash, what was converted into equity, and what share of future profits Emeka is owed.
That record matters far beyond this one deal. After a few months of trading this way, Tunde has something most early founders cannot produce: a transparent track record of real transactions. When he needs his next tonne of potatoes, his next supplier, or his first outside investor, he is no longer a hopeful stranger with an idea. He is a founder with a documented history of deals made and honoured. Structure is not bureaucracy here – it is the thing that turns an informal project into an investable business.
And because FlexUp applies the same framework to everyone – founders, employees, suppliers, and investors alike – there is nothing unusual about a potato merchant becoming an equity partner. A supplier can invest part of what they are owed just as naturally as an outside investor writes a cheque. The people who help build the business can also help fund it, and they all sit within one coherent system.
The takeaway
Tunde got his tonne of potatoes. Emeka got a paying customer and a stake in a business he believes in. Neither of them needed a pile of cash, a bank, or a lawyer to make it happen – just a willingness to share the risk, and a tool that made sharing it simple.
That is what FlexUp is for. When cash is short but the opportunity is real, the deal does not have to die. It can become a partnership.
Want to do business this way?
If you have ever lost a deal because the cash did not line up on the day, FlexUp was built for exactly that moment. Whether you are a founder who needs to start before you can pay in full, or a supplier or investor who wants to back the businesses you serve, we can show you how to structure it.
- Leave a comment or share this article with a founder or supplier who needs it.
- Book a call to talk through your own deal at cal.eu/flexup.
Further reading
- How FlexUp works: www.flexup.org/economic-model
- Join our next workshop: www.flexup.org/events
- Watch the film: a two-minute potato deal that becomes a partnership
Pay me half in cash, and half in equity: how two traders close a deal with FlexUp