lagbaja: I was fascinated when i read the story of Wande this morning. I was particularly curios about his $2m investment claim, the company's claim of net-worth of N1billion and the customer base of 20,000 subscribers. I quickly set out to investigate the story and to learn from their practice.I went to the computer village and made enquiries about the company. Not so many people knew about them. eventually, i was directed to one of the vendors that sells their voucher. I asked to buy a voucher, he told me the different product offers, i settled for the N200 voucher. he said i could not use it until I register, however the person to register me was not around. i offered to go to the company's head office to do my registration. he gave me a flier that bears the head office address. before leaving i asked him how many such vendors like him existed for the oxygen network, he estimated it to be about 20. i also asked how much his daily sales is, he said it was between N1k and 2k. By implication, the total sales within the computer village for 26 days by 20 voucher resellers and at an average sales of 2k per reseller will be about N1m. i eventually locate the company. The company was situated in a small shop on 12 Francis Oremeji st. They share office with another small company called Jolasons Nigeria Limited. the company does not in any way reflect a N2m sales company talk less of a N1billion worth. I met 2 staff eating ice and beans in the office. the office is barely empty with no signs of activity. i asked to register for their service. he directed me t go and look for vendors around. so much for a N1billion Naira company

The lesson in all of this is that you should look before you leap. secondly , don't believe all that you read in the papers, particularly punch. you can achieve your dreams and attain greatness, but dont build on weak foundations.

bros,you harsh ooo,you for allow the guy enjoy the attention while it last na..most of punch saturday are overrated,thanks for the observation. E fit make him colleague look like failure in life.

emmatok:

You are wrong, I use Oxygen any time I go to Otigba.
1. The network is WiFi based, any WiFi device can connect.
2. You do not need any office to register, I registered throug my phone WiFi and got 5hours free browsing.
3. According to thier engineers thier main office is at Surulere.
4. 80% of guys at the village knows Oxygen, and 60% use the network.
Oxygen is the cheapest and best ISP within that area.
But the problem is that they lacked good network coverage.

what am i wrong about ?

that the company is not worth N1b ?
that the company has 20,000 customers ?
that the company has $2m investments ?

i did not say they are non existent.I said they exaggerated their capacity. how much have u spent on buying their vouchers ?. you only told us how us used their internet service for free. remember also that registeration is a prerequite for internet service in Nigeria.

lagbaja: I was fascinated when i read the story of Wande this morning. I was particularly curios about his $2m investment claim, the company's claim of net-worth of N1billion and the customer base of 20,000 subscribers. I quickly set out to investigate the story and to learn from their practice.I went to the computer village and made enquiries about the company. Not so many people knew about them. eventually, i was directed to one of the vendors that sells their voucher. I asked to buy a voucher, he told me the different product offers, i settled for the N200 voucher. he said i could not use it until I register, however the person to register me was not around. i offered to go to the company's head office to do my registration. he gave me a flier that bears the head office address. before leaving i asked him how many such vendors like him existed for the oxygen network, he estimated it to be about 20. i also asked how much his daily sales is, he said it was between N1k and 2k. By implication, the total sales within the computer village for 26 days by 20 voucher resellers and at an average sales of 2k per reseller will be about N1m. i eventually locate the company. The company was situated in a small shop on 12 Francis Oremeji st. They share office with another small company called Jolasons Nigeria Limited. the company does not in any way reflect a N2m sales company talk less of a N1billion worth. I met 2 staff eating ice and beans in the office. the office is barely empty with no signs of activity. i asked to register for their service. he directed me t go and look for vendors around. so much for a N1billion Naira company

The lesson in all of this is that you should look before you leap. secondly , don't believe all that you read in the papers, particularly punch. you can achieve your dreams and attain greatness, but dont build on weak foundations.

Sour grapes? God bless Nigeria.

lagbaja:

what am i wrong about ?

that the company is not worth N1b ?
that the company has 20,000 customers ?
that the company has $2m investments ?

i did not say they are non existent.I said they exaggerated their capacity. how much have u spent on buying their vouchers ?. you only told us how us used their internet service for free. remember also that registeration is a prerequite for internet service in Nigeria.

emmatok said you were wrong. not me

To 'Jack Bauer' who is judging the worth of a company by the office looks, it does not work that way for a start up.

This is why so many companies in Nigeria with great ideas and private investors die. You want the office in Victoria Island and Ikoyi in first year of operation, tying down operational and advertisement funds. Stupid banks also run to give you money contemplating that you must be doing well to have an office in such a choice area.

The company value is not calculated by the money in the bank, my brother. It also includes growth prospects and customer base.

For instance, the value of Nairaland is not based solely on the cashflow it is generating at the moment. Experts employ various variables in arriving at a value.

lagbaja: I was fascinated when i read the story of Wande this morning. I was particularly curios about his $2m investment claim, the company's claim of net-worth of N1billion and the customer base of 20,000 subscribers. I quickly set out to investigate the story and to learn from their practice.I went to the computer village and made enquiries about the company. Not so many people knew about them. eventually, i was directed to one of the vendors that sells their voucher. I asked to buy a voucher, he told me the different product offers, i settled for the N200 voucher. he said i could not use it until I register, however the person to register me was not around. i offered to go to the company's head office to do my registration. he gave me a flier that bears the head office address. before leaving i asked him how many such vendors like him existed for the oxygen network, he estimated it to be about 20. i also asked how much his daily sales is, he said it was between N1k and 2k. By implication, the total sales within the computer village for 26 days by 20 voucher resellers and at an average sales of 2k per reseller will be about N1m. i eventually locate the company. The company was situated in a small shop on 12 Francis Oremeji st. They share office with another small company called Jolasons Nigeria Limited. the company does not in any way reflect a N2m sales company talk less of a N1billion worth. I met 2 staff eating ice and beans in the office. the office is barely empty with no signs of activity. i asked to register for their service. he directed me t go and look for vendors around. so much for a N1billion Naira company

The lesson in all of this is that you should look before you leap. secondly , don't believe all that you read in the papers, particularly punch. you can achieve your dreams and attain greatness, but dont build on weak foundations.

You are very wrong bro. U dont need to judge a book by its cover. I know of a company in Lagos that has a small office yet the average daily turn over profit is like N250k. You know as Naija environment be na. If u wan show off den dont be surprised wen dem visit ur office or even kidnap u sef. U better wise up

^^^Im not saying the valuation is right,oh. Just that the premise of the plenty bad belle and uninformed people about the company valuation is wrong.

methodman: You are very wrong bro. U dont need to judge a book by its cover. I know of a company in Lagos that has a small office yet the average daily turn over profit is like N250k. You know as Naija environment be na. If u wan show off den dont be surprised wen dem visit ur office or even kidnap u sef. U better wise up

I gave four parameters upon which i based my evaluation. you picked out only the office outlook. stop being sentimental and face facts.

That's good. More success!

akereconfi: Here I am.....currently under the RSSDA scholarship, finished my Pre-A level refresher course....doin TOEFL class. I applied in for Medicine buh now am having a change of mind to Bsc in ICT...and am to go to either Chitkara University India or Manchester University England. My parents ( espcially my dad is shoutin that I must do Medicine buh right from childhool......ICT has being my hobby, I spend sleepless nights wf my PC, I hav a strong drive for ICT, I download ebooks n read dem on my own. A friend of mine finished from Inida wf first class (7:5 out of 10) he advised me to choose Inda over England.

Plzz I need advice from experts here......as to career in Medicine n ICT
thanks

Bro. you'd better dodge Chitkara University. Students there were handed degrees free of charge. They have some issues now with NYSC registration...

akereconfi: Here I am.....currently under the RSSDA scholarship, finished my Pre-A level refresher course....doin TOEFL class. I applied in for Medicine buh now am having a change of mind to Bsc in ICT...and am to go to either Chitkara University India or Manchester University England. My parents ( espcially my dad is shoutin that I must do Medicine buh right from childhool......ICT has being my hobby, I spend sleepless nights wf my PC, I hav a strong drive for ICT, I download ebooks n read dem on my own. A friend of mine finished from Inida wf first class (7:5 out of 10) he advised me to choose Inda over England.

Plzz I need advice from experts here......as to career in Medicine n ICT
thanks

Note that its possible to combine medicine and ICT; Go and read up on "Telemedicine" and decide if its for you; thats the future of medicine. Good luck young dude!

musKeeto:
Bro. you'd better dodge Chitkara University. Students there were handed degrees free of charge. They have some issues now with NYSC registration...

bro...plzz enlighten me more
cos in no time we wil b called up.

And nigerians still pay high internet suscrib.

ypzilanti: To 'Jack Bauer' who is judging the worth of a company by the office looks, it does not work that way for a start up.

This is why so many companies in Nigeria with great ideas and private investors die. You want the office in Victoria Island and Ikoyi in first year of operation, tying down operational and advertisement funds. Stupid banks also run to give you money contemplating that you must be doing well to have an office in such a choice area.

The company value is not calculated by the money in the bank, my brother. It also includes growth prospects and customer base.

For instance, the value of Nairaland is not based solely on the cashflow it is generating at the moment. Experts employ various variables in arriving at a value.

Thank you jare! I don't think that the original poster was expecting us to do business with the company based on his piece. Maybe the figures are exaggerated, who knows! I believe that it's the idea behind the start-up that we should be concerned with. We need to learn from other people's successes AND failures. Sour grapes will lead the Nigerian nowhere. God bless Nigeria.

lagbaja:

what am i wrong about ?

that the company is not worth N1b ?
that the company has 20,000 customers ?
that the company has $2m investments ?

i did not say they are non existent.I said they exaggerated their capacity. how much have u spent on buying their vouchers ?. you only told us how us used their internet service for free. remember also that registeration is a prerequite for internet service in Nigeria.

When you hear a company is worth over 1bn. It is a forecast based on market.
Do you know how much is generated in computer village everyday.

20,000 clients is even small considering the population of computer village.
As for the $2m dollar investment you need to ask Zenith bank if it true.
But if you think $2m Will get you CAC reg,NCC license, main-One bandwidth, cell sites coverage and equipments, e.t.c.
Then are on a long thing.
$2m is not up to 400m Naira.
Go ask how much SPECTANET, SWIFT,MOBITEL invest on thier networks.

As I said earlier the registration is done on your WiFi device browser(phone,laptop e.t.c) and not in thier office.

This guy did not use an investment of $2million to set this thing up,$100,000 is too much i can assure you that. I though it was a nationwide stuff he did. he only captured computer village at the moment. The guy bought a broadband network with high throughput and kept wireless routers around computer village and he is use a software to split and allocate bandwidth to customers that's why he said 2mb/s is fastest.

emmatok:

When you hear a company is worth over 1bn. It is a forecast based on market.
Do you know how much is generated in computer village everyday.

20,000 clients is even small considering the population of computer village.
As for the $2m dollar investment you need to ask Zenith bank if it true.
But if you think $2m Will get you CAC reg,NCC license, main-One bandwidth, cell sites coverage and equipments, e.t.c.
Then are on a long thing.
$2m is not up to 400m Naira.
Go ask how much SPECTANET, SWIFT,MOBITEL invest on thier networks.

As I said earlier the registration is done on your WiFi device browser(phone,laptop e.t.c) and not in thier office.

Trust me, if 20,000 client are setting on a 4GB network at the same ,no one will browse anything. the max he can get at a go is around 2000 customers.


Thats why internet is slow in Nigeria. all these guys and companies will buy a specific amount of bandwidth and they start given it to everybody.imagine oxygen saying 2mb/s is the fastest. i mean really?

Sky-walker:
This guy did not use an investment of $2million to set this thing up,$100,000 is too much i can assure you that. I though it was a nationwide stuff he did. he only captured computer village at the moment. The guy bought a broadband network with high throughput and kept wireless routers around computer village and he is use a software to split and allocate bandwidth to customers that's why he said 2mb/s is fastest.

$2m for national coverage?
Guy $2m won't give you full Lagos coverage.
$2m is not up 400m Naira.
Have you done speedtest on the network yet.
I know what my company spent while building the South-East network alone.

@ emmatok
Here is a quote from Moregist

moregist:

]Here at the Computer village we do downloads at up to 2 megabits per second and that is the fastest you have on user-to-user basis here. We are offering Nigerians speed, affordable, convenience and reliable service.”

Chief Executive Officer, Oxygen, Wande Adalemo tells Technology Times that in Computer Village, “we have over 6,000 different unique users already. We hope that we will be able to get over 10,000 subscribers on our network and then move in to another market clusters that we have around Lagos.”

The Oxygen network is built to handle over a thousand devices and having 4 gigabits per second capacity through-put to offer coverage across the entire Computer Village market cluster.

He says the network is embedded with links that makes it easier for users to connect to the internet as well as the free mapping service that allows users to view locations on the web.

On the Oxygen data service plan, Adalemo explains that “you can decide to get something done in one hour, there is a one hour plan for you or get something done in the next one week, there is one week plan for you or I’m monthly users, I need to save money upfront for the whole month, there is a monthly plan for you.”

According to him, Oxygen offers N200 for the two-hour plan with 24 hours validity; N500 for seven-hour plan with validity of seven days; N1,250 for 25 hours with a validity of 10 days; N4,500 for 100 hours with 30-day validity and N10,000 for 24/7 access.

Oxygen is offering an unlimited download limit on all these plans, “which is another advantage for Nigerians”, he explains.

Una speculation plenty.

Let me tell you what I got from this article:

1. A good idea should not take more than 5 minutes to explain.

2. If you have a good idea, keep pushing it and you just might get your breakthrough because people in money are looking for where to invest.

3. Fashee Nigerian Banks and look for private investors.

Who cares about the company worth. Do you think punch has got Certified Financial Analysts working there, or will take the trouble to get an expert valuation? Nigeria lazy journalists?

I think you guys should find the lessons of this write up and stop the hating.

emmatok:

$2m for national coverage?
Guy $2m won't give you full Lagos coverage.
$2m is not up 400m Naira.
Have you done speedtest on the network yet.
I know what my company spent while building the South-East network alone.

Thats it. you only know what your company spent while building their network. You do not know the actual cost it involves? you dont even know the equipment that was bought. i am saying these thing because i know what it involves.

lagbaja: I was fascinated when i read the story of Wande this morning. I was particularly curios about his $2m investment claim, the company's claim of net-worth of N1billion and the customer base of 20,000 subscribers. I quickly set out to investigate the story and to learn from their practice.I went to the computer village and made enquiries about the company. Not so many people knew about them. eventually, i was directed to one of the vendors that sells their voucher. I asked to buy a voucher, he told me the different product offers, i settled for the N200 voucher. he said i could not use it until I register, however the person to register me was not around. i offered to go to the company's head office to do my registration. he gave me a flier that bears the head office address. before leaving i asked him how many such vendors like him existed for the oxygen network, he estimated it to be about 20. i also asked how much his daily sales is, he said it was between N1k and 2k. By implication, the total sales within the computer village for 26 days by 20 voucher resellers and at an average sales of 2k per reseller will be about N1m. i eventually locate the company. The company was situated in a small shop on 12 Francis Oremeji st. They share office with another small company called Jolasons Nigeria Limited. the company does not in any way reflect a N2m sales company talk less of a N1billion worth. I met 2 staff eating ice and beans in the office. the office is barely empty with no signs of activity. i asked to register for their service. he directed me t go and look for vendors around. so much for a N1billion Naira company

The lesson in all of this is that:
1. you should look before you leap.
2.don't believe all that you read in the papers, particularly punch.
3.you can achieve your dreams and attain greatness, but dont build on weak foundations.
4. Be honest to yourself and to others. lies can only go so far

investigator!
Are u sure u are telling whot u saw?..i.e if u actually went 2d real office

eklassical:
investigator!
Are u sure u are telling whot u saw?..i.e if u actually went 2d real
office

You funny die....hahahaha.

Sky-walker:


Thats it. you only know what your company spent while building their network. You do not know the actual cost it involves? you dont even know the equipment that was bought. i am saying these thing because i know what it involves.

LOL,

I don't need to tell you anything here,

But anybody who tells you the cost of a BTS is less than 2m Naira is a dunce.
Even the cost of collocation is more than that in some areas.
Stop saying what know nothing about.

Do a quick speed test and tell me which network will give you 1mps in Nigeria.

emmatok:

LOL,

I don't need to tell you anything here,

But anybody who tells you the cost of a BTS is less than 2m Naira is a dunce.
Even the cost of collocation is more than that in some areas.
Stop saying what know nothing about.

Do a quick speed test and tell me which network will give you 1mps in Nigeria.

eeya, that's the problem.You believe 2MB/s is very fast. I dont have to explain anything to you. Google what is called campus area network. Maybe you will understand.i work in IT and i know how much it cost to set thing like this up.

this guys have simple hot spots, not base stations in the real sense of it. what they have in place is are wireless radios sitting on iron poles. this costs about 50k per point. forget about the N2m base station you are talking about.

In my school internet speed is upto 2mb/sec. Its LAN tho not wirels

So, lagbaja your mission is to distort Nlanderz perceptions abt this company eh...

Ijebulogic:

MD of a Bank with Office on Ajose Adeogun? Source of $2m USD funding riddle solved.

More grease to your elbows young dude.

@Ijebu, before you jump into conclusions - this was 1998. I'm sure you know that about 3-4 banks had their head offices on that street, so before you make your conclusion, check those banks with their head-offices on that street then:

- Zenith Bank
- Crédit Lyonnais Nigeria
- Comet Merchant Bank

This is quite investigative, but the salient point still stands out. Somehow, i believe this revelations might be true, but Wande's story should still motivate young entrepreneurs, without dwelling more on the figures. The company can still be small, but should be encouraged. Those figures might even just be for their PR image, and to draw more support and investment on the possibilities.

Look away from Jim Ovia, it is not him that wande mentioned here.

Yomieluv: bros,you harsh ooo,you for allow the guy enjoy the attention while it last na..most of punch saturday are overrated,thanks for the observation. E fit make him colleague look like failure in life.

Sky-walker:


eeya, that's the problem.You believe 2MB/s is very fast. I dont have to explain anything to you. Google what is called campus area network. Maybe you will understand.i work in IT and i know how much it cost to set thing like this up.

My friend put things in perspective, in a country were you don't 1mps, 2mps is faster.

emmatok:

My friend put things in perspective, in a country were you don't 1mps, 2mps is faster.

2mb/s for a $2million investment where it is only operating on just a few street?

i am not saying he is not providing good services (2mb/s ) but with that money, his customers should have better bandwidth, that's what i am saying and what he did in computer village is not something of $2million.