Till date, so many billion-dollar and multi-million dollar internet companies have been built. The likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Ebay will easily come to our mind.

I read an article on Forbes and it says the best way to create a consumer internet company worth over a billion-dollars is to build a digital transaction business - a company that connects buyers and sellers so they can more efficiently transact. This is true in the US where everyone uses the internet and even little children have tablets (with internet o), but might not be same for Nigeria. In Nigeria, companies like Jumia, IrokoTV, etc have shown that it is possible to build an internet company worth plenty millions of dollars even within 1 year of inception.

Now to the question: As webmasters, what, do you think, is the best way to build a multi-million dollar internet company in Nigeria?

Please, make sure to comment.

incometrader: Till date, so many billion-dollar and multi-million dollar internet companies have been built. The likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Ebay will easily come to our mind.

I read an article on Forbes and it says the best way to create a consumer internet company worth over a billion-dollars is to build a digital transaction business - a company that connects buyers and sellers so they can more efficiently transact. This is true in the US where everyone uses the internet and even little children have tablets (with internet o), but might not be same for Nigeria. In Nigeria, companies like Jumia, IrokoTV, etc have shown that it is possible to build an internet company worth plenty millions of dollars even within 1 year of inception.

Now to the question: As webmasters, what, do you think, is the best way to build a multi-million dollar internet company in Nigeria?

Please, make sure to comment.

I think you miss the all issues here, Jumia can never be a multi- million dollar site cos what they do is to use the Internet to reach their customer and deliver their goods to them, the difference between Jumia and the rest of site u mentioned above is that Jumia buys and sale using the Internet as their shop so Jumia has to account for cost of goods sold and expenses before arriving at profit. Site like Facebook,twitter,google,yahoo don't do buying and selling like Jumia this people gave us freedom to use their service to communicate one another freely and if you want to be faster in letting people know about you and your service you now pay for their per click service so such Internet sites need good thinking faculty people to work with them, now you see that even if some body wants a million facebook like all you need is to pay the money and facebook will help you spread the news and you get to know who actually like your page or product and I think that is what facebook uses to outsmart google and the rest cos others are invisible, eBay and amazon creates an environment where people sale their goods through site and they charge commission and take the resposibility of shipping it. What I think Jumia should do now is to get all Nigerian invole in the online marketing place since it is getting recognition,it should start playing a role of third party or middle Man where I can post a goods on their site along with my details and if a buyer is interested he pays for the goods to the middle man (Jumna) and in turn confirm the payment to me until I delivered the goods to the buyer and the buyer confirmed to Jumia before I can receive my money and Jumia being the third party will cut her commission. The multi-million site I'm seeing in Nigeria is NAIRALAND but seun need to work with people with creativity,nairaland started with google Adsense but today he is doing the advert directly with the people which is a good move now what seun need to do now is to develope a platform where people can create their add he charges per click like N5 per/click so that any body around the world can take part and not this one that he is banning people that help in contributing to the growth of this site just because you put a link to your site, do you see the Nigeria syndrome? If Facebook where to be banning people, do you think they will be making as much?

Thanks for the comment ncpat. It gave me an insight into a post i'm currently writing on.

Keep praying, work harder.
B4 we were totally blinded to information and resources. To use the internet is not really cheap in Nigeria.
How do you expect ppl to come across information that will ignite interest that then lead to passion.

Our educational institutions are just rat-racing students. All they want is a good Job(8am-4pm).
The lecturers only listen to radio and read newspapers.

I'm proud to see Nigerians now occupying the internet thru blogging. Surely one thing will lead to another and no knowledge gain is a waste. You just have to be creative.
It is coming.

One big setback to this dream is the "i prefer the international syndrome" the likes of facebook, twitter, google, yahoo, tagged, hi5 etc has gotten too deep into the brains of Nigerians and as such no one cares about a clone or even a better facebook that comes from nigeria and such investments tends to die in short time due to lack of patronage. Lets build our own social networks that will hookup all Nigerians home nd away.. Then africa at large, eskimi is doing that, we need to embrace our own materials.

php.NET:
One big setback to this dream is the "i prefer the international syndrome" the likes of facebook, twitter, google, yahoo, tagged, hi5 etc has gotten too deep into the brains of Nigerians and as such no one cares about a clone or even a better facebook that comes from nigeria and such investments tends to die in short time due to lack of patronage. Lets build our own social networks that will hookup all Nigerians home nd away.. Then africa at large, eskimi is doing that, we need to embrace our own materials.

I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH YOU. THATS THE MORE REASON MOST START-UP FAIL, WHAT ARE YOU CLONING FACEBOOK FOR ?, WHO SAID THEY NEED A CLONE ?. YOU DON'T BUILD A SOCIAL NETWORK BECAUSE YOU WANT A NIGERIAN THING, THATS NOT WRONG BUT YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION:
WHAT WILL MAKE A FACEBOOK USER OR ANY OTHER SOCIAL NETWORK USER SIGN UP ON MY SITE AND GET MORE ACTIVE THAN HE IS ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK. SO MANY PEOPLE THAT HAVE TRIED THIS WITHOUT ANSWERING THAT QUESTION HAS LEARNT IT THE HARD WAY. NOW ANOTHER POINT, I BUILT A BETTER SOCIAL NETWORK WHY DID IT FAIL ?. THERE ARE MANY REASON FOR THAT WHICH INCLUDE THE PRODUCT, THE PEOPLE, THE MARKETING STRATEGY, THE BUSINESS MODEL, FUNDS. IF YOU DO YOUR RESEARCH YOU WILL FIND OUT THAT MANY START-UP WITH GOOD OR BAD IDEA FAIL, ITS NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE DIDN'T WANT TO PATRONIZE THEM, ITS BECAUSE THEY LACKED SOME OF THOSE THINGS I LISTED OR THEY GOT IT WRONG. www.paulgraham.com has more.

The right people, the right investor thats what Nigeria needs.

One of the major problems of nigerian startups is that the environment is not conducive to thrive.

oloyede jamiu :
One of the major problems of nigerian startups is that the environment is not conducive to thrive.

I am certain that a smart investor would reap huge profits by investing in such infrastructures.

Iroko is a million dollar company based on capital raised from investors, but funding does not translate to profit. I know some low key companies here in Nigeria that are more profitable than Jumia and IrokoTv while still running on low overhead.

What about sites like tooexclusive.com, and other music downloading sites are they not making enough money?

adim2: What about sites like tooexclusive.com, and other music downloading sites are they not making enough money?

I don't think so.

elvis10ten: I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH YOU. THATS THE MORE REASON MOST START-UP FAIL, WHAT ARE YOU CLONING FACEBOOK FOR ?, WHO SAID THEY NEED A CLONE ?. YOU DON'T BUILD A SOCIAL NETWORK BECAUSE YOU WANT A NIGERIAN THING, THATS NOT WRONG BUT YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION:
WHAT WILL MAKE A FACEBOOK USER OR ANY OTHER SOCIAL NETWORK USER SIGN UP ON MY SITE AND GET MORE ACTIVE THAN HE IS ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK. SO MANY PEOPLE THAT HAVE TRIED THIS WITHOUT ANSWERING THAT QUESTION HAS LEARNT IT THE HARD WAY. NOW ANOTHER POINT, I BUILT A BETTER SOCIAL NETWORK WHY DID IT FAIL ?. THERE ARE MANY REASON FOR THAT WHICH INCLUDE THE PRODUCT, THE PEOPLE, THE MARKETING STRATEGY, THE BUSINESS MODEL, FUNDS. IF YOU DO YOUR RESEARCH YOU WILL FIND OUT THAT MANY START-UP WITH GOOD OR BAD IDEA FAIL, ITS NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE DIDN'T WANT TO PATRONIZE THEM, ITS BECAUSE THEY LACKED SOME OF THOSE THINGS I LISTED OR THEY GOT IT WRONG.

I really enjoyed reading what ncpat said, and this elvis10ten's comment as well.

Just cloning other website is not the answer. You have to do something they did not do.

Nigerians are glued to Facebook and Twitter, and to make them visit your site when they stare upon your site's bookmark and a facebook bookmark on their browser, you need to give them a reason to come back.

Take facebook for example. People post status updates to get likes and comments, that's why they keep posting and keep going back to check.
Twitter users post tweets regularly to get mentions and new followers, so the go back often.

DO NOT focus your website's attention on yourself. It has to be about your visitors. Give them a REASON to come back and you will succeed.

EasyNaija.com:


I really enjoyed reading what ncpat said, and this elvis10ten's comment as well.
Just cloning other websites is not the answer. You have to do something they didn't do.

Nigerian's are glued to Facebook and Twitter, and to make them visit your site when they stare upon your site's bookmark and a facebook bookmark on their browser, you need to give them a reason to come back.
Take facebook for example. People post status updates to get likes and comments, that's why they keep posting and keep going back to check.
Twitter users post tweets regularly to get mentions and new followers, so the go back often.

DO NOT focus your website's attention on yourself. It has to be about your visitors. Give them a REASON to come back and you will succeed.

EXACTLY

firstly we have to build solutions that solve real issues in our country and then globally not just cloning or building for cloning sake ...it always looks like all the best ideas n products have been built but as long as humans exist there wud be needs nd this needs need solutions..jason of iroko spotted a need and delivered it thats y he got funded n their are still many needs out there both locally and globally.who would have tot a classified site wud be a hit in Nigeria but olx is doing good..its not that u cant clone a concept but it has to meet a need differently google wasnt the first search engine nither was facebook the first social platform but they met needs diferently..Customer or user focus is d ultimate for companies that would survive..cheers

Am currently working my own idea of a site with a friend out. And i think its going to meet the needs of nigerian youth. When it comes out am going to announce it here. Serious i still think sites like notjustok.com, tooexclusive.com music212.com are still making their money from music downloads. Make i ask o. What about ? Can't we also list d site?

@ adim, Yes, they all make money. Even my start-up make money too.

What the Nigerian web industry really need is good investor. Note the good is in bold because there are investors that can just ruin your start-up. And we also need guys with good ideas. I didn't say u can't create an existing thing. A guy said he will build a good os and now we have linux, two guys had a better way to do web search and we have google. There are many things you can do, if you want to build an existing thing then do your research, find out:
1)WHAT DO PEOPLE HATE IN THE EXISTING ONE
2)WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT THAT THEY DON'T HAVE THERE.
3)GET ALL THE FEATURES IN THE SOFTWARE. EXAMPLE: IF FACEBOOK ALLOW PEOPLE TO HIT OTHER USERS JAW AND USERS LOVE IT, THEN CREATE YOURS TO HIT THEIR BALLS. Investors are just too scared of web start up until they suceed.

We all seem to know but we are a joker if we can't apply what we know.

The application of knowledge is POWER

elvis10ten: @ adim, Yes, they all make money. Even my start-up make money too.

Will like to work with you sometimes in future. Thanks.

Oga mod, why did u clean of some parts of my post? Na question i ask and i am not advertising any site

talk2D: We all seem to know but we are a joker if we can't apply what we know.

The application of knowledge is POWER

Nice. Hope you are not refering to me. Just check my profile and you will see how am implementing what i know. The only thing that remains for me is a good investor.

adim2:

Will like to work with you sometimes in future. Thanks.

Oga mod, why did u clean of some parts of my post? Na question i ask and i am not advertising any site

OK

okay guys ,

keep it coming am listening

At the long run you must have Cash
to get to your goals that's it

Good ideas