Apple has acquired Chinedu Echeruo’s HopStop.com, The Wall Street Journal’s publication, AllThingsDigital reports. Founded in 2005, HopStop.com makes mobile applications for both iOS and Android that covers over 300 cities and that helps people get directions or find nearby subway stations and bus stops. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed as at the time of this publication.

HopStop has oft been compared to Israel’s Waze which was recently acquired by Google for $1 billion. The move is seen as Apple’s plan to bolster its map offering especially given Google’s recent acquisition of Waze.

A serial entrepreneur, Chinedu Echeruo grew up in Eastern Nigeria and attended Kings College, Lagos. He attended Syracuse University and the Harvard Business School in the United States and founded HopStop.com after working for several years in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Leveraged Finance groups of J.P Morgan Chase where he was involved in a broad range of M&A, Financing and Private Equity transactions. He also worked at AM Investment Partners, a $500 million volatility-driven convertible bond arbitrage hedge fund.

He founded and raised nearly $8 million for his two U.S based internet companies; Hopstop.com and Tripology.com. Tripology.com was acquired in 2010 by American travel and navigation information company, Rand McNally. He was named Black Enterprise Magazine’s Small Business Innovator of the year and listed in the magazine’s Top 40 under 40 and is currently a partner and head of the Principal Investing group at Constant Capital, a West Africa based investment bank.

True to form, Echeruo is working on yet another venture but this time, focused on small businesses in Africa. Check out a video of Chinedu Echeruo below at 2012’s TedxIkoyi where he talks about his latest project for small businesses in Africa; “crowd sourced business in a box.”

According to him:
“There is no reason why every entrepreneur should have to reinvent the wheel every single time in all the countries in Africa. My idea is to essentially to have one place where a budding entrepreneur can access a template for starting a business, and then customize it to suit their own situation. Essentially a business-in-a-box.”

Link ~> http://www.dailybuzz.ch/2014/07/apple-buys-hopstopcom-from-nigerian.html

Old news.

Hmm. 160 billion naira for some written code. More thn most well to do africans and Nigerians will make in 10 life times or a 100 lifetimes!!. If i were him i'll just take out a year and do absolutely

NOTHING. NADIR. ZILCH. ZAPPO
.
Not even found anoda startup.


But on a grim note, the outstanding success of a Nigerian outside of Nigeria says volumes about the potentials this country is killing and d quality of nurture the host country provides.
And environment is more important to success thn d quality of d seed (person) in d environment.
Philip emegwali - moved to u.s
chinedu echerue - moved to u.s
agbani darego - moved to u.s
iroko tv founder - moved to u.s
linus torvalds - moved to u.s
facebook - u.s
google - u.s
etc
conclusion: u.s is more conducive environment for success thn nigeria/africa. Cuz if these fellows hadnt relocated (or based/born ther) they wudnt b as successful as they now are.

digitalafrica:
raised nearly $8 million for his two U.S based internet companies

$1b wudnt b possible without the $8m fundg.
Which wudnt b possible if som1 ddnt blv in him.
Back 2 9ja,
aspiring-programmer:
"daddy/mummy, giv me money to buy som books(online) and a laptop etc".
Daddy/Mummy/uncle/brother : "To do wat? Tht your 'computer programming' , you'd better find somthg better 2 do with your life .... I dnt hav money to waste ".
Naija-encouragement:
"you spend all your time starring at d computer.."
naija-programmer sharg software idea with nonProgrammer friend/colleague.
:"i have this software idea i'm thinkg about<explains idea excitedly>..."
<response: friend not excited
or interested. Changes the subject>
u.s/u.k/isreali shares software idea with friend
<friend encourages programmer to drop out of school to implement idea!>.

asalimpo:
$1b wudnt b possible without the $8m fundg.
Which wudnt b possible if som1 ddnt blv in him.
Back 2 9ja,
aspiring-programmer:
"daddy/mummy, giv me money to buy som books(online) and a laptop etc".
Daddy/Mummy/uncle/brother : "To do wat? Tht your 'computer programming' , you'd better find somthg better 2 do with your life .... I dnt hav money to waste ".
Naija-encouragement:
"you spend all your time starring at d computer.."
naija-programmer sharg software idea with nonProgrammer friend/colleague.
:"i have this software idea i'm thinkg about<explains idea excitedly>..."
<response: friend not excited
or interested. Changes the subject>
u.s/u.k/isreali shares software idea with friend
<friend encourages programmer to drop out of school to implement idea!>.

Faith is the beginning.

digitalafrica:

Faith is the beginning.

Acidic/toxic soils (countries/environments/homes)
kill/stunt even d best seeds (people= carriers of potentials/ideas/dreams).
Success is rarely a solo act. Though 1 man usually takes all d credit.
Sometimes relocation is d smartest thing to do.

asalimpo:

Acidic/toxic soils (countries/environments/homes)
kill/stunt even d best seeds (people= carriers of potentials/ideas/dreams).
Success is rarely a solo act. Though 1 man usually takes all d credit.
Sometimes relocation is d smartest thing to do.

Yeah we need to fix all these things.

His hardwork paid off in the long run.. Congratz.. Ayam happy for him. Mhen! d guy yaf hammer. Next time my uncle asks me why my laptop no dey rest, i go show am ds thread. I for say make d guy lend GEJ some of the money to fight insurgency but ......

While i agree relocation makes some sense, determination makes much better sense.
U mst hv bn a dickhead 2 believe u cannot make it in Naija/Africa. We self-destruct by flimsy excuses, such as
1. Power supply(to enable long hours wt coding),
2. Discouragement (bcoz people dont fancy ur vision/idea),
3. Lack of finance ( to bring ur idea to limelight).
4....
Hear word
How often do u reason about solving some of these issues ursef?
1. Did u knw u can get an external battery like that of INEC for less than N10,000 & will last u for 10-12hrs a day? As a programmer/coder, this shld never lack as part of ur tools even if ur laptop battery life lasts 5hrs(which so insignificant if u really wanna hit $billion+).
2. If u dont believe in ursef and work on ur idea, u'll become rutzy and rusty and fade away. Cling and treasure ur idea, cowardly walking away from it will come back to haunt and hurt u later. Only laziness can make u -walk away-
Know the meaning of GEEK? - means u hv an higher level of technicality and dexterity wt computer usage far more than an average user, are an addict to programming and will hardly be driven away with loud parties and orgies. U dont need a rich kid to pat U on d back or provide d most comfortable cushion for u b4 settling down to business (doesnt happen to many of the techies) - Infact many of them're nerdy hustlers until they hit it big - many cannot see ur dreams, u hv to live it alone in the beginning, whenever things start getting serious &better, the big guns will notice your effort.
This guy wudnt hv sold anything if he hadnt make it real.
3. If u start a project by fretting about hw to get finance to carry it through, u might be scared and neva make. Start building ur apps first (as a programmer, all u need are:
i. A computer
ii. Power supply,
iii. Dexterity wt d internet. Many of d best softwares/IDE are available for free..(open source)..
iv. Ur idea, if u already know ur programming language,
v. Then Determination, and you can code ur life away. Anything more?). Once u've produced anything tangible, then u can start looking for investors or ready fly to...wherever.
All the above U can still achieve in Nigeria. A whole lot of pple use their PCs for watching movies and playing games. Merely converting those no of hours to punching some weird combination of symbols and alphabets may win them more than $10billion...jst ur power of imagination.
Programming isnt rocket science, pple who rule the tech world are hardly Computer scientists/engineers.

In conclusion: dhtml - will move to u.s (my programming skills are wasting here)

asalimpo:


Acidic/toxic soils (countries/environments/homes)
kill/stunt even d best seeds (people= carriers of potentials/ideas/dreams).
Success is rarely a solo act. Though 1 man usually takes all d credit.
Sometimes relocation is d smartest thing to do.

i would have subscrib to what u have just said now"sometimes relocation is the smartest thing to do", but got cut off with the though that relocation with no ideal for innovation and self ambitious dream will always end our people with taxi drives and menial workers abroad. Lets start from home(9ja) first, what have our school produced for us that they send out to the labor market? And what have our student learnt all those years they are in uni ? Start from basis and you will know the answer to the system we are in..
It's quit unfortunate that this my igbo brother has been well polished with what he is doing today as the product of what american tertiary institution embedded in him... Here 9ja student be like "make i cram and pass this exam' without knowin' the essence of what they are studyin'.. That why we cannot be able to invent or even reverse engineer what is already in existing...