Idea 33 of 52 – Buy Lands along planned Rail routes

Idea 33 of 52 – Buy Lands along planned Rail routes

“The Trains are coming”

1. Idea Intro: Very recently, I read where the Nigerian Minister for transportation mentioned the plans already on-going for completing some rail projects before the end of 2019. This he said was done to help in the Nation’s resolve to reduce the heavy reliance on Petrol for the distribution of goods and services from the different points of entry to where they are needed.



Below is an excerpt from the Bloomberg publication:
Abuja - Nigeria has started a $41bn railway expansion to reduce dependence on oil and diversify its struggling economy by improving transport links to allow the movement of goods around the country and to ports.
“The plan we have now will go to every nook and corner,” Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi, 52, said in an interview in the capital, Abuja.

Seeing that the funds for these projects will not be coming entirely from the Nigerian Government, but mostly from loans provided by the Chinese EXIM bank and would also not be carried out by Nigeria contractors, it is safe to say, these projects would actually be executed. General Electric is also involved in some of the Projects.

The Idea here is the opportunity to get an idea of the planned routes of the rail lines and buy lands around those routes. As the presence of functional cargo and passenger rails will consequently bring about some development along those routes especially the ones where there would be train stops. The cost of purchasing the land would not be too expensive as of today, and the price would definitely go way up by 2019 when the rail projects are completed. Buy now, sell later for many percent return on your investment.

Some planned rail routes
• Second railway line connecting commercial capital, Lagos, and Kano in the North.
• Line from Abuja to the southern oil hub of Warri by 2018
• Lagos to the South-eastern city of Calabar
• Railways linking the coastal cities of Port Harcourt and Lagos with the North.

2. Competition: As you are reading this today, some people must have already thought of this, and others might think of this later. Either ways, you will not be the only one who would be gunning for this. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your connections or the forces working in your favour, there is the Land use act of the federal government and most cronies of the Nigerian government will be more advantaged to purchase the land as the Nigerian law authorises just a few people to be able to sign to approve your purchase (temporary occupancy) of the Land.

2. Risk: Government regulations in Nigeria could easily affect your investment in this. Even when you have gotten the Certificate of Occupancy for a piece of land in Nigeria, the law empowers the Government to be able to take over your land when they need to even before the expiration of the time specified on your C of O. It is often advised to seek rather for gazetted lands that have been excised to the Community to now control. Be sure to understand all these properly before going any further with buying any land property in Nigeria.


4. Summary: In two years, 2019, some rail lines will be completed and with this will be some communities more connected and new lands will become more valuable. Buying some of those pieces of land along rail routes will attract some great revenue in the near future when these areas are more developed or better connected to the rest of Nigeria.


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Email: mrebis1@gmail.com

1. Idea Intro: There are loads of events happening weekly in Nigeria most of which would always have some form of refreshment. For the events where something light is preferred, Small chops seems to be the ‘go to’ package.
From trainings and seminars, to surprise parties/get together, cell meetings, corporate hangouts/meetups. All these present an opportunity for the diligent food business person to make some revenue every week no matter how small.

You can search on google and you will find numerous links on how to start your own small chops business. I do believe that everything is possible and with the required knowledge and passion, one can break into this market.
Idea Steps
In no particular order
- Find your market, be sure of your demand.
- Choose your suppliers, understand your supply chain
- Produce/package/Serve your product
Growing a Business, just like grooming a tree, takes time and would need patience. Do not jump in on this just because everyone else is.
Sacrifice some (Volunteer)
Go on Eventbrite or any events listing site, or lookout for events around you. Contact the organisers and offer to sponsor their event with a few packs of small chops, depending on your capacity. This can get you through the door, then you do your marketing once you are in. Go to the event with business cards, or brochures. Move around to establish connections with those at the event, asking them for feedback on your small chops. Build the rapport and be expectant because the good you would have done that day by giving your small chops for free, will come back to you in one way or another.

Churches and Offices
In most churches in Nigeria today, there are a number of people doing one food business or another which they sell at the close of service. Some of these are Peanuts, Zobo, chin-chin, jollof rice, small chops etc. Check around you to see which of the churches with a good number of members are yet to have someone sell small chops at the close of service and seize the opportunity. Some offices are not left out. Be sociable and make as many connections as you can, as that can open more opportunities for you to sell your small chops.

2. Competition: When one starts a business in Nigeria and seems to be doing well, it does not take long before others join as long as there are no strong barriers to enter the market. So whether you are the first mover, or you are the one following, it is important for you to play up any competitive advantage you have. Being creative in your packaging, presentation and overall customer service can be the differentiation you will need to compete.

3. Risk: The business environment in Nigeria can be very unstable and unpredictable. As mentioned earlier, the competition will always be there. Something else that can happen is that, you could be chased out of a spot you sell from by the owner only to be replaced by someone who would do same Business as sponsored by the owner of that spot. Our labour laws are not so strong so there are a number of risks in a Business that can be hard to mitigate or could cost you more to fight any injustice done. One good way to mitigate against risk is to prepare for uncertainties, acquire sufficient knowledge where possible before making major business decisions.

4. Summary: You too can join in on the big food market in Nigeria and start feeling stomachs and bringing smile and happiness to people. Interested? Read more on this from google, ask questions, start and keep learning ways to do better.


For more information, comments, questions or feedbacks, get in touch.
Twitter: Follow @Mrebis
Email: mrebis1@gmail.com

Quite insightful. Keep it up boss

mixter:
Quite insightful. Keep it up boss

Thank you very much.

1. Idea Intro: Nigeria is blessed with loads of historic sites, or locations that hold some tourist value. In some Cities, due to the lack of sufficient leisure and recreational locations, many residents would most likely cherish the thrill of a well packaged day out to visit all the cool places in the city, take pictures, eat and make new friends on the trip.
This differs from organising a visit to some natural attraction, mountains, water-falls, or hills. But this is a one day trip around a city, exploring great locations (with a tour guide).

Case study example (Portharcourt)
You do your research with the ministry of culture and tourism to know what is required before you get the approval to do such. Then you also check with them for good tourist locations the state/city offers and the access fees if any.
If confirmed that this is possible and you have solid Idea about the cost estimates, there are more cost centres to be considered depending on the features/value you want to add to the whole experience. These cost include-
Coaster Bus rental (Plus driver)
Mobile Police escort (2 officers per Bus) (Very important)
Photographer for the trip
Food and drinks (Bole and Fish recommended + others)
Marketing and advertising.
Pass/Access fees to locations (Where applicable)
T-Shirt for the trip (Optional)

Moving forward
From calculating the cost estimate for the entire trip, you can fix a suitable price to charge a customer for the entire trip. It is important to carry out some survey with the target customer, to get good understanding of the potential size of the market, the suitable pricing point for good profit margins, potential risks, and other possible limitations.

Ps. Be creative in designing the customer experience and service delivery
The plans is to visit some of all these places, stay for 20-45 minutes, take pictures, learn about the location, then get back into the Bus, then move to the next location.
City Zoo (If functional)
City Museum
City major Mall
If Portharcourt/Warri/Kadunna (The Petroleum Refinery)
Beachside
Leisure park
Etc.

What kind of people will need this?
Go find out, but I can imagine, students in the university may cherish such opportunity to make such one day trip to explore the city, the challenge with student target customer segment might be lesser spending power. Others who are visiting the city for a short stay can grab such opportunity. Some others from neighboring cities can travel in, just to be a part of the one day trip. But best to do your own research, and prepare your offer to the customer segment you hope to serve.


2. Competition: For now, I am yet to see any one or business offering such in Port Harcourt, Calabar, Benin and most cities, probably for some obvious reasons such as, uncertainty of the market, the tense political climate, cost, customer’s interest. However, it is very certain that if any one successfully pulls this off, others will want to copy (follow). Being able to effectively arrange such a trip before others, can give you the first mover advantage.

3. Risk: The unpredictability of government policies and directive can be a huge source of uncertainty for this business as it is possible for an executive order to revoke permissions already granted to operate. Traffic Jams, and poor weather could also affect the overall customer experience.


4. Summary: This idea will need good planning and publicity that will build up anticipation and awareness of the experience offered. Give enough time for people to register for the one day round city trip and be sure to highlight the exciting features the trip offers.
I will be excited to see someone attempt this soon. If you need any more information, or have contributions or comments as regards this idea or any other one shared, please feel free to get in touch.

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Email: mrebis1@gmail.com

I am glad I found this thread. God bless you for the good work you are doing.

HooxJnr:
I am glad I found this thread. God bless you for the good work you are doing.

Thank you. Glad you found it.

1. Idea Intro: From time to time, you may get to meet someone with a good or even great product that may not be having enough sales or patronage, sometimes because of poor brand visibility, limited workforce for mass manufacturing or just maybe the producers of the product are not thinking so far into that angle.

If you are up to the challenge or If you can put together the necessary supply chain to pull off an online store for that product, you might just be creating something big. I recently met someone making one of such great products, and I know there are others out there too. She has good quality Coconut Oil, Carrot Oil, etc. This business could work for any product that seems to be in high demand but the producer not having enough structure or capacity to scale. Good quality honey are also in good demand.

Some Steps (In no particular order)
Understand the supply chain (Producer – You – delivery - Customer)
Know the production capacity of the supplier (producer)
Know your market (Target customers)
Get a delivery partner (Motorbiker, or other 3rd Party Logistics)
Design your ecommerce store
Invest in some marketing and customer service

The above steps might be overly simplistic, but they give a brief highlight of some of the key aspects to note. You can populate your store with products from different suppliers, but be aware that the doing business with a variety of suppliers and products will bring about complexities which you would need to work out.

NB: You will need to be sure that the overall cost and the revenue generated would give sufficient profit margin that would make the whole effort truly worth it. And also consider doing good market survey to truly understand what customers want and to understand the possible resistances that may stop them from using your online store,

2. Competition: There are others stores already out there, Jumia, Konga, as well as other ecommerce stores currently in the Nigerian online business environment. There are some other smaller businesses, who do not readily feel they can get their products on those bigger ecommerce stores. You will need to make your own dealings clearer and easier than that of the bigger competitors as you will have more advantage of being closer to the producer (supplier), seeing that your operation is not as big yet. But be sure to maintain good customer relationship and service delivery even as your scale of operation gets bigger.

3. Risk: There is the risk of competing similar products being sold or added to the bigger ecommerce store. This can affect sales performance. As an online Business, it will be important to have good functioning web services at all times.


4. Summary: You can be the proud owner of an ecommerce operation that takes from someone producing a product and delivering it to the customers, thus exposing great products to reach a wider market.

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If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch

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Idea 37 of 52 – Wax Museum (for Nigeria)

1. Idea Intro: When I was in Junior secondary school (FGC PH), a classmate of mine brought pictures from his Holiday. He had snapped a picture with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson, and some others. We looked at the pictures and argued a bit about the authenticity. His picture of him on-board the airplane made us agree that yes he travelled but we weren’t fully convinced he actually met them.
Many years later, I learnt about the place he visited to take those pictures. Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in London.

There is a Wax museum in London (Madame Tussauds) where visitors can go in to take selfies or full photographs with Wax sculptures of Celebrities and respected or admired Public figures. These wax sculptures of these celebrities will be as close to real as possible when photographed.

If someone invests in having something like this in a Busy Mall in Nigeria, like the Shoprite malls and other City Malls, and get excited visitors come in to take selfies with the available celebrity sculptures, a Business is born.

Loads of Rihanna fans will queue to have to take a Selfie whith their Queen, as well as other indigenous Celebrity Wax too such as that of the President Buhari, the Vice President, Don Jazzy, 2Face Idibia etc. All these Wax sculptures can be a source of great revenue for the investors who will make money from both printing and access into where the Wax sculptures are for those who will want to take a selfie. A very good phone can be used for the selfies and the Pic sent to the customer.

This is an untested Idea for the Nigerian market but I am very optimistic that It will do well because a good number of Nigerians love new things and will try not to be the last to tag along (Lastman).

Imagine a Wax sculpture of Jon Snow, all the Game of Thrones Fans will love this I guess.
N/B: There will be a need to get all the Licences and permissions required. Investing in something of this magnitude should instruct the Business operator to do all that is needed to legally operate.

For a Start, one can have wax sculptures for just a few and keep adding as the need arises.


2. Competition: As with every Business Idea that seems to be doing well in Nigeria, it will only be a matter of time before others try to replicate this. But I believe the Market is massive and first movers can make good their investments before others come in to have parts of the market share.

3. Risk: This is untested and so still risky. To mitigate the risk, proper market research and development needs to be carried out so that the Market will be ready before the product enters the market as opposed to the other way round.

4. Summary: To make this work, the Wax sculptures will have to be so good that they look very real and believable in photographs.

Thanks for following the series

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch

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Email: mrebis1@gmail.com

Idea 38 of 52 – Campus Bicycle Shuttle

1. Idea Intro: Take any of the Nigerian university campuses with a large land mass that currently run or operate bus or cab shuttle services, then introduce this Campus Bicycle service to provide a cheaper, more environmental friendly alternative that will also help keep the students physically fit.


How does this work?
As seen in London and some other Cities in the World, the company who intends to start this, will need to purchase about 50 uniformly coloured (branded) bicycles, neatly parked (arranged) and locked in groups of 10 at different locations in the school. A student, who pays one thousand naira as subscription for one month, can do a quick verification with a standby attendant who will unlock the bike. The student will then be able to ride the Bike from that location to the next park (destination) where another attendant will take receive the bike from the customer and get it locked in this new location.
Here we are using an attendant because it may be more expensive for a start to get an automated lock as it is in London.

This is being done within a University environment because it is more confined and the school’s security can help ensure that none of the bicycles leave the school’s vicinity. The roads in most Nigerian cities are not built with cyclist in mind so this may not be advisable to be implemented across a City.

If only 1000 students pay 1000 naira subscription for the whole month so they can have unlimited rides across the campus whenever the choose to, that will be a revenue of One million naira monthly.

Running Cost
Students can be the attendants and could be paid 20-30K, depending on the flexible hours they put in. Then one attendant per Bicycle park
Students can also do maintenance of the bicycles too.
General Admin cost should also be taken note of.

Real Life Example (UNIBEN) – Any Bank can sponsor this
Build bicycle parks for 10-20 bikes at Main gate
About 10 bikes at Basement, Hall 1, Faculty, Hall 4/Law
Expand to other locations within school as demand grows
Instead of paying 50 naira on a bus or cab each time one needs to go from one location to another, one could get the bicycle and make that trip more fun for as many times as needed, just for an initial monthly payment/subscription of 1000 naira only.

Other Improvements
As returns come in, more investment can go into addition of trackers on the bicycles and an App for ease of subscription, verification and renewals.

2. Competition: The direct competition will be the Bus shuttles and cab operators who will most likely not be a fan of the whole Bicycle movement. It is most expected that there will be resistance to this from such unions. If this comes in as a Student Union initiative, with the backing of the school’s management, then this can enjoy some success depending on the quality of the overall operation/management and service delivery.

3. Risk: In the event of an accident, or if anyone gets hurt using the bicycles, negative press can work against this business. Adequate training and security/Safety measures, as well as enlightenment should be put in place to mitigate against accidents and avoidable mishaps.

4. Summary: This may not be as easy as it sounds, and also not as hard as it seems too. With 50 Bicycles, the right team, and school’s management support, this can fly. What do you think about this week’s Idea, feel free to share your thoughts.


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Idea 39 of 52 – Online Art Gallery (eCommerce)

Some time last year, during my National Youth Service in Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria, we had to assemble at the Stadium (Adamasimgba) for a Community Development Services related activity. After the compulsory name signing, a friend and I stumbled upon an Art gallery (Rotizo). It didn’t look like much was happening in there from the way it looked outside, but we were pleasantly surprised.

The artworks inside were amazing masterpieces. They looked like the sorts of Artworks the President of Nigeria will give to his high profile visitors from other nations. There were also sculptures that reminded me of the types smuggled out of Nigeria during the colonial era. Then we asked the attendant (lady) how much for one of the good pieces we saw, “45,000 naira” she replied. It was then this idea was birthed.

An ecommerce website/Online store that sells and delivers high end Nigerian Artworks to the global market.

I imagined that whilst we may not have a great number of potential customers (Art aficionados or Art collectors) in Ibadan, there would definitely be a sizeable market in Lagos and across Nigeria, even extended to Africa and the rest of the World.

So one could create an online store that sells quality/original artworks with the authentic certificates from the artists attached in the sale. I figured that if logistics relating to delivery was sorted and the overall cost of logistics from Artist to a packaging centre, then to the customer through a reliable courier service is added to the cost of the Art, some revenue could be generated

I did my research to check what was available, and saw something like that but observed that there was definitely room to do something way better. Reading this now and interested in this idea, pause and check online to see what is currently obtainable and the chances for a new player in that space.

Some requirements to make this work
Get in touch with the Artist – they are not so hard to find
Agree on price and commission on any Art work sold
Find a Courier service that aligns with your operational Strategy
Design the eCommerce website
Promote your site.
Etc.

by Alhamdu Yila

One Biggest Challenge
I decided to get an Idea of how much it was going to cost to send one artwork out of Nigeria to US. The lady at DHL in one of their offices in Ibadan sort of dampened my spirit when she told me that it was going to cost up to 33,000 naira per KG to send to one of the zones outside Nigeria. I was confused, I thought she was making a mistake, I still do till now. But she was very serious, she even showed me a brochure. It made absolutely no sense.

A good place to continue research is to find out a reasonably affordable courier service that can deliver your artworks to anywhere in the World a customer places the order on your online store.

2. Risk: Doing any business that requires 3PL (third party logistics) services makes you to be reliant on the quality of service delivery of the logistics company. The quality of their performance can have a very strong impact on your Business.

3. Summary: Will you be the one with the online store that sells Nigerian Artworks to the global market?


Thanks for following the series

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please get in touch

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Email: mrebis1@gmail.com

by Alhamdu Yila

One Biggest Challenge
I decided to get an Idea of how much it was going to cost to send one artwork out of Nigeria to US. The lady at DHL in one of their offices in Ibadan sort of dampened my spirit when she told me that it was going to cost up to 33,000 naira per KG to send to one of the zones outside Nigeria. I was confused, I thougG to send to one of the zones outside Nigeria. I was confused, I thougl do till now. But she was very serious, she even showed me a brochure. It made absolutely no sense.

A good place to continue research is to find out a reasonably affordable courier service that can deliver your artworks to anywhere in the World a customer places the order on your online store.

2. Risk: Doing any business that requires 3PL (third party logistics) services makes you to be reliant on the quality of service delivery of the logistics company. The quality of their performance can have a very strong impact on your Business.

3. Summary: Will you be the one with the online store that sells Nigerian Artworks to the global market?


Thanks for following the series

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please get in touch

Twitter: Follow @Mrebis
Email: mrebis1@gmail.com