₦airaland Forum

As an employer, here are a few thoughts from my experience that may be helpful:

- Everyone prefers to hire from who they know. You think about it, why would you hire a stranger when you can hire someone from within your network. That way if things go wrong, you can go back to your contact and say, why did you recommend that person to me. It's risk mitigation.

- Following the above, seek to enlarge your network. Sitting at home twiddling your thumbs will not enlarge your network. Networks can both be online and offline. I recently hired someone who contacted me for some research for her Msc dissertation. As soon as she finished, I hired her. I also met someone recently online and now we're starting a business together. So be wise and use resources at you disposal to connect with serious forward thinking people.

- Be always engaged and do things excellently. It's in the process of doing excellent things that people will get exposed to you. I've lost 2 employees to multinational companies simply because they were doing their jobs well. Others I've had to let go and they often struggle to be re-employed because they have a poor attitude to work.

- Going int to business is hard too and is not for everyone so resist the advice to start a business just for the sake of it. You can, however, learn to use your hands or mind for small extra income. IT will serve you well and demonstrate to others a responsible mentality.


Apply these, don't be idle, work hard wherever you are. God and people will see your effort and bless you. You will also stand out from most people because the average person is actually lazy and doesn't care much unless they have to.

On that note, I would like to say we're hiring a business development and admin officer. We like young hard working people. You will learn a lot and grow in many ways. We value loyalty and integrity so if you don't have those, don't bother. E-mail with a CV and cover letter: abujadatacollection@gmail.com

dre44k:
We don't need you people's love, keep your love to yourselves. Must you all take pandadol for another's man headache?

Yes you need people's love and concern. Don't be deceived by a bit of cash. If MMM crashes with your money. You will need our love. Since you're not God that can see the future, I would suggest it unwise to chase away people concerned for your wellbeing.

Again I reiterate, nobody is an island. Your headache is not yours alone.

9jakohai:
You know something, reading the response of the MMM supporters to the OP's questions has once again shown that MMM is a typical Ponzi scam (not even scheme, scam).

The OP has asked ten pertinent questions. And I expect the MMM supporters and guiders to answer him point by point. Who knows, they may even convince skeptics like me.But no, all we get are abuse and insults.

Reminds me of another thread on Biafra in this site, where a SS minority member asked about how Biafra would treat minorities. With the exception of one Biafran supporter, who gave good and reasonable answers...not that I agreed with all of them, but the guy was so on point,...many if not most Biafranists abused and called him all sorts of names, including some who even accused him of being an impostor. I doubt they convinced anyone of the validity of their struggle that day.

The problem I have with Nairaland is that for the most part, people cannot hold a honest civilized discussion here.And this is particularly true in the Politics, Crime and in MMM threads recently. All we get are insults, abuse, tribal name calling, etc. If Nigerians cannot hold a proper discussion, where points are raised and debated properly, then how are we going to progress as a nation, or even as separate entities. People like to call us black men intellectually deficient. I know it is not true. But some of the Nairaland posts and posters here do a lot to validate the intellectually deficient theory.

I am a MMM skeptic. And what I have seen here tonight has done little to change my skepticism. MMM defenders, answer the points raised, and who knows, I may sign up come January. And I probably won't be the only one. Continue the insults and jokes...and we will laugh at you thoroughly and without sympathy come January.

This made too much sense.

What I want to add is that this idea that we shouldn't concern ourselves with other people's business is a fallacy.

How can a society silently watch millions of people expose themselves to potential financial ruin, emotional turmoil and even potential suicide. The day that happens, we might as well all become wild animals without feeling.

MMM people need to understand that many of us love and are concerned for you. If we feel like you're being taken advantage of, it's our duty as brothers to alert you. We would expect the same if roles were reversed.

Finally, as a society, we are losing a lot of your capital and intellect to the fleeting MMM. We will all be better off longer term if people came together and provided these resources to generate real sustainable economic activity.

laudate:
God forbid!! They should NOT try building such things here... do they want to kill our people? We have not yet mastered the basics of disposing our environmental wastes properly, which is why a lot of our streets and cities are an eyesore. So how on earth will the radioactive, toxic waste generated by these nuclear plants, be handled??!

Tell 'em oh my brother. The day they lay a single stone. I'm packing my bags to a different country. Ordinary public toilet we can not keep clean. It is now Nuclear plant that will be safe.

I will run before we have our own Chernobyl.

nwaanambra1:
wanted to comment but i changed my mind - cause i see say Nigerian army problem is spiritual

Guy, not only Nigerian army oh. The whole of Nigeria matter na spiritual. E dey tire person.

Ajaokuta is a classical example of Sunk costs fallacy. We should just write it off as a loss and move on.

The economy

You are only as good as your environment.

United States 128
China 98
Japan 54
France 31
Britain 29

The figures above represent the number of fortune 500 companies each country hosts. These nations are the top 5 and host 68% of the richest companies in the world. To give a scale of how big these companies are, last year they generated $31 trillion in revenues. They employ over 65 million people worldwide.

One thing these countries all have in common is they are all open market economies:
- The British MI5 don't go around arresting wall street traders for trading foreign currencies.
- The French government don't suddenly ban certain imports and create a monopoly for one company.
- The Chinese government don't set price floors to protect new entrants to a market.
- The Federal Reserve don't sell foreign currency at multiple rates, favoring only their cronies.

Despite all the above evidence, our government insists on economic policies that go counter to free market principles over and over again. The rate we are going at. We will end up trekking to Cameroon or Benin republic to find food. Think it isn't possible? Ask the Venezuelans. That's what they are now doing after treading the path we're are now following. The Nigerian government is killing business. They need to stop right now and let the market reign. The market will provide more prosperity faster and better than government control can ever hope to achieve.

So for those who care to know my opinion, this economy is in tatters and will be for at least the next 3 years. The only way to survive is to export something and earn precious forex. It will be hard but worth it. This is where software is at an advantage. It is easily exportable. We have decided to focus on other African markets in the coming year and leave these charlatans to continue jonzing.

Recession is not just a word

Chai this our country Nigeria...

Following our small conference success in June, recession really took hold of the country. Dollar, dollar, dollar was the cry every where. Our customers who are businesses that import most of what they sell complained bitterly. Growth stalled. Our own startup funds were starting to dwindle.

On the personal side, we were expecting baby number 2 and I hadn't seen a salary in over 1 year. Looking back now, I think I personally went into recession myself. My mind stopped working, the motivation slowed down. I became generally melancholic. Everything was negative. Funds were quickly depleting and we couldn't find the right financial backers that fully understood our space and were willing to experiment with us. We had no luck with competitions or pitches. Everything just literally slowed down. Even our backup power system started to fail, NEPA was non-existent. All the promises we hoped would materialize just evaporated.

This was probably one of the hardest times since I started out. How can everything you work so hard to try and build just stall and face real risk of failing. I became aware first hand of the important role of founder psychology. A lot has been written about it but it didn't fully resonate. It wasn't until I faced the real fears of it all failing that the pressure became real. My psychological health became something of concern.

The greatest positive that came out of this were my 2 staff. A business developer and software engineer. They went without a salary for months and continued to be committed to the cause. Their loyalty was amazing and inspirational to see. Not everyone works just for the money. People still exist that can be driven by passion and a vision. These 2 guys now have equity and I want us to be successful for them because their sacrifice is what kept us alive.

This recession affected us, our customers and other businesses badly. I pray we all get through it in one piece.

Always have plan B

In march we won a pitch competition, or so we thought. We'd gone on to contract a developer to build an android app for us. The android app was a top request from our customers so we were excited to be able to spend the winnings on building the app. I got a developer friend to build the app for us for about 200k.

When time for the winnings from the competition to be disbursed, comma and k-leg entered. Till today we haven't received a dime. This meant we had to hustle to pay for our android app. Even worse, we had an exhibition and conference to attend in June. We had planned to spend the winnings on expenses related to the exhibition. No money meant no conference.

So we hustled some more and found enough cash to take 2 team members to the exhibition. We were able to book a space at the conference at the last minute. By the time we left for it, we only had cash to last us 2 days. The conference was for a week. But as you all probably know, this startup journey is one of faith.

We knew if we didn't go to this conference, we may as well kiss the startup goodbye. With just 2 days out of 7 days paid for at the conference, we had to sell or pack our bags early. My people we sold oh. Enough to pay for the rest of the conference stay, the trip back and a few pepper soups and Orijin (P.S I don't drink alcohol, my colleague was the Orijin aficionado)

What was better was our face and brand was out there. We added on many more new customers and people began to trust us more. One of my happiest times at the conference was trying to pitch to a strange person only for him to say, 'I already use your product'. Proud moment!

This episode taught me to never fully rely on others. Not investors, advisors or even promising customers. Always have multiple back up plans and never over extend your cash flow. Money only counts when it is in the bank and never before. I've also realized that pressure can bring out big results. So if you're under pressure cash wise, go out and sell. Sales in startups they say cures all ills.

Update

The last time I posted an update was in March of this year.

Since then, the roller-coaster ride we've been on has been intense.

Too many things have happened don't even know where to start. I'll try cover as much as possible. In the next few posts.

DonX001:
Haba Oga, after all these likes n still no update yet??
Diaris God ooo!!

Haha bros, exercise small patience na!

DaySpringer:
I actually thought that this thread had been abandoned.
Good to see that you're still here,
Though the information on the thread seems to be a bit much for me and i don't know where to start, but i know I've got the interest
Please Do Update us.

Ideasconsortium:
Hello! I am the first to comment on your post. We are eagerly waiting to know the name of your startup. By the way, I need to inform you that I harvested all your posts and responses into a word doc and printed it. I am simply referencing you to avoid plagiarism litigation...lol. Tech journey in Nigeria is not for the weak, Infact the chance you fail is 80percent. All the same to those of us in the techosystem.....sky is the starting point. Better success in 2017 and I wish you the best!

Please share the word document you created so I and others can have access to it.

mrjojo:
and update will really be appreciated, been following from day 0

elmatino:
Please do well to update us.
I actually just found this thread and I have read it from the beginning to end in a matter of hours.
I am in a similar shoe with you when you started. I am at the stage of fine-tuning the ideas and sorting out some details. Will love to know how 2016 has been thus far for your business.
Thanks for sharing

Thank you for all the continued interest and support. I'm working on the update.

I had occasion to return and re-read the post and I realized how important it is to keep a journal.

I'd forgotten all the things that had happened. Reading it made me relive it again and realize how far I had come.

Update loading.

Anybody still following? Would you still be interested in an update? Please like If you are. Enough likes and I will put together an almighty update and finally reveal my startup.

pestrolus2002:
Thanks for the advice, I heard in USA that the more no of the year of your graduation , the least likely is it to get a posting even after passing both USLME, how true is this?

True. They like their residents fresher, with U.S experience and good recommendations on top of good USMLE scores.

GudluckIBB:
But if this same govt run by old ideas call you to come and eat yam, you won't reject it, u will run down immedietly.

Your father killed this country his actions in time past lead us to were we are now!

Nonsense!

Haba brother this you conjecture too much. You're predicting the future and visiting the sins of the father on the children at the same time. There's no pleasing you. Please give the poor woman a small break.

Some of the comments are bewildering to say the least.

DrP2000:
The whole story is one sided and fishy, so a Doctor just started beating a nurse by 5am because she corrected him, pls this is story for the God. The earlier you know your senior and superior in profession the better for you. Nobody forced you to be a nurse, so be contended with what you chosed for yourself and not antagonising or beefing others. He is the head of your team, so learn to take orders from him or her. I thank God for the kind of training Doctors receive in medical college which makes them humble because if not worst scenarios will be occurring. While medical practice teaches you to be humble and accept insults even from patients, I wonder if nurses are taught the same , from the way they attend to patients will show you they are not happy with their profession. Let's wait for the second version of the story and not this media sympathy or attention seekers. Panels must be set to handle the matter and both of them will be penalised if found wanting but the nurses will always support their own even if she is wrong. Ask your self have you ever seen a nurse criticise her fellow nurse in open , why, but Doctors have nothing to hide and knowing fully well that human life is involved will caution the fellow doctor immediately, so why doctors are battling to save life,nurses are busy saving and.packaging their profession.which one is more important (the patient life or your profession)

pheyikemi:
There's always two sides to a story, let's hear the other side. I doubt if a doctor will just pounce on u and beat u cos u corrected him. Aint right and d story is fishy. This doctor-nurses beef shd end biko, u all av different training and different roles to play to make ur patients better.

Chrisrare:
d nurse must hav made her point in a disrespectful manner dat provoked d doc.

frenchwine:
Ask me how I knw this story is very biased to the left and one sided?
It came from nursing world blog.
Ok on a more serious note , I'm not gonna hold the forte for a doctor collegue who assaults a co-woker, nay a patient but read the story between the lines and you'd understand a few things :
> This isn't the first time she has been on his neck, you don't wanna work with a nagging nurse, worse still on night duty, trust me
> They have had it coming long before
> She most likely criticised him in a disrespectful and demeaning manner , perhaps in the presence of patients
> The doc has a temper problem
Definitely the doc would face our disciplinary panel (MDCN) but the nurse should be suspended from he hospital cos we know NANNM would let the matter slide

xtremer:
Would it be acceptable if the nurse was unregistered

ImoRiver:
That nurse is crazy. What does she even know?

Firstly, yes 'registered nurse' is the correct way to refer to a nurse. Officially in many jurisdictions nurses sign their names with the suffix 'RN', meaning 'registered nurse'. So please in the future, try to ask google prior to attempting to appear smart.

Secondly, last time i checked, assault is a crime so before we even talk of unions or professional discipline, the doctor really should be questioned and detained by the police.

Thirdly, some people seem to think that verbal provocation or 'disrespect' is reason enough to lay hands on another individual. If you think this way, then you ere. Assault is a crime punishable by law. So your opinions on the reason for provocation is irrelevant.

The doctor should lose his license and face the law courts. It will be a good deterrent for others. In the future if one is provoked verbally then ignore it or retaliate similarly if you're feeling unprofessional but please don't lay hands on anybody.

The amount of ego centrism, elitism, paternalism and chauvinism displayed by many doctors is a problem. It needs to be addressed head on. Medicine is hard we know, nurses are 'bad' we know, patients are thankless we know, system is useless we know. But seeing as you're the best and brightest of the country, intellectually superior and appointed to lead the health system, perhaps when you lead with compassion and professionalism others would follow suit.

Pedestrian defending all round by both teams. Nigeria took their chances while Algeria fluffed theirs.

Game not yet over. Algeria going to come back strong second half. Both defences shaky.

I predict 3-2 to Nigeria

ogbeni...pls get through med school first....come back here when you are in 500 level or final year, no offence

I know someone who started to plan his route in 1st year of medical school. In third year he did elective in the U.S. In 4th year he did USMLE. By the time he finished med school he was able to get residency in the U.S. Time/ life waits for no man. Get out early and achieve what you want

Agiliwonder:
The loans can be for a duration of 6 months to 12 months for businesses at an interest rate of 3% Monthly.

This is misleading!

The industry standard for representing interest rate is "APR", annual percentage rate.

Representing it the way you have undermines your credibility and suggests you're after the gullible.

Serious business people will never deal with you.

This should read: "The beauty of good hair, well done make up and attractive clothes". As the beauty portrayed here as more to do with these than the tribe the ladies originate from.

So now it's the victims fault that he didn't volunteer information when the pharmacist elected to change his drug. This kind of attitude is not professional and frankly is deadly.

The onus is always on the professional to prevent any untoward outcomes. Patients don't know what they don't know, that's why they come to a professional who knows to guide them.

There was everything wrong with what the pharmacist did!

thorpido:
There was nothing wrong with what the pharmacist did.If there is no particular drug,the pharmacist can give alternatives.It's what they are trained to do.
The problem was not taking history and the victim here not volunteering such information.

To the OP: Happy wife, happy life. Allow your wife do what she wants, pick your battles wisely, this is not one fighting over. Choose another time to teach your wife the principles that you imbibe.

To the wife: Just chill and be generous. Choose battles wisely.

To all. Keep life simple, no need for long stories or unnecessary disagreement over things that are essentially trivial.

The uk sun is a tabloid and hardly the standard for any kind of responsible journalism. Up until recently they featured a naked girl on page 3 every day! Perhaps our papers should copy that too.

Aspireahead:
all Linda Ikeji wannabes....abeg...make I go back to my strike.

My thoughts exactly. The Nigerian blogosphere is lacking diversification. Many doing the same old thing. The Nigerian economy is diversifying, blogs need to as well. A few really good alternative blogs to follow:

- Tech startup - techcabal, techpoint
- finance - nairametrics
- Health - Nigeria health watch
- Pharmacy - Swank pharm
- Mobile - mobility arena

There is space for many more. Just provide great content consistently for a particular niche and things will eventually happen.

stanliwise:
I have a problem with you saying that he should follow his heart. which heart?
The guy bit-off too much than he can chew and now what he intend doing is to spit the remaining away after he is satisfied. Let him finish wat he started.

How do you suggest he finish what he started? Get into a marriage doomed for failure? Or wait to have kids then break up the family?

The bitter truth is that with matters of the heart one has to be fully in for things to work. His heart is not in it so there's nothing to finish.

This is a difficult situation and as is usual with these situations there isn't always a right answer.

Some of my thoughts.

Firstly no one is under any obligation to marry anybody regardless of what has happened. Especially true when there is no love felt. Of course this is unfair in this situation as the lady does have a right to feel like she is owed.
Unfortunately however she's loaned out what she couldn't afford to lose and it's now Impossible to collect on it.

A quick point for the ladies to learn.

Close your legs until he puts a ring on it.

Don't date any man for longer than a year if you're intending to get married one day.

If he isn't ready, break up and tell the guy to come back when he is ready.

You have far more to lose than he does.

For the guy. You have done very bad things. Getting engaged so quick was a jerk move. Ask for forgiveness and seek ways to restitute what you've done (will be hard). Move on with your life, the curses will not be effective if your heart was genuine all along.

Let this be a lesson to men.

ZIP UP.

Break up with a girl if after one year you aren't actively plannng a marriage.

Drastic advice but will save pleny heartache.

suxes2005:
Well, I'm not scared to start my tech coy.

Kudos to you OP

What's the latest for the year?

Thanks. Just wrote an update, have a look.

Kudos to you too for ditching the fear.

Sorry for belated response.

Bro the books are plenty. Best thing to do is go to 'quora' and search - 'essential reading for tech entrepreneur'. You'll get a lot of suggestions. Look at blogs as well as books.

Challenges as a non-coder = not being able to translate my vivid product desire into product myself. Trying to learn to code but i won't become a proficient one any time soon. My skills lie somewhere else. I can sha edit some html/css and semi read some PHP.

Clients don't actually by software. They buy solutions and the person selling it. I've also read enough to be able to understand some and explain the tech things. The internet is amazing for learning anything!

language - C # .net, and the usual frontend suspects

Not sure what kind of certification you mean but where there's a will you'll find a way!

Hope that helped. Good luck in your work

pneumaticos:
Bro,great thread,this seems like a book already
Can i have some of books you reading especially in the area of.product developement,networking and funding

Lastly what are the toughest.challenges you faced as a non coder on this project

How were you able to.convince your clients since you dont have much.of the technical knowlege,do you always introduce a colleague anytime you get to the technical areas,how have you been handling coding errors

What language you using for,this platform,i can bet my ass your project is in finance

How did you handle certification issues

Update

A quick update for the year.

It's been most eventful so far. We've added on more customers and are continuing to refine our offering.

We've worked hard to get acceptance in the business community we serve and it's starting to pay dividends. I'm getting invitations to write articles and contribute to discourse on certain issues within the community. We're also connecting them to other solutions to make their lives better. This thought leadership is an important aspect of growing the brand and the user base.

While our sales process continues to be outbound led. We are starting to see more inbound leads. Thanks to our though leadership and the satisfaction we're starting to gain from our users. Our hope is we can transition to a larger percentage of leads from inbound rather than outbound.

To further the above and also to diversify our product. We are bringing more local development talent into our software so we just hired a new Nigerian dev. Brings our staff count to 3.5. We can't quite afford it but hey, gotta step forward in faith!

On the finance level, we are still months away from breaking even but an ever decreasing runway. We were however lucky enough to be involved in a pitching session where we won some cash. From the same session, an investor was interested in us. We spoke at length and valued ourselves at $400,000 only to get an offer back valuing us at $100,000 with controlling rights to boot. I told the investor to take a trip to where the sun don't shine. A detailed post on this investment saga will be coming soon.

On a side note, FIRS came to pay us a visit. Ran to remitt VAT the next day. Please oh business ownere, pay your taxes. This goverment has a 2 trillion naira deficit and they are seriously intent on making businesses pay their fair share.

If you're still reading, thanks for keeping tuned. More interesting stuff is up ahead.

It's always best to be honorable and do the right thing regardless of projected outcome. You might end up being screwed over but you will always be known as principled. The guide to your action is dependent on a few variables:

- Do you have a contract? What does it say? abide by it by all means. Strive masiyiwa in one of his epic FB posts writes about this. His advise is; regardless of how bad a situation is or contract terms may be, one must always live up to what they sign.

- No contract? What is the standard in the space. Do people generally give a notice prior to leaving? If so, how much? Abide by those standards and norms

Whatever you do, do not suddenly stop showing to work. Always fore warn your employer. It may come back to bite you in the future otherwise.

Quick anecdote:

I recently hired a young man who was volunteering for a firm as he'd been jobless after NYSC. When i gave him the job, i asked when can he start. He said to me: ' i have to give the guy i'm volunteering for 1 week notice that i will be leaving'. Now note that he wasn't being paid, he was only a volunteer. I knew i'd hired the right kind of attitude.

We're a tech startup based in abuja. We're visiting lagos currently and are looking for an enteprising and extroverted young person to help us expand our operations into lagos.

Our last hire came from nairaland and is doing great so far.

Job involves field work going out to clients to demonstrate our product. There'll be on the job training and we provide a relaxed and high achieving enviroment.

The ideal candidate will be young, smart, outgoing and entrepreneurial. Tech Savviness is a must and we all work hard and expect same of the potential hire.

Pay starts at 30k for the first month minus expenses.

Call or Whatsapp 08066969652 if you're the one.

Anyone notice the 'coincidence' of a doctored budget with the depature of a certain white haired french lady.

Niche - fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, gynecology issues. That is where you will find early adopters. Focus on it and then try to grow from there