₦airaland Forum

Danyl:
pls I have a question and I believe your input will be very helpful. you mentioned something about the fact that nigeria is not a 'web' country which I strongly believe is TRUE, please what do you see to this startup a health quora something like quora/healthtap for nigerians, I just want to make it open-ended so that you can exhaust all you have on being that you have being treading the uncharted waters.
I have already started, though but the 'nigerian factor' is a strong factor to reckon with.

There are already the guys at 'kangpe' doing something along those lines. A specific health quora may actually do well as many people ask health questions here on nairaland, on facebook and other sites too. The key is in finding that specific health niche you can really tap in to that will adopt early and help grow it for you. The initial traction is the hard part, i would say to do a lot of ground work and research. Trial and error may be involved so don't be afraid of failing initially. Also the money part will be difficult so try and figure this out as early as possible.

Nmeri17:
^^^ So what's your point?? Don't you want others to close their year (2016) "with ARRs running into thousands of $$"

Well that's not the full story as the cost to get there is 10's of thousands of $$ and consistent daily toiling.

NigLasPresident:
But come to think of it, why do churches have a board of trustees like it was some kind of business going on, I never knew churches had such until the TB. Joshua case... But Jesus never had such neither the disciples or maybe I don't know if they did... Anyone who knows? Please educate me on it..

Cuz it's the law.

Where we're at now

The roller-coaster journey continues as the year drags to a close. I lost a new and promising staff to a bank, replaced with a great guy i found here on nairaland. Happy to say on the whole that the whole experience has been a great one. The learning has been immense and the experience unrivaled.

We will be able to close the year with an ARR in the region of thousands of $$. We're finally seeing some great response in our pipeline and 2016 looks promising. We'll be looking to raise a seed round to fan the flames of our growth and grow out our team to deliver a better product and service.

If anyone is thinking of being an entrepreneur in 2016 consider this quote from Elon Musk (one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time) - “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death". I testify to the reality of this quote.

dabossman:
The bolded is why you have some people here pointing out that other countries do it too, even though it is no justification for cheating. The same loopholes we have here as far as birth registration and securing false documentation to falsify ones age exists in South America, Asia and even some parts of Europe. But many critics of our age grade teams simply assume that because the other teams are 'white-skinned' they are above board.

We played Brazil and Mexico on our way to winning this last U17 and some Nigerians said we beat those teams because our players were older. Come on! Brazil? Mexico? Countries that have been caught in age cheating like us? Are those countries so well developed that these loopholes you mention are not present? There are even some countries in Eastern Europe that are not as developed as we assume in record keeping, neither are they honest in all their sports dealings. The recent mess in FIFA and the IAAF with Russian athletes is a pointer that many others cheat in different ways. Do we place the burden of proof on their individuals? Aren't we always quick to assume that they are innocent, while we are the perpetual cheats?

Like i said your logic is fair but i'm not Brazilian or Mexican and so have no stake there.

I'm a Nigerian and i worry about the Nigerian cheating culture and so should we all regardless of whatever else any other country is doing.

Like i said earlier i'd be happier going out in the first round with true 15 year olds than otherwise. At the very least our children learn something. What our children understand these days is that cheating is the way to go.

Integrity is not relative

dabossman:
It's not about justifying it because others do it. It's about the way we throw unfounded aspersions at every U-17 or U-20 player without any proof that they are age cheats. If we really want to stop the trend of age falsification, then we should NAME and SHAME. Adokiye Amasiemeka did so, and Fortune Chukwudi's career ended pronto. It's unfair to just look at a squad of 18 players and just conclude that they are all over-aged without any shred of proof. Do we label all American athletes as drug cheats simply because Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and some of their other athletes failed drug tests? Should we conclude that every gold medal won by an American, Russian or Chinese athlete was won because they are drug cheats?

Let's all stop playing holier than thou. If we use over-aged players then we are all guilt. From the parents of those players, to their teachers, classmates, those in their neighbourhoods, their Pastors, Priests, Imams, Academy coaches, national team coaches, everyone whose "brothers-cousins-friend" was in the same school with the age cheat and even the press who can expose cheats by just digging a little into their history. Enough of all these baseless aspersions. If you have proof, NAME and SHAME. Until then, we will just have to accept FIFA and their MRI scan.

And enough of all this Nigeria has won the World Cup, but haven't won the senior world cup blah blah blah. Argentina have won U20 five times between 1995-2007 and haven't won the World Cup since 1986. And that is a country with a much bigger pedigree than ours.

You make a fair argument however i personally don't subscribe to innocent until proven guilty in Nigeria because our loopholes are too glaring. I can walk into a lot of places now and buy a birth cert saying i'm 2 years old. If being corrupt is so easy and so cheap as it is here then perhaps the burden of proof lies somewhat on the individual rather than an assumption of innocence. Many countries have not illogically gone down this route when dealing with us in certain area. And yes we are all guilty, myself included, hence the mistrust.

A lot of arguments here seem to revolve around justifying cheating because others are doing it. Let it be known that integrity is not relative. I'll be more proud of a failing truthful country than a lying successful one. It's based on that reason i didn't follow the u-17 team. I couldn't bring myself to believe the purported ages.

zonga:
Do you have a business idea or currently in a business that needs expansion, I am ready to invest at most N2 million naira provided it generate at least 10% monthly. Let me know let us talk. You can holla me on 07089932061.

Check out my journey in my signature and let me know if tech is something you're interested in

Roled filled via nairaland. Thanks for all the interest.

lol @ living and non living nanny

bigx:
Do the sales people have a fixed salary or it's commission based or both? Thinking of implementing that but not sure of the best way

I've read a bit about this and the consensus seems to be that there should be a base salary that is reasonable then a commission on top of that related to how many sales they bring in. This method seems to satisfy and motivate most people. Display results publicly around the office, means you start a healthy competition that ultimately benefits the business. Emphasis on healthy competition.

Furthermore, most people say to consider applying a performance based remuneration model across the board, such that even your cleaner gets something extra if he/she achieves a certain target that translates to a better outcome for the business as a whole.

Food for thought.

Stillfire:
Absolutely agree.
You have just recanted the exact sentiments I ponder on frequently. As a collective it is a disaster.
As a Nigerian one absolutely needs to question these things. Why can't these values translate into the larger society? Politically, socially, morally, despite the number of religious houses, Nigeria is a disaster. Something is not right within the family network, because that is the microcosm of any society. Our generation absolutely needs to do better.

Bravo! 10,000 likes to you!

Update

An update is in order i guess. Things been going well with the startup. Hired 2 young ladies to work in sales. Gotten quite a lot of interest as a result, that's now translating to revenue. The problem that's now surfacing is collecting on payments after trial periods have ended. This has influenced a change in our pricing and sales strategy. We've done away with a free trial and now take 6 months or annual payments. Will see how it will go. Also in this time with new staff, i've learnt a good bit about human resources management i'll be sharing in the near future.

Shout out to those who've read it all and are still following my story. I'll be revealing more and more specifics soon as we may be looking to do things a bit differently.

Stay tuned!

edwife:
Well not applicable to me... They did a wonderful job.

Gob bless my parents;especially my mum.

While they may have done a wonderful job in their homes, they did a terrible job as a collective generation. Bequeathing us nothing but unemployment and failed dreams. We can't do the same to our kids, our jobs as parents extend beyond just our home to making sure society as a whole is fair to all.

Remember that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Many of our good parents did nothing or didn't do enough.

Miami11:
I came to the states to study, years later I extended my stay

Got married have young kids, but the urge to go back to Africa is daunting( I don't come from Nigeria but one of the African countries)

I went home for vacation and couldn't help the feel that I had lost a part of my life my dreams and my desires, lost relatives, missed part of my siblings growing up, missed the weather and such.
I have a feeling that

Staying back in Africa and impacting lives is worthwhile than enjoying the convenience of amenities down here.( I'm finishing a second degree and am ready to go) hubby is not on board with such, but he is willing to let me go try the experience.

To me over ten years in this country is overdue, I don't really enjoy all the drive through and other amenities in the west.

On all my visits to my country I have not had problems staying in a remote village trekking places and such. I like the exposure, experience and education I have had overseas, but I think making overseas my permanent home is futile.

Anyone ever felt such a strong desire to go back home?

I once felt just like you did. After a decade away i considered the exact same things you're now considering. So guess what i did? I moved back, 6 months ago. It's been great! Not without its challenges of course but when the mind is made up, the mind is made up. Start planning now and join us here in mother Africa. East or west, home is best!

'The only people who never fail are those who never try' - Ilka Chase

Your father is upset, he will get over it with time. Just calm down, learn from the situation and be better next time. What determines success is not succeeding at everything but persisting wisely at the most important things despite any failure.

SeverusSnape:
As for me, New Zealand all the way...

NZ is a great place if you can stand the distance. It is also quite expensive so you must have a good job to be comfortable.

Didn't realize that 'harvest' implied unethical collection. Methinks Email marketing is a 'long game', i'm interested in the 'short game' for now. So i collect phone numbers rather than emails and call the person. No way to hide this way

tooltip:
hey bro!,I have been following your thread since inception do you have some time to talk?

Sure man, whatsapp me

My attention has been called back to the thread thanks to some critical mentions. I welcome the criticism, it's all good. I don't pretend to know it all. About being coy; i like the freedom the relative anonymity Nairaland gives. I'm usually a very 'PC' guy for several reasons so having the option of not having to be too 'PC' when i want to is nice.

Update

So latest update is that our pivot has been fully activated. We are solely B2B SaaS focused entirely on one type of customer

I'm building and optimizing a sales funnel to support it. I've attached it below.


Lead generation is done online using social media and search engine marketing. Also doing some content marketing and starting to harvest emails again for email marketing. Doing some good old cold calling, cold emailing and direct selling. Terrifying stuff! I rely on the free Hubspot CRM and Sidekick for tracking emails. Good resources i've found for this kind of stuff is the 'close.io' blog and the 'pipetop' blog. Also the book 'predictable revenue' by the guy who built 'Salesforce's' sales force. Also 'saastr' has good resources

We qualify them and then progress them along the funnel as indicated. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of follow up but it's starting to pay off as we've increased our trials by over 1000% in the last month. Easy to do initially of course but impossible to maintain. We will likely even out at around 10% growth rate. I'll share more metrics and conversion ratios over time.

adrianstylez:
Dude you are getting this all wrong. A Web based business should focus on Awareness. Traffic. Conversion. Metrics. Revenue. Rinse and Repeat. There is so much more to that simple funnel i just outlined.

The first place you are getting (or got) it wrong was discarding the power of getting consumers from nairaland here. I mean your topic hit FP but you didn't take advantage of it. Do you know how many CEOs and Investors go through nairaland? You might even easily have got an investor online. I don't want to believe you are ashamed of the criticisms you'd get if you told nairalanders about the name of your start-up. Though tha seems to be the only logical reason playing in my head as to your being coy in coming out open.

The second place you are getting it wrong is "It is a web-based business" It should be treated as one. Focus more on the web aspect first. Don't throw hard earned cash away. Get the customers before thinking of an office space or employees. Test the waters. See the prospects then move physical.

Honestly, I couldn't read through all your posts because i lost interest as i thought you probably focused more on your eing articulate on the thread rather than taking advantages of the opportunities around.

Anyway though. Kudos. At least you have inspired a lot of people to get their own start ups.

The hustle is offline bro! Ask any successful Nigerian tech entrepreneur, they'll tell you. I said this earlier and i'll say it again. The garage to riches story is for silicon valley not Nigeria where we don't trust each other. Want to operate in most verticals in Nigeria? Get a space first to put your head. Case in point, today i had a chat with a prospect and first thing she asked, 'I hope you're not a faceless online thing'

To go for web awareness alone is not particularly efficient because only a small minority of Nigerians have bought software online. Nigeria is simply not a 'web' country yet. Thank God for e-commerce that's forcing people to purchase online otherwise, no hope. Even then look at all their expense on offline promotion.

Having said that, i have however been able to get a good number of users from online sources that are more appropriate. My customers simply do not make decisions based on Nairaland threads. You know how i know? I went out and spoke to them physically. Also I wasn't looking for investment and i wouldn't trust an investor that prospected for startups on Nairaland anyway, but that's just me.

This is just a story of my journey and what i'm learning, it may appeal to some, it may not appeal to some, i'm ok with that.

adrianstylez:
For you to have doubts about email marketing. You are simply not ready sir.

I have doubts about email marketing in Nigeria and that's because we haven't made the move to e-mail as a general means of communication for the majority. I track all my emails (using Sidekick) and campaigns (using mailchimp). Consistently have poor open rates not to mention clickthroughs (Even for current customers). In any case, i'm starting to harvest emails again to restart email marketing so maybe my opinion will change.

BetaQuick:
You arent making much sense here sir. The title of your post is "My Tech Startup Journey". You talk about your experience and yet you do not want to share you idea. I'm sorry but this does not make sense.

Thanks for your opinion, my position however does make sense to me. Perhaps i haven't done a good job in articulating it well. My idea is actually immaterial in the journey because as a matter of fact, it has evolved so much that it now bears virtually no resemblance to the initial thought. Execution is what the journey is really about not the idea that continues to change.

@ felixchip not sure whether you're still debating what to do. The answer in my opinion is to split test it. Do one for some time and then another for same amount time. Run both concurrently if possible.

Get a lot of feedback at during this period.

Come back after some time and decide based on the objective data you collect.

Nobody knows what will work better, only testing it will tell.

Selecting your customer

I want to comment on selecting what customers to target for a startup in Nigeria. Hopefully some of my experience is useful for others.

When i started out i new that ultimately we will end up targeting all types of customers. I refer to the following broad options:

- B2C - Selling to consumer
- B2G - Selling to government
- B2B - selling to other businesses

As a startup, resources are limited so you must focus on one particular market. We opted to go with B2C with the hope that that would give us the necessary clout to progress to the others.

I however severely underestimated how hard this would be. It turns out that in order to achieve a good level of revenue from consumers, you need quite deep pockets to reach them in the first place. Traditional B2C marketing is expensive and difficult to maintain attention, hence the big figures top brands spend on advertising campaigns. Startups that are able to match them are often well funded (think Konga, Jumia, OLX). As a small startup this is impossible to compete with. Ways to circumvent this are: using social media or search engine marketing, on the assumption that your product is amenable to these channels.

Next option is to sell to the government. Very attractive option. You come up with an idea, approach the government agency it concerns. They love it, fund you to build it and voila, you're in the money. If only it was that easy! The convoluted nature of doing anything with the Nigerian government makes this option almost akin to suicide. It's still possible though and people have been known to make things happen. For me however, I find the incentive structure for government so strange that i can't relate to it and thus have decided not to pursue it.

This leaves B2B, my new love. For a Nigerian startup, i think this is where the most viable opportunity is. Why? You need revenue as soon as possible, a business will give you loads of cash in an instant if you can find and solve a key problem that makes money for them. All you need to do is find that problem, build a simple but reliable solution, find and trial it with your customers, prove it makes money for them, ask them for a cut of the extra money you made for them. It's just that simple! (on paper). No need for a big advertising budget, all you must invest in is great branding, a great website and well honed value propositions.

For B2B, the key is to go to where your customers are, whether in conferences or trade shows. Also try 'linked in' which gives great tools to find and advertise to your ideal customers. I would know, 10 USD just gave me a customer with chains of business locations. We are now fine tuning our marketing for solely B2B. The beauty here is you can ask them for even a million naira and they will pay if your solution gives them more than what you're asking them to pay.

So in summary (in my experience) selling to businesses is better than consumers and governments in Nigeria as businesses will get you to really good revenue in less time and money compared to the former 2 options. Other opinions welcome.

databoy247:
Nice. But I must insist, is it not time to reveal your product or what your start-up is about? I believe you have been doing some pitching and marketing, plus product display expose at stands in events. Why cant we here in NL know what the product is all about? You never can tell if my organization will become an instant paying customer or if i can recommend some potential customers.

Or are you still scared your idea will be stolen? We are all itching to know.....let the cat out of the bag.

Ideas are everywhere so not scared of it being stolen. Like you said, i've pitched in different forums, exhibited and been on TV and Radio so not an issue. Here though I like the fact that i can express general thoughts without fielding specific questions on my own particular start-up. Also like being able to say things openly without prejudice to my startup's interests.

On the customer part, my ideal customers are most unlikely to be reading this thread or even be on Nairaland at all. I'm seeking for reliable and scalable ways to find them. So this forum or even media mentions aren't a customer acquisition focus for me.

Pivot

Following the training at GES and due to the lukewarm market response we'd had, we decided to pivot and focus in on proving a smaller concept and providing more immediate value in terms customers can understand simply. To do this i spent close to 2 weeks sitting with a customer and observing what they did and tried to understand the problems they have and what their goals are. I went on to hack a solution together with excel and other simple tools. They liked it and we went on to code an MDP (minimum desirable product).

This customer is currently trialing it and will likely start to pay soon. I also went out to look for more customers via direct selling to qualified leads and online ads. This has yielded 3 more customers and a chain of businesses who will trial it. The hope is we are able to convert them to full customers after the trial period. So we are now exclusively B2B rather than the crazy hybrid we were unequipped to attack

I'm now currently creating marketing material and hiring sales staff to go out and generate as many leads as possible. Key being to target innovators/ early adopters (search 'diffusion of innovation' to understand this). We're hiring graduate interns for sales and marketing roles. If you know any young person who is smart, outgoing and enterprising, Ask them to send a cv and cover letter to abujadatacollection@gmail.com

Key learning

- Focus on 1 key problem
- Solve that problem excellently
- Relate it to revenue
- Find innovators/ early adopters ( difficult to do, but think of it as a numbers game as they're only 2.5% of the population. Must talk to 100 to get 2.5)
- Get it in their hands early

If your customer can't understand how your solution helps them make more money in less than a minute of explaining, you're on a long thing.

Guess an update is due:

Got the opportunity to be at the GES, was inspiring and overwhelming in many respects. So many great young people doing awesome things, here in Africa and around the world. Shared the same room with pres Obama and Kenyatta. I was part of a particular sub-group within GES where we got some days of focused startup training and mentorship.

A lot of focus is on entrepreneurship in Africa, with different funds being launched for us. Particular interest is in female and young entrepreneurs. So this time is one of the greatest times ever in the world to be an African entrepreneur. So many are counting on our success and are willing to support. The yardstick however is excellence, No one will support a half-assed effort.

On my return from the GES i got to meet Pres Buhari as an exhibitor at an international youth day event. I told him how we are creating new jobs and opportunities in the tech sector. Not sure all of it got across but the hope is that the government does more to support new businesses who create jobs and pay taxes. Cash is tricky and real estate in particular is expensive. In my case, I recently left the small serviced office space I was and moved into a bigger office space at great cost. It's necessary however to accommodate our staff. No sooner had the paint dried on the walls before a tax collector came knocking. I so wanted to box his head in! but that's the Nigeria we're in. You struggle hard to get your business up and running, the government that had no hand whatsoever in it, in fact delayed and made things difficult for you, comes looking for tax. This needs to change.

databoy247:
Thanks mate. Will look into it.

Great update. You should certainly look into waveapps. I use it myself to and it make finances easy. Since you have an admin staff it should be easy to do. Just get an accountant to look into it once in a while. You probably know that nothing can make up for getting the finances wrong.

You spoke about focus and how doing other things can be distracting. That's absolutely true! It's tough in our environment but like you i've come to learn that saying 'no' is not such a bad thing.

Good luck with the govt contracts, i generally stay away from them. Too much hassle with no real assurances.

Remember to always use metrics to regularly assess your biz. Have <5 and 1 in particular you're focusing on.

I should go update my own thread sef.

Well done and hope to hear more

dotcomnamename:
Continue your lies
[size=15pt]March 2015, How Ireland developed the EU's fastest growing economy[/size]
CNN http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/03/13/qmb-ireland-pm-enda-kenny-intv.cnn
[size=15pt]Ireland retains crown as fastest-growing EU economy [/size]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/ireland-fastest-growing-eu-economy
[size=15pt]Ireland Raises A Glass To Economic Recovery[/size]
http://news.sky.com/story/1444877/ireland-raises-a-glass-to-economic-recovery

This is a verbatim quote from the guardian article link you provided:

'Ireland’s debt-to-GDP ratio remains one of the highest in the EU at 115%, unemployment is in double digits and prime minister Enda Kenny has described the recovery as fragile in recent speeches'

Also the growth rate is predicted at 3.5%, Nigeria's is virtually double that!

Please do a bit more work before you accuse anyone of lies with links that actually back said lies