₦airaland Forum

Nmeri17:
hello op have u seen this thread
https://www.nairaland.com/2205594/real-hustle-web-business-offline

yes, i referred to it in my post on 'hitting the market'

BetaQuick:
Sorry about your setback.

Selling to Nigerian businesses is very very difficult. It is not the same as selling in the US market.
If you are not promising more money or direct savings on money its hard to convince them to sign the dotted line.
Business owners also respond to products that boost their ego.

I agree a lot with NaLaugh, and like NaLaugh I believe I know what your business is.... I am a developer and actually got a contract to install a similar service for a business.

Starting a business in Nigeria is not easy....Good luck.

Thanks man, there's always setbacks but getting up after each one is what sets the winners apart.

...I doubt you're doing what i'm doing on a contract, if so you might consider just giving us the contract and you take a finders fee no need to do any work

I kid, the more of us the merrier. The market is the biggest obstacle currently.

Setbacks

This start-up life is difficult. We've recently had some setbacks. My Nigerian partners who talked a big talk deserted us over the last few weeks. In one case, made way with some company funds. None of the high and mighty talk was ever delivered upon. This has set us back operationally and financially. We may now not be able to meet some commitments. We are not deterred however. We plan to regroup and go hard at it again.

Learning:

I want to say trust no one but that's impossible in business. Just be careful who you trust and have alternative options.
If you go into business with a friend know that things may turn sour and your friendship will be lost.
Be present, it's harder for people to screw with you when you are right there in front of them.

Consequently i've quit my job and will be focusing on my start-up full time in a few weeks. Wish me luck!

Business Practicalities

Short post about some practical things i did that some may be interested in

- Business registration - Did this with the CAC via a lawyer. We registered a limited liability company. Shouldn't cost more than 100,000 depending on where and who you talk to

- TIN number - Went to the FIRS, they will require a letter and a form filled. This registers you to collect VAT on behalf of the government (currently at 5%) and also registers you for corporate tax.

- Legal services - We retained the lawyer that did our CAC. He's drafted our formal partnership agreement. Website terms and conditions and privacy policy. Might seem like a luxury to some but if you want to go far it's always best to do things properly.

- Bank account - We opened a corporate account with one of the banks. We visited a few and quickly realized there wasn't much difference between all of them. Their customer service is all equally poor, at least in my experience.

- Branding - We hired a designer to come up with our logo, business cards, ID cards, letterhead, power point slides etc. It is important to look and feel professional, Nigerians will not take you seriously otherwise. Especially if you're trying to convince them to part with thousands of dollars.

If we ever come pitch to you, you'll be surprised to find out that we are only a few months away from going out of business if you don't give us some business and that the almighty CEO is surviving on noodles. We are all about appearances in Nigeria, i don't like it at all but i have to play the game if i hope to win. Leave the t-shirt and jeans for when you're in silicon valley. Here you wear your business suit, strangle your neck with a tie, sweat like a Christmas goat and pray you don't get heat exhaustion.

All the above cost too much money and effort that most people starting businesses are unable to afford. I hate to say it but the government if it's serious about jobs needs to reduce the cost barrier. Do things like make business registration free for under 35 year olds or provide one-stop shops for aspiring entrepreneurs. In the country i currently live in, you will not believe the kinds of incentives and resources that exist for people that are willing to create businesses. Don't wait for the Nigerian government though, you grandchildren might be old before things like this happen. I hope i'm wrong.

What's your experience of the above processes been like?

Human Resources

Managing people, particularly Nigerians is by far the most difficult part of running a business...

We'd decided to bring in my recommended contact in Nigeria as a partner with equity. I'd known him for around 10 years and he had some experience in the niche we are working in. So seemed like a reasonably good fit. He wasn't really tech savvy however i envisioned a more offline role for him. He had also recruited someone else who liked what we were doing and felt he could bring in connections that would see us land big clients and deals.

So after we set up our office we discussed our vision, targets and most importantly the kind of work environment we wanted. I have a dream of a workplace where everyone is comfortable to speak up and provide ideas of better way to do things. That i'm the CEO doesn't make me the keeper of all knowledge. Great insights can come from multiple places, in fact one customer we were pitching to last week gave us a great idea that we are now gaining some traction with. To attempt to stifle this channel for creativity would be disastrous. This is unfortunately what happens in many companies today. The owners manage like army generals and take any suggestions as insubordination. That's why you hardly find any long lasting Nigerian companies, most disappear when the owners leave. They never took the time to encourage and nurture the growth of their workers.

I'm aiming to build a company that will live on for centuries and create and capture value perpetually. Stifling any creativity would be counter to that. A great book to read is 'Built to last'. The book resulted from research done by some Stanford professors on what made the biggest, oldest and most successful companies last. It has many gems in it but one i took home is that they always promote from within. As a result when i hire, i ask myself do i see this person as a potential CEO. As the team is small it's very likely that an early hire will rise to that position one day.

Ok so after all that philosophy, we entered the labour market to hire our first staff. My goodness! To say we were grossly disappointed is an understatement. We were flabbergasted at what we saw. What is being passed of as education in our institutions is basically horse crap. A lot of our young people have been systematically disenfranchised by the education given to them. Those that turn out brilliant do so mostly out of their own work and dedication. The average student who depends on his educators will be left half-baked, if even. So if you're a student reading this, what you're education is supposed to do is teach you how to learn. Currently this is not being done so you need to put in extra effort to know how to learn. I digress, back to hiring. I basically learnt not to bother looking at results (who knows if they did it). What i tried to assess, with much difficulty was: Were they able to learn, were they willing to learn and could they present themselves coherently and hold an intelligent conversation. If i am interviewing someone and i know more about their field than they are able to display themselves then that's bye bye. I need people around me who are smarter than me otherwise as Guy Kawasaki says, you get a 'bozo explosion'. Greatness can't be built from mediocre efforts.

After much searching we were able to find one staff who ticked some off the boxes. You can never get all you need. Now our team is set up and we got to business. Will post more about the difficulty of managing people soon.

DeeCherry:
5.PAMUKKALE HOT SPRINGS
Pamukkale means “The Cotton Castle” or “The Cotton Fortress” in Turkish, It is a natural site with snow white stalactites, hot springs and travertines and terraces of carbonate mineralsleft by the flowing water. It is widely known as the 8th Wonder of the World by Turkish people. To keep the travertines white it was forbidden to walk on them, but it’s possible to walk on some of them barefoot. This spot is a must-see for those who travel to Turkey, but you should hurry up to visit it ASAP because it may disappear in coming years.lol

been fortunate enough to have been here. Such a breathtaking sight.

Everytime i watch nigerian music videos i can't get over how much sexuality is on display.

I remember back in the day when being a video vixen was something to hide now it's an appellation many aspire to.

So when did this all change and how do these artists get away with it in our 'conservative' society?

A small note about experts

People often don't quite understand expertise. All it is is knowledge asymmetry. You become a relative expert when you have more knowledge than whoever you a relating with at that time. So the way to become an expert is simple: Gain knowledge

To become an absolute expert - and not be a fraud - you need to gain enough knowledge to be within the normal knowledge range of other people who charge people for access to their services.

Aim to be an expert in the field you operate in order to be successful. When you become an expert the next aim should be to become a thought leader, this is often a natural progression if you are always striving to be on top of your game.

Hitting the market

No amount of planning can get you ready for when you hit the market. We had been planning, learning and developing for about 8 months. Time had finally come for us to start selling and get customer feedback. We were no where near a finished product. In fact i don't think we will ever have a finished product. I plan to continue iterating indefinitely to provide more and more service and quality for my users.

I arrived in Nigeria, tired and jet-lagged but proceeded to hook up with my team on the same day. The next day, we had a sales pitch with a potential customer that could net us thousands of dollars in revenue. We arrived at the appointed time but you know Nigeria, we waited for about an hour. Finally we were ushered in to speak to the boss. We exchanged pleasantries and proceeded to reel him in.

We did a high level overview of the problem we were working on and they were in immediate agreement that it was a problem for them too. We proceeded to carry out a demo and outline the benefits of our service. The boss loved it and wanted to be signed up straight away. Sweet, we were happy to do a deal on the spot until the finance guy butted in, we haven't signed them till date although it still looks promising.

A few things i took out of that meeting is to zero in on the decision makers, no point wasting time pitching to a non decision maker. Always find out who makes the decision and then target him/ her. This targeting might not be direct but be strategic about how doing it indirectly will ultimately lead you to the decision maker. Also think and plan about the length of a sales cycle when pursuing clients. Often the bigger the deal, the longer the cycle. All well and good except you might your runway might finish prior to landing the deal depending on your burn rate. There's no point landing a million dollar deal after you go bankrupts. So strategize and look for smaller 20 dollar deals here and there to keep you going while you angle smartly for the bigger deals. The bigger deals may fall through anyway despite a large amount of worke whereas the small deals are smaller effort and you know quickly where you stand.

Furthermore, early on in our conversation we were asked: Are you a registered company? are you allowed to do this? Do you have an office. These questions were in line with the feedback we were getting initially. Even as an online business you need a physical presence where someone can call in and ask you questions face to face. You need some type of reputation and expert basis for someone to trust you. That's why i think that the ideas that are most likely to succeed and make it big in Nigeria are experts who innovate in their field. Our business environment hasn't progressed to accepting garage start-ups yet. Read on techcabal.com the founder of Prepclass write about the hustle actually being offline. What he writes is absolutely spot on. Us tech start-ups often forget that we are really a business and we don't differ that much from all other non- tech, brick and mortar businesses, particularly in Nigeria. I'll talk more about offline hustle in future posts.

So we set about looking for an office, the prices in my chosen city were eye-poppingly outrageous. My budgeted amount couldn't even cough at the prices they were quoting. What's worse is the crazy demand for annual or biennial advance rent payments. My retort always was: ' I could be out of business in 2 years yet you want me to pay for this office for that amount of time!'. After much looking and frustrations we finally settled on a place. Wasn't the most ideal for our purpose but was still expensive. I rejigged the budget to reflect this. What it meant for me and my family was more noodles and water for breakfast, lunch and dinner and no new or nice things for sometime.

You may have noticed here i've used more business lingo, get comfortable with it because that's how we all need to think and speak when it comes to business.

freetowns:
I have been silently following this thread. U doing a good job boss. Seems to me you have read so many books and researched a lot to put u in good stead. The problem with Nigeria I know today is so many people want to partner in an already set up biz. Few want to start from scratch and sacrifice at d start up.

I currently have a biz m developing. This idea is done physically in Nigeria and I wonder why not online yet. Heck erytin is going online now. But my issue is I can't do this alone. I need a team to push this idea with me. But no one seem interested so I'm developing the site myself and hoping this stuff works out.

Enuf of my rants. Keep the write up coming bro. M enjoying it

Thank you! I enjoyed your rant.

You're right you can't do it alone. Persist however and be strategic in approaching the right people. Also be willing to give as much as you want to take. When i was speaking to my co-founder to get on board, he was working on this really cool iOS app. I offered to help him market and sell it, told him his skills were too good not to share it with the wider world. This i think tipped his mind a little more in my favor. Funny enough since we started working together, he has shelved his iOS app.

You may have to approach people through an indirect means. Example, approach a few people who are doing it offline and become friendly with them. Study how they go about their business and pick the one who prides themselves in excellence, are passionate and not too egotistical. I've found in my short time in business that going indirectly can sometimes bring bring better results than otherwise.

Remember the only people you need initially in a tech start-up are people who code and people who sell, everything else is superfluous (Paul Graham not me)

tooltip:
1k001 sir please permit me to comment on some of your posts tomorrow

You're welcome to. I hope this thread becomes a place where we can all come to share our respective journeys. The more experiences we share, the better for us all.

Ideas

People always ask, i need an idea to start a business, how can i get a good one?

Well i'll tell you something, since becoming an entrepreneur. I've come up with tons of ideas. Unable to divide my attention however.

Ever noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs end up founding serial companies and products. Ever wondered why? That's because of the mindset an entrepreneur has. In order to get a business idea, you have to put your mind in the right frame.

I met a guy recently who left Nigeria and tried to come back to live but couldn't because of NEPA. He left and returned, guess what he does now? provides solutions to enable people get uninterrupted off grid electricity without a loud generator. That's the mindset that's needed, turn every problem to an opportunity.

Our big country is brimming with problems looking for brave people to attempt to solve them. If you can reliably solve a problem for enough people, in no time people will be looking for you so much you will have to hide.

So to get an idea find a problem, preferably one that afflicts you or people close to you and find a way to solve it. Learn, learn, learn and then learn some more. In no time ideas will be popping out of the walls. So even if your initial venture fails, you've put yourself in the frame of mind to see opportunities in the problems you face.

If after giving it a hard slog my venture eventually fails, trust me when i say i have a hundred more ideas i will pursue. Tasting this start-up life means i will not be settling for anything else. ( wife agreeing of course )

Jack of all trades

I just goggled 'how to publish a cook book' and couldn't help but chuckle and share my thoughts.

Since becoming an entrepreneur I've literally become a jack of all trades: photographer, graphic designer, copy writer, human resources manager, accountant, financial analyst, investment banker, statistician, marketer, salesperson, product designer, and now a cookbook publisher. I wonder what will be next, clowning?

Thank God for Google and thank God for being able to learn. Lack of knowledge is now no longer an excuse, the question is do you want it bad enough?

So if your're wondering whether to start or not? just do it! What other job would you get to do all these varied things?

If you end up failing, look at all the skills you can put on your CV

Nothing is as exciting and enriching as being in a startup!

debbydee:
yes. very soon you will see my post.

Awesome, would like to hear all about it. Never get enough of start-up stories and there are far too few in Nigeria so you must share

Product Development

I am not a coder so i defer to my technical founders a lot in the development process. However i've tried to be involved as much as possible as i have a clear vision of what i want the software to be able to do. I also have dabbled a tiny bit so that the code makes more sense to me. It's hard as i'm juggling a lot but i understand the basic syntax of HTML and python. Doubt i'll be enlarging my vocabulary any time soon as there's just to much to do.

I'll speak more on the broader aspects of product dev. I had clear ideas of what i wanted, however it was hard deciding on an MVP (minimum viable product). MVP is the minimum set of features your product must have in order for it to demonstrate what you're trying to achieve. After months of customer development and coding we finally arrived at what i think is an acceptable MVP. It's what we've launched with and already have a few customers using it and a tiny bit of revenue. What we are selling ultimately is not our current product but the destination we are headed. This is where finding early adopters is key, they are people who understand the destination and are willing to put up with the inconveniences now to get there.

Ours is a cloud based solution so we applied to microsoft who accepted us to their bizspark programme. I urge others to apply, they give your free hosting on azure among other benefits worth in excess of thousands of dollars. We would be nowhere mostly without microsoft.

Generally product is not often the problem for us in startups. We all have products and the ability to code them. The bigger question is will the end customer actually use my product to solve their problem. That's the real hard thing. The way to try overcome this is the customer development process. Well articulated by steve blank in his books and presentations. Basically he says that the first thing you should do, even before writing any code is to go talk to your end user and find out what their problem is and how their currently solving it. Only then can you truly make a product that will address his need. Even more ideal is convincing the customer to pay for it before you build (dream on in Nigeria!)

Our customer development process involved, phone interviews, emails and online surveys with well over 100 people. It took time, effort and money but it was necessary. We know as a result that even though we had a good hunch initially about our product, we have small validation from speaking to potential end users. We have a good sense of what the problems are and are applying ourselves to solve it for people. It also meant we could contact them to try the product when we launch, something we've done. Learning from this process, i will advice anyone to finely target your customer interviews as much as possible. We could have done a better job selecting our potential customers.

Few more gems i've read: Code for idiots because one will end up maintaining it.
Assume your customers are idiots when coding. Make things as user friendly as possible
Don't get too fancy for your MVP, concentrate on functionality. Think back to the first days of facebook and how simple it was.
Don't forget customer support. It must be done by all founders, coders and non coders alike.

Lastly and most importantly: Real founders ship! If you're not ashamed of your first product then you've shipped too late.

That's about it for now. Any thoughts from anyone?

debbydee:
nice one. keep it up

Thanks. Are you doing a start-up yourself?

Nmeri17:
going by yo last post I'm frightened you have embarked on the same thing I have in mind. I will be quite heartbroken if it turns out to be the same

My last post was vague so unlikely we are in the same field. What field is yours, i'll tell you if it's the same.

In any case never be disheartened about competition. Ours is a big country and a big world, no 2 products can ever be the same. All you need to do is your homework, position yourself right and you'll be in business.

Just look at how Facebook obliterated myspace, bebo, hi5 etc or how the almighty nokia fell.

If we turn out to be in the same field we could collaborate. The market is a hard one so the more synergy the better.
That's one thing lacking in Nigerian businesses, collaboration. Silicon valley is the way it is because of the amazing synergy the ecosystem they're in promotes. People there collaborate easily, we should aspire to the same. Read 'zero to one' to hear Peter Thiel go on about how competition kills companies and ultimately innovation. He makes several sound points.

NaLaugh:
Perhaps you have interpreted the advise a little differently.
The point was to go ahead with your niche, but do not lose sight of the fact that a potential for expansion exists.
To this end, you need to look far ahead, and identify some of the things which might hinder a smooth and organic expansion.
These things could be manner of branding etc
If Facebook (which started as Thefacebook) had started as Harvardbook or Collegebook, it would have had to rebrand at multiple stages in its growth.
If Airbnb started as Calibnb.. well, you get the point.
So, to reiterate; Go after a niche (regardless of the market), but keep the big picture in sight when making strategic decisions.

You're right indeed. Scale is important and we certainly are designing for scale. It's Inherent in our DNA as not all founders are Nigerian.

As a matter of fact we've gotten several invitations to set-up shop in different countries but Nigeria is home to Mr CEO, moi, so i decided to come crack this market first. Also Nigeria is in dire need of what i'm working on. We'll see how things will turn out

Thanks for reading and thanks for the advice.

NaLaugh:
Keep at it.

I'm pretty positive i know what your startup is, and what it does (or intends to), but i'll leave you to elaborate, when you feel like it.

Being an entrepreneur is an entirely different beast. There is one ingredient that an entrepreneur MUST possess, ..passion.

If you do not completely believe in what you're doing, don't do it.
If people tell you, it's a crazy idea, well, then embrace the role of the "mad scientist."

As someone who has invested significant amounts of time, energy and cash (sometimes to my detriment) into business, i can tell you, it ain't easy.
Then again, no one said it was going to be.

One of my biggest challenge is managing businesses (with physical locations and employees - some from Nairaland ) in Nigeria while living elsewhere. Nigerians can be a little crazy, to say the least

I currently also have a tech startup in the works, and i've been pushing it's launch forward every month, for some months now.
However, It is all ready to go, so any day now.

Once I get this particular project underway, I'll be shifting my focus back on my local market (U.S).
The Nigerian market is going through a very interesting curve, and is an ideal time to harness it. However, sometimes we focus a little too much on the niche market (Nigeria), and lose sight of the bigger picture.


My advise to you at this stage is not to limit the scalability of your solution to the Nigerian market.
Make it in a manner where you can gradually open it up to the rest of the world without necessarily recreating a different product.

Good luck!

Yeah it's pretty easy to find what my startup, thanks for not revealing. I'll deny it anyway, I want to keep this independent of it so i can say speak freely.

Nigerians are crazy indeed, i've got a few stories coming up! Running a team in Nigeria remotely is difficult!

Regarding your advise of limiting to a location, we started out broad and being for everyone and everywhere but it's difficult to get any kind of traction. The reason is when you're for everyone and everywhere you're for noone and nowhere. All the start up greats like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel will tell you to look for a niche and own it before you expand. So define a segment of the market and a defined location.

Examples of this in current succeses:
Facebook - Limited to Havard initially then, one university after another
Paypal - Focused on power sellers on ebay
Air bnb - started in san fransisco targetting conference goers, incredibly small niche but now are all over the world

It's counter-intuitive but it works. We have tested this ourselves. When we tried to be everything for everyone we couldn't get any users. Now we've narrowed to a particular location and sub niche and we're seeing results already.

So to all entrepreneurs, resist the urge to be everything for everybody. Start small and do things that don't scale. Read Paul graham here:
http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Watch this video too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQOC-qy-GDY

Networking and opening doors

I was going to post about something else but i saw an ad for an ICT expo that promoted the opportunity to network so networking it is. I've read a lot about networking and have been to a few events for that sole purpose. So here's what i think. Caveat: I've only been an entrepreneur for less than a year so take my experience with a huge dose of salt.

I find that networking can be quite hit and miss. You never know what you'll get and so could waste your time and effort and not get much out of it. A lot of people say to network for the sake of networking as you never know when something will happen, not sure i agree. My time as an entrepreneur is of the essence so spending it on activities with rather uncertain outcomes doesn't sit well with me.

I find the best events to attend are those in your niche not those general meetings for meeting sake. You can make real contacts in your niche and follow up with them later individually. Follow up is super important, i'm not great at it and continue to work on it, I've started to calendar in times to follow up with people to make sure i do it.

When following up don't do it with the aim of getting things from people, go with the goal to give. When you give freely, people will give to you freely too. Along the same lines don't be overtly focused on networking upwards, you'll be surprised how helping someone who is in no position to help you will turn out to provide a great opportunity for you.

Personally i've gotten the greatest mileage from searching out people on twitter i think will fit into my strategy then striking up a chat with them. I've been able to get a few great leads as a result. I never go with an intent to sell but to learn more about what they do and how i can help them.

Finally to enlarge you network, you need to wear your business on your sleeve. Talk about it all the time everywhere you go. You will be surprised what you'll gain as a result. This can be hard for a lot of people particularly techies who are often introverted and don't speak much.
I know all about it, I'm an introvert myself! If i could get away with it, i'd sit in my house by myself all day long and be fully content. That's not good for business however. I've this changed from being a private person to being rather public ( i don't recognize myself sometimes). If you had told me a few years ago i'd be doing some of the things i'm doing now, i would have bet my life on it that it would never happen. That's life however, you pick a goal and you alter what you need to alter in order to reach that goal.

I creep myself out now, i reach out to random people on the street, facebook, twitter, nairaland, everywhere. It's what you have to do to be a successful entrepreneur. I've walked in to offices off the street demanding to see the CEO confidently while absolutely quaking on the inside. There's no other way, you gotta do it. I read once somewhere that the founder of pinterest would go to every apple store and change the display page on every screen he could to his website. That's the kind of crazy stuff you have to start doing, anything less means your not ready yet.

Starting a business is not for the faint hearted!

Planning and Strategy

I started out writing a traditional business plan. As i researched and watched multiple videos on founding a business, i came across the book 'business model generator' by Alexander Osterwalder. In it he advocates jettisoning the traditional business plan for a business model canvas that summarizes the important aspects of business. The advantage being that the canvas is a live document you can update as your learn, whereas a traditional plan is often left in a corner to gather dust.

The use of this canvas was further buttressed for me by Steve Blank who defines a start-up as an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. All initial plans are really assumptions, no business plan survives the test of entering a real market, ours certainly didn't. The canvas enables one to learn and update plans as things go along. It appears somewhat brief but make no mistake, it requires the same, if not more rigor as when writing a usual business plan. It's structure prompts one to seek the key paths, activities and contacts to make in order to attain success. We've used this canvas in our planning and have certainly seen many positives. I recommend it unreservedly. Unfortunately in Nigeria the idea that a traditional business plan is dated hasn't quite permeated through so one may have to write one anyway.

It is key as one goes along to set key performance indicators (KPI) to assess how you're doing. It can be quite hard to pick the right ones at the right stage as there are several 'vanity metrics' that can be misleading. Look at this instance from our experience. We promoted 2 blog posts recently via a certain channel. 1 blog post got about 400 views while the other got over 600 views. However the first one was far better for us, reason - it gave us far more conversions in the form of sign-ups. So make sure you define a real goal that moves the needle of progress. Things like number of sign-ups, number of downloads or revenue. Don't look at facebook likes or twitter followers, waste of time! In fact we've a relative competitor who has 4000% more facebook likes than we do and i'm pretty sure we have more revenue and a better path to profit than they do (looking from the outside). Remember that free is not a business model. We charged from day 1 but realized that our value proposition was hard to understand for some so we now do a 30 day trial with support along the way. We set a goal to call our customers weekly to see how they were doing. It's yet to be seen whether the trial is the right move but we're sticking to it for now.

Also media mentions in tech blogs and the like is nothing. It may massage your ego but does virtually nothing for your business. Unless of course your target audience are the readers of those tech blogs. Try instead to get media in your niche and don't talk about how awesome you are, talk about the problem you are solving and the benefits of your product to the user. So say if i had a startup in agriculture i wouldn't go looking for media mention in techpoint.ng and the likes. I'll be looking to write a guest article in 'farming news today' talking about the problem my start-up is solving. I'll expand on more tactics like this when i post on user acquisition. We are actively avoiding any tech media attention at the moment, it will only be a distraction.

We've tried to incorporate SMART goal setting (google it) in our operations. We have defined targets for: number of customer contacts, time to first contact on sign up, Revenue etc. Granted we've not met a lot of them but they're still targets nonetheless. We have a distributed team of founders so we email a lot and try to have a virtual meeting once a week, very hard with time zones involved. Our Nigeria team have a short planning meeting every morning that i try to call in on as much as possible.

tooltip:
And i have been searching for guys like this

@op i like the fact that you invest in your learning, it's non-negotiable

so bro, do you think a start-up founder can juggle between multiple startups?, i'm presently in this situation.

how much equity did you give to your co-founders and how much did you retain?

are all of you working full-time on this idea?

are you paying salaries yet?

do your skills complement each other?

are your equity ownerships vested?

I follow paul grahams blog, Ycombinators websites, eric reis, steve blank and peter thiel are awesome

I hope to learn from you

Cheers!

Whoa! that's a lot of questions. Clearly means you've been doing a lot of work and thinking. Awesome!

I'm very far from rocket internet level, just a small ant hoping to strike a bit of luck. Peter Thiel is indeed on another level, 'Zero to one' confirmed a lot of my thoughts and strategy. Let's see how it plays out in real life in Naija.

I'll try to answer your questions as much as i can. Remember one thing though about advice, you are the best person to make decisions as you see all the parts rather than the advisor who doesn't always. Advice for someone like you who loves to learn should help only a little.

- If there's one thing i've learnt, it's focus. If you juggle too many things you'll end up failing at all of them. Pick the idea you're most passionate about and run with it would be my take.

- Equity is divided proportional to contribution, so it's unequal but fair. All the co-founders were my friends for at least 8 years before our venture so it was fairly easy to agree. I read a great article that described a rough formula, will try to find it. Hope i stored it in 'pocket'. Make sure to have the discussion early and that everyone is happy with the agreement.

- I've been working part time on my start-up as i have a full time job. I resigned a few weeks ago and will be working full time on it in a few weeks. Scary!!! Everyone thinks i'm mad. I was able to convince the most important people in my life that i am not so it's all good. My co-founders will still be working part time.

- We have 2 full time staff that are drawing a salary. The rest of us founders get an IOU from the company, reduces pressure on our cash flow. Will start to pay out when we are well past break-even and/ or funded.

- I feel there's nothing i can't learn or do, the main reason i got co-founders was because i didn't have the time to learn to code. If i was 18 i would have learnt to code myself! So my co-founders do the technical side and i handle everything else. Bus dev, strategy, funding etc. I've delegated some sales and operational duties to my staff but that's because i'm not currently in Nigeria.

I hope that was helpful.

I'll tell you the story of Hernan Cortes to finish of. Cortes conquered much of America. The story is told of him arrivng by boat to the new world with a small army. In front of him was the large aztec army. You know what cortes did? He got his army off the boat then proceeded to set it on fire. Guess who won that battle?

Having options make us humans not try hard enough, our sub-conscious always knows there's a way out. When you get the courage to burn your 'boat', then things get real and boy do you fight for your life. That determination to keep going in the face of tremendous opposition is what will get you through this tough start-up life. Yet to be seen if i'll get there, watch this space!

blink182:
Ah ah take it easy my brother, you just expect us to find out like that, how do we link it to you and know it was what you spoke of here?

All in due course my brother, it is immaterial at the moment

blink182:
Lol, just say it and no one will implement it even if it seems like it will happen. My Library has probably over 20 books I bought from ebay, amazon and while in school. I have The Richdad series, Donald Trump, Trump and Robert Kiyosaki-bought this book alone 11k while I was serving, Richard Branson, Joseph Stiglitz Roaring 90's and many more.

Starting a business is not for the light hearted, the bureaucracy involved alone will frustrate you. I remember when I started my escrow service, the moment I announced the service here, another website was launched here too, I went to look at the website and laughed-it was one of those CMS websites stating just a launch date. I just said to myself, this guy will eventually realize what he is getting into when he decides to develop a robust fraud proof website and the logistics involved in creating a company that offers such a sensitive service. To this day, they never launched. As for me, I really thank God as I am gradually getting known and receiving the much needed referrals.

I currently operate out of Lagos but have a drop/inspection office there. I am still very far from my vision but I am approaching it gradually.

Great job on the the business man! You site looks great and extra points for naming yourself after one of my favorite bands from back in the day!

You're absolutely right about business, it's easy on the face of it but hard work when you get in.

I'm not naming my venture yet as i want my diary to be independent of it for now. I'm sure it will be found out somehow in no time.

Funding

This is the factor many cite as the greatest hindrance. Personally, i've been fortunate to have had a reasonably good paying job. Having a wife and a little girl on one income however meant that in order to fund my start-up the whole family had to make sacrifices. Again i'm thankful for my wonderful wife who saw my passion and bought into my dream. In fact she's now working for us part time ( story for another time).
So we went without luxuries, lived on the necessities, denied ourselves all the good things we know we can afford. All for our end goal of building a great company that creates value for its users and staff.

A start-up is indeed expensive, particularly where we are based. Things cost twice as much and take twice as long. Our office space costs a ridiculous amount. It was necessary however as people wouldn't do any business with us without an office. Forget all that garage story from America. Doesn't work in Nigeria, people too suspicious!

We have a budget, haven't really been able to stick to it due to the unpredictability of the start-up phase, but there's still hope. We use a free cloud accounting service - 'waveapps'. I highly recommend it. I was able to electronically integrate my bank and paypal accounts. I'm in the process of contracting a cloud accountant to look after the books. It's important a business starts as it means to continue, plan and record all your expenditure. Keep good books and budget for and use professional services. We haven't been great at keeping track of all the finances for various reasons but it is something we will be 100% good at once some more things solidify for us.

The advantage of being an African entrepreneur at this time is there are several grant funding options. We've applied for a number of them and are hoping for some success, they include:

Etisalat prize for innovation
Airtel catapult a startup
Tonny Elumelu entrepreneurship programme
YouWin 4
Gist-I
Anisha prize
USAID development innovation ventures
African prize for innovation
Hello tomorrow challenge
Lumia startup promo

Always be on the lookout for these competitions. Google alerts and startup blogs should be your friend as an entrepreneur.

They are also several incubators and accelerators that abound, they are a reasonably cost effective way of covering initial costs. Mark essien however seems to think they're flawed : https://medium.com/mark-essien/startup-incubators-in-africa-and-why-they-don-t-work-e44e8c80d2b0

I don't really have an opinion either way at the moment.

My overall strategy is to bootstrap for as long as possible on my funds or hopefully some grant funding. This is key for us so when it's time to raise some investment cash, we can do so on our terms. You read of founders who slave away for years and only end up with 3% equity at IPO. Methinks that is rather unfair, but hey, that's the world we live in. Cash is king, whoever has plenty of it wins.

On a final note, not having money is a good thing. Makes you very creative which is what you need as a start-up. When this creativity is in your DNA and the cash comes you can explode, before that, it will likely sink you.

francizy:
You really do have a terrible taste in women

Omo u wicked oh!

RothmasPop:
Nice thread!! Really inspiring...

Thanks man, we do what we can

toluxa1:
Great stuff Bro. It's hard to get these books where I stay. Really wish to buy a few of them and read, especially those on start ups. I hope they discuss universally accepted and applyable principles. Read a book sometime ago and most of the ideas were not applicable to the Nigerian Climate

I got most of the books from amazon. I've seen some on konga or jumia, keep looking around, you'll be surprised where you'll find them.

As regards local application, you are right. Some of the stuff doesn't translate to our situation especially as the whole tech thing in Nigeria is quite new. Say for example all the Americans talk about 'early adopters' and how you need to find them. Well in America it easy because people congregate under many different auspices. In Nigeria i've been sweating for months to find so called early adopters for my product, they are really hard to find! So one just has to take a shotgun approach and see what sticks. There are many more examples like this.

The bottom line from the books is to take general principles and adapt it to our own situation. In another few years hopefully the successful pioneers in the Nigerian tech scene will write books for the guys coming along. I know i certainly will if i do become successful.

nairalanduser:
Sometimes it's difficult not to outsource, I wish I can find a way not to outsource my core. The first stage involves Web development.

I feel your pain. Keep trying hard to find a technical co-founder as this outsourcing may be your greatest undoing.

jostking:
Wats the name of your tech startup or what the business about

I prefer not to reveal it for now. We have only just started operating and remains to be seen whether we will be successful or not.

Nmeri17:
very nice . I'm impressed by yo dedication and discipline.

I also have something very similar in mind but I neither match u in discipline nor have $1000 capital for startup. and also I'm also juggling a number of other things at the same time

Thanks for the compliments. Forget about the money, i only mentioned it to indicate how important learning is. Many want to go start businesses and don't do their homework first. I can confidently say that i know most things about my niche and if i hear anything i don't, i get up to speed within 24 hours.

The biggest hindrance is not money but the mind. Decide on what you want to do, focus, learn all you can, work hard. People will end up begging you to take their money. You might have to eat noodles for a few months, trek or take bikes to where you need to go. It will only be temporary

Watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7mWk6X5NCI
It is of Dr Ola the air ambulance lady who is now hailed as a success. Even with all her ajebo, she was broke, had to sell her car, take night buses etc to make it.

So if you have the passion to solve a real problem with a well researched workable solution the only barrier left is in the mind, conquer the mind and you can do anything.

pastorKosiso:
Why fools?

That's because every startup is inherently risky and often only people that are foolish with their money can be convinced to fund the startup.

'A fool and his money are soon parted' - old english proverb