₦airaland Forum

Well done OP on trying to get ahead. What you're doing now is what life is, a constant juggle of multiple competing interests.

What i will say is you need to focus. It will be hard but remember your purpose and that it's only temporary.

What a lot of us don't realize is we waste time on useless things. Cut all of them out.

Basically if it's not related to your biz or studies cut it out. Have fun the odd time but focus on biz and studies.

Try get a good sleep (max 8 hrs more like 6-7) each night and get up early, make lists, targets and prioritize daily. Maximize your weekends!

People will call you a dry guy or a jew man but keep the head down. They'll be envying you soon. You can do it when you put your mind to it

queenprecy:
I am an nce holder am planning on how to start a school bt I don't hv cash at hand BT I can always get help or loan from bank. I want to really touch d lives of people. thanks@pastorkosiso

Starting a business with a loan is a bad, bad, bad idea!

If you can't start without a loan then trust me you will fail.

Your first task in business that will predict your success is being able to get it off the ground creatively.

Zero your mind on loans, get creative and start something then approach FFF (family, friends and fools) for funding

If the people you know can't trust you with money for your business it's a reflection of your ability and no banker will trust you with a loan.

Ideasconsortium:
Nice one bro. you are definitely building an empire.... I have a great idea too, i have liased with an application development coy in usa. They are doing the sdlc.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Why are you using a company? You should never outsource a core competency!

You need to find a way to do it in house that is unless the application is not core to your business but an accessory

Well done to everyone on the thread. Please leave the politics out of this. I've started a topic about my entrepreneurial journey. Jump in and comment and give some tips from your own experience.

https://www.nairaland.com/2181066/tech-start-up-journey

Learning

The most important part of creating a business is learning. Forget what anybody says, it's not intuitive, at least not for me. To date we have spent close to 1000 USD on learning resources, technical conferences etc. Now you don't have to spend that much. There are multiple free resources online that will get you to where you need to be. Youtube and google should become your friend. I also used apps such as 'pocket' to store articles to read later.

To start you off i suggest going to youtube, search for 'how to start a startup sam altman'. It is a 20 series lecture given at stanford (the most entrepreneurial university in the world) by some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation. Get it in podcast format and listen to it at night before you sleep, that's what i did.

Other Books i've read that are helpful are:

'4 steps to epiphany' by Steve Blank - The father of the lean movement, he gets you to focus on customer development rather than product development. This approach increases chances of success. Youtube his videos and follow his blog. He's a great guy

'The unfair fight' - Sam Hazledine - Good summary of things and tips to know and do in a small business

'The personal MBA' - Josh Kauffman - This is kinda like a reference text. Explains virtually everything business related. No need for that expensive MBA

'The innovators dilemma - Clayton Christiensen - I kept hearing about disruption in the tech circles, a term coined in this book. So i read it. The bottom line for us in Nigeria is there's nothing to disrupt really. There are a myriad of problems looking for just simple solutions. Provide those and you're good, Forget all this disruption rubbish.

I follow a number of blogs and people, google them, follow them via their blogs, medium or on social media

- paul graham

- Mark andreessen

- Peter Thiel ( read his book 'Zero to one' )

- Mark Essien (hotels.ng)

- Jason Njoku (Irokotv)

- Marek chindeu (Jovago)

- Sam Altman

- Techcrunch

- Techcabal, techpoint.ng,


Take some of the things they say however with a pinch of salt because your situation is unique and you've got to figure stuff out yourself, mostly through trial and error.

How did i manage all this with a family, while working full time. Well mostly a very understanding spouse i'm most grateful to. Forget sleep, TV, games, having a life. Do you want to build a great business or do you want to be a well rested movie buff? I know what i want and i'm chasing it earnestly. Forget the lies they tell you about balance in life, successful people aren't balanced, they focused on one thing and worked hard at it until they became great. Think Messi, Nadal, Jordan, the trend is the same, there's no substitute for hard work.

Remember to keep notes! Use Evernote or Google keep on your smartphone. You'll be thinking a lot as you digest learning material and ideas would come at odd times. Can't count the number of eureka moments i've had in the shower. Write them down immediately!

Structure

My founding team of 3 was sorted. We were (and still are) a distributed team so needed a body on the ground in Nigeria to do some legwork. I got a recommended someone to work with. A guy i'd known over the years that was used to getting stuff done. So i got him on board and we started working on getting a structure in place. This relationship would take an interesting turn in the following months so stay tuned.

What i will say now particularly for those outside Nigeria that want to start a business in Nigeria is, be prepared to lose money due to shady behaviour, unfortunately it's how things go. To stomach it better think of it as the tax/ price you have to pay for not being on the ground in Naija. You can't eat your cake and have it. If you want the better life of obodo oyibo, then be prepared for some inefficiency in the use of your capital back home.

I digress, we registered the business with CAC. It took over 3 months as it was during the time CAC had problems and couldn't process anything. Again unfortunately get used to this. If anything involves the government, expect it to take at least 3 times longer than necessary. Always have a plan B, C, D and E. Also it's Nigeria so be inventive with finding ways to circumvent bureaucracy and i don't mean by bribing. I advocate doing stuff first then asking for permission later, claim ignorance then show them how your way produced results. They'll soon be hailing you as the chief.

We allocated equity to each partner, proportional to the amount of effort they were expected to put in. We were all friends so we were fair to each other and everyone was happy. We have a basic shareholder agreement between us but are in the process of drafting a formal agreement that includes vesting schedules, cliffs etc. Read the legal basics for startups series on www.techcabal.com for more info.

Co-founder

As i read and worked on my business plan. I considered learning to programme myself but quickly learnt it was a waste of time. I could never hope to do everything myself; programme, found a business, work full time, have a family.

It was time to get married find a technical co-founder. I was somewhat lucky here as i had 2 good friends i'd known for a while who were programmers. I approached them with my proposal and an initial draft business plan. They both thought it was great and jumped on board.

Finding a co-founder is hard, it's a bit like finding a spouse. i was very lucky in many respects. I've no advice to give in this regard except be nice, friendly and helpful to everyone you come across. You never know when you might need their help co-founding a venture.

I've come across websites (google 'founder dating') and events (google 'founder to be lagos') that match founders. Can't say anything about this but the general trend i find from my reading is the recommendation that founders be friends(ly) prior to founding the venture. Helps for those rough times, i can attest to that

The idea

The idea i came up with was quite simple at first but as i dug deeper i realized that for it to endure it must be sustainable. It must provide sufficient value that people want to pay for it. That payment should at a level that it is able to sustain those that work on creating the value.

I thus iterated my idea to a point where it would create some value people will be willing to pay for. It dawned on me at this point that i had to set up a business to have any hope of capturing this value. Setting up a business meant writing a business plan.

Furthermore, my idea iteration also created a solution that needed a lot of technical input from a programmer.

I'd at this point reached the edge of my knowledge in a lot of ways so i went out and gained more knowledge. I visited my local library and took out 2 books:

'The lean startup' by Eric Ries

'Starting a tech business' by Alex Cowan

Both turned out to be excellent reads! I recommend them highly.

The lesson i learnt here was to read, read and read some more. You can never hope to make it as an entrepreneur if you don't read constantly.

It also around this time I bought a domain name. This was significant for me because while it was only a small amount, i'd spent some cash so i was committed and had to see this idea through.

I would say from this try and commit yourself to an idea and run with it. I'd had several ideas before but never really pursued them. Settle on one idea as soon as you can and make some type of financial commitment towards it. This will start to focus your mind and get you acting!

The beginning

I never thought i'd become an entrepreneur. I'd lived outside Nigeria for a decade, was having a great comfy life with a good income from my job. I had a young family and most things were going great.

Due to some events, a personal frustration arose with poor services in a particular Nigerian sector. As i pondered over my frustration i thought to myself, I can come up with a solution as I happen to have expertise in the sector. So i started researching far and wide for a workable solution. I spent hours and hours after work reading like crazy, much to the chagrin of my spouse.

I've since learnt that this is the best kind of way to get an idea for a start-up. Find something that frustrates you everyday that you have some sort of knowledge of or at least passion for. It's going to be a long, hard, broke road so you have to love it and be solving the problem for yourself to keep you motivated.

I've recently founded a tech start-up and it's been quite a whirlwind.

I've had to try figure out so many things on my own so thought it would be useful to relate some of the things i experience to help me reflect and perhaps help others who may be looking at something similar.

Feel free to jump in and comment or ask questions

Greener pastures are so because the owners watered them. Choose wherever and work hard and see your pasture become green, even if you decide to stay in Nigeria.

Australia is as good as most other places in geophysics as far as i'm aware.

I'll let you in on this small trend, Canadians are moving to Australia!

I've had a comparatively better experience than most in 2 different Nigerian embassies.

The Nigerian embassy in Nairobi: I went there to get a document and they were fairly nice and helpful. Didn't have to wait too long or pay anything. Just got the consular service I needed in a relatively timely manner.


The embassy in Canberra Australia: It's run by a career diplomat who takes great pride in his job.

When i visited with a friend, the ambassador himself called us in had a long chat with us, describing what he'd done and planned to do for Nigeria. He gave us several articles he'd written to that effect.

I was particularly impressed as he was instrumental in getting funding of hundreds of thousands of dollars for an ecological research project run out of Gombe state university.

After our chat, he apologized profusely that he couldn't take us out to lunch and insisted we take the cash from him to go have lunch ourselves. We also met other officers in the embassy who were really nice. It was quite amazing actually, felt good to be home in Nigeria on foreign soil. That's how good we were treated.

Amb Ayo Olukanni of the Nigerian High Commission in Australia is easily the best Nigerian diplomat out there. Kudos to him, he's got a palpable love for Nigeria that is evident in his work.

Don't take only my word, read about him here too: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=22651

Regarding the Dublin embassy, i've heard all sorts of terrible things about it. Thank goodness i managed to avoid it during all my years in Dublin

9jatatafo:
Thanks nora544, I agree with you about how some people visit their pastors or alfas or baba lawo when they are sick. Not that I don't believe in God miraculous works but the doctors are there to save our lives. I give you a billion likes because in Nigeria today, it billion we always hear of in the news. Hahahahaha

Spot on about superstitions, funny thread on same issue here: https://www.nairaland.com/2171605/5-nigerian-superstitions-beliefs-kill#31162611

i've got an ultrabook (xps 18) i suppose one could be called a laplet. It's got an i5 processor, multiple usb ports, SD card slot, 18 inch touch screen. Quite cool actually but i'm not a big fan of windows 8. Perhaps windows 10 would suit it better, yet to be seen.

I also have a chromebook and i absolutely love it. Most of my software is cloud based so it works perfectly for me, only down side is when i don't have internet connectivity. I think as far as enterprise and education goes, chrome might become the OS of choice if Google play their cards right.

I think ultimately, whoever can handle the convergence the best will take the lead but there'll be enough of a market for everyone.

The future looks interesting indeed!

rattlesnake:
entrepreneurship is not a career its an attitude
having a job and being an entrepreneur is mutually in-exclusive

having a job u can also be a successful entrepreneur

stop misleading people with rubbish posts

name 1 successful entrepreneur with a job?

hephzi1991:
Hello family, I missed you guys. So sorry I have been away, I should try to come online more often. I'm excited! I spoke with obinascopy n xcelsia today! thanks for the love! I love u guys right back.

Zikkie, Christine01, Osyxcel, Odunharry, Tolu hope you guys r doing great? I miSsed you all.

Was thinking of starting up a diary on nairaland, but 'm a lazy writer so am still thinking. Obinascopy I got you mail, and I'd reply once I get off nairaland. Ok lemme now go back and read the thread from where I stopped so I can get updated on what I have missed

Please write that diary. There is barely anything available online that people in your shoes can relate to.

Your diary will no doubt make a difference to people in similar situations. Besides it can be quite a therapeutic endeavour.

Lia Mills an irish writer turned her experience into a book 'in your face'. It gave he succor in difficult times and gives others a lot of insight and support when going through something similar.

we would love to publish it on the patients association blog - http://patientsafetyng./blog as a regular series. So it doesn't get lost in a thread in the forum. That perhaps can serve as the motivation to write regularly.

Came across this thread and had to comment.

Well done on coming together and supporting each other.

We need more avenues to do this and make it easier for new people to find this support

I'm involved in setting up a patient association that aggregates us to give this kind of support and more.

Would love for you great people to be involved.

Join here - http://patientsafetyng./

This documentary is outrageous and some of the responses on this thread leaves a lot to be desired.

Human beings actually died !!! People actually got injured!!!

This continues to happen and many don't even bat and eyelid!

Shows how low we have degenerated as a people.

As for me i'm not sitting on my bum, i'm doing something about it:

https://www.nairaland.com/2002544/want-better-healthcare-join-us

www.healthpages.com.ng

Trust me you WILL suffer as a result of the state of our healthcare. Do something about it now before that time comes

Contact me to get involved in improving the state of our healthcare

Abiolainfo:
What a goal, Keshi must go #keshimustgo

i thought keshi was sacked already

Nigeria's health care system is in dire straits.

Patients need to come together to demand a better deal when accessing care

The facebook group - 'HEALTH CARE QUALITY AND PATIENT SAFETY IN NIGERIA' https://www./patientsafety1

Is calling a meeting to create the discussions that will hopefully lead to the formation of a Nigerian patients association to fight for the lot of the average patient.

We would particularly like those who have suffered untoward experiences in healthcare to come join to advocate and prevent others from suffering a similar fate. With a critical mass we can start to force the needed change in our healthcare.

see the event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/248009378733112/

Offer and survey closed

I'm not sure many of us understand the significance of the data presented in this thread.

What i glean from it in summary is that even in the state with the best results, close to 40% of students are unable to meet the minimum standard required to be certified as having a secondary school education.

What is this minimum standard: 5 credits - this is at least 50% - in subjects to include english and maths.

If 70% of secondary school leavers can not be certified to have at least a passable knowledge in english, math and a few other subjects then we indeed have a crisis on our hands. What are they going to amount to in their post secondary education life one wonders!

Our target should be 100% with no kid left behind. We owe our young people at the very least, basic literacy and numeracy and an ability to learn that will enable them to go on to achieve success in their future lives.

To help this i will seek out secondary school students in my area and tutor them to achieve an 'A' in the subjects i'm familiar with. I enjoin others to do same and promote the use of educational apps such as prepclass.com.ng among others.

If you think it's not your problem, wait and see how that secondary school failure will become the robber (read politician) that will torment you and your family's life.

Our education is in crisis and the students are not to be blamed in the slightest.

How are we so terribly insensitive?

She is indeed overweight but the only reason she should do something about it is for her health and well being and not for looks. Afterall some lepa babes are not as fine as her!

She likely knows her weight is a problem and is probably attempting the difficult task of losing the excess weight.

So please be a bit more sensitive.

Please take this survey to help us figure out how to improve patient experience in health care.

Enter your email at the end to stand a chance of getting airtime for your chosen network

The cloud is no doubt the future, every tech company wants a piece of the pie. AWS is the market leader but google cloud engine and MS Azure are eating into their market share. AWS had to slash prices recently to continue being competitive. I hope we get more Nigerian cloud engineers as i'll be looking to engage their services in the near future

@dhtml you'll certainly be interested in the cloud health solution we are working on!

In all the Ebola discourse, I'm not sure i've seen it properly articulated the disadvantages of rushing new drugs to market without rigorous clinical trials, so here goes:

Those that clamour for the new Ebola treatments need to understand the following:

1. Medicine and pharmaceuticals unfortunately are not black and white, there are a million and one shades of grey.

2. Diseases hardly ever kill 100% of people. People can survive heart attacks, strokes and cancers without treatment. Even the dreaded Ebola currently has a fatality rate around 60%. Meaning 40% of infected people survive

3. The obvious next question is how is it that 40% can survive such a deadly infection? Answer is simple, our bodies have huge capacity to fight off disease, heal and preserve itself. Were it not so, the human race would have been history by now

4. When a new drug is introduced, for it to be seen as effective it has to do better than just the body's own defence system
In the case of Ebola, it must be better than the 40% that is being quoted, otherwise our own system is better than the drug or in other words, the drug actually kills more people compared to our system.

5. How the above is done is through a properly designed drug trial. An important feature of this trial must be a large number of people using the drug compared to similar numbers not using the drug. Why? We all know the chance of getting 'heads' when you toss a coin in the air is 50%, however it is possible to have 'heads' the first 3 times you toss the coin. If you only stop there a 2 sided coin magically becomes a 1 sided coin.

6. So why don't we just give the drug anyway, what's the worst that could happen? Well one could die. Remember the volunteers that were hospitalised after TGN1412 was given to them in London. Closer to home, Pfizer trialled Trovan in a meningitis outbreak in Kano to disastrous outcomes. Eventually having to pay the Kano state government 75 million dollars in compensation (wonder whatever happened to the money...). Many more instances abound of treatments that were thought to be great but turned sour - Tamiflu, Raboxetine, Thalidomide

7. The greater issue particularly with this current outbreak is that we could be directing our attention and resources away from the supportive treatments that are known to help to experimental ones that no one is really sure about

8. Finally if i were to catch Ebola i would probably ask them to keep their Zmapp, instead give me plenty of fluids, oxygen and blood products as i need it, do my blood tests twice daily and correct whatever abnormalities are found. That is what we should be focusing on not expensive magical treatments that are probably no better than salt water, bitter kola or the incantations of a babalawo (the logic above applies to their successes too).

P.S - Remember that that the companies that sell these treatments are not charities, they have a vested interest in their success. Tekmira, a pharmaceutical company who have a treatment of their own saw their shares climb with this outbreak but had their proposed human trial stopped due to safety concerns. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101892335#

With Paypal announcing their partnership with paypal they seem to be a good fit for an SME that's looking to accept online payments

However looking at their website in comparison to GTB and UBA, the latter two appear to be more forward thinking

So in your experience what bank is best for an SME an why?

Back to the 'owning' of patients. The irony people may not be aware of is that doctors fight each other tooth and nail to not own patients. It's not a beans to be responsible for a life.

YourHealthlabs: The last bolded is hilarious.
Fighting the system together is very ideal, but one group of people made everyone believed they were the 'only professionals' in the health sector and rode on that perception to shortchange the other professionals in health system and corner all to themselves.

That anomaly is what we are battling to correct.

well the adversarial system is bringing results right? Not!

When will we as a people learn that collaborative negotiation is far better for all parties than otherwise.

We've got to change the narrative because as it is we're going nowhere fast with plenty of body bags to boot

sigolisis: Consultant Pharmacist and Consultant Physician, are they not suppose to work hand in hand for the benefits of the patient. Will a Consultant Pharmacist strike out a drug from prescription without discussing and reaching an agreement with the doctor? What do you mean by confusion when each of the consultants specialises in different areas, what confusion are you talking about? The problem i see is that our doctors don't want to relate with other healthcare professionals, sometimes even with their fellow doctors when they have cases they cannot handle (this happens mostly in private clinics) , ''ego of knowing it all, anything I say is final even if the patient is being slaughtered'' If I am diligent in my work how can you know more than me in my area of specialisation?. Anything can work if we want it to, it is working in other countries why should our own be an exception. If we see benefits in it, we should look for ways of making it work even if some old LAWS have to be amended, the world is changing except the doctors don't like or care for the patients as they claim.

Yes there'll be confusion.

Evidence - a recent study showed that patients and nurses are still confused by doctors new titles in the UK

reference - Hickerton BC, Fitzgerald DJ, Perry E, De Bolla AR. The interpretability of doctor identification badges in UK hospitals: a survey of nurses and patients. BMJ Qual Saf 6 Mar 2014,


Now this is in the Uk with better qualified nurses and a more educated population. Also note that the confusion is within doctors' cadre.

Now imagine having consultants of all varieties in all professions in a less educated and skilled population. Bros you dey find trouble!

now add in the egos you alluded to and na explosion you go get for hospital. So back to my original post, leave the title consultant for the doctor who owns the patient and call all other specialists something else.

What you are looking for really is better role definition and respect and acceptance of the useful work you do. Being called consultant won't do that, there are better ways.

''The title “CONSULTANT” in a hospital setting describes the relationship between the Specialist Medical Doctor and his patient. It will be a source of confusion if the title is applied to any other health worker who statutorily does not own patient. NMA, therefore, declares with unmitigated emphasis that if “non-doctor consultants” are appointed, it will lead to chaos and anarchy in the health sector. This should not happen.''

Above is the specific demand of the NMA. Methinks it is not an unreasonable assertion.

Yes 'consultant' is used in other sectors but as far as health is concerned it is used in a specific way and to change that use will likely be detrimental and cause confusion.

The buck needs to stop at someone who will own and shoulder responsibility for the patient. We have not unreasonably chosen this 'someone' to be a senior experienced doctor.

Other terminologies such as specialist nurse/pharmacist or nurse practitioners or advanced practitioner should be used. I know in the UK there are consultant nurses/pharmacists but we are far away from where they were when they introduced the concept.