The Nigerian market isn't ripe for SaaS products.

What almost everyone needs right now is access to food, water, electricity, telecommunication, finance, infrastructure, and transportation.

Our startups should try solving this problems instead of trying to build a scheduling app.

YoungCabal:
Every time I have talked to a Nigerian programmer like me on building software as a service platform for the Nigerian market, the answer I always get is a negative one.

A times, I wonder what the problem is, it's not like we don't want to build or lack the knowledge to build, the problem lies with the users/customers who would rather not pay no matter how cheap or useful the app is, I mean what's there in paying N1,000 per month to use a software, it's not that expensive, these days, even road side food you could finish in minutes could cost you more, what then is stopping Nigerians from patronizing home grown subscription based apps ?

Every time you launch a utility app with a fee, all you hear is, "the app is nice, but make it free", how can it be free when I use my money to pay for servers to store data and spend my time to maintain it ? Why are Nigerians so unreasonable, are we too poor or just too stingy ?

Target softwares for institutions like schools, banks, football clubs, maybe small government institutions etc.
Forget the average Nigerian
Over 75% below the poverty line
Economic downturn

yinkeys:

Target softwares for institutions like schools, banks, football clubs, maybe small government institutions etc.
Forget the average Nigerian
Over 75% below the poverty line
Economic downturn

Good advice for the op but not banks as I beleive banks are regulated and cannot just use any software.

Gerrard59:


Nigerians are too poor. One way to know how people are poor, check what they spend the most on. If it is food, then they are poor.

We are poor but then so many jobless youths spend their time and money voting for big brother and sports betting. These are the 2 things Nigerians spend money on.

BlackhatMentor:


What app are you even talking about?

Is it by force they use your app or what?

Because I know if an app is good people usually pay for it irrespective of country or anything.


There's usually a free version or test period for an app then people who love the app eventually opt in for pro version.


There's no way you won't get people to use pro version of an app if it's good after they test the free version.... OF course they're people who will always want free version.


If you insist Nigerians don't pay for Apps then you're underestimating the purchasing power of Nigerians and need to really study the Nigerian market before launching any app.


U usually only need as low as 10% or 15% of your total users to opt in for pro to stay profitable.


What you need is roll out free version and gather more users so people who love your app pay for pro.



If you want them to pay immediately without a trial period when you're not a household name then you're wasting your time irrespective of the market

Who told you only 10% or 15% of the revenue is enough to make it profitable ?

You seem to forget payment processors take a fraction of the meagre amount charged for every subscription, add that with the money spent on ads and think again

Sheriman:
Which kind of application the guy self dey talk about cos I don't understand. Why is the guy so pained like that? In every app there is free version and go pro version for users. Free version will be limited to some options that pro version has so this is how to run an application. If users find your application worthy, application that solve their problem they will keep coming back even pay for the pro version.
Mind you! There are a lot of users who will always want free version.

You need to understand that not every app can have a free version, developers pay for server fees to store some app data and also pay fees to use thirdparty api's to make certain apps work

Gerrard59:


Nigerians are too poor. One way to know how people are poor, check what they spend the most on. If it is food, then they are poor.

I disagree, I think it's just stinginess, if they can buy data more than 10 times in a week, why should N1,000 be too hard to pay for a whole month ?

SALVATION30:
The Nigerian market isn't ripe for SaaS products.

What almost everyone needs right now is access to food, water, electricity, telecommunication, finance, infrastructure, and transportation.

Our startups should try solving this problems instead of trying to build a scheduling app.

I think Nigeria is ripe for SAAS, it's long overdue, the problem is that they are too used to free things, a litre of fuel currently cost over 500naira, which means you will need to spend at least N1,000 to turn on your generator for few hours, even snacks at eatries these days can go for around N1,000 and people consume them on daily basis, why then can't they pay N1,000 per month for an app ? It's not just scheduling apps, there are apps that do other useful stuff

tosinhtml:


We are poor but then so many jobless youths spend their time and money voting for big brother and sports betting. These are the 2 things Nigerians spend money on.

I wonder too, we are poor but they are always online and following every tiktok trend, voting on BBN and betting every day, nothing will make me build anything freemium ever again and I will continue to advocate that other developers do the same, by the time they can't find a free version for anything, they will be forced to pay

YoungCabal:
Who told you only 10% or 15% of the revenue is enough to make it profitable ?

You seem to forget payment processors take a fraction of the meagre amount charged for every subscription, add that with the money spent on ads and think again

Seems you don't know how the business model works.


It's a game of numbers my friend.

BlackhatMentor:

Seems you don't know how the business model works.

It's a game of numbers my friend.

You assume a lot

YoungCabal:
You assume a lot

Ok.

If it's of high value to some classes of people, why not? If there are no free alternatives it could fly.

Nigerians are stingy, and many are poor (poverty capital)

If browsing cheats and magic SIM still dey who go dey subscribe

YoungCabal:
I wonder too, we are poor but they are always online and following every tiktok trend, voting on BBN and betting every day, nothing will make me build anything freemium ever again and I will continue to advocate that other developers do the same, by the time they can't find a free version for anything, they will be forced to pay

Yes that's correct, but once you ensure that your product covers those areas Nigerians pay for, you are safe. I used to wonder why Flutterwave & Patricia (Nigeria crypto exchange) payed 1 Billion Naira each to Big brother organisers, honestly it's because they know Nigerian youths are block-heads. It is only tiktok trends & BBN that appeals to us.

If Seun builds a betting platform today & name it "Nairaland Betting", you will see how Seun will become a Multi-Billionaire in few months.

Will you rather be right or rich Dan Kennedy.

Sadly the op wants to be right rather than rich.

Why would I find a way to learn coding over years and say I want to sell to people with no money.

This reminds me of Gary halbert words give me a starving crowd.


Sell heaters to Eskimos not ice.

If the op continue like this him go shout say tech no dey work.

Give people what they want( people that have money and can pay)

Them plenty for Us UK and Canada.

Whatever you do whether affiliates marketing blogging tech kdp please follow the money.

A caveat

Make sure you are a flat out expert on the topic

To become an expert on a topic requires one thing RESEARCH AND OUT RESEARCH EVERYONE.

tosinhtml:


We are poor but then so many jobless youths spend their time and money voting for big brother and sports betting. These are the 2 things Nigerians spend money on.

Build a tools for them sport betting prediction sites and promote it like no mams business you go blow.

online4business:

Build a tools for them sport betting prediction sites and promote it like no mams business you go blow.

Yeah i thought about this but this system is difficult because if it doesn't predict properly, people will call you out.

tosinhtml:


We are poor but then so many jobless youths spend their time and money voting for big brother and sports betting. These are the 2 things Nigerians spend money on.

I don't know about betting, but you see that bug brother, don't be fooled. Loads of unwholesome things happening on the voting end. Many Nigerian youths only use the free 100 votes per week. The large number of votes comes from housemates, their representatives and unscrupulous Multichoice Nigeria employees engaging in very unwholesome acts.

Can't go into the details of what happens here but leave out multichoice "pumped" voting.

airsaylongcome:


I don't know about betting, but you see that bug brother, don't be fooled. Loads of unwholesome things happening on the voting end. Many Nigerian youths only use the free 100 votes per week. The large number of votes comes from housemates, their representatives and unscrupulous Multichoice Nigeria employees engaging in very unwholesome acts.

Can't go into the details of what happens here but leave out multichoice "pumped" voting.

Yeah I know, I am quite close to some big brother females lol. Mercy probably dropped like 20M (not connfirmed) for this latest big brother voting & she unfortunately lost, so I know the game

Another thing to note is their fans actually donate money big time after they come out, buy them all sort of gifts, cars etc. This I have confirmed personally & big time. But what surprises me is that some of these fans don't even have a ceiling fan to their names. Some can't even pay their kids school fees & struggling. I can't understand it.

tosinhtml:


Yeah I know, I am quite close to some big brother females lol. Mercy probably dropped like 20M (not connfirmed) for this latest big brother voting & she unfortunately lost, so I know the game

Another thing to note is their fans actually donate money big time after they come out, buy them all sort of gifts, cars etc. This I have confirmed personally & big time. But what surprises me is that some of these fans don't even have a ceiling fan to their names. Some can't even pay their kids school fees & struggling. I can't understand it.

The bolded, naaaah. It's money laundering. Fact. Big wigs use this "fans donating" to launder money through the car vendors. It's same with Club business. But make we leave am...na tech thread be this

airsaylongcome:


The bolded, naaaah. It's money laundering. Fact. Big wigs use this "fans donating" to launder money through the car vendors. It's same with Club business. But make we leave am...na tech thread be this

Huh, that's interesting

I never thought of this part, so basically just washing their money clean like drug dealers do.

airsaylongcome:


I don't know about betting, but you see that bug brother, don't be fooled. Loads of unwholesome things happening on the voting end. Many Nigerian youths only use the free 100 votes per week. The large number of votes comes from housemates, their representatives and unscrupulous Multichoice Nigeria employees engaging in very unwholesome acts.

Can't go into the details of what happens here but leave out multichoice "pumped" voting.

Go to Nigerian universities and see how youths are voting for BBN massively, BBN organizers make cool money

airsaylongcome:


The bolded, naaaah. It's money laundering. Fact. Big wigs use this "fans donating" to launder money through the car vendors. It's same with Club business. But make we leave am...na tech thread be this

I disagree, that's not how money laundering is done, how much will you even be able to steal through this channel without being noticed ? Anyone doing money laundering won't even near this type of scheme

YoungCabal:
Go to Nigerian universities and see how youths are voting for BBN massively, BBN organizers make cool money

Lol! How many votes are coming from those universities? Very minimal. Very very minimal. Those university guys have a maximum of 100 votes for each of their phone numbers. If they have 10 phone numbers, that's 1000 votes. 100 phone numbers, that's 10k votes. That's the vote from one premium subscription.

Let me breakdown were the "crookedness" in the voting occurs. There are loads and loads of subscribers who have valid subscription but don't watch BBN. So they are able to vote but don't watch the program and don't vote. The representatives of housemates in cahoot with unscrupulous Multichoice employees "corner" the login details of those people and use them to vote for their housemates. All those hotels with multiple subscriptions, hospitals, banks and all those businesses that maintain their subscription but aren't interested in the show or in voting, all of those are "cornered" by the housemates various teams and used to vote. Not the 100 free votes that university students can afford.

airsaylongcome:


Lol! How many votes are coming from those universities? Very minimal. Very very minimal. Those university guys have a maximum of 100 votes for each of their phone numbers. If they have 10 phone numbers, that's 1000 votes. 100 phone numbers, that's 10k votes. That's the vote from one premium subscription.

Let me breakdown were the "crookedness" in the voting occurs. There are loads and loads of subscribers who have valid subscription but don't watch BBN. So they are able to vote but don't watch the program and don't vote. The representatives of housemates in cahoot with unscrupulous Multichoice employees "corner" the login details of those people and use them to vote for their housemates. All those hotels with multiple subscriptions, hospitals, banks and all those businesses that maintain their subscription but aren't interested in the show or in voting, all of those are "cornered" by the housemates various teams and used to vote. Not the 100 free votes that university students can afford.

These days, every individual has about two to three phone numbers due to poor network, aside that, a single department in level 100 alone can have up to 100 students, do the maths again and see for yourself, we have dozens of universities and polytechnics in Nigeria, public and private, what of post graduate students, part time and other programmes and college of education, what of jambites and corpers ? Do the maths again, you will see that you are clearly wrong

YoungCabal:
These days, every individual has about two to three phone numbers due to poor network, aside that, a single department in level 100 alone can have up to 100 students, do the maths again and see for yourself, we have dozens of universities and polytechnics in Nigeria, public and private, what of post graduate students, part time and other programmes and college of education, what of jambites and corpers ? Do the maths again, you will see that you are clearly wrong

100 students with three sims is 30,000 votes. That's just three Premium subscription. Eko hotel in Lagos can have up to 20 subscriptions. One average employee in a bank would probably have a subscription that has 2500. A department in a branch in a bank may have up to 20 staff. Maybe more. Calculate the number of banks, and their number of branches and extrapolate the number of employees. Students are plenty but with very minimal votes. One working employee with a decent enough job, paying for a subscription is more valuable. You need to see the control centres for these housemates during voting. IUC (DSTV smart cards) are what they are mostly after.

airsaylongcome:


100 students with three sims is 30,000 votes. That's just three Premium subscription. Eko hotel in Lagos can have up to 20 subscriptions. One average employee in a bank would probably have a subscription that has 2500. A department in a branch in a bank may have up to 20 staff. Maybe more. Calculate the number of banks, and their number of branches and extrapolate the number of employees. Students are plenty but with very minimal votes. One working employee with a decent enough job, paying for a subscription is more valuable. You need to see the control centres for these housemates during voting. IUC (DSTV smart cards) are what they are mostly after.

there are more students than hotels in Nigeria, I'm telling you that students vote more, I'm not arguing that there can be additional votes from all those channels you mentioned but students votes are much more

tensazangetsu20:
The world is too big to be making a software for only Nigerians. Think global.

What's wrong in creating a software specifically for Nigerians ?

judatech:
Make it relevant and addictive like NL...
You think if Seun after addicting you to NL...if he decides to create a paywall and NL subscription based...like 2m out of the 3m will pay

If I've to pay for Nairaland, I would stop visiting Nairaland.

In fact, this days I hardly come to Nairaland since I can get what I want on Twitter.

YoungCabal:
there are more students than hotels in Nigeria, I'm telling you that students vote more, I'm not arguing that there can be additional votes from all those channels you mentioned but students votes are much more

You are overestimatimg the votes of students by a whole lot is what I am saying. They vote. But their votes are a small drop in the grand scheme of things. Add to that, that their votes are non-revenue votes. They mobilize a lot. But it's small compared to the votes the teams get from IUCs

batistutajulio:


If I've to pay for Nairaland, I would stop visiting Nairaland.

In fact, this days I hardly come to Nairaland since I can get what I want on Twitter.

Lol! Are you aware that twitter is about to start a $1/month subscription from next year?

PYTHONTUTOR1:


What's wrong in creating a software specifically for Nigerians ?

They're limits to softwares Nigerians find useful or willing to pay for.



Only Fintech and social media products can survive Nigerian market