Original Post http://naijacareerist.com/2012/02/03/two-black-tech-entrepreneurs-jump-into-the-emerging-startup-scene-in-washington-dc/


Today I want to higlight two Nigerians who have chosen to take the unconventional route, and went into the business of working for themselves. We always talk about Mark Zuckerberg, and other internet entrepreneurs changing the way we interact with people, but right among our midst we have our very own accomplishing the same goal. CoFounder of Kojami and Keadworks, Ike Nwaneri says " We didn't have to do this, we could have stayed in our day jobs, but we love to solve problems we encounter and additionally, our goal is to eventually create more jobs and careers from our company" . They have big dreams to not only revolutionize the way people create and manage events anytime and from anywhere, but they also dream to create jobs in the future . Follow Kojami and Keadworks on twitter @KojamiEvents and @Keadworks.  See their latest press release below.

African-American tech startups are not all too common due to the low numbers of African-Americans choosing to major in Science & Engineering. “With CNN’s Soledad O'Brien’s 'Black in America: New Promised Land, Silicon Valley' bringing real awareness to this issue, we know we have to lead by example. We try to focus less on race, or why some people won’t work with us and just concentrate on providing and developing quality products and services. We believe that in this startup world, as long as we continue to solve our users’ problems and provide the best customer service while doing so, our success is imminent.” says Ike Nwaneri. Keadworks is comprised of a diverse team of people with the mindset of changing the world by providing simple solutions to everyday problems. Simple solutions like KOJAMI.

Like any other company in this market, KOJAMI did not just develop overnight. Its growth was fostered by a parent company named KeadWorks – a web and mobile development, creative marketing and social marketing consulting firm. KeadWorks is a company that offers quick and creative marketing solutions to a number of different clients via websites, mobile and social networks. Also being a minority-owned technology company, it has had its fair share of challenges in starting up and building its brand.

The idea to create KOJAMI was born when KeadWorks met with a repeating problem of mobile marketing for Keadworks clients’ events. Then the seed was planted. Kojami is to become the new mobile word-of-mouth. “Every product should solve a problem, we focused on doing just that with Kojami, and we built it from the ground up. It took almost a year to develop this beta version - and every day, as the product improves, we know we’re headed in the right direction, so we’re winning.” says Randall Olade.

This black-owned social media management and marketing firm has two co-founders. Ike Nwaneri, the CEO of Keadworks, and COO of Kojami, has an MS in Systems and Computer Science and over 8+ years of experience in consumer behavior, project management and events planning. He primarily focuses on marketing strategies and day-to-day operations. Randall Olade is the other co-founder and CEO of Kojami and the CTO at KeadWorks. Equipped with an MBA in Global Management and an MS in Systems Engineering, as well as over 7+ years of software experience under his belt, he deals with day-to-day technology assessment and technology project management.

About Keadworks LLC.
Based in Washington DC Metro Area, with years of experience and expertise in events management, promotions, marketing and building mobile or web technologies, the creative social and mobile marketing agency behind Kojami Inc., Keadworks LLC, has successfully reached millions of people through their strategic marketing and promotional campaigns for numerous clients. Kojami is racing to the forefront of mobile events management and discovery within the billion dollar events industry.

To find more information about KeadWorks or Kojami, visit their websites at http://kojami.com/

Any examples of this being done in Nigeria?

A great example would be Gossy founder of Student Circle he has taken online course from top schools like MIT and put them on the internet for free for Nigerian students to take free classes. Here is interview on Forbes

Gossy Ukanwoke, a 23-year old Nigerian Internet entrepreneur, has embarked on creating a different type of social network. His tech startup, Students Circle, fuses a social feature with a rich database of over 10,000 academic resources- notes, essays, past assignments and tutorials.

Students Circle is something like Facebook, but for scholars and more serious-minded folks. The site launched in December 2010 and so far it has 2,407 registered members and over 20,371 non registered members from over 120 countries. Not too shabby for a startup that’s yet to receive a dollar in venture funding.


According to its website, “Students Circle Network allows students to interact and communicate over educational resources, making education and e-learning social and human by giving resources, study groups, social connections, scholarships offers and university placements.”

I chatted with him briefly today. We talked about his company, his comparative advantage, and the future.

Why would someone want to join Students Circle?

Students Circle Network – the academic social network — is uniquely bringing together the worlds of social connection, media and education to a single platform thereby allowing students, teachers and institutions connect without bounds. We are currently making over 10,000 resources available for free. Our focus on Africa is high. We believe that with the right content and audience, we can transform education in Africa.

What’s your comparative advantage? What makes Students Circle any better than Edmodo or any other educational social network?

We are bringing the best of all worlds: Social + Education. On the social aspect, students/teachers get to learn from each other based on personal knowledge and research. On the educational aspect, teachers and students can connect and use high quality content from top 200 OCW member universities. Study groups are used to schedule learning sessions and interactive forums to drive learning. We are launching API’s that will allow the use of Students Circle in classrooms.

Student Circle’s interface is very similar to Facebook’s. Why? Aren’t you afraid of being tagged as yet another Facebook copycat?

Yes, we moved towards getting a bit of the structure of Facebook because most our users are already using Facebook and it’s only natural for them to look for things the way they do on Facebook. It’s best for user experience. However, I am not worried about being tagged another Facebook clone because we are highly different and our focus is defined to education.

You have a database of thousands of high school and college courses. Where do you source them from, and how can users be certain of the quality of the content they are deriving from your site?

Students Circle Network is a member of the OpenCourseware Consortium. OCW Consortium has member universities globally with the most contributing member being MIT; others include Open University, UK and University of California at Irvine. This is to name a few. The point is that our content is from these universities. These are some of the most reputable universities worldwide.

Give me an overview of your business model. What ideas do you have about monetizing your site?

Currently students is a freemium business. We provide high quality services and content for free. We are running ads on the network which are generating some revenue. We are also gaining commissions from service partners who provide services for our users. Our monetization strategy includes developing a package for specific services. This is currently in the works.

Have you shared your vision with any angel investors or venture capitalists? Do you even believe in those guys?

Yes I have shared these ideas with venture capitalists and angels when this was at its infant stage and at the point they felt it was early. The VCs were not focused on early stage startups at the time. Do I believe them? [laughs] I hope to, I really do. Africa needs more VCs and angels.

What’s your current staff strength?

We currently have 3 team members and a fourth consultant. Chika Uwazie is the VP in charge of Business and Connections. Amblessed Uche is the product development manager and user experience lead. I handle development, strategy, technology, business and everything else. Anibe Agamah of Encipher Group consults for us on development.

One of those names is very familiar.

I see we have stars among us.

How about examples of Nigerians in Nigeria? Know any?

These are two friends of mine and they are located in the VI area,


Another group called Co-Creation Hub immediately caught my attention. It is building an incubator to help entrepreneurs with business advice, funding and mentoring. Their focus is using technology to solve real problems Nigeria faces, not just copying what people read on TechCrunch. It welcomes more than just coders, but teachers, doctors, or anyone from any background that has a dramatic idea of how to make life in Nigeria better. A new co-working space to be opened later this year will operate like an open living lab for social change.

I love that strategy. I always advise entrepreneurs if they want to build a Western-facing consumer Internet company to move for the Valley; it will just be easier. But if they want to be pioneers in their own markets, focus on the problems and endemic strengths there. (And probably read sites like TechCrunch a little less too.)

So right away between Nwoye’s evangelism, Paradigm Initiative of Nigeria’s efforts to build a young generation of coders and Co-Creation Hub’s cushy nest for social change, there was a pretty impressive mix of people actively working to foster an ecosystem. Things were looking up for Nigerian entrepreneurs. The demos started, and I was impressed by many of the companies too. They ran a tight ship doing pitches of no more than five minutes, and there were only a few copy-cat Western Web ideas in the bunch. My favorites are below. I should mention there was also a Garage48 hacker event over the weekend in Lagos that I wasn’t able to attend. The demos from that day are here.