Decryptor:
If Mr Essien had blamed GEJ back in 2013 like some woeful people here on NL, he wouldn't have gotten to where he is today.

Moral of he story: Stand up and do something with your hands rather than waiting for Buhari to "CHANGE" your life after May 29th.

Olucheye:
I'm impressed with the giant strides Mark Essien made with Hotels.Ng

Kudos sir!


I'm not sure if this would derail this thread, but i'm in search of a Female Co-Founder for a tech startup biz.

Do you have what it takes to build a business from scratch?
Kindly mention me.

idupaul:


Owu de blow people for Nairaland sha.

Imagine him saying, "the Op still has time coming to nairaland even with the 1.2 million dolls he has accumulated. Shoro ni yen??

Setaje:



What is wrong wiv my dp

markessien:
Hello Guys,



---
If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I will answer them all!

Me and the team

myklangelo:
my Bro congrats... A man with a vision is better than a man with billions in his account. Your vision n creativity is paying off,I pray mine does same.

The 1st Igbo language blog is out, it is fun and insightful. Visit, comment, share and criticize.www.odeniigbo..com

myklangelo:
my Bro congrats... A man with a vision is better than a man with billions in his account. Your vision n creativity is paying off,I pray mine does same.

The 1st Igbo language blog is out, it is fun and insightful. Visit, comment, share and criticize.www.odeniigbo..com

Bossforeva:
Hello Markessien pls can you invest on my startup? Tis a digital storytelling startup i may not be able to reveal confidential details here.

Chuks84:
I just want to commend seun and mark essien on this. This is what nairaland should be about; sharing educative and success stories and encouraging our youths to aspire for more.

Olucheye:


A part of my startup entails into satisfaction of women needs hence why i said the need for a female co-founder.
A sound lady would be best suit the profile of who i want. However, a male mind with grasp of women needs would be welcomed.

What kind of startup are you into by the way?

ghettodreamz:


Sorry, just feel like putting this down. A lot of things is wrong with it, and might not portray you in a good light (weirdo - no offense) to a prospective employer. If for any other thread, I might be indifferent about this. Anyways, still your profile and your dp.

Setaje:
live and let live!.

Setaje:



OK thankyou.

olatricia:
This is not living and let living. This is an horror film!

CashdownNG:


oh, it's an online/offline pawnshop. Cashdown Nigeria where users either sell or deposit their goods for money. it saves time and offers secure transactions.

Olucheye:


A part of my startup entails into satisfaction of women needs hence why i said the need for a female co-founder.
A sound lady would be best suit the profile of who i want. However, a male mind with grasp of women needs would be welcomed.

What kind of startup are you into by the way?

ghettodreamz:


Off topic - For people to take your startup idea or business entity serious I would advise you go for .com extension and not the .net

markessien:
Hello Guys,

I am Mark Essien, the founder of Hotels.ng and Hotels.ng just raised $1.2m in funding from international investors. I started this business on my own two years ago in Calabar, and now we have become a big business. Hopefully, some people will read this and know that it's possible to be innovative, creative and build something from nothing in a few years.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2015/05/26/nigerias-hotels-ng-raises-1-2-million/

Questions that people have asked me and answers. If you have any other questions, ask below and I will reply.

What's your view on competition? How closely do you follow what Wakanow, Travelstart, etc., are doing relative to hotels.ng?

Competition is necessary for you to have a baseline on which you want to improve from. Otherwise you can have a really crappy product, and you don't know because there is nothing to compare it with.

At the end of 2014, you made the following statement: "We recorded almost no customer complaints in last two months, while booking tens of thousands of people.” So...what's your approach towards customer service? And how has your team (apparently) been able to proactively address issues?

Customer service in my opinion, is about empowering customer service to do the best they can to help people, no matter what it costs.

As an entrepreneur, getting the right staff is usually a challenge. How do you get talented people? What is your recruiting trick for finding great staff?

I do things like this - https://medium.com/mark-essien/hotels-ng-interview-questions-to-screen-for-a-genius-49bb6cb9946a - to find people.

What was your biggest fear on the journey to this point, and how long did you anticipate it will take you to cross this threshold?
My biggest fear was that we would not make enough money in time to be able to survive, in case we did not raise money in time. Luckily, with focus and a bit of luck, we crossed that bridge.

What would you do differently if you were starting over today?
Differently - I would have avoided doing things that are side-experiments and been more focused on the main thing.

How many percent of your company did you have to give up for $1.2million. Do you own controlling shares?
Right now, I own more of the company than if I had no investment, but I had a co-founder.

Who are your senior management team? In every conversation about Hotels I only hear about you the founder, never about the team.
So far we have operated without a 'senior' management team. But that is about changing. Expect some news here.

Did you choose your investors or did they choose you? I am personally working on a service and trying to decide who my investors should be.
We chose each other, just like a marriage

Tell us three business development hacks you used to stay afloat while you raised money..?
1. staying very focused on what would contribute to bottom line and what would not

2. Implementing performance based compensation across board

3. 3. Deferring expenses that were not critical.

What is it about hotels culture that has made you successful and how will you keep it consistent as you scale.
Hotels Culture is one of everyone-do-your-best and always keep thinking. The overall philosophy is that people should not need to be controlled to do their best. The Netflix presentation on this is one of the best I have read, and I hope we one day achieve this.

Do you consider yourself a technology company or a hotel booking service?
We are 100% a technology company.

What inspired you to start Hotels.ng?
I was inspired by wanting to do something in tech in Nigeria, and seeing a big open market

Here's my question before you received funding from spark how many employees did you have?
First of all, it was just me coding the site, then after that I hired a friend called Charles Bassey - and we were working together getting our inventory in calabar. That was before I moved to Lagos.

---
If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I will answer them all!

Me and the team

myklangelo:
my Bro congrats... A man with a vision is better than a man with billions in his account. Your vision n creativity is paying off,I pray mine does same.

The 1st Igbo language blog is out, it is fun and insightful. Visit, comment, share and criticize.www.odeniigbo..com

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I will answer them all!

Me and the team

markessien:


The secret is that we were in the right market, with someone that knew how to build a product to serve the market. Market is the most important thing.

Bossforeva:
how do you know that am thinking of .net and bros, what do you have to say in this case where investors took the Ops .NG sriously?

olatricia:
Like seriously!!!! Wat kind of dps are those?