ghettodreamz:


Easy bro, no offense whatsoever is meant. Just a piece of advice taken wrongly, I guess To answer your Q on how, I went through your signature and landed on starttell.net I guess that's not your domain, right? Secondly, .NG is a CCTLD domain name extension for Nigeria, just like .US is for USA and .CA is for Canada. Op's startup is one domiciled in Nigeria, as such investors wouldn't have had problem taking him serious.

I hope this explains my previous point clearly. All the same, sorry if I was being misunderstood.

ghettodreamz:


Though, I have seen something similar to what you are doing elsewhere BUT don't give up. It's a good niche and I pray it flourishes into something BIG for you someday. Amen

mbulela:


Some huge effort you have put in there.
Well done and may your just reward come in the future.

eagleeye2:

You just put a smile to my face. I have been sick since yesterday, and reading this just made me smile.



.
Ndewo nwanne m. Jisie ike.

bukkytroni:
Honestly at MarkEssien, thank you for your contribution to the entrepreneurial space. Your story is a huge breath of fresh air.
As regards funding, would like to know what more rounds of fund raising you are looking to and what your projections are. I have a few foreign tech PEs who will be interested in brilliant opportunities like yours and may want to consider co-investing.
You could PM me for further discussions.

Congrats for what you are doing and the landmark feat.

Bossforeva:
lol. Sth i just think that the group of words 'how do you know' shouldn't be in a sentence cox most times it seems the person asking is taking offense.
I wanted to know how you knew, cox someone went ahead of me to purchase the domain, and then hijack the price to $799 thinking that i will still buy it. I wanted to be further sure that the person that did it is a nairalander that went through my siggy.
Thanks for ur piece of advice, i later on decided to go with a .com ext but with a diff domain name.
Wn't reveal it till my tech partner is done coding.

4stylz:


Great Job seun; You are really good at what you are doing; not Dele momudu who turned his oviation into a political forum; not good for the business

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.

ghettodreamz:


.com ext was first reg'd in 2011 though, and updated last month (currently owned by an entity based in the states). So, it's not certain if the domain was actually hijacked and registered by a Nairalander before you could make the move. Anyways, good thing you have found another befitting name as a replacement and you have decided to protect it. Wishing you the very best in your endeavours.

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

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

philips70:


There are many routes to nation building. Seun is doing his part likewise Dele Momodu in his own way.

wandyvirus:

I sent you a mail request. Lets talk....don't want to reveal identity here. I am reveling in Mark's success. Great news. if you do have PEs, please lets connect.

Viciyus:


For your information,
This topic is not encouraging our youths to aspiring more but rather an advertisement. If you analyze it the other way, it is a business strategy to bring more awareness about a particular product. I have work with most company and we usually do this kind of thing.


Let me tell you a dark secret, after two to three days you will forget his story but his company name will stick to your head (awareness of his product)

No company will encourage our youths, you only encourage yourself or work to be something meaningful to the sociality

Edigrows:

Sorry please, What's PEs?

Chuks84:



To each man his own. You choose to see this post as an advert, i prefer to see it as a means of encouragement

markessien:


1. I would code all day

2. I was designing the product

3. I am talking to people about what they are doing.

iebanehita:


Top position?
I would have to disagree with you on this.

I have worked with hotels.ng as a freelancer and with Jovago.com and I can categorically say that Jovago.com is way popular and has claimed several awards, including No.1 hotel booking site in Nigeria and has already expanded to Ghana, Kenya and other African Countries, despite hotels.ng starting before her.

Congratulations also, on your recent breakthrough.

cc: MRBrownJ

- you claim to be the largest booking site in Nigeria, have you (or your team) personally stayed in the Nigerian hotels you advertise on your site.... or is it just about numbers at hotel.ng?! i mean how do you make sure that all the hotels you advertise are tourist/client friendly?