₦airaland Forum

voltron:
Until software developers can grow out of their geek culture and learn to be innovators and entrepreneurs, there is no hope competing against foreign competition.

Youngzedd:
Una dey joke. How can ICT survive without power.

Columnists in Nigeria excitedly announce the latest electric car technology, and how it means progress. Yes, it means progress for humanity as a whole, but for Nigeria in particular, it is demonstrative of a trend that is extremely dangerous.

Oil prices have dropped. They will continue to drop. Technology is making it feasible to get oil in places that they previously were not accessible from. The big multinationals are selling their oil fields in Nigeria. When you see people exiting a business, what is this indicative of?

Oil is dying. The western world knows it, that is why they are heavily investing in converting the things that used to use oil to electric. The newest cars are electric or hybrid. This trend will continue, because there are many ways now to generate electricity from non-oil sources. 30% of Germany's electricity is renewable and non-oil. Their cars will be powered by this same electricity. What will they need Nigerian oil for?

www.nairaland.com/attachments/2232568_gasflaringpollutionnigeria_jpeg1bd04d828d4e1e50cc0f01c3a0cd8234

People do not really realise this, but almost any income you see in Nigeria is trickle-down oil money. Our entire government (the biggest spender) is almost entirely powered by oil money. Even the taxes collected are re-collected oil money.

Even the new fangled e-businesses – if you have someone buying a pair of boots, he got the money from his job at a security company, who make their money guarding oil workers. So much of the money rotating about comes indirectly from oil.

Now when the oil prices drop, and they will, a lot of that money will dry up. People will stop having free cash, and the economy will dry up. So we will become dependent on our manufacturing and exports. Which don’t exist.

Are we going to build a machine manufacturing industry now? An industry that took Germany and Japan the last 100 years to build? What chance does Nigeria have, considering how few engineers we have, and how all good engineers easily find jobs in the U.S or U.K? To do so will be next to impossible, realistically. Nigeria will likely never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to machine manufacturing.

I am biased, but we do have a chance. Our programmers. I have worked with programmers all over the world, in Germany, China, India, etc. And I have found something – Nigerian programmers are actually great. The programmers in Nigeria are great, the ones working outside of Nigeria are great. Nigeria has a unique chance to build a manufacturing and an export industry right now by focusing on knowledge based skills.

The industry of producing information based intangibles is new. It’s like when countries were building cars at the turn of the last century. That’s where we are right now. If we invest right, Nigeria can become one of the top five exporters of software and software products. And when that oil dries up, our liquidity will come from the software.

The government of a country is responsible for the long-term outlook of the country. The software industry is one of the few viable industries that can be invested in right now to give Nigeria the long-term ability to export goods and earn revenue. Entertainment is another one. Other older industries like machine manufacturing or tourism will be really hard to activate because of the existing competition out there.

The private sector is supposed to be selfish. And everyone in the private sector needs to realise if their business is long term oil dependent. If it is, they should start investing in industries that are not. Software is one of them.

Action plan

1. Private sector: Divest into non-oil dependent industries. Consider the software export market and outsourcing centers. Build software local so you have expertise for the future.

2. Government:

- Fund the tech departments of universities somewhat better.
- Government software should exist as tiny modules that are completed by smaller companies, so there is steady project flow to keep the companies occupied (not monolithic contracts). To make this happen, there will likely need to be a very well designed technical department to design such.
- Incentivize software export. E.g for the first $10,000 brought in via an exported piece of software, match it with $10,000 tax credit
- Have trade-fairs where Nigerian companies can demonstrate what they have built

3. NGOs

- Create avenues that enable developers understand how they can sell software (not just create it)
- Help software developers come up with structures around what they build so it becomes commercially viable
- Create paths-to-market that make it easier for devs to monetize
- Do not just focus on products under your ‘leadership’. When you see folks doing good stuff, give them the additional resources they need (e.g design talent) even if they did not pass through your ‘program’

The danger for Nigeria is real. Our entire economy is based around a resource that is rapidly losing value. We really cannot afford to wait much longer before investing in viable things we can export in the future. When economies shrink rapidly, war breaks out. Businesses collapse. The government takes on debt.

Germany started its push to transition to renewable energy in 1980. 34 years later, they have achieved 30%. It takes time to create a transition such as this. We need to start now.

remsonik:
She's heavily pregnant and you can see the baby bump from the pics of her corpse released

IYANGBALI:
una wan go hook am for road abi una wan give am award?

Until recently, I had always thought that tech startup life would be rosy. All you had to do was sit in an office, air conditioning blazing, and you would soon be making liquid cash.

No…

If anything, I have learnt that this hustle is largely offline. Especially in the beginning. The formula is simple. Drive brand awareness to capture market mind share online, but have offline business development to drive actual sales.

The interesting things about this model is that you drive the total number of unique customers upwards with a x% increase month over month while you wait for the market to grow and accept your product online. And because the labour is really cheap, you can get away with an offline sales team that earns nothing but sales commissions.

See below my analysis of some of the internet/tech companies in Nigeria and the offline strategies that have helped them win in their respective industries.

Konga/Jumia

In the early stages, these guys spent a shitload of money on the Google Display Network and Facebook to raise awareness and capture market mindshare. But while they were making all the marketing noise, both companies employed an offline sales force to drive actual sales. These guys were paid a basic salary to cover their logistics while they earned their actual salary via commission from sales they brought. This strategy was coupled with the “customer care girls with fine voice” that recommended other products when confirming your order, and drove sales upward tremendously.

Wakanow

Wakanow were much more aggressive offline in the beginning too. They positioned their sales force in virtually all the local and international airport across the country. Their KPIs were very simple, convince travelers to purchase flight tickets from you, and you get paid a commission.

IrokoTV

The moment they decided to focus on the Nigerian market, they used the same formula. They were everywhere (Nairaland, Facebook,LindaIkeji) for a while, but then they reduced their online budget to focus on offline business development. If you walk into any cinema in Lagos right now (I don’t know about other states), a sales rep will approach you to sign up on Iroko. Again, it is very simple — the total number of unique customers will increase with a not-so-expensive cost per acquisition.

Jobberman/Information Nigeria/Naij/BellaNaija/Ynaija

I decided to categorize all these guys in one field because they all monetize the same way – they sell advertorial real estate on their platforms (Yes Jobberman sells ads). While they have all made intense money from Google Adsense, they are making way more by means of an offline business development team. They all have an army of “fine girls” that visit digital agencies/brands to monetize their traffic, and it has worked/working for them tremendously well.

Easy Taxi/Uber Nigeria

The same approach, especially for Uber. These guys distributed coupon codes for free rides at every tech event I attended last year. No kidding. Even at an event in France, Uber France was there to give free rides. So I am guessing it’s a global strategy for them.

Prepclass

Last, but not least is my startup, Prepclass. Notwithstanding that we are not in the caliber of the above mentioned businesses, we have realized that we need to take this hustle to the street. It’s quite tricky, but if you can build a cheap offline business development army, you can win. Already, we are present in quite a number of churches in Lekki. But that is not enough. We have plans to take over book stores, shopping malls, salons, and schools (this one should be easy since my partner’s mum owns a big school in Isolo and has contacts).

In a way we have always known that we needed to think more offline, but we were just stubborn and unwilling to leave our chilled, air-conditioned, CcHub life. The good thing is we have learnt and are adapting accordingly. After just one month of trying this strategy, we have seen an impressive increase in customers referred via word of mouth. Hopefully we will also win like the companies I have examined above. Till then, the hustle continues.

arsetalks:
Nairaland is becoming a disgrace every day. There is another thread on APC advert with obvious quotes from GEJ himself that has been ignored.

oluomoadebayo:
Boy is tired!

ukicom86:
My family goes with your view...I will talk to my vet on that...Thank you. Am gonna have a puppy again. My cross-breed jumps on me too much and can be dangerous to play with. I am the only one that attend and gets close to the dog in my family, i hope they dont do same with my new pup in 2weeks. I rarely travel and sleep out because of the dog.

ukicom86:
Getting a female pure rot to join my 16 months male cross-breed rot...What do you think?

smileysmiles:
"Egg whites cause Biotin deficiency – Egg whites contain avidin, a Biotin (one of the B vitamins) inhibitor. Biotin is one of the B vitamins and is important for cellular growth, fatty acid metabolism and good skin and coat. Biotin deficiencies are quite rare and it would take an extraordinary amount of eggs to create a deficiency. Moreover, egg yolks are very high in biotin, so as long as you feed the entire egg, there are few worries. There are other sources of biotin in the diet as well. Liver is a particularly good source. Once again, cooking the egg white will eliminate the risk but your dog will lose much of the nutritional value. If feeding your dog eggs on a regular basis, simply make sure he gets the whole egg, not just the white."
Source: http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/feeding-your-dog-raw-eggs-good-or-bad/

I still think the advantages outweigh the risks @seun

And even if the egg must be processed i would still advice boiling instead of frying.

BiHung:
Seun osewa.i am disappointed in you. What was your reason for taking down the video on ffk. U r acting partisan amd dictatorial

Sai baba

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