₦airaland Forum

This change of policy has no real effect on anything. I suspect it was done out of desperation, not strategy.

I don't see how changing the source of the dollar will affect anything on the long run. Don't get it.

Yes.

I don't think such measures can prevent the naira from falling. Demand and supply will always prevail.

I've decided to continue with the competition but expand its scope a little bit:
1) The contest is not limited to books anymore. You can pitch a business that lends DVDs, CDs, and any other types of media in addition to or instead of books.
2) The contest is not limited to physical media anymore. You can pitch a business that lets people 'borrow' ebooks, movie/tv/music, etc.
3) You don't necessarily have to setup a chain of stores. A single store might suffice, if it enjoys a lot of traffic.
4) The stores need not be physical. They can be online stores, etc.

What business, precisely?

How much per day?

Yes, in theory.

Any food people buy regularly from the open markets is a candidate for better packaging.

You seem to specialize in processing various forms of flour. I think proper packaging of the popular flours used for amala, pounded yam, fufu, eba, etc in a form that you can buy in posh supermarkets, and at prices competitive with open market prices, would be a hit with middle-class career people. Make it a cool brand.

Yeah. We're removing and merging boards so we can moderate them more effectively. We want to reduce the number of places where spammers can hide their posts.

Frank: I work in a bank and each time I get my payslip I always see tax deducted. Some months its the same whilst sometimes it differs. Please how the hell do they calculate tax

Me: Take it easy Frank, its the same with me and several other employees. How much do you earn?

Frank: My salary package N1.2m (that is N100k per month)

Me: Ok! There isn't any one straight way of calculating your taxes because a lot of how it is calculated depends on the way your Basic Salary and Allowances are broken down. So, to make it simple, I will assume  a breakdown for you;

Step 1 - Get the breakdown of the components of your salary. See example below
Basic Salary                          690,000   
Housing Salary                      150,000 
Meal Allowance                      60,000
Entertainment Allowance         60,000
Utility Allowance                     80,000
Transport Allowance               91,000
Leave Allowance                    69,000
Total                                    1,200,000

Step 2. Deduct reliefs and allowances from your salary. The Inland Revenue usually tax you on your entire salaries after deducting some reliefs and allowances. The reliefs and allowances deducted for tax purposes are:

Housing - Maximum of N150k per annum
Leave Allowance - Not more than 10% of your Basic Salary
Transport Allowance - N20k per annum
Utility Allowances     -  N10k per annum
Meal and Entertainment Allowances - N6k each per annum
Children Allowance -  N2.5k per kid (maximum of 4kids)
Dependent Relative Allowance - N2k per annum (maximum of 2 dependents)

Reliefs are 20% of your Annual Basic Salary plus N5k
NHF (Mandatory National Housing Fund Contribution) - 2.5% of your Basic Salary
Pension Contribution - 7.5% of your Basic plus Transport and Housing Allowances

All of the above get deducted from the N1.2m above.

Step 3 - Calculate the deductions (continued here)

Read the rest of the tutorial: http://www.ugometrics.com/2011/10/how-to-calculate-your-taxes.html

The bandwidth usage should be minimal, but you should test it by checking the systems bandwidth usage on taskmgr.

Already posted here: www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-772918.0.html

222Martins:
Seun, since when did you become town crier or publicist for ugodre or ugometrics? The blogger you are to promoting is just trying to gain attention by being controversial. Nice try but i think he or she should focus on providing value to readers; because the controversial tactic is not working.

I agree, but the controversy tactic seemed to work on the billionaire thread.

Strictly borrowing, ideally.
Do you think I should cancel the competition? 
No one seems to be seriously interested.
I can come back with something better.

daroz: Dude, you can just disobey your dad. If you're old enough to get married, you can make your own decisions. If you break up with a girl you love, it simply means your love for her is weak.

@gbengaijiot: yeah, but what they are debating is whether or not people are hungry for books.

You guys and gals have really dissected the idea, but is anyone planning to participate? Any insightful questions?

Never pay for a scholarship. Not even 10 kobo. That's how you weed out the scammers. Don't pay a penny.

Advice for 2011: Just use wordpress.

Some interesting statements so far (take note!)

@Maxmip:
- "I bought 4 books recently"
- "or it's located within or around a university somewhere,"

@TCD:
- "Make people sign undertaken or drop collateral? Lol"

@Jenifa_:
- "but I suggest u target your business to academics. (ex university students or professors) and find a way to connect your business to universities and colleges. maybe set up a corporate bookstore/library at schools. and charge monthly fee. per book fee should go to premium books/resources."

@okeyxyz:
- "if most of them are struggling to afford textbooks for now"

@moremi2008:
- "How will you ensure that your patrons return the books in good condition, if at all?"
- "besides students looking for textbooks,"

Orikinla:
Seun, Only a library of audio books will succeed in Nigeria, because that will appeal to our oral culture. Africans prefer talking to reading. Even audio books on academic subjects should be introduced to schools, because they will do more to improve the knowledge of both pupils and students. And including access to the internet for customers will help.

Educational materials in other formats are nice to have in libraries, but we'll still need physical books.

manny4life:
I once had a similar idea like the one you're saying, actual books "for rent" won't cut it. Netflix model is dying out, why do u think Netflix split?

I think Netflix made a wrong decision.  You don't kill a business just because you believe it's going to die someday.  That would be like Microsoft killing Windows because they think the Web is the future.  It's good to be prepared for the future, but you should also live and make money in the present.

diggler:
Seun our people stopped reading a long time ago, maybe save for a few. recent abysmal performances  in WAEC/NECO, Civil service tests etc attest to that.

That's partly true, but not entirely. Nigerians read textbooks (if they can afford them) in school, religious books, motivational books, affordable romance novels, popular authors, etc. I believe they will read even more books if it's convenient and affordable to do so.

However, all hope is not lost. there is a silver lining in these dark clouds.

With the explosion of Smartphones, handhelds and next generation tablets (Ipad, playbook, kindle) maybe energies should be dissipated in finding a way to deliver the content of these books via these platforms.

This is also partly true. The iPad, for example, is a great device for reading. But books have certain advantages. For example, you can take or put a book anywhere - taxi, molue bus, market, village, luggage, lecture hall - and not have to worry about robbers or PHCN. You don't need to have Internet access, power, or a credit card. I believe a very many Nigerians will be better served by physical books for a very long time, but it's a good idea to keep fixed costs low so the business can remain profitable as the market gradually disappears. One can move to areas where books are still needed.

A gradual transition to e-book production could be a way forward, but I think only publishers and device manufacturers (Apple, Amazon) and Google can make money from that.

manny4life:
Seun, no offense but are you (indirectly) looking for ideas  to start a business or you being genuine about this?

I have lots of ideas about this business, but I don't want to run it myself. I'm looking for innovative minds.

good idea though, good business plan but N1million is stretching it.

That's correct, but business is so unpredictable.  If you have 2 million, it's better to plan to spend 1 million.  That gives you a margin of safety, so you'll have cash on hand for unanticipated expenses (which are guaranteed, by the way).

1. How many pages are we looking it?

I won't provide a guideline on that.  In the world of the entrepreneur, there are few rules.  It's up to you to figure out how long the essay should be to adequately portray the message you want to pass across.  I will gladly read an essay as long as novel if it's rich with useful information.  It should be as long as it needs to be to convince the reader that your plan is sound, but not a sentence longer.

Is this supposedly to be written as a business plan (executive summary) rather than an essay?

I would like an essay, because I think unstructured prose reveals a lot about how a person thinks, which is key for me.  I don't want you to waste any time thinking about how to write a "good business plan".  I want that time to be spent thinking about how to build a profitable chain of commercial libraries.

-> Business/Money

Business Essay Contest: Starting A Chain Of For-Profit Libraries In Nigeria

Hello,

Let's say you were given 1 million naira to set up a profitable chain of shops where the great books, especially non-fiction books, can be borrowed by paying customers.  I'd like you to write an essay on how you would start such a business with just 1 million naira, and make it grow to a predominant position in Nigeria with no additional funding.  And send it to [/b].

Your essay will be judged based on the soundness of your business strategy as described in the essay.  The winning essay will be the one which best demonstrates that the writer knows exactly what it will take to start and run a profitable book lending business in Nigeria.  The following elements might help: honesty, passion, rigor, research, profit-mindedness, pragmatism, accurate numbers, and other details.  But we'll be judging the plan/strategy in your essay as a whole.

The prizes are as follows: The writer of the the best essay as explained above will win [b]60,000 naira, the runner-up 30,000 naira, and the 3rd best 15,000 naira.  The contest starts now, but submissions will be accepted between the Monday the 10th and Friday the 14th of October, 2011.  The winners will be announced on Monday, the 17th of October, 2011 and awarded their prizes by direct deposit into their bank accounts.

I would strongly recommend that you try to understand the business models of Netflix and Blockbuster, even though they don't lend books and their business models probably won't work in Nigeria anyway.  If you're interested in running such a business, you should consider sending your CV with the essay. 

Any questions?  Good luck!

Regards,
Seun Osewa <[/b]>

---

[b]October 7 UPDATE: I've decided to continue with the competition but expand its scope a little bit:
1) The contest is not limited to books anymore. You can pitch a business that lends DVDs, CDs, and any other types of media in addition to or instead of books.
2) The contest is not limited to physical media anymore. You can pitch a business that lets people 'borrow' ebooks, stream movies/tv/music, etc.
3) You don't necessarily have to setup a chain of stores. A single store might suffice, if it enjoys a lot of traffic.
4) The stores need not be physical. They can be online stores, etc.

Good luck!

According to Ugometrics, 419 should be credited for reducing unemployment in Nigeria in the last decade. 
According to the blog, it might have reduced unemployment, armed robbery, and discouraged terrorism!

Excerpt:

I have been curious to know what role 419 might have played in reducing unemployment, armed robbery or even terrorism. 419 was mostly carried out by unemployed youths. These perpetrators were mostly fresh graduates who couldn't get a job after spending 4 to 5 years in school. Some of them were the last hope of their family having gone through hell to school them.

Back then, most fresh graduates who didn't have a job spent a large part of their time in cyber cafe's. This engaged their minds for most of the day taking away any other thought of a different kind of crime. Armed robbery wasn't very attractive to these guys. Neither were they ready to engage in some positively creative activity.

If I recollect just some years back, a fresh graduate who just joined the cyber crime network can within 3 months "pick" as much as $5,000 from victims. The British government once estimated a sum of £150m had been lost to cyber crime in a research conducted in 2006.

These guys made a lot of money. They bought flashy cars, some built houses and most even got married all with their ill-gotten wealth. Some of them were also good investors and at the time helped boost the Nigerian Stock market. No wonder the stock market crash of 2008 also coincided with the drastic fall in cyber crime by the late 2000's.

With all this in mind one may not be wrong to infer that cyber crime did help keep busy a restless group of our society that may otherwise had been engaged in a bloodier activity. This now brings me to think if the reduction of cybercrime has a relationship with the increase in the spate of kidnapping and terrorism thought to be perpetuated by youths. This may well be difficult to prove as kidnappers and the terrorist have all been a mixture of people in different age grades. But then there may be a compelling argument to believe a strong relationship does exist.

Back then, we never heard of kidnapping. We didn't hear of bomb blast as well. The youths were fully engaged in a cyber crime that involved absolute concentration and tasking of the mind as they strive to device more creative means of scamming. The idle mind is the devils workshop as they say and their minds were hardly idle . . . (continued here)

Can you believe this insinuation?  Do you agree with it?  An alternate view of the same events is that 419 introduced many youths to the pleasures of easy money through crime.  And when the activities of EFCC made scamming more risky and less lucrative, they shifted to other criminal ways of making easy money.  For example, kidnapping.  If youths were not introduced to 419 en mass, most of them would probably be doing constructive things with their lives.

Read the whole thing here: Did 419 help reduce unemployment in the last decade

diesel costs and daily sales would be helpful

Hi,

In our thread about how to get a car loan, many people said car loans make no sense in Nigeria.

ifyalways: A car is the last thing I would take a loan for!As far as Ifeoma is concerned,a car remains a liability(be it for biz purporse or for comfort) and as such can only be purchased with "cash".

fm7070: What about interest rate?
Car is a liability. not an asset.
That is where most Nigerians miss it and loom in poverty all their lives

Ijogz K: Car loan ke How wuld som1 use his own hand and money to buy liability Olorun Majeeeeeeee!!!
When u can get loan to buy land or house. Or start up a business or execute a contract. You kon carry money go buy Car,

catso: A CAR LOAN, !
Do not try to receive loan on something that is not bringing/generating income to you.
Car loan from nigeria bank?
Have you ever wonder what the interest pay will be plus all the hidden charges?
Please think twice!

chuckdee4: A car is the wrong thing to get on loan, the moment you buy a new car it starts loosing value, so why take a loan for something that will continually drop in value. I am all for the improvement of people's lifestyle but not at such an expensive price

fm7070: Have you have considered the future of the people you're advising? If they lose their job today, what happens to them and their family? and even the liability (car) they've bought. They ended up selling it so cheap to service the debt. Or do you think banks will sympathise with you if you lose your job?

However, I am not condemning buying a car or getting a loan to buy a car, but what am saying is that: Build your asset first before getting liabilities.
In America, many people will die in debt,  even their children will inherit their debt after working all days of their life. They want to live beyond their income just because of credit monster made available to them.

I will recommend this book to everyone:  Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Read it and become rich from the Inside.

But the author wrote a new post to defend car loans, insisting that "a car loan may well be a wise decision if you take a debt that is compatible with your income".  Do you agree with this statement?  Read the author's defense of car loans here: Is it wise to buy a car with a loan?