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Hey guys, do you have stuff you're not using but is still valuable? Post a picture here and put your bid price.
Do you want to buy cheap but valuable stuff? Reach out here and bid to get the item.

Let the auction begin!

Of course but the new jobs will require new skills and the competition will be higher for the few available.

kalufelix:
...Okay.. But shey i go still dey smoke igbo ni ?? ...As jobs are shutting down other opportunities are opening up..like when a new party takes over a government

The Top Five Tech companies in the world (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook) have lost a combined $1.3 Trillion in value since February 19, this year. There has been the most brutal equity collapse in the world economy since the great depression, exacerbated by a 60% slump in oil prices. In fact, JPMorgan reckons a 12% contraction in the global economy from January to March.


According to the ILO projections, 25 million jobs could be lost due to COVID-19. According to Mckinsey and Co report, the economic implications will be driven mostly by these four areas;

1. Oil Prices: Decline in oil prices to as low $25 per barrel will lead to a decline in GDP, reduced government spending and exchange rate instability.

2. Consumer demand: This will be experienced in three ways;
a. Restricted movement; there will be reduced household and business consumptions due to restricted movement and travel ban.
b. Reduced number of people traveling because of health concerns
c. Shrinking wallets; Health costs and fears, job losses will lead to reduced discretionary spending and reduced non-discretionary spending. *discretionary funds is an amount of money that is available to spend on things that are not considered necessary but that may be useful. That means you have enough money to meet your necessary needs and extra money to get things that aren’t entirely necessary.


3. Supply Chain Disruption; value chain disruption will lead to production losses due to a shortage of inputs. This means with fewer people at work, productivity will reduce.

4. Investment and Capital Inflow: Movement restrictions of people will result in delays and cancellation of foreign investments. Imagine an investor who has to visit a business he wants to invest in to do some due diligence.
Nigeria imports about 12% of its GDP, which are mostly intermediary goods (80% are heavy machinery and mineral oils). Our biggest exporter China (25% of total imports) is in recovery mode and the impact on supplies is moderate. Europe and the USA are still in economics shutdown and this will impact Nigeria sourcing.

This basically means, if you’re a worker in a manufacturing company or a trading company heavily reliant on sourcing from Europe, expect downsizing in your company.

So largely, the picture is gloomy and developing countries heavily reliant on exporting to first-world nations will be worst it. Stimulus packages by the government from third-world countries may not be sufficient or even available so economic recovery will be really slow.

So what should you do as a person to cushion yourself from this hit?

Here are Six Ways to Manage in this Crisis

1. Determine what you need, not what you want. List them. You don’t have to give people money. Only acquire what you need, study your resources and defined what you need. Anything extra is bad management.

2. Decide not to live beyond your means. Don’t waste. The temptation to consume everything you have and spend all your money is evil. This is no time to waste resources.

3. Withdraw the unnecessary. It is also time to review some people who you’ve been supporting who can really support themselves. There are people depending on you who are able to fend for themselves. Withdraw that support. Can you live without Netflix and DSTV? Maybe you should suspend those for now. Don’t worry, you will still be sane.

4. Delay major projects. This may not be the best time to invest in projects that are longer-term and will put you seriously behind financially. This is really time to survive. You can resume those projects when you’re more stable economically.
Value your possessions. Plan to keep what you have longer and delay the purchase of a new one. Ensure it is in good condition. Manage every penny. No new clothes this time, take care of the old ones you have.

5. Save. Change your lifestyle and give with discretion. Not everyone who asks you deserves to get it and that includes family. Study to find out if the reason is a legitimate need. A wealthy person doesn’t need to show it.

On savings, I believe saving is for periods like this. Not only to cushion yourself but to acquire wealth as prices of real estate, stock, and business dealings will decrease. Invest wisely.
This is the best time to make serious money.
If you’re investing in a business, here’s what you should invest in;

Essentials: No matter how bad the economy gets, people will always need food and water. You can never go wrong investing in these. However, be careful and strategic, you can invest wrongly in these and still fail. Now may not be the best tome for expensive bottle water.

Real Estate: If you have the funds, you should start checking out Real Estate, because as usual, they will be distress sales. Since most people will hold back on spending, which means fewer potential buyers, the price of properties will be highly negotiable.

Ecommerce: If you ever thought of getting into e-commerce, this is definitely your best opportunity. For example in China; Fresh food delivery businesses are making a buck as demand surged by 20% during the pandemic. Below is a graph showing the increase in online sales for personal items.

Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds: The current market is bearish and there isn’t a better time to buy than now. The prices of stock fluctuate with current news. Amidst the fears looming due to COVID-19, the prices of stock have dropped more than 20% in the last three months and will continue for a period. If you’re comfortable with investing in stock for the long-term, now is the time.


Yourself: Most importantly, now more than ever is the time to invest in yourself. Invest in skills that make you indispensable and skills that can be done remotely. When economic recessions hit, only the best are kept, so ensure that if you’re working in an organization, you have the skills that make you extremely relevant. If you are laid off, don’t freight, quickly pick up a new skill or improve on the one you have, and find opportunities. If you’re confident about going into business, you should but bear in mind that it will be tougher than usual. You are your best business.

Bear in mind that we’re getting the worse hit after the pandemic is over and people are not talking about it. People will loose assets and businesses and the government will become more powerful because it will have to bail out some big businesses. This means that regulations will be tighter and there will be little opposition from the private sector because most will be too vulnerable. So expect a tougher business environment. To survive, you must absorb the right information quickly, diversify your skills (you may have to get your hands dirty temporarily), don’t be proud. Be flexible and be ready to adapt quickly. Trust this, the world will be better for this .

My name is Klein Udumaga. If this helped, please like, share and drop a comment so that more people can see this article. Thank you!

This was originally posted on my medium page. Please follow to read more stories like this.


https://medium.com/@kleinuduh/how-the-economy-will-be-affected-by-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-how-you-should-brace-up-da46e2bd5a

The Top Five Tech companies in the world (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook) have lost a combined $1.3 Trillion in value since February 19, this year. There has been the most brutal equity collapse in the world economy since the great depression, exacerbated by a 60% slump in oil prices. In fact, JPMorgan reckons a 12% contraction in the global economy from January to March.


According to the ILO projections, 25 million jobs could be lost due to COVID-19. According to Mckinsey and Co report, the economic implications will be driven mostly by these four areas;

1. Oil Prices: Decline in oil prices to as low $25 per barrel will lead to a decline in GDP, reduced government spending and exchange rate instability.

2. Consumer demand: This will be experienced in three ways;
a. Restricted movement; there will be reduced household and business consumptions due to restricted movement and travel ban.
b. Reduced number of people traveling because of health concerns
c. Shrinking wallets; Health costs and fears, job losses will lead to reduced discretionary spending and reduced non-discretionary spending. *discretionary funds is an amount of money that is available to spend on things that are not considered necessary but that may be useful. That means you have enough money to meet your necessary needs and extra money to get things that aren’t entirely necessary.


3. Supply Chain Disruption; value chain disruption will lead to production losses due to a shortage of inputs. This means with fewer people at work, productivity will reduce.

4. Investment and Capital Inflow: Movement restrictions of people will result in delays and cancellation of foreign investments. Imagine an investor who has to visit a business he wants to invest in to do some due diligence.
Nigeria imports about 12% of its GDP, which are mostly intermediary goods (80% are heavy machinery and mineral oils). Our biggest exporter China (25% of total imports) is in recovery mode and the impact on supplies is moderate. Europe and the USA are still in economics shutdown and this will impact Nigeria sourcing.

This basically means, if you’re a worker in a manufacturing company or a trading company heavily reliant on sourcing from Europe, expect downsizing in your company.

So largely, the picture is gloomy and developing countries heavily reliant on exporting to first-world nations will be worst it. Stimulus packages by the government from third-world countries may not be sufficient or even available so economic recovery will be really slow.

So what should you do as a person to cushion yourself from this hit?

Here are Six Ways to Manage in this Crisis

1.Determine what you need, not what you want. List them. You don’t have to give people money. Only acquire what you need, study your resources and defined what you need. Anything extra is bad management.

2.Decide not to live beyond your means. Don’t waste. The temptation to consume everything you have and spend all your money is evil. This is no time to waste resources.

3.Withdraw the unnecessary. It is also time to review some people who you’ve been supporting who can really support themselves. There are people depending on you who are able to fend for themselves. Withdraw that support. Can you live without Netflix and DSTV? Maybe you should suspend those for now. Don’t worry, you will still be sane.

4.Delay major projects. This may not be the best time to invest in projects that are longer-term and will put you seriously behind financially. This is really time to survive. You can resume those projects when you’re more stable economically.
Value your possessions. Plan to keep what you have longer and delay the purchase of a new one. Ensure it is in good condition. Manage every penny. No new clothes this time, take care of the old ones you have.

5.Save. Change your lifestyle and give with discretion. Not everyone who asks you deserves to get it and that includes family. Study to find out if the reason is a legitimate need. A wealthy person doesn’t need to show it.

On savings, I believe saving is for periods like this. Not only to cushion yourself but to acquire wealth as prices of real estate, stock, and business dealings will decrease. Invest wisely.
This is the best time to make serious money.
If you’re investing in a business, here’s what you should invest in;

Essentials: No matter how bad the economy gets, people will always need food and water. You can never go wrong investing in these. However, be careful and strategic, you can invest wrongly in these and still fail. Now may not be the best tome for expensive bottle water.

Real Estate: If you have the funds, you should start checking out Real Estate, because as usual, they will be distress sales. Since most people will hold back on spending, which means fewer potential buyers, the price of properties will be highly negotiable.

Ecommerce: If you ever thought of getting into e-commerce, this is definitely your best opportunity. For example in China; Fresh food delivery businesses are making a buck as demand surged by 20% during the pandemic. Below is a graph showing the increase in online sales for personal items.

Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds: The current market is bearish and there isn’t a better time to buy than now. The prices of stock fluctuate with current news. Amidst the fears looming due to COVID-19, the prices of stock have dropped more than 20% in the last three months and will continue for a period. If you’re comfortable with investing in stock for the long-term, now is the time.


Yourself: Most importantly, now more than ever is the time to invest in yourself. Invest in skills that make you indispensable and skills that can be done remotely. When economic recessions hit, only the best are kept, so ensure that if you’re working in an organization, you have the skills that make you extremely relevant. If you are laid off, don’t freight, quickly pick up a new skill or improve on the one you have, and find opportunities. If you’re confident about going into business, you should but bear in mind that it will be tougher than usual. You are your best business.

Bear in mind that we’re getting the worse hit after the pandemic is over and people are not talking about it. People will loose assets and businesses and the government will become more powerful because it will have to bail out some big businesses. This means that regulations will be tighter and there will be little opposition from the private sector because most will be too vulnerable. So expect a tougher business environment. To survive, you must absorb the right information quickly, diversify your skills (you may have to get your hands dirty temporarily), don’t be proud. Be flexible and be ready to adapt quickly. Trust this, the world will be better for this .

My name is Klein Udumaga. If this helped, please like, share and drop a comment so that more people can see this article. Thank you!

This was originally posted on my medium page. Please follow to read more stories like this.


https://medium.com/@kleinuduh/how-the-economy-will-be-affected-by-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-how-you-should-brace-up-da46e2bd5a

I hope people read and learn from this article.

Hope people read and learn from this article.

Afang and fufu. But I enjoy seafood made meals too

Thank you!

Parmzhelp:
This is an amazingly put together writeup. Thanks for sharing this data OP.

In 1988, Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $23 billion and life expectancy for the country's 91 million people was 46 years. GDP per capita was $256 and about 78% of the population lived under $2 per day. By this time, the country has already experienced six coups in its 28 years of existence and a Military General was currently the Head of State. This was a very poor nation and worse still, a very volatile one. Anything could happen.


Two brothers and executives from Singapore, Haresh and Sajesh Aswani who had been selling textile paid little attention to these statistics. From an initial importation of two containers of Indomie noodles, The Tolaram group has managed to build Indomie Instant Noodles to the eighth most-purchased brand in the world. With more than 4.5 billion packets sold per year and a staggering yearly revenue of $700 million.
How were these East-Asians able to build such a successful business in one of the most difficult places to do business on earth? How were they able to grow an 18 cents-per-packet product to a billion-dollar business?

Here's another story.

Opay became popular in June 2019 when it introduced its Oride bike-hailing service with a promo of N100. It had actually begun in July 2018 when it started using a network of agents to reach Nigeria's 36 million unbanked population. By August 2019, it had over 40,000 active agents across the country and $5million in daily transaction volumes.


However, the Opay story does not begin there.

Opay had been operating since 2010 as Paycom Nigeria Limited incubated by Telnet Nigeria Limited as a mobile payment platform. After seven years in operation, Opera decided to purchase the company in 2018. It doesn't even begin there.

Now let's look at the parent company.

In 2006 a Norwegian company, Opera Group ventured into Africa with its mobile browser Opera mini. A time when only 5.5% of the 142 million population even had access to the internet. As of August 2019, opera had the second-largest market share of mobile browsers in Nigeria and the second-largest in Africa after Google's Chrome. Of over 460m internet users in Africa, Opera has about 120m using its mobile browser.
Opera's second quarter (Q2, 2019) report recorded a $4million income gain (including non-cash gain in from Opay's increased valuation) and today, Oride does as much as 100,000 rides daily - more than Gokada and Max.ng. In fact, the competition was so fierce Gokada had to suspend operations for a couple of weeks to restrategize.

How were these foreigners able to scoop up so much market shares from these industries? What do these foreigners understand about Nigerians that we don't?

I will break down what I believe these foreigners discovered about doing business in Nigeria. Don't forget, Tolaram almost shut down operations in 1998 and began making a profit after 20 years. So, they too made mistakes, but they learnt something new, something we probably can all learn: how to sell to Nigerians.


1. Patience and long-term view

Today Tolaram controls more than 74 percent of the instant noodles market in Nigeria and that's a drop from 2006 when it was a complete monopoly. It now has 17 manufacturing plants in Nigeria and manages a fleet of over 2,000 trucks for its logistics.
However, it took Tolaram 20 years to gross $100m and a few more years to realise a profit-making formula. They were patient about growth, however, they were inpatient about profit. They realized that they were targeting the needs of Nigerians who were generally poor and decided to make long-term investments by cutting cost, so they moved the noodle manufacturing to Nigeria. Today, with an investment of $330 million, they are building the busiest port in Lagos.


Opera the company behind Operamini and Opay had actually been in the Nigerian market for about 13 years. During this period, they patiently studied the market, demography, customer behaviour; mapped out what worked and what did not with hard data. Jeff Bezos says it takes at least 10 years to create an overnight success. Today Opay is rapidly expanding and if you don't know the back story, you keep wondering how they figured this out in so little time.


Since these two businesses figured out the right formulae, they have both been executing like a well-oiled machine. Tolaram has had a compound growth rate of 36% since 2001. Once profit formulae is discovered, the growth of the enterprise tends to be explosive. But this takes time and continuous process innovation.

Tolaram Revenue Growth since 2001 - image 3






2. Study customer behaviour and create a great product around it
I know this sounds cliché but it's too important. Tolaram observed that as the economy developed and traditions began to evolve, more women were getting into the workforce. They needed tasty meals that could be made faster for their children. Tolaram found its market; provide tasty meals that can be made in 10 minutes. The product strategy appealed to a population with an annual per capita income of $257 at the time and this population was exploding. They had struck gold.


Here's a little twist on Opay. Opay wasn't the first company that began financial solutions services in Nigeria. In fact, compared to Paga, it was a latecomer, however, they came with a superior strategy. Opay knew that to ramp up its financial solutions service, it needed to build a transactional structure around its payment platform. It needed to offer other services that would utilize its financial platform. It quickly diversified. Note; Opay diversified rapidly into areas that were new, relevant and with its target demography in mind: millennials.
Young people lack enough experience to be afraid, so they are open to change. Opera, a browser mostly used by young people, understood this principle and diversified into the most relevant touchpoints for these people. The results reflected in the volume of transactions.
Let's compare results with Paga


(I love Paga by the way, I used their payment platform for my first e-business a couple of years ago and visiting their office was a level of inspiration for my partners and I).


Paga got its full operating license in 2011 and by 2017 (6 years later), they had reached 5 million users, 20% of whom were active. Between 2015 and 2016 they had handled transactions of almost $800 million.


Opay in one year of its founding does an average daily transaction of $7 million which roughly translates to $2.5 billion annual transactions. This is in contrast with Paga which so far has done $4.2 billion since its inception in 2011 (9 years) or even Flutterwaves' $2.5 billion since 2016 (3 years).


What did Opay do differently?

Opay added new verticals ontop of its payment platform. Remember, the actual goal is Opay. The other platforms are to feed it with transactions. I'm sure you're wondering why this is important. Let me put it simply; the higher your transaction volumes, the higher your valuation. Higher valuation means potential higher exist for investors. These verticals include Oride, Obus, food delivery (Ofood), wealth management (Owealth) and Ocash loans, turning this baby into a super app. Of course, I may not entirely support this steroid growth, but I think if managed properly, will still turn out a major success.

So you see the Double Play Strategy? they're not really losing. The "lose" money offering freebies on Oride and make it up on Opay. These touchpoint or verticals are actually Opay's great strategy as a result of understanding customer behaviour and building a great product around it.


3. Finance and marketing
The Vaswani brother began with two containers of Indomie noodles, however, the real boost came when they moved manufacturing to Nigeria. They have invested over $350 million so far. Tolaram had to build what Harvard innovation experts call "interdependent architecture". *when a product or delivery of the product is not good enough, the company which provides the product has to create an interdependent system, i.e; integrate across multiple components in the value chain to better manage interfaces across these components. Tolaram in its case provides its own electricity, manages a fleet of over 2,000 trucks for its logistics and bought a Palm oil factory (palm oil is a necessary ingredient in making noddles).

To succeed in Nigeria, you need money, lots of money. This is especially so if you're introducing a new product to the market. You have to educate potential customers. Just like in Tolaram's case, "Many people initially thought we were selling them worms," - Deepak Singhal, the CEO of Tolaram Africa. In 2016 alone, according to a document by Dufil Prima (Tolaram's subsidiary under which Indomie is run) spent N8.2 billion on marketing expenses.

Finally, just to throw some more light on marketing, it is important to put into perspective the cultural differences in Nigeria. Nigeria should be seen more like a cluster of regions with varying cultures rather than one country. For example, in the north, women's involvement in the workforce is much lower than in the southern part of Nigeria. Also, the man usually does the grocery buying while the woman spends a longer period in the kitchen cooking. This does not agree with the concept of Indomie's fast food option and that's why consumption per capita is lower in the north than in the south. The literacy rate and internet penetration are also lower in the north. So the best strategy for customer acquisition would be more traditional means like radio and TV because that is what men (usually the buyers) engage with. In the southern part of Nigeria, people are more fast-paced, literacy is high, so is internet penetration. This means the best marketing strategy would be reaching the customers via digital platforms. In indomie's case, the active buyers are the youth (12–30 years) and they successfully target this group with social media engagements. Customization promotion channel is key especially when culture differs. In Nigeria, you must market taking psychography into consideration and do it with intensity and consistency.

In 2019, Opay raised $50 million, much more than what Paga and Paystack have raised combined. This helped it integrate its verticals and market aggressively using what always gets Nigerians: Awoof!


Extra: You need God.
I know it sounds funny but trust me, you need God to succeed in Nigeria. Luck isn't even enough because you can run out of that. It's a tough place to do business, but with the necessary knowledge and information about how Nigerians defy basic economic principles and perseverance, sprinkled, no, soaked with the faith, you're good to go.

*Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe consumers on psychological attributes. Psychographics has been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles

My name is Klein Udumaga


https://medium.com/@kleinuduh/how-to-sell-to-nigerians-the-tolaram-indomie-makers-and-opera-story-part-1-397e2438bb28

Amazing! Can't wait to see what you pull off

HallaDaTruth:
Wow inspiring. I will soon be Announcing my new business soon. The system is on ground. By the time it fully kicks off and the public is aware, it will move most of our youths into millionaire class. I mean it. I am still putting together my team. Systems are being set up. Technology is really gulping funds. But this story just gave me the back bone to continue. By 2022 Nigeria will have one of the highest population of millionaire youths in the world. Our system will soon be launched beginning from the SE, SW and SS. I pray those boys up north should stop throwing bombs and go to school so that we can add them to the list.

In 1988, Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $23 billion and life expectancy for the country's 91 million people was 46 years. GDP per capita was $256 and about 78% of the population lived under $2 per day. By this time, the country has already experienced six coups in its 28 years of existence and a Military General was currently the Head of State. This was a very poor nation and worse still, a very volatile one. Anything could happen.


Two brothers and executives from Singapore, Haresh and Sajesh Aswani who had been selling textile paid little attention to these statistics. From an initial importation of two containers of Indomie noodles, The Tolaram group has managed to build Indomie Instant Noodles to the eighth most-purchased brand in the world. With more than 4.5 billion packets sold per year and a staggering yearly revenue of $700 million.
How were these East-Asians able to build such a successful business in one of the most difficult places to do business on earth? How were they able to grow an 18 cents-per-packet product to a billion-dollar business?

Here's another story.

Opay became popular in June 2019 when it introduced its Oride bike-hailing service with a promo of N100. It had actually begun in July 2018 when it started using a network of agents to reach Nigeria's 36 million unbanked population. By August 2019, it had over 40,000 active agents across the country and $5million in daily transaction volumes.


However, the Opay story does not begin there.

Opay had been operating since 2010 as Paycom Nigeria Limited incubated by Telnet Nigeria Limited as a mobile payment platform. After seven years in operation, Opera decided to purchase the company in 2018. It doesn't even begin there.

Now let's look at the parent company.

In 2006 a Norwegian company, Opera Group ventured into Africa with its mobile browser Opera mini. A time when only 5.5% of the 142 million population even had access to the internet. As of August 2019, opera had the second-largest market share of mobile browsers in Nigeria and the second-largest in Africa after Google's Chrome. Of over 460m internet users in Africa, Opera has about 120m using its mobile browser.
Opera's second quarter (Q2, 2019) report recorded a $4million income gain (including non-cash gain in from Opay's increased valuation) and today, Oride does as much as 100,000 rides daily - more than Gokada and Max.ng. In fact, the competition was so fierce Gokada had to suspend operations for a couple of weeks to restrategize.

How were these foreigners able to scoop up so much market shares from these industries? What do these foreigners understand about Nigerians that we don't?

I will break down what I believe these foreigners discovered about doing business in Nigeria. Don't forget, Tolaram almost shut down operations in 1998 and began making a profit after 20 years. So, they too made mistakes, but they learnt something new, something we probably can all learn: how to sell to Nigerians.


1. Patience and long-term view

Today Tolaram controls more than 74 percent of the instant noodles market in Nigeria and that's a drop from 2006 when it was a complete monopoly. It now has 17 manufacturing plants in Nigeria and manages a fleet of over 2,000 trucks for its logistics.
However, it took Tolaram 20 years to gross $100m and a few more years to realise a profit-making formula. They were patient about growth, however, they were inpatient about profit. They realized that they were targeting the needs of Nigerians who were generally poor and decided to make long-term investments by cutting cost, so they moved the noodle manufacturing to Nigeria. Today, with an investment of $330 million, they are building the busiest port in Lagos.


Opera the company behind Operamini and Opay had actually been in the Nigerian market for about 13 years. During this period, they patiently studied the market, demography, customer behaviour; mapped out what worked and what did not with hard data. Jeff Bezos says it takes at least 10 years to create an overnight success. Today Opay is rapidly expanding and if you don't know the back story, you keep wondering how they figured this out in so little time.


Since these two businesses figured out the right formulae, they have both been executing like a well-oiled machine. Tolaram has had a compound growth rate of 36% since 2001. Once profit formulae is discovered, the growth of the enterprise tends to be explosive. But this takes time and continuous process innovation.

Tolaram Revenue Growth since 2001 - image 3






2. Study customer behaviour and create a great product around it
I know this sounds cliché but it's too important. Tolaram observed that as the economy developed and traditions began to evolve, more women were getting into the workforce. They needed tasty meals that could be made faster for their children. Tolaram found its market; provide tasty meals that can be made in 10 minutes. The product strategy appealed to a population with an annual per capita income of $257 at the time and this population was exploding. They had struck gold.


Here's a little twist on Opay. Opay wasn't the first company that began financial solutions services in Nigeria. In fact, compared to Paga, it was a latecomer, however, they came with a superior strategy. Opay knew that to ramp up its financial solutions service, it needed to build a transactional structure around its payment platform. It needed to offer other services that would utilize its financial platform. It quickly diversified. Note; Opay diversified rapidly into areas that were new, relevant and with its target demography in mind: millennials.
Young people lack enough experience to be afraid, so they are open to change. Opera, a browser mostly used by young people, understood this principle and diversified into the most relevant touchpoints for these people. The results reflected in the volume of transactions.
Let's compare results with Paga


(I love Paga by the way, I used their payment platform for my first e-business a couple of years ago and visiting their office was a level of inspiration for my partners and I).


Paga got its full operating license in 2011 and by 2017 (6 years later), they had reached 5 million users, 20% of whom were active. Between 2015 and 2016 they had handled transactions of almost $800 million.


Opay in one year of its founding does an average daily transaction of $7 million which roughly translates to $2.5 billion annual transactions. This is in contrast with Paga which so far has done $4.2 billion since its inception in 2011 (9 years) or even Flutterwaves' $2.5 billion since 2016 (3 years).


What did Opay do differently?

Opay added new verticals ontop of its payment platform. Remember, the actual goal is Opay. The other platforms are to feed it with transactions. I'm sure you're wondering why this is important. Let me put it simply; the higher your transaction volumes, the higher your valuation. Higher valuation means potential higher exist for investors. These verticals include Oride, Obus, food delivery (Ofood), wealth management (Owealth) and Ocash loans, turning this baby into a super app. Of course, I may not entirely support this steroid growth, but I think if managed properly, will still turn out a major success.

So you see the Double Play Strategy? they're not really losing. The "lose" money offering freebies on Oride and make it up on Opay. These touchpoint or verticals are actually Opay's great strategy as a result of understanding customer behaviour and building a great product around it.


3. Finance and marketing
The Vaswani brother began with two containers of Indomie noodles, however, the real boost came when they moved manufacturing to Nigeria. They have invested over $350 million so far. Tolaram had to build what Harvard innovation experts call "interdependent architecture". *when a product or delivery of the product is not good enough, the company which provides the product has to create an interdependent system, i.e; integrate across multiple components in the value chain to better manage interfaces across these components. Tolaram in its case provides its own electricity, manages a fleet of over 2,000 trucks for its logistics and bought a Palm oil factory (palm oil is a necessary ingredient in making noddles).

To succeed in Nigeria, you need money, lots of money. This is especially so if you're introducing a new product to the market. You have to educate potential customers. Just like in Tolaram's case, "Many people initially thought we were selling them worms," - Deepak Singhal, the CEO of Tolaram Africa. In 2016 alone, according to a document by Dufil Prima (Tolaram's subsidiary under which Indomie is run) spent N8.2 billion on marketing expenses.

Finally, just to throw some more light on marketing, it is important to put into perspective the cultural differences in Nigeria. Nigeria should be seen more like a cluster of regions with varying cultures rather than one country. For example, in the north, women's involvement in the workforce is much lower than in the southern part of Nigeria. Also, the man usually does the grocery buying while the woman spends a longer period in the kitchen cooking. This does not agree with the concept of Indomie's fast food option and that's why consumption per capita is lower in the north than in the south. The literacy rate and internet penetration are also lower in the north. So the best strategy for customer acquisition would be more traditional means like radio and TV because that is what men (usually the buyers) engage with. In the southern part of Nigeria, people are more fast-paced, literacy is high, so is internet penetration. This means the best marketing strategy would be reaching the customers via digital platforms. In indomie's case, the active buyers are the youth (12–30 years) and they successfully target this group with social media engagements. Customization promotion channel is key especially when culture differs. In Nigeria, you must market taking psychography into consideration and do it with intensity and consistency.

In 2019, Opay raised $50 million, much more than what Paga and Paystack have raised combined. This helped it integrate its verticals and market aggressively using what always gets Nigerians: Awoof!


Extra: You need God.
I know it sounds funny but trust me, you need God to succeed in Nigeria. Luck isn't even enough because you can run out of that. It's a tough place to do business, but with the necessary knowledge and information about how Nigerians defy basic economic principles and perseverance, sprinkled, no, soaked with the faith, you're good to go.

*Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe consumers on psychological attributes. Psychographics has been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles

My name is Klein Udumaga


https://medium.com/@kleinuduh/how-to-sell-to-nigerians-the-tolaram-indomie-makers-and-opera-story-part-1-397e2438bb28

Please comment if you find this useful so I can shed more light on this topic with facts and data.

Eighty-year-old Vaswani now oversees Tolaram Group, a Singapore-headquartered company with an estimated value of $1.8 billion.

The Tolaram group is building a port in Nigeria, producing paper in Estonia, running a bank in Indonesia and supplying power in India. It has food production and distribution operations across Africa and sells to more than 75 countries.

Tolaram is actually a family company owned by Mohan Vaswani, his two sons, three nephews, a cousin and the foundation.

The Asians are fast paced and have always had a knack for perseverance and innovation. You need a lot of both in the Nigerian business landscape. I’ll share more in part 2 of this series.

Of course.. Itching to share more

Parmzhelp:
Great story! Looking forward to the second part of this story. These Asians have cracked something we have not yet. Op please post let's learn.

Thumbs up!

dawnomike:
I took my time to read this and i agree with you

Lalasticala, mkmyers45 & UjSizzle

In 1988, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $23 billion and life expectancy for the country’s 91 million people was 46 years. GDP per capita was $256 and about 78% of the population lived under $2 per day. By this time, the country has already experienced six coups in its 28 years of existence and a Military General was currently the Head of State. This was a very poor nation and worse still, a very volatile one. Anything could happen.

Two brothers and executives from Singapore, Haresh and Sajesh Aswani who had been selling textile paid little attention to these statistics. From an initial importation of two containers of Indomie noodles, The Tolaram group has managed to build Indomie Instant Noodles to the eighth most-purchased brand in the world. With more than 4.5 billion packets sold per year and a staggering yearly revenue of $700 million.
How were these East-Asians able to build such a successful business in one of the most difficult places to do business on earth? How were they able to grow an 18 cents-per-packet product to a billion-dollar business?

Here’s another story.

Opay became popular in June 2019 when it introduced its Oride bike-hailing service with a promo of N100. It had actually begun in July 2018 when it started using a network of agents to reach Nigeria’s 36 million unbanked population. By August 2019, it had over 40,000 active agents across the country and $5million in daily transaction volumes.

However, the Opay story does not begin there.

Opay had been operating since 2010 as Paycom Nigeria Limited incubated by Telnet Nigeria Limited as a mobile payment platform. After seven years in operation, Opera decided to purchase the company in 2018. It doesn’t even begin there.

Now let’s look at the parent company.

In 2006 a Norwegian company, Opera Group ventured into Africa with its mobile browser Opera mini. A time when only 5.5% of the 142 million population even had access to the internet. As of August 2019, opera had the second-largest market share of mobile browsers in Nigeria and the second-largest in Africa after Google’s Chrome. Of over 460m internet users in Africa, Opera has about 120m using its mobile browser.
Opera’s second quarter (Q2, 2019) report recorded a $4million income gain (including non-cash gain in from Opay’s increased valuation) and today, Oride does as much as 100,000 rides daily — more than Gokada and Max.ng. In fact, the competition was so fierce Gokada had to suspend operations for a couple of weeks to restrategize.

How were these foreigners able to scoop up so much market shares from these industries? What do these foreigners understand about Nigerians that we don’t?

I will break down what I believe these foreigners discovered about doing business in Nigeria. Don’t forget, Tolaram almost shut down operations in 1998 and began making a profit after 20 years. So, they too made mistakes, but they learnt something new, something we probably can all learn: how to sell to Nigerians.


1. Patience and long-term view
Today Tolaram controls more than 74 percent of the instant noodles market in Nigeria and that’s a drop from 2006 when it was a complete monopoly. It now has 17 manufacturing plants in Nigeria and manages a fleet of over 2,000 trucks for its logistics.

However, it took Tolaram 20 years to gross $100m and a few more years to realise a profit-making formula. They were patient about growth, however, they were inpatient about profit. They realized that they were targeting the needs of Nigerians who were generally poor and decided to make long-term investments by cutting cost, so they moved the noodle manufacturing to Nigeria. Today, with an investment of $330 million, they are building the busiest port in Lagos.

Opera the company behind Operamini and Opay had actually been in the Nigerian market for about 13 years. During this period, they patiently studied the market, demography, customer behaviour; mapped out what worked and what did not with hard data. Jeff Bezos says it takes at least 10 years to create an overnight success. Today Opay is rapidly expanding and if you don’t know the back story, you keep wondering how they figured this out in so little time.

Since these two businesses figured out the right formulae, they have both been executing like a well-oiled machine. Tolaram has had a compound growth rate of 36% since 2001. Once profit formula is discovered, the growth of the enterprise tends to be explosive. But this takes time and continuous process innovation.

Tolaram Revenue Growth since 2001 image3

I will share more in Part 2 of this series.
My name is Klein Udumaga.

Please read link on medium and follow for more.
https://medium.com/@kleinuduh/how-to-sell-to-nigerians-the-tolaram-indomie-makers-and-opera-story-part-1-397e2438bb28

Awesome work! Your site is resourceful.

tstx:
Here's the link :- https://listwand.com/is-nigeria-a-truly-wealthy-nation-see-what-economic-facts-say/

Where did you get this statistics from? Please share

Abagworo:
The bolded is a big fat lie. A millionaire is someone worth 360 million Naira and Port-Harcourt alone has more than 50,000 of such not to talk of Lagos, Kano, Aba, Onitsha, Abuja and other places.

I linked reference to the original article on medium. Please check.

yelanst:
Please, provide references for those figures and assertions you dished out

60,000 millionaires in Mumbai alone sir, not the whole of India. Mumbai’s population is 18.4m

Rosskii:
I don't believe this for a minute.



Considering India have a population of OVER 1 BILLION PEOPLE, it is senseless comparing their number of billionaires with ours. Not that having billionaires means much anyway.

GDP per capita is the better measure. There’s actually a productivity analysis but that’s complex stuff.

[quote author=Hypocrit post=85533347][/quote]

Please do, with credits. Thank you

tstx:
Permission to repost this on my site..

Hi, I fell honored. Please follow my medium page. I’ll be sharing insights there. I hope it helps.

kiddapunk:
good evening sir, and what a great read you have here. As an aspiring entrepreneur i find your economic knowledge to be of massive value, so pls can i have your contact so i can get.more infos from you. i'd be really delighted.

Nigeria has potentials, so does every other nation. However, you don’t measure potentials by resources but by people. If you compare the quality of mind of an average Nigerian to an average Singaporean, we’re still really not rich.

It can be great though but at this point, there has to be a lot of individual efforts. You and I.

AgamaProf:
You are wrong brother. Nigeria has potentials. But it is unfortunate we have not been able to realise and harness those potentials. To a greater extent, we are better endowed than China, or Saudi Arabia and some other emerging economies. Ask me what is wrong, why are we not at least at par with these advanced countries. Simple. Leadership!. Leadership has let everyone of us down. What has government done about millions and billions of dollars siphoned out of the country, what has government done to improve human capital, in fact we are trying in our educational sector with the little we have had, what has government done to generate revenue from other sources other than oil. When you ask these questions, you begin to get answers. Let's take count of the amount of natural resources Nigeria is endowed with. Logically, we should be better than Saudi, UAE, and competing with the likes of US, Canada and so on. We should be "giant of africa" in the real sense of it. We have resources. A lot of it. We have got the fighting spirit but corruption, and nepotism has brought us on our knees.

GDP per capita is really how you measure the wealth of a nation. Luxembourg has a higher GDP than Nigeria.

Mac2016:
GDP in a country with great divide in wealth could be misleading....
For the political stratum Nigeria GDP supercedes that of Luxembourg and it is the best in the world.

For the bourgeois, it is way less than average quoted for Nigeria
Again is Luxembourg sef richer than Norway or the US with less GDP than theirs?

Abeg economists shd get a new measuring criterion...

Congratulations! You’re part of the few doing something in spite of the challenges. You see Nigeria has an installed electricity capacity of 14,000MW for 200m people while MISO (an independent supplier) supplies 155,000MW to 42m people in 15 states in US and one province in Canada.

It’s going to take at least $120b to solve Nigeria’s electricity problem and that would bleed Nigeria dry. However, private investors can fund this. They must be assured of s return in due time and only a few market will encourage that investment.

Starboytwo:
The most important thing to do before we can move forward as a nation is to solve ELECTRICITY problem

We should demand 24 hour electricity from this people, I don't know how but we gotta do something or na like dis e go dey dey...

We need light men...

I'm a young entrepreneur and I make money daily from my business, but I spend 80% of the money on fuel every day and generator maintenance...

Fix electricity and watch our naija "gbera"