1. Your startup is a solution to a “WANT” and not a “NEED”. If you can remember your basic economics, you should know what “WANTS” and “NEEDS” are.

Quickly, I would define a “NEED” as something you have to have, something you can’t do without e.g. food, clothing and shelter, while a “WANT” is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music.

When developing your startup idea, ask yourself, “is what I am creating a solution to a NEED or a WANT?” According to the Nigerian Bureau of statistics 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in “absolute poverty” i.e. less than $1 per day.

Do you think that taking a hiatus to create a music startup to enable these people living in abject poverty listen to music amounts to a good use of your time? or “skills”?

2. Your startup is a clone of some popular first world website or application. The current fad in Nigeria is creating clones of Groupon.com. It once used to be Twitter clones, bulk sms and then Facebook clones.

Why coders still do this kind of beats me. Instead of cloning, why don’t you build on these sites and take advantage of things like Facebook’s “Social Graph” etc and develop innovative solutions?

Developing another DROPBOX wont meet the need of the average Nigerian, he has no need for it, and if he does why wont he go for the original? Patriotism? please!

Why would you clone when there are a myriad of problems you could develop solutions for? If you are developing a clone, ask yourself this question “why would anyone use this (***insert the name of your clone***) instead of the main thing (***insert the name of the website you cloned***)?” .

3. Your startup will require loads and loads of traffic i.e. pageviews with gullible people who would be ready to click on Google ads before it can generate income.

In Nigeria, there are no VC’s, no Angels, no startup accelerators, no Government support programs, no infrastructure, regular electricity supply is a pipe dream, Internet access is patchy and expensive, in short, “NO NOTHING”.

So it kind of beats me why anyone would base his startup’s business model on the benevolence of Google? In between the time your startup comes online to the time it can generate enough traffic to keep the lights on and the servers humming, how would you survive?

Do you have some gold bars stashed under your mattress somewhere? If not, why don’t you just develop a product where you can start charging from the very first day?

Despite the fact that 60.9% of Nigerians live under $1 per day and there are 90 million mobile subscribers in the country with at least 1 mobile phone, these phones have to be loaded with “call credit” by these people because communication has become a NEED and not a WANT.

So despite the grinding poverty in the country, the major Telco’s still declare mind boggling profits every year, with Nigeria now having the largest mobile phone market in Africa with 60% penetration.

So in order to be successful, develop a solution to a NEED and not a WANT.

4. Reading too much of TechCrunch et al. These tech blogs are written by elitist white techies who live in Silicon Valley where the difference between over there and here is like light and day. Any advice you can glean from those sites just isn’t applicable here in Nigeria.

If you think am wrong Please commment and tell me

Thanks

Will be happy if it makes frontpage

I completely with you Dewittycoder!

We are a sorry lot...if you observe, many bloggers simply got into blogging because Linda is there and making it simple! (don't you see that 90% of blogs in Nigeria are celebrity, gossip or fashion centered?)

However, change is not anything we are good at! Don't be surprised that this post will receive very few comments and may never make FP.

Why? You just told the sad truth...and many are quite guilty!

Na so bro but who cares .. if they no put am for FP !!!

#bizfirst#:
I completely with you Dewittycoder!

We are a sorry lot...if you observe, many bloggers simply got into blogging because Linda is there and making it simple! (don't you see that 90% of blogs in Nigeria are celebrity, gossip or fashion centered?)

However, change is not anything we are good at! Don't be surprised that this post will receive very few comments and may never make FP.

Why? You just told the sad truth...and many are quite guilty!

dwittyc0der: 1. Your startup is a solution to a “WANT” and not a “NEED”. If you can remember your basic economics, you should know what “WANTS” and “NEEDS” are.

Quickly, I would define a “NEED” as something you have to have, something you can’t do without e.g. food, clothing and shelter, while a “WANT” is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music.

When developing your startup idea, ask yourself, “is what I am creating a solution to a NEED or a WANT?” According to the Nigerian Bureau of statistics 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in “absolute poverty” i.e. less than $1 per day.

Do you think that taking a hiatus to create a music startup to enable these people living in abject poverty listen to music amounts to a good use of your time? or “skills”?


2. Your startup is a clone of some popular first world website or application. The current fad in Nigeria is creating clones of Groupon.com. It once used to be Twitter clones, bulk sms and then Facebook clones.

Why coders still do this kind of beats me. Instead of cloning, why don’t you build on these sites and take advantage of things like Facebook’s “Social Graph” etc and develop innovative solutions?

Developing another DROPBOX wont meet the need of the average Nigerian, he has no need for it, and if he does why wont he go for the original? Patriotism? please!

Why would you clone when there are a myriad of problems you could develop solutions for? If you are developing a clone, ask yourself this question “why would anyone use this (***insert the name of your clone***) instead of the main thing (***insert the name of the website you cloned***)?” .

3. Your startup will require loads and loads of traffic i.e. pageviews with gullible people who would be ready to click on Google ads before it can generate income.

In Nigeria, there are no VC’s, no Angels, no startup accelerators, no Government support programs, no infrastructure, regular electricity supply is a pipe dream, Internet access is patchy and expensive, in short, “NO NOTHING”.

So it kind of beats me why anyone would base his startup’s business model on the benevolence of Google? In between the time your startup comes online to the time it can generate enough traffic to keep the lights on and the servers humming, how would you survive?

Do you have some gold bars stashed under your mattress somewhere? If not, why don’t you just develop a product where you can start charging from the very first day?

Despite the fact that 60.9% of Nigerians live under $1 per day and there are 90 million mobile subscribers in the country with at least 1 mobile phone, these phones have to be loaded with “call credit” by these people because communication has become a NEED and not a WANT.

So despite the grinding poverty in the country, the major Telco’s still declare mind boggling profits every year, with Nigeria now having the largest mobile phone market in Africa with 60% penetration.

So in order to be successful, develop a solution to a NEED and not a WANT.

4. Reading too much of TechCrunch et al. These tech blogs are written by elitist white techies who live in Silicon Valley where the difference between over there and here is like light and day. Any advice you can glean from those sites just isn’t applicable here in Nigeria.

If you think am wrong Please commment and tell me

Thanks

Will be happy if it makes frontpage

Hey Dwitty.. I may not agree 100% with you.
While I agree that we need to build our startups around a need not a want, I disagree that when you copy an existing successful business it won't make it. The trick I think is in tweaking what you copy. If I am able to copy Dropbox today, I will try to add a little extra to it. Nairaland may be the biggest Nigerian online forum but it is not the only one.
I know a lot of Nigerians that are blogging are doing so because they hear you can make money from blogging. Then they head off to copy and paste contents on their sites... (We'll now google is not approving such for adsense).
I believe that you can blog or do anything you want to do no matter which big dog has done it before, you will still have your audience if you know what you are doing.
Developing your startup around a need requires a lot of brainstorming and I believe lots of humans run from that. A few exceptional people dare and get it right. But while that is going on underground, the normal continues.
Thanks for a great post.