xammax:


Still following, any update on how it’s going. Thank you, just remembered you

Thanks for keeping up.

We did just under 1 billion Naira last year in revenue and employ about 60 people across several cities.

Your dreams are valid but it will require a lot of hard work and perseverance.

Always surprises me that people still follow this thread.

So things are going okay still. We've raised over $1 million now. We have a team of 55 people and we have surpassed last year's revenue of $350k already this year. The economic slowdown is slowing our growth but we're still excited about what we're building and the difference we're able to make.

Whatever you do as an entrepreneur, never give up. Your dreams are valid.

Well done for recognizing the wrong you're doing, this is the first step. Many people never even get here.

You should definitely seek out counselling to help you.

A book I would recommend is 'the courage to be disliked'

In it it gives an example that demonstrates that anger is controllable. For example, if Mike Tyson slaps you for no reason whatsoever, do you think you will slap him back? Highly unlikely. Why though? You'll think it unfair, you'll be blind with rage, yet you won't slap him back?

So you can control your anger if you become more aware of it and slow down. Seek that help and work on yourself, you can be better as you try.

Kasaliola:
Good evening house... please I need your help.. if there is any marriage counselor or therapist. This could be lengthy and lot of typo... Please forgive me.. I open a new account for this.

I Am a father of two.. have been dating my wife since 2009, before we got married in 2014. But before the we got married we have been a love birds whereby everybody loves the way we cuddled ourself..

Its started in 2011 before I rented my first apartment, my parents didn't want me to marry her and her parents too, especially her big brother and sisters.. though it caused a lot of commotion then. But thank God they allowed cuz we forcefully told them we are meant for each other, I even speak bad words to my mother then, saying If I don't marry her in ur present I will marry her in her absent, those words hurt so dearly so she has to leave me and go ahead with my plans. And same thing with my wife family.

In 2012 I rented my own apartment and started living me.. I can't forget the very first day I raise my hands on her, I felt ashame of my self.. I don't care what she does or say then.. but I regretted doing so, I cried at the middle of the road cuz I don't know what came over me.

The only problem I have with her is that she swings mood. Always moody everytime and my parents noticed this when they come around and when she went to thier place..
This made me beat her plus the ways she disrespected me.. after doing this shameful thing, I will now come back to my senses and started begging her. I even beat her this Sunday.. all I want is someone to talk to on how I can stop this beating.. how I can tolerate her lifestyle... Am so mad and ashamed of my self.. if help me...

Thank you

Goodnigga:

Congrats bro, how many %shares do you still have in your company with all these funds and how did you get into these accelerators?

Founders still retain the majority of the shareholding. We raised so far via SAFE and convertible notes. We're doing an equity round in the coming year that will convert everyone into equity. It will be clearer then what everyone owns. The reality is that it's always difficult to retain significant ownership in one's first venture.

For the accelerators, I just kept applying and building my network and story. The advice I give to people applying is to focus on the 3 "T's".

Team, Traction and TAM.

Make sure you have a great team with domain expertise, Build and get traction and always be progressing regardless of any difficulty, target a large and growing market with a total addressable market in billions of $$.

If you're still following this I respect you a lot!

Coming to the end of the year and we're having our best year yet.

We've surpassed $300,000 in revenue, now have 35 team members and are raising a round of a few million dollars going into the new year.

It's been a very tough ride with many sacrifices and difficulties but so glad we're able to make significant progress now.

I went back to read the threads from years ago and it's remarkable how much we went through and how much we've forgotten. Reminds me of the importance of writing things down. Will try in the coming year to write even more not for anyone else but for my future self.

xammax:


Yet to hear from you sir, still following your journey.

Still alive and kicking.

Recently raised $520,000

Now approaching an annual revenue run rate of $60,000.

Team size is 22 and we're adding more customers and team members.

Not easy but making plenty progress.

xammax:
Any update.

Wow you're still following.

Yes, we're still in business. Staff strength of 15 people. Thousands of customers, Raised over $300,000. Making rapid progress in a market with lots of opportunities.

Not been without its ups and downs though. With covid now and an impending recession, business is going to be tougher than ever. If you've followed this from the beginning, you will all know however that I'm tougher than any tough situation. I will survive this.

We are on the up

So things have been happening over the last few months. We got into 2 accelerators and now have funding of over $180,000. We're in the process of raising even more to reach our goal of millions of customer.

To every entrepreneur out there, your dreams are valid. Don't give up but keep learning, trying and iterating. There is money and impact to be made.

Quick update for April.

We made it into a popular accelerator recently. Getting some cash and mentoring as a result.

Getting some good inbound requests and conversations and our pivot back to B2C is making sense.

Increased my team size and doubled my burn. Runway is short <6 months but we have faith that we are on to something.

Fun times ahead. We will prevail!

cutegentility:


Weldone job sir, I have so much interest in programming but I will like to seek for your opinion on which one will make a better programmer?
I have basic idea of HTML, CSS, PHP and python but wish to do more.
So the question here is which will make me a better programmer, Computer science in university or Udemy, edureka etc and or learning on my own.
Thanks

From what i hear about our compyuter science curriculum you may be better served by the likes of udemy, coursera and self study. We're still in a degree based world however so it may not be totally smart to forego a degree. Get one but do the aforementioned on the side so you come out with paper and practical qualifications.

Don't do bad deals

'I' shutting down my startup'. This was the shocking message I received from one of my founder colleague in my industry. Similar to me, she'd started out some 3 years ago working in a similar area. He was fortunate enough to have raised some initial capital based on her idea alone. Being a slow market, it took her time to build out the product. Finally after about 2.5 years, she started to show some traction and was excited about the product and biz model. Concurrently she had run out of money so needed a new round of investment. She approached her first investors who began to drag their feet. Turned out that the investor had been burned in the interim in another startup deal they did. They were smarting from this huge loss and were in no mood to support any more 'wasteful' startups.

The founder decided to look elsewhere for capital, infact I was helping her do so when the message came in. 'I'm shutting down my startup'. Called her soon after and she related how a poor investment deal she agreed to starting out has proven to be his downfall. Took me back to a time early on in my journey that one investment consultant wanted to connect us with investors. We spoke for a while and they came up with an offer from one of their investors. 10 million naira for 51% and I wouldn't know the identity of the investor. Na laff I use answer them. .

Lucky for me, I could afford to spurn their offer as I knew my worth and had the financial backup to keep me going bootstrapped for a while. For many others this is not the case. They jump at the first sign of investment and end up ruing that decision. So my advise to founders now is to resist taking people's money before you have revenue. Try to bootstrap for as long as is possible. When you do take money make sure it's a simple and clear agreement. If it smells like a bad deal, it probably is. Most tech investment these days follow a standard format. Learn that format and avoid offers that deviate significantly from it. Also ensure to look for references for the investor before you take their money. Speak to their previous investees. If their recommendation is not glowing or straight forward, AVOID!


Don't do bad deals! They will kill you

Evolve and stay in the game

I'm impressed that people are still following after all this time. I guess I owe you more regular and detailed updates.

Today marks 4 years since I started this post and would you believe that I'm still at it!

1k001:
I've recently founded a tech start-up and it's been quite a whirlwind.

I've had to try figure out so many things on my own so thought it would be useful to relate some of the things i experience to help me reflect and perhaps help others who may be looking at something similar.

Feel free to jump in and comment or ask questions

I don't know how I haven't given up in that time considering how difficult it has been. I've changed teams, been betrayed by people, suffered low moods, 'traumatized' my family, ran out of money, been in debt of over $10,000 yet still standing strong. At one point, I let everyone go except just one person. I left full time entrepreneurship to get a job but began to funnel all my extra cash back into the startup.

There has been no logical reason for this kind of grit so I often ask myself why I've persisted at this despite all evidence pointing to real prospects of failure. I don't know what the real reason is but somehow I just believe that the world needs what I'm creating and that me working on this is fulfilling my life's purpose somehow. So I push against all odds and obstacles and continue to grind away.

Thinking back to 2015 when I first started out, many of the startups back then are dead now. I personally know several founders who have called it quits and gone on to other pursuits. They clearly weren't doing what is their life's work because for me, this my startup must succeed even if it kills me. This unwavering belief gives me the courage to carry on.

This courage however has not been the only factor. Even though I know that it must work, the 'how it will work' has not been readily evident. So to stay in the game, I needed not only try to be alive but also evolve constantly to a state that provides us the best chance of success. This process has led me to several pivots, experiments, partnerships, trial and errors. Now after 4 years it appears things are beginning to line up.

We've significantly improved our products, services and strategy. This led us recently to win a prestigious opportunity that you will soon all be hearing about if you follow the Nigerian tech scene. Alongside this, many of the people we approached a while back for partnerships are now returning to us to ask to implement our proposals after the initial rejection. We've also raised an angel round and have some interest from several other investors. Things while not yet rosy are beginning to look up.

We've a team size of 5 and looking to expand to 8 very quickly to harness all the opportunities that are now popping up. I don't know how I will pay them but if there's one thing I've learned it's that I will figure it out somehow eventually. So the summary of lesson over the last 4 years working in a hard area of Nigerian tech is this: Do whatever it takes to stay in the game long term and evolve along the way based on the realities you face. The market will eventually come around if you question it earnestly and apply what you learn.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me. I hope to provide more regular updates from now on.

Feb 2019 update

We're still at the game for anyone still following. We closed out last year with an angel investment that put in much-needed fuel into our tank to keep us going for another little while. We added another sales rep and are looking to add on another software engineer in the next few weeks.

Sales from January was our best month ever and we're launching a new consumer-facing product over the next few months as well as re-designint our product, considering an acquisition of another startup and also exploring the power of A.I.

I'm busy as ever with a growing family to look after and many other commitments. We chose this life though and will not relent until we're successful at this startup life.

As usual, please like if you're still following and I will write more in-depth update especially around how we secured the angel investment.

Why won't they file out when they have no jobs thanks to a visionless and rudderless govt. Akpabio, Udom and all the political leaders of Akwa Ibom are all the same, terrible leeches and fraud that feed on the people.

Nigerians can't take criticism. A music critic makes a claim about someone's work not the person, it's up to the artiste to put out work to disprove the claim not resort to insults. Phyno took the criticism personally when it was directed professionally. This is an important distinction.

We have a long way to go to progress in this country if people continue mixing the personal and the professional.

222Martins:
How much investment are you looking to raise?? Have you succeeded?? Or you are still open to taking investors?? Please kindly reply. Thanks.

We closed the seed round but we're always talking to future investors and partners. Please let me know how to reach you.

Update Sept 2018

Someone emailed me after reading this thread and said how helpful it was to him. Wish I could update it more often but life is too busy.

I'm still working on my startup, it's still hard and we're still figuring things out. We are making a small bit of cash but not yet broken even. We're currently wooing some investors and would hope to close that soon. We are launching a couple of new products as well.

All in all, things are still moving along albeit slowly. I'm still committed for the long haul. Great businesses were not built in a day.

nuelzy:
The most stupid advice ever... So what if it was maybe the kid played with gas in the kitchen it exploded... What will it be nw??



Fence ur kitchen..



What happened has happened.. It was fate and no ones fault.. I'm pretty sure dbanj never wished his child death.. So all dis ppl shouting negligence should just shove it up their inner a$$

Guy why you talking like this na. FYI it's the law that pools are fenced in some countries. In NZ in particular, they had a problem with kids drowning in pools. They made pool fencing into law and the preventable deaths all but disappeared.

If headache kill your brother, you'd do well to take pandol before it kills you.

Ego everywhere on this thread and in this country. Don't think we will ever done this problem the way things are currently set up. Left to me I'd organize hospitals into trusts with a governing board and let money follow the patient around. Let the local trusts fight themselves to Oblivion or since squabbles and look after the patients.

When a young man has 2 out of wedlock kids from 2 different women, we don't need any oracle to guess that he's irresponsible and already a deadbeat.

jadesoletee:
By Olusola Adeniyi

Some have also argued that it is not out of place for those who have served diligently to be rewarded while they rest,...

Yes it is out of place to give rich people huge pensions in a country where millions of people live on nothing.

Those that have served diligently in political positions should earn a standard pension at best. I favour no pension as we can't afford this continued unsustainable growth in dead recurrent expenditure while people starve daily. Public office is for service and we should treat it like that.

$1.5 billion to come on stream. Please tell me how much does a new one cost?

We should bin Ajaokuta instead of this ongoing sunk costs fallacy we are engaged in.

It's failed, the money is gone and buried, move on!

Product market fit (PMF)

I would say that PMF has been the centre of all my worries and sleepless nights for the last year. I know we don't have it and we continue to search for it. There are multiple steps to getting there.

One of the best things I've read on the topic is this medium post by an indian entrepreneur and startup guy. I recommend it highly.

[url]https://hackernoon.com/four-components-of-product-market-fit-dc1c00067239
[/url]

He breaks PMF down into four components. I'll outline them and comment on where I think we stand.

1. Founder market fit

I've played in various areas of this my market and after trying and failing many times, I think the current market we have chosen to focus on suits me as a founder. While it's not 100% my field, it's in an adjacent area that I would have relative competence in. So I can speak the lingo, gain credibility and convince people in the market to trust me pretty easily. I'm also a partial outsider so I can look at the space with fresh eyes and gain insights in a way insiders can't really. Helps that I'm also really passionate about the space generally so I think we've got this one covered.

2. Problem value fit

I think this is where we falter. We have identified what we think is a significant problem. Players in the market also agree. The challenge is selling the message of our value. there are only 3 things valuable to businesses: Increased revenues, reduced costs, increased productivity. In the Nigerian landscape and via our customer interviews, the main concern is how to make more money. Everything else comes secondary. More challenging is that businesses want to make more money while doing less and spending less. So they essentially want your solution to give them everything for nothing. Our solution on the other had while it does increase revenue, to be able to see this benefit will mean investing a lot of time and effort into our product. Now getting businesses to do this consistently has been our headache. We see patchy engagement and as a result low value extracted from it. We thus see more churn than we'd like and customers that don't feel very successful using our product.

We are currently initiating a slight pivot that will hopefully help us counter this problem so we will see where it goes. Before we decided on this pivot, we implemented several new features, a new design and even incorporated some hardware. These haven't given us the kind of uptake and engagement we would like. So our next big dice roll is the new pivot which I will cover soon.

3. Product solution fit

As I intimated above, adopting our solution involves some modifications to workflow. Our customer's staff don't like the change and not unusually resist our software. We've tried to build integrations and make things simpler but we still come against this wall of defiance. Amazing how employees can essentially hold a business to ransom in Nigeria. Many of our customers have staff who outrightly refuse to use our software without consequence. The fact that it takes a while to see any benefit doesn't help make the case for the business to enforce strictly either. So as they use our software in an inconsistent manner they create and enable a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. We have to work at delivering a wow/ magic moment earlier and more dramatically.

Read about the concept of the magic moment here. https://alexiskold.net/2016/06/01/what-is-the-magic-moment-for-your-startup/.

For facebook it's when users add 10 friends in 14 days. It means they are likely to stick around for a while. So FB creates scenarios to make sure you do this. We don't yet know what out magic moment is. We thought we did but every hypothesis we have continues to fail. Our new pivot should hopefully help address some of these issues.

4. Market scale fit

This is doing things at scale after all the above are completed. We are nowhere near here yet. We have numbers around 50,000 'units' (take that as the engagement metric we measure). it's growing at about 1% week on week so the journey is still long. We want to get to scale though and 1 million is the number on my mind.

There it is, our continued search for PMF. Any thoughts?

nahinbdis:
Wow! Saw this thread this morning for the first time and I have read every page.


True entrepreneurship in Nigeria is a battle and am glad that you gave it and are still giving it your best shot in your own way.

I have been down a similar path too... leaving a well paying job to grow a business that had hitherto been a thriving sidekick... then Buhari's economy happened and it all became overly challenging. Had to make a detour back to paid employment... very difficult decision that in time proved to be sound.

Am back to the startup track (while keeping the paid employment) and currently at the stage where we have to drive conversion. It's still not an easy road... because the word easy doesn't exist in a startup's dictionary. But its easier having a financial buffer just like you said. There is a lot of interest in funding tech startups but most of them translate to air bubbles when the push comes to shove.

Keep pushing because today is difficult, tomorrow is more difficult, but next tomorrow is beautiful; but most people will die tomorrow night - Jack Ma

Great comment, couldn't have said it better myself. The buffer of income helps especially when still trying to figure things out and don't want to carry gbese of investors.

We keep pushing and pray we don't quit the night before our big breakthrough

1k001:
New year, new plans, new surprises.

We started the new year with big plans for 3x-ing our 2016 revenue and hopefully breaking even.

We've new initiatives to adopt including, adding a new product and expanding to a new territory.

We were hit however with a new surprise, our ever loyal and hardworking business dev guy got a great offer from a multinational. 3x his current salary, can't compete. It's bitter- sweet as we are happy for him but sad to be losing a key team member. We're waving him goodbye but he still wants to be involved on the fringe as he believes in our vision and owns some equity.

I'm determined to grow the company so his equity becomes really valuable. So he knows that the work he put in wasn't in vain and that in the midst of all the craziness in our country, hard work, integrity, and loyalty still pays.

So we're looking to hire a biz dev/ admin officer. If you or anyone you know is:

young, a hard worker, has integrity, is extroverted, can sell, can think, can learn, ask him to hit us up.

We don't offer much in form of pay, but we can tell you that you will have fun, you will learn, you will grow. We question the status quo and we try to make a difference despite all odds.

CV and cover letter to: abujadatacollection@gmail.com role to be filled ASAP.

2017 was the year from hell. Who dash us 3x 2016 revenue. Everyone we called to didn't have money. Country was dry. We didn't even make up to our 2016 revenue. I'm not one to blame external forces for anything but this recession was special. We sell to businesses and they didn't have money and if they did, they were not willing to spend on software.

It didn't help that we had to hire a new biz dev/ sales guy. It took him 3 months to learn the ropes. It also didn't help that I diluted his focus by getting him to help build other product features. He lasted about 6 months before he left. So we spent the rest of the year without a real salesperson. Our old reliable guy came back on board part-time and we immediately saw the impact. It wasn't enough, however, to get us to our revenue goals.

On a personal level, I was much less focused on the startup. As money dried up and the right investors weren't coming up, I decided to seek a position to keep body and soul intact. Madam and pikins dem must chop. (Got 2 kids by the way if you didn't know) So I called up my old boss in a European country I lived in in the past and he offered me a position. So as I dey now, na cold winter air dey blow me. I'm still fully committed to the startup though, just not totally focused on it as before. I frequent Nigeria and as we are mostly cloud-based, I monitor everything remotely.

Since diluting my attention, the question of focus has been at the fore of my mind. I certainly can't fault its benefits and would highly recommend it. I was of course only able to make significant progress after I quit my job and returned to Nigeria to chase the startup work full time. The challenge though with foucs on startup work like is that it's a luxury. In fact, if we're being honest, being any kind of a tech entrepreneur across the world is largely a luxury. Hungry or low-income people can't dare try it, or at least can't for long. All the successful tech founders you see are from well-off families and would walk into high paying jobs if their startups ever fail. Even the high school dropouts like Zuckerberg and Gates are all from well off families. Not to mention the safety net of social security/ welfare that many countries offer. Going hungry was never an option for them regardless of how badly their business did.

So focus if you can afford it but if you can't, get a job or predictable business to keep body and soul together. Use your spare time to chase your passion. When the time is right you can make the leap across. Don't be afraid to make the leap back if the money equation stops balancing. There's no rule that says you must do it one way all the way. You're not the messiah, you can take a break and return rejuvenated. You can bootstrap a startup for 10 years only to make it big in the 11th year. If you quit at year 9, you miss out on your big year 11 break. The mailchimp story is a big inspiration of mine in this regard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/technology/mailchimp-and-the-un-silicon-valley-way-to-make-it-as-a-start-up.html

My big lesson for 2017 is that it's ok to beat a retreat to plan a better path to victory. Watch out for more updates. Continue to like to give me the required ginger

goldtooth:
I would like to read the update for this year

Saintzykie:
Wow! inspirational! If only you would be a little more liberal with details, I'm quite sure this thread would have a nuclear effect on your business. Though I understand the pressure of public expectation. You really need to update this thread.

DonX001:
@1k001,
Any updates this new year??

Una dey try Oh! So someone who read this thread tracked me down on twitter. Well done to you. I haven't found the need to update this thread as much because the pressure of the startup life is now much less for me. I have a better support system and network now whereas when I started this thread there was almost nowhere to go to release all the frustration and energy I had pent up.

The question of revealing myself and my work still lingers. I'm not sure I'm yet convinced that it's beneficial. Anyone that really wants to find out who I am can, as some of you have demonstrated. I feel there is still value in being able to publicly deny some of the things I've written here as I try to be as honest as possible. We sometimes lose the message due to the messenger so being anonymous helps deliver my messages and experiences better. People will be more wont to learn and introspect more instead of go to my business and say 'wetin did one sabi'.

I'll write some updates of the last year in the next few posts. If you're still following, thank you. Like this post to show your continued support and desire to see more of my updates.

okejoshua2201:
The link to the form isnt opening

Apologies just edited it. Should work now.

Hi guys,

Our company provides software to businesses across Nigeria. Due to popular demand, we are adding a hardware component.

We are looking to create an on-demand IT service to attend physical locations to install hardware and make sure it works perfectly with our software. The actual job is straightforward for any tech-savvy person as instructions are provided and we give remote support.

We have locations from Uyo to Maiduguri, Abakaliki to Zamfara. Urgent needs exist in Lagos, Ibadan, and Benin. Would be perfect extra income for anyone particularly in these cities. Please fill this form if interested.


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScsZb2khQHqMjBU4bel9ATuQK4OB9mR7hxN2cp37bBcr6Yosw/viewform?usp=sf_link

Abeg make we go beg enyeama because this akpeyi just dey like ezenwa, both baskets.

It's also on bein sports usa

I send a lot of SMS on my MTN sim. Can anyone point me to the cheapest plan I can subscribe to for the cheapest SMS cost? Thanks.

Come, have people never heard of contraception? Why do they keep aborting up and down.