Very impossible! I work in the industry too and know how these things work dear. How can you use Paga to send money to relatives where? Rural areas or Urban areas? With 10000 agents? They should show us the demographical spread of those transactions naaaa. Even those maiguardi doing shift of duty (stay 4 months before traveling back home) do not use Paga to send money home, so who come de use am naaaa? People with bank accounts? People who can use their cards to transfer funds through the ATMs? Who naaa?

Showroom.ng failed basically because of funding! If he had the funds, he won't lack a technical know how! With money you can get anything you want.

This same showroom.ng actually supplied furniture to many of these over-hyping startups and felt he has arrived ....read his speech abi an eassay again ....he said "Raise enough money, don’t raise at all or don’t start. I personally think or being conditioned over the years that startups need to raise fund. It’s not so. I worked with a couple partners that didn’t raise a dime for their companies and they are doing pretty fine(offline). Sells a piece here and there. When we started doing fine, I somehow felt entitled to be funded.Somewhere along the line I asked myself, why really must this guys give me money? Did I work the money in their pockets? I felt really bad and awkward sometimes with the process" he entered one chance!

Paga $816 million transactions, 5million +users (900k active ....what happened to the 4.1million other users? Shebi if their service were top notch ...it would have been 6Million by now or more? twitter account - 7k Tweets 18K Followers 100 Likes
compared to
GTBank (corporate)
135K Tweets
Following 324
Followers 714K
Likes 840

GTBank Help
Tweets 63.6K
Following 13K
Followers 58.1K
Likes 50

My point here is that for that large users base and transaction sum, you should get an equal amount or considerable amount of followers who had issues with their transactions ....NO system is 100% perfect! Paga must be so perfect it seem. I just hate all these hypes not beefing them!

Truth234:


So you think it is impossible to have active 900,000 users in a nation of 180 million and a business that have raised million of dollars in capital? I think you need to understand their business model first. The five million is the total customers to date and the bulk of those are just money transfers to relatives, friends etc.,

showroom.ng failed because the founder lacked technical know-how not fund sister.

appsintell:
With paypal you can pay merchants worldwide. ..i have never heard of paga. .if they are only for peer to peer transfer & transactions. .how can do be put in the same conversation. ..

but paypal is not fully supported in nigeria

bigtt76:
Very impossible! I work in the industry too and know how these things work dear. How can you use Paga to send money to relatives where? Rural areas or Urban areas? With 10000 agents? They should show us the demographical spread of those transactions naaaa. Even those maiguardi doing shift of duty (stay 4 months before traveling back home) do not use Paga to send money home, so who come de use am naaaa? People with bank accounts? People who can use their cards to transfer funds through the ATMs? Who naaa?

Showroom.ng failed basically because of funding! If he had the funds, he won't lack a technical know how! With money you can get anything you want.

This same showroom.ng actually supplied furniture to many of these over-hyping startups and felt he has arrived ....read his speech abi an eassay again ....he said "Raise enough money, don’t raise at all or don’t start. I personally think or being conditioned over the years that startups need to raise fund. It’s not so. I worked with a couple partners that didn’t raise a dime for their companies and they are doing pretty fine(offline). Sells a piece here and there. When we started doing fine, I somehow felt entitled to be funded.Somewhere along the line I asked myself, why really must this guys give me money? Did I work the money in their pockets? I felt really bad and awkward sometimes with the process" he entered one chance!

I am glad you are from the industry. Do you know how fund are raised for start-ups? and you think the data can be manipulated when all the investors are foreign and share data base.

You are getting it all wrong, most of paga users are market women/men and people from rural area. You are from the industry I expect you to know that it is hard to lure an educated smartphone user to use a service like paga when he has everything on his phone.

The concept is new, and designed for unbanked population. So that should answer your social media question.

Showroom.ng claimed 12 years experience in the industry and has 1,724 facebook likes, 113 twitter follow. What does that tell about him ad his team? Gave up after two years, no single optimized word, no SEO, no push. You don't need money to get words on the internet, friends and family will do for a start.

Sheriff started his business based on inspiration and needs to fill a perceived gap in the Nigerian tech world. But what he doesn't envisage was the amount of effort that goes into building a successful tech company in a seemingly young and unstructured market like Nigeria.

Again, he failed to learn along the learn or understand learning is a process, like I said yesterday "he seems to blame everything on his "not knowing enough" or his team not knowing enough about how to scale a business. My question is, do we ever get to that point of knowing enough."

Truth234:


That is really good, Paga has made adjustment to its model to suit Nigerian market. In Kenya, few people have bank account, while in Nigeria more people do and can access it via smart-phones. Exactly, what Paga and P-Mesa are offering. This is the reason why P-Mesa failed in South Africa.

But Paga has been able to capitalized on Nigerian market and hopefully they will get local banks to embrace their over 10,000 network.

it's Mpesa, the article spelt it wrongly.

Jethrolite:
it's Mpesa, the article spelt it wrongly.

Thanks

Truth234:


So you think it is impossible to have active 900,000 users in a nation of 180 million and a business that have raised million of dollars in capital? I think you need to understand their business model first. The five million is the total customers to date and the bulk of those are just money transfers to relatives, friends etc.,

showroom.ng failed because the founder lacked technical know-how not fund sister. This is 7th year of Paga in business.

I totally agree with you. Founder of showroom.ng doesnt know how to run a business. With his crappy website, he thinks he can succeed and compete in the fast changing tech industry.

bigtt76:
My problem really with all these number peddling.

5,010,709 Customers and counting
10,167+ Agents
4,913+ Businesses
US$800 million Processed

By how naaau? Who are these 5 million customers? In this same Naija that people are scared of opening accounts with banks who have solid structures on ground? Same Naija that business are scared of accepting POS transactions? Same Naija where Baba Ijebu agents chop your money and don't post your winning numbers na hin person go visit agents to transact?

The list of merchants on their website is not even up to 100 business yet they are mentioning 4,913+ Businesses!! Haba

Paga as a mobile money operator should tell us the percentage of users who got funds in their wallets and how much funds it holds in its wallet. It should be more than just reeling out numbers just to please investors.

Konga raised $70million in the past ....what do they have to show for it? Are they a force to reckon with in eCommerce space in Naija? How many states do they cover? Its all about the numbers .....know how you reel them out you will keep getting funded. This was what killed showroom.ng ....he couldn't reel out the numbers and did not get funded.

M-Pesa mobile money platform came to existence because there was a need for such system in rural Kenya and it worked for them. Paga .......I'm not sure has covered the rural areas in Nigeria or would be in a position to do that due to the poor telecommunication infrastructure in the country. Beside this, I believe the CBN or NIBSS rather should be in the position to blow this trumpet and not Paga if truly it is the case!

That's a very good question there!. And, I' am a living witness of how sceptical Nigerians could be about such businesses.

Back in 2010 I once ran an e-Business and despite it's being heavily advertised online and on radio (cool FM and Wazobia) for 4 months, no single Nigerian was trusting enough to pay for the service. Instead I was inundated with phone calls and emails showing interest. Some were more interested in my address than the service I was offering, some even asked my company registeration info and all kinds of nonsense.

No one told me to shut down the site in the 5th month.

That was when I realized we have a huge trust problem in this country. The leaders of this country has led us into a ditch. Nigerians don't trust anybody anymore or anything that would require scanning a card to send money, typing password to send money, e.t.c. And that's the reason Paga or others would not be successful in Nigeria. Totally agree with you, they can only have limited success, but not this bogus figures being bandied around.

There you go again @embolden ....the rural and market women are all using smartphones to access Paga's Android or iOS app right? Women that find it difficult loading recharge cards to their phones? Issssorite!

Whether I know how funds are raised or not, the truth is that the foreign investors look at numbers and not reality on ground cos they don't come here to see things for themselves.

On Showroom.ng (sorry I caused the digression) ...if he had gotten enough funds, he would have been able to hire some top notch IT firm or consultant to build his platform. It is the case of a developer who thinks he got it all to own a startup business ....it goes beyond developing software. That was Sherrif's case, a blogger who felt he's acquired enough knowledge to run an online business and probably refused to seek advice.

Truth234:


I am glad you are from the industry. Do you know how fund are raised for start-ups? and you think the data can be manipulated when all the investors are foreign and share data base.

You are getting it all wrong, most of paga users are market women/men and people from rural area. You are from the industry I expect you to know that it is hard to lure an educated smartphone user to use a service like paga when he has everything on his phone.

The concept is new, and designed for unbanked population. So that should answer your social media question.

Showroom.ng claimed 12 years experience in the industry and has 1,724 facebook likes, 113 twitter follow. What does that tell about him ad his team? Gave up after two years, no single optimized word, no SEO, no push. You don't need money to get words on the internet, friends and family will do for a start.

Thats the bitter truth!

musicwriter:


That's a very good question there!. And, I' am a living witness of how sceptical Nigerians could be about such businesses.

Back in 2010 I once ran an e-Business and despite it's being heavily advertised online and on radio (cool FM and Wazobia) for 4 months, no single Nigerian was trusting enough to pay for the service. Instead I was inundated with phone calls and emails showing interest. Some were more interested in my address than the service I was offering, some even asked my company registeration info and all kinds of nonsense.

No one told me to shut down the site in the 5th month.

That was when I realized we have a huge trust problem in this country. The leaders of this country has led us into a ditch. Nigerians don't trust anybody anymore or anything that would require scanning a card to send money, typing password to send money, e.t.c. And that's the reason Paga or others would not be successful in Nigeria. Totally agree with you, they can only have limited success, but not this bogus figures being bandied around.

bigtt76:
My problem really with all these number peddling.

5,010,709 Customers and counting
10,167+ Agents
4,913+ Businesses
US$800 million Processed

By how naaau? Who are these 5 million customers? In this same Naija that people are scared of opening accounts with banks who have solid structures on ground? Same Naija that business are scared of accepting POS transactions? Same Naija where Baba Ijebu agents chop your money and don't post your winning numbers na hin person go visit agents to transact?

The list of merchants on their website is not even up to 100 business yet they are mentioning 4,913+ Businesses!! Haba

Paga as a mobile money operator should tell us the percentage of users who got funds in their wallets and how much funds it holds in its wallet. It should be more than just reeling out numbers just to please investors.

Konga raised $70million in the past ....what do they have to show for it? Are they a force to reckon with in eCommerce space in Naija? How many states do they cover? Its all about the numbers .....know how you reel them out you will keep getting funded. This was what killed showroom.ng ....he couldn't reel out the numbers and did not get funded.

M-Pesa mobile money platform came to existence because there was a need for such system in rural Kenya and it worked for them. Paga .......I'm not sure has covered the rural areas in Nigeria or would be in a position to do that due to the poor telecommunication infrastructure in the country. Beside this, I believe the CBN or NIBSS rather should be in the position to blow this trumpet and not Paga if truly it is the case!

You've nailed the funding reporting issue. It's quite common and basically it revolves around "innovating the users numbers. It isn't outright lying in many cases, but skewed perspectives. ( just as bad)

For background the funds coming into people like Paga and even first banks mobile money is from social impact funds. These funds are aimed at company's that have social impact while earning a return ( typically as high as (30%). LAPO micro finance is one of such beneficiaries. Because the impact measures used in nigeria is not the internationally accepted SROI or IRIS, but rather the more simplistic improvement in absolute figures such as users, no of beneficiaries, amounts loaned etc but not the actual social benefit behind the numbers.

For instance Paga hasn't told us by how much it has been able to reduce urban migration and empower rural areas which was it's original funding argument. First Bank received about $5m. Why I don't know. The problem with this data massaging is that eventually funders will cotton on to to it ( if they haven't already. (Ghana gets more socimpact funding as a % of population than nigeria) the result will be that true social entrepreneurs with great ideas fail to get funding either because a few large companies have taken the annual country allocation and crowded out smaller entrepreneurs or because the country narratives are no longer believable.

I run a social enterprise incubator in Lagos and I can confirm that your contribution is "right on the money"

Thank you for this and even for bringing to the fore "social entrepreneurs with great ideas fail to get funding either because a few large companies have taken the annual country allocation and crowded out smaller entrepreneurs or because the country narratives are no longer believable" this Startup funding things is gradually becoming a cult thing in Naija. Just scan around for the names of those getting funded you will realize its the same circle. showroom.ng despite close to the circle couldn't break in leading to its foreclosure. A lot more are on the same train. To survive you must be ready to accede to their terms. What they basically do with the funds is just spread around to cut their risks (money hard to come by naa).

greenpasture:


You've nailed the funding reporting issue. It's quite common and basically it revolves around "innovating the users numbers. It isn't outright lying in many cases, but skewed perspectives. ( just as bad)

For background the funds coming into people like Paga and even first banks mobile money is from social impact funds. These funds are aimed at company's that have social impact while earning a return ( typically as high as (30%). LAPO micro finance is one of such beneficiaries. Because the impact measures used in nigeria is not the internationally accepted SROI or IRIS, but rather the more simplistic improvement in absolute figures such as users, no of beneficiaries, amounts loaned etc but not the actual social benefit behind the numbers.

For instance Paga hasn't told us by how much it has been able to reduce urban migration and empower rural areas which was it's original funding argument. First Bank received about $5m. Why I don't know. The problem with this data massaging is that eventually funders will cotton on to to it ( if they haven't already. (Ghana gets more socimpact funding as a % of population than nigeria) the result will be that true social entrepreneurs with great ideas fail to get funding either because a few large companies have taken the annual country allocation and crowded out smaller entrepreneurs or because the country narratives are no longer believable.

I run a social enterprise incubator in Lagos and I can confirm that your contribution is "right on the money"

bigtt76:
Thank you for this and even for bringing to the fore "social entrepreneurs with great ideas fail to get funding either because a few large companies have taken the annual country allocation and crowded out smaller entrepreneurs or because the country narratives are no longer believable" this Startup funding things is gradually becoming a cult thing in Naija. Just scan around for the names of those getting funded you will realize its the same circle. showroom.ng despite close to the circle couldn't break in leading to its foreclosure. A lot more are on the same train. To survive you must be ready to accede to their terms. What they basically do with the funds is just spread around to cut their risks (money hard to come by naa).

It is weird because after they get funded the biggest change is lifestyle including the corporate office. Why actually do the work when you can massage the numbers and still live the life? I have taken a look at showroom.ng Great prices. If I was to pivot this I would turn it into a fair trade concept and use some money on each sale of domestically produced furniture to advance a cause, then turn it into a FTS + community. Do you know the company owners? You can dm me if you like.

showroom.ng is owned by Sheriff Shittu and you can hit him up on https://www.facebook.com/showroomNG/ or Twitter: @Possicon I think he actually did same thing albeit using local furniture makers to serve the customers' needs. All the best.

greenpasture:


It is weird because after they get funded the biggest change is lifestyle including the corporate office. Why actually do the work when you can massage the numbers and still live the life? I have taken a look at showroom.ng Great prices. If I was to pivot this I would turn it into a fair trade concept and use some money on each sale of domestically produced furniture to advance a cause, then turn it into a FTS + community. Do you know the company owners? You can dm me if you like.

bigtt76:
showroom.ng is owned by Sheriff Shittu and you can hit him up on https://www.facebook.com/showroomNG/ or Twitter: @Possicon I think he actually did same thing albeit using local furniture makers to serve the customers' needs. All the best.

Got it!

bigtt76:
showroom.ng is owned by Sheriff Shittu and you can hit him up on https://www.facebook.com/showroomNG/ or Twitter: @Possicon I think he actually did same thing albeit using local furniture makers to serve the customers' needs. All the best.

Got it!

Great! Funny how those painting big pictures in terms of their funding never helped him despite all the hyping. Anyway ...nice platform and incubator stuff you got running. Would pay you a visit someday. Cheers.

greenpasture:
Got it!

Learning

lyterydim:
Am Mozambique the majority of people are using mpesa even we Nigerians here because it faster and reliable..

U can transfer money to any bank account or withdraw via mpesa.
It's even connected to atm machines.
We pay our water bill..electric bill
Even tax via mpesa.

It will make wave if lunch in Nigeria.
Due to the stress in Nigerian banking sectors

como esta? Onde estas voce em mozambique estoa na Nampula?

Another Kogi state guy doing us proud. Ride on brother.

bigtt76:
Great! Funny how those painting big pictures in terms of their funding never helped him despite all the hyping. Anyway ...nice platform and incubator stuff you got running. Would pay you a visit someday. Cheers.

Look forward to that!

bigtt76:
There you go again @embolden ....the rural and market women are all using smartphones to access Paga's Android or iOS app right? Women that find it difficult loading recharge cards to their phones? Issssorite!

Whether I know how funds are raised or not, the truth is that the foreign investors look at numbers and not reality on ground cos they don't come here to see things for themselves.

On Showroom.ng (sorry I caused the digression) ...if he had gotten enough funds, he would have been able to hire some top notch IT firm or consultant to build his platform. It is the case of a developer who thinks he got it all to own a startup business ....it goes beyond developing software. That was Sherrif's case, a blogger who felt he's acquired enough knowledge to run an online business and probably refused to seek advice.

Why are you generalizing a minute perception? How many rural people do you know? Do they have to load to send money to their kids schooling in cities? Do you even understand the core concept of Paga business? Did you read that the bulk of their money comes from transfer and that they are the "single financial access point in Nigeria"? Do you understand what that means sister?

Showroom.ng doesn't need fund, he doesn't have a business in the first place. That is not business, every industry guy that know whatsup knows that is not a business. @yusufu16 knows what I am talking about, he won competition awhile back, showroom doesn't have an invest-able business. No effort, no knowledge. @embolden is the reason Nigeria is yet to have a sustainable/scalable start-up.

Nigeria's start-up developers think about fund first, instead of seeking knowledge or technical know-how of their business. If they can't do the ground work, how can potential investors trust them with more complex managerial work like M&A? Just money motivation that quickly fade away when the money doesn't come.

Foreign investors do not come here to see the numbers? They do sister, and they came for Paga fund raising. They even share their pictures. You must do you feasibility study well, you need to study how these things work and not be quick to judge.

musicwriter:


That's a very good question there!. And, I' am a living witness of how sceptical Nigerians could be about such businesses.

Back in 2010 I once ran an e-Business and despite it's being heavily advertised online and on radio (cool FM and Wazobia) for 4 months, no single Nigerian was trusting enough to pay for the service. Instead I was inundated with phone calls and emails showing interest. Some were more interested in my address than the service I was offering, some even asked my company registeration info and all kinds of nonsense.

No one told me to shut down the site in the 5th month.

That was when I realized we have a huge trust problem in this country. The leaders of this country has led us into a ditch. Nigerians don't trust anybody anymore or anything that would require scanning a card to send money, typing password to send money, e.t.c. And that's the reason Paga or others would not be successful in Nigeria. Totally agree with you, they can only have limited success, but not this bogus figures being bandied around.

So you are generalizing your experience? Well, in 2010 I was part of a business and we are still around. I know legalwealth, arbitrage etc are still around and most of people that deal with them have not met them physically. justi4jesu even live in Dubai. Nigerians deal with them, check them all out. You ran your business for just 5 months, Linda Ikeji wasn't making anything for the first 2 to 3 years.

Even SEO will take longer than that to get a reasonable result. Please don't blame this on the Nigerian system but technical know-how. Paga, Tayo Oviosu is an industrial guy, with twelve years of experience in a variety of technical and business roles in High-tech and Private Equity, so is Jay Alabraba. To say Paga would not be successful is funny.

bigtt76:
I mean seriously ...just watch and see in a few weeks time, Paga will announce new round of funding. Funding to do what I don't understand. Loans they won't give, agents they don't have so what are they using these funds for?

See Konga they don't even have delivery vans any more. Thank God I turned down their job offer na so I for de sleep with one eye open ...I heard Sim is no longer there. These guys just setup business and soon they cut out from it.

Look at Jumia when they first started, touted as Nigeria's home grown platform. It was only later the so called 'founders' resigned and the real owners took over. Look at Andela, EazyTaxi, DealDey ....same thing.

These guys know only how to play with numbers nothing more!

Yeah. I call them Red Carpet Entrepreneurs. They solve for PR and not necessarily sustainability. It's normal though as for most businesses you mentioned, their founders and Co founders built for exit. The fundamental concept is to grow a flashy and sexy business using PR, prove it's a viable model, get investors, sell and move on. Apparently there's a global venture fund boom especially around technology enabled ventures, so it is only right.

My challenge with most of these ideas is they are downright copy and paste, with not much innovative work done around tayloring their models to the nigerian socio-economic realities. Unfortunately they become a trend and a lot more Nigerians will jump on the wagon and start creating all sorts of adaptation without being privy to the behind-the-scene realities. The reality is the bulk of these businesses are a mess by their books, with all the funds they still struggle. The two ecommerce giants for instance do not have up to 1M paying cusomers monthly between them after spending probably spending N100M+ on marketing monthly for a long period. Yet a lot of young folks keep starting new ecommerce sites by the day.

For these "big boy" players, most of them have sound venture capital background and networks, and so they understand the nuances of the game. They understand it's a game of numbers. Get your numbers to reflect what investors want to see, get the funds, Founders move into Banana Island, in some cases some marry Nollywood babes sef , and then on to the next one. Afterall the money belongs to just less than 10 people who ar too rich to know what to use it for (The George Soros of thos world).

winetapper:
como esta? Onde estas voce em mozambique estoa na Nampula?

xto bem meu irmao nao sei aii xtoa em chimoio

lyterydim:
xto bem meu irmao nao sei aii xtoa em chimoio

epa esta um poccu longe.. estas a fazer que negocio ai?

winetapper:
epa esta um poccu longe.. estas a fazer que negocio ai?

deixa la tua contacto vou te ligar

lyterydim:
deixa la tua contacto vou te ligar

oito seix diza-seth 66 537.

Obrigado

winetapper:
oito seix diza-seth 66 537.

Obrigado

denada

Truth234:


I didn't want to reply, but you forced me. Here is a question for you, why was mobile money service (M-Pesa) invented in Kenya? The first of it kind to be invented ever, and what was the population of active bank users as at the time? The answer is the reason why P-Mesa scale successfully in East Africa. In Nigeria its a different story, and that was the same reason it failed in South Africa.

Please don't forget that mobile money services partnership/integration with conventional banks is the reason for the current upsurge in financial service access "25.4 million mobile money subscribers". That is why Kenya’s banked population is "NOW" the highest in Africa.

MPESA was invented because people needed a convenient way to bank, not because the number of banked people was low. I remember 2007 . The banking system in Kenya was monopolistic, despite a large number of banksd and 4 banks(Barclays,Equity, KCB,COOP) had 75% of the customers(in a nation with 44 banks)
Equity had close to half of those customers but queuing in Equity banking halls is a nightmare, even today.
Here comes MPESA which you can deposit or withdraw money from over 34,000 agents(There are 7 agents within 500 metres of my residential area) from your mobile phone, with no queuing!!!
And MPESA has NOT been a success in either Uganda or Tanzania, precisely because of the Low banking rate there!!!
MPESA failed in South Africa because unlike Kenya, South African Customers are evenly spread across their banks AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,there were few people who were willing to be MPESA agents!!!