pocohantas:
a friend asked me, what are they doing differently? He did tell me what they are doing differently and I wonder how they plan no sustain no charges in Nigeria. Right now I am just observing him.

obi4eze:
VC is good but has its disadvantages.

shegzhkn:
Is it safe to say to kill the tech ecosystem in Nigeria you just make Stripe available there & PayPal fully functional & then get rid of the petty financial policies and it game over ??

Akanoaaa:
I still prefer Wirepay anytime any day

jaxxy:
Nice bt these start ups are all doing same thing and never as efficient as expected.

DissTroy:

Most fintechs are essentially just paytechs. Financial technology goes beyond payments systems. The market is almost oversaturated as the customer base already have enough options to choose from.

DissTroy:

The reason most fintechs focus on just paytechs is they want to raise VC quickly. Paytechs have higher transaction volumes which you can use as POC then added to a pitch, investors would open their purses in a shot while.

DissTroy:

See Okra.ng ? It's barely known except by entrepreneurial developers but what's it's doing is core fintech. There's more but the VC ecosystem in Nigeria and Africa is dominated by the early starters who are just paytechs - founders of Flutterwave, PayStack etc.

DissTroy:

Maybe. But I had a lengthy and extensive discussion with other programmers and/or tech founders about it in February on this thread:https://www.nairaland.com/7567838/what-happened-andela-nigeria#120922699
4 pages of it all.

y3mi:


Never heard of them, are doing anything differently?

Akanoaaa:


Yes, very differently. Their rate make sense and they don't change for exchanging of currency like payday and only 1 usd for card creation of your choice. Master or Visa. Wirepay is own by Maplerad. Check Google play store for customers reviews.

y3mi:


Sorry to bother but could you please be kind enough to share with us these disadvantages. A lot of folks can learn. Thanks!

obi4eze:

Sorry. Been occupied. One problem with VC funded companies is that the VC funderscan demand a huge ROI and and this can put pressure on the founders of the company to deliver within a short time.

obi4eze:

Most times these founders do notunderstand the real-life market situations of such business and are excited at the prospects of the funding. This can lead to unexpected challenges as a result of undue pressure from the VCs AND INCESPTES
Another challenge is the fact that the founders of the business/company can lose majority stake in the business. This can lead to a loss of focus, vision and direction in the company as the company's policies and direction would majorly be determined by the majority stakeholders.

obi4eze:

For a company to meet the needs/requirements in VC funding, a set of goals/milestones must have been achieved e.g. staff capacity, financial statement etc. It is usually a complex and tedious process in getting VC and increasing staff capacity can lead to massive recruitment in a company and this may not fit its long-term goals.

DissTroy:


True enough. There also seems to be a particular circle one needs to break into to get access to these VCs. I mean, asides Y Combinator, other publicised tech startups getting funding announced on TechCabal and the likes seem to come from certain circles like the Lagos Investment Network.

How then do tech founders outside these cliques get funding for their viable startups/digital products?

y3mi:

I agree with you 100%. It’s one of the reasons I would think Seun Osewa hasn’t put pitched his forum to VC to accelerate it beyond what it is today. I could recall the rumor that went round about his decline To Google’s offer to purchase the website. He enjoys the autonomy, wouldn’t you agree? A degree of which tech starter/founder loses when VC and AI are involved


That’s another good but terrifying point of fact, one that haunts business and tech startups here, the question I sometimes ponder on is, are these the same reality in other climes ?



I suppose there ought to be other alternative of raising funds, share if you know any. I read through the 4-pages of thread shared by DissTroy and I have the following to say below.

obi4eze:


Yea. These are actually the reality in other climes. VC is fast losing its appeal because of these challenges. Having worked in one of the VC-funded companies in Nigeria, I can say that Nigeria may be a bit of a peculiar case because of the inherent corruption in the leadership of some of these companies.
Crowdfunding may be a better alternative but it is difficult to get people to buy into a startup, especially when the prospects are not publicly known.

DissTroy:


If you google tech startup funding now on Google, you'd be bombarded with an ad from a VC company which gives $50,000 in exchange for 10% equity of your company.

Yes, man - 10%. It doesn't matter whether it's a robotic startup.

obi4eze:


Yea. These are actually the reality in other climes. VC is fast losing its appeal because of these challenges. Having worked in one of the VC-funded companies in Nigeria, I can say that Nigeria may be a bit of a peculiar case because of the inherent corruption in the leadership of some of these companies.
Crowdfunding may be a better alternative but it is difficult to get people to buy into a startup, especially when the prospects are not publicly known.

y3mi:

Given your experiences in this realm of tech branch, would you suggest taken up the 50 for 10 as a prudent choice ? or to go with the suggestion of developing something concrete first and be approached later as a much better option as was hinted in the 4-page thread ?

y3mi:

Interesting, however still, do you think these same AIs and VCs from other climes, by their glorious portfolios peruse and consider ideas or pitches based on its potential to be disruptive eg how innovative it solves a problem, or they just simply put it into consideration how viable it yield ROI first, as is the case in Nigeria where techs and fintechs eventually gets funded, which goes to explain the proliferation of fintechs and paytechs reiterating the same thing over and over again,

Is it that when these VCs and AIs cross to this border, ROI takes precedence of importance first over any other thing first ?

As for Crowdfunding, as they been any tech startup, in Nigeria that emerged using this option where it kickstarted from inception to staying afloat, eventually soaring with self-sustainable momentum ?

DissTroy:


I'd have said an outright no but I discussed something in that range with my lady today who's also tech-inclined.

Here's what she said which I think makes sense:

If you value the startup and think, regardless of growth, there'd always be a valuation cap in the next 10 years, it's worth it. And if you know the $50,000 would help you scale to a certain level, then earmark the 10%, scale then maybe do a Series A raise for 10% then leave it at that. She didn't use all those technical VC terms but that's the summary of what she told. I sort of agree, partially.
Madam kept hammering on controlling percentage as a founder everytime I discuss it with her.

It also depends on the tech specialty. Is it innovative? How can you successfully predict a valuation cap? I'd he lying if I say I can. I can't.

----
How was Flutterwave to know after their first $1.1 million raise in 2016, they were going to be valued at $3.1 billion by February, 2021 while PayStack which sprang up concurrently and offers same services got sold for $200 million?

Again, Y Combinator gives $500,000 for 7% equity but with a higher competive entry bar while the referred to VC is offering $50,000 for 10%. I guess one has to put a VC cap of what to let go, put a cap on estimated funding to scale then make compromises.

I know of an Indian PAAS which raised $25,000 at first then raised $1.1 million in January. But they don't reveal the percentage equity traded off, of course.

y3mi:

Thanks for sharing.

If I may digress to ask…

What part of the laws (or IP laws) provides an entity or the originator/inventor a protective right that avert others from replicating the originator of a web-based solution, moreover that is innovative ? Would that be copyright? Patenting or Notarization of some sort?

I understand that an idea can not be patented nor registered, unless it’s an original invention, however still I have read online how business method can be granted patent in the US if the methodology is genuinely novel.

May I ask if this is also the case in Nigeria ?

Princedapace:
omo, to find help within Nigerian tech space is hard shaa. Lol

Let me try!

I want to implement paystack in a react native app that I am working on. I dont want to use any paystack npm package. That was the task given.

I am using react native webview to access paystack webpage within the react native app. Everything working well except the cancel button.

For reason not known to me, the cancel payment button doesnt respond at all. Normally, it was supposed to respond to a pastack url which I could have used to track and close the webview. But it doesn't respond.

I also tried using javscript to detect when a user clicks on the cancel button and with it, I could have close the webview but that is not working.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

y3mi:

Hi brother,
I was wondering if you have given up on this or eventually found a solution to this ?

y3mi:

Thanks for sharing.

If I may digress to ask…

What part of the laws (or IP laws) provides an entity or the originator/inventor a protective right that avert others from replicating the originator of a web-based solution, moreover that is innovative ? Would that be copyright? Patenting or Notarization of some sort?

I understand that an idea can not be patented nor registered, unless it’s an original invention, however still I have read online how business method can be granted patent in the US if the methodology is genuinely novel.

May I ask if this is also the case in Nigeria ?

cc
Bloomsbury aka cyberkitty
airsaylongcome
truthCoder
qtguru
DavidCorny
tensazangetsu20
Davien

obi4eze:


Of course everyone goes into any business with ROI in mind. I wouldn't blame the VCs because they're out to make profit. What I would be more concerned about as a startup is the ROI expected and the time frame given to fulfill such expectations. These VCs based in the US see Nigeria as a fertile ground for investment while the startups are in need of funding so it's a complicated case.
Crowdfunding maybe better when a company has established some popularity and has reputation and is willing to expand. The main issue isn Nigeria is lack of regulation and inherent corruption. It would be very difficult to get crowdfunders when there's no protection for their investment as the CEO could disappear with the funds while investors are left to count their losses.

studyless123:


Interesting. Largely, this will be under patents and copyrights. Patents protect inventions, which are new and useful processes.
Copyright protects original works such as source code, scripts, and designs.
The type of IP law that you will need for protecting a web-based solution will depend on the specific nature of the solution.

Please note that patent process is difficult and complex while copyrights are less expensive and easier to obtain than patents.

Yes, a business method can be granted a patent. A business method must meet the same criteria as any other invention. Specifically, it must be novel and useful. It is more difficult to obtain a patent for a business method than for other types of inventions.

Different countries have different laws with regards IP.

DissTroy:
This is good. I'm happy for them. But the real question for those of us with interests in tech VC is, at what equity are these funding rounds converted to?

Y Combinator exchanges $500,000 (+ addons) for 7% equity.
They raised $1.5 million earlier on. Now they raised $3 million.

How much equity have they let go? With that many rounds ( which is still low-bar) and VCs, what's the controlling stake for the founders?

Now the last part is what worries me. if only tech bootstrapping were easy...

DissTroy:

Madam kept hammering on controlling percentage as a founder everytime I discuss it with her.

Princedapace:


I found a solution and fixed it. You need any help?