Nigerian Entrepreneurs Who Are Making Nigeria And Africa Proud

The article was created to reinforce the TRUTH that for every Nigerian that puts the rest of us to shame, there are 100 other Nigrians who do are doing us PROUD. This is meant particularly for younger people who I admonish out of brotherly love, not to lose hope or become despondent or believe that crime is the only avenue to making money or living a comfortable life. 

Do not judge your situation based on what other criminals and corrupt people are doing. Your time will come, God rewards honesty and hard work and the wealth you build up will never fly away or diminish, it will remain permanent. The list below is only but a few number of Nigerians amongst many more , who are doing us proud and nurturing and creating investment and opportunities.

Oluwaseun Temitope Osewa
Oluwaseun Temitope Osewa is a Nigerian internet entrepreneur. He is the founder of Nairaland, a popular internet forum launched in March 2005, which was projected as the biggest African forum by Forbes. YNaija listed him as one of the most innovative Nigerians in technology

Temitope Ogunsemo
Founder of Krystal Digital, a fast-growing educational technology company that specializes in the creation, development and deployment of customized and service oriented software applications for educational institutions in Nigeria.

Oluwatobi Ajayi FICA
Chairman/CEO at Nord Automobiles Limited Forbes 30 Most Promising Entrepreneurs in Africa 2018.
Co-founder, Jetvan
Oluwatobi Ajayi, 31, is a co-founder and CEO of Jetvan Automobiles Limited, the largest authorized dealer of Mercedes-Benz Sprinter in Nigeria. He started his career at Mercedes-Benz Nigeria where he became the Head of division (Commercial vans) at 24. In 2015, he pulled together a group of investors and founded Jetvan which sells more than 500 vehicles every year.

Obinna Okwodu
Cofounder & CEO at Fibre
Obinna Okwodu, a 28-year-old MIT grad and ex-Morgan Stanley Investment Bank analyst, is the founder of Fibre, a real estate booking start-up in Lagos that allows middle-income tenants the option to pay monthly. Renting residential real estate in Lagos, Nigeria could be a hassle. Not only are houses overpriced, Landlords typically demand potential tenants to pay up to 24 months years rent upfront. As a result, Fibre is growing fast and is gaining popularity with many middle-income earners in Lagos.
Since launching in June 2016, Fibre has guaranteed $1.5 million worth of rental payments to landlords. Fibre’s main product currently lists 200 rental units.

Etop Ikpe
Founder, Cars45
Etop Ikpe is the founder of Cars45, Nigeria's foremost auto auctioning and car buying service. In May last year, Cars45 raised a $5 million Series A round from the Frontier Cars Group. Ikpe is a veteran entrepreneur with experience in transport, automobiles, mobile communications technology, and marketing. Etop was previously the Commercial Director of Konga, one of Nigeria’s largest e-commerce platforms, and formerly the CEO and Co-MD of DealDey, West Africa’s answer to Groupon.
Etop is the CEO of Nigeria’s first and largest Auto Tech trading platform; CARS45.com . CARS45 is a technology company that has disrupted the used cars sales industry by offering people a fast and convenient way to sell their cars. Since it’s launch in July 2016 CARS45 has grown to have over 35 physical inspection centres and helped thousands of people sell their cars.

Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed Falalu
Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed Falalu, 27, is the founder of Falgates, a company that farms and mills rice. Falgates owns a rice milling facility that has a capacity of 15 tons per day and has a rice farm that employs more 180 people in Kaduna state in northern Nigeria. The company had revenues of $400,000 in 2017.

Gossy Ukanwoke
Education entrepreneur, Gossy Ukanwoke, 30, is the founder of BAU Executive Education which provides Executive Education Programs to professionals, executives and graduates looking to develop business and leadership skills online and on-campus. His holding company, BAU R&D has completed investments in two Nigerian traditional Universities. He is also the President of EduTech Nigeria, an tech company that works with universities to automate the online student lifecycle from recruitment to graduation by helping African traditional universities take their on-campus degree programs online through the implementation of the best of technology, process management, recruitment, admissions and advisory.

Top 8 Challenges Encountered By Nigerian Entrepreneurs And Possible Solutions

Nowadays, entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges in the highly-competitive world of business. Nigeria has survived difficult times of colonisation which resulted in a lack of entrepreneurial spirit that was suppressed by the British. Fortunately, today entrepreneurs have more resources to learn how to run a business and tackle different problems more effectively. So, let’s take a look at some challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria nowadays.
What are the problems confronting entrepreneurship development in Nigeria?

Becoming a successful businessman in Nigeria is not that easy, especially at the beginning. Starting a business is associated with many challenges and difficulties. While some of them are minor, others cause a lot of headaches. To identify the reasons for the business-related problems in Nigeria, one needs to make a journey into the history of entrepreneurship in this country.

As for today’s state of business in Nigeria, entrepreneurship development in Nigeria has never been so high in the history of the country. Nevertheless, despite the increasing need for entrepreneurship, doing business in Nigeria still needs to be improved. One of the crucial problems of entrepreneurship consists is wrong understanding the concept of entrepreneurship.

While some understand it as just starting a business, it should be understood as the process of providing goods and services to people in exchange for money. A businessman is not only a person who acts but thinks. Being an entrepreneur nowadays should involve thinking of new ways of solving problems and creating value. It cannot be imagined without innovation and risk-taking.

The lack of risk-taking might be caused by a complicated history of entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Before Nigeria was colonised, a lot of citizens were traders. Nigerians always had a business mindset and high m0ral standards of doing business. Though, when the colonial era began, British colonial masters were those who had more rights than Nigerians. A lot of companies were established by the colonizers, and a lot of young people were employed by these firms. There was a hugely important disadvantage of this quasi-development. Many Nigerians were joining the labour force so their entrepreneurial mindset was fading away.Nowadays, entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges in the highly-competitive world of business. Nigeria has survived difficult times of colonisation which resulted in a lack of entrepreneurial spirit that was suppressed by the British. Fortunately, today entrepreneurs have more resources to learn how to run a business and tackle different problems more effectively. So, let’s take a look at some challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria nowadays.
What are the problems confronting entrepreneurship development in Nigeria?

Becoming a successful businessman in Nigeria is not that easy, especially at the beginning. Starting a business is associated with many challenges and difficulties. While some of them are minor, others cause a lot of headaches. To identify the reasons for the business-related problems in Nigeria, one needs to make a journey into the history of entrepreneurship in this country.

As for today’s state of business in Nigeria, entrepreneurship development in Nigeria has never been so high in the history of the country. Nevertheless, despite the increasing need for entrepreneurship, doing business in Nigeria still needs to be improved. One of the crucial problems of entrepreneurship consists is wrong understanding the concept of entrepreneurship.

While some understand it as just starting a business, it should be understood as the process of providing goods and services to people in exchange for money. A businessman is not only a person who acts but thinks. Being an entrepreneur nowadays should involve thinking of new ways of solving problems and creating value. It cannot be imagined without innovation and risk-taking.

The lack of risk-taking might be caused by a complicated history of entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Before Nigeria was colonised, a lot of citizens were traders. Nigerians always had a business mindset and high m0ral standards of doing business. Though, when the colonial era began, British colonial masters were those who had more rights than Nigerians. A lot of companies were established by the colonizers, and a lot of young people were employed by these firms. There was a hugely important disadvantage of this quasi-development. Many Nigerians were joining the labour force so their entrepreneurial mindset was fading away.
The challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria

Today, a lot of attention is paid to the development of entrepreneurship in Nigeria, and many resources are spent on improving entrepreneurship in this country. The entrepreneurs in Nigeria are facing a lot of challenges. Let’s take a closer look at the major problems that have been affecting the development of entrepreneurship in this country.
1. Lack of capital

This challenge is one of the main reasons why entrepreneurship in Nigeria hasn’t improved over many years. A lot of startups fail because of the lack of investment. That’s why thousands of incredible ideas couldn’t be implemented. The lack of capital can be caused by two reasons: insufficient potential or innovation or entrepreneur’s uncertainty and fear to promote the business.

As a beginner, an entrepreneur wants to get his business running, but not so many people are willing to invest their money in an untested or unpractical idea. A business must show that it can be profitable with no funding as investors do not want to risk their money. Alternatively, they need to see that the business idea is 100 percent practical. It should be new and fill the gap or need in the particular market niche.

Also, the businessman must show that he is able to manage the resources he already possesses. Besides, every businessman must be talented at making money from “nothing” that is using different possibilities for his own goal.

When it comes to starting a business the most important thing perhaps is that entrepreneur himself could be confident in the idea he finds innovative.

But what is the best way to raise money for the business startup? Basically, you can either rely on your own or others’ financial potential, that uses your own personal savings, ask for money from your family and friends or find people who would like to invest in your business. Another way is to find people who could become your partners and invest their money in your business idea that they find interesting as well.

When talking about the external channels, the possible options are bank loans and angel investors. As you can see, there are many channels to raise money for a startup, but lack of capital remains a challenge for Nigerian businessmen.

Here is the possible solution for those who do not wish to rely on the external sources of investment. If you want to start your business with little or no capital, you can choose the self-fueled growth model that implies funding your own business endeavors. Start with marketing and advertising. You might agree that business to a great extent depends on how much the customers are familiar with it, especially in this hustling world. You can cut your expenses on the labour force, rent, equipment, innovative solutions but the advertisement is a must.

The alternative way is riskier. If you find your idea innovative enough, you can develop it until you will be ready to present it to the world. If you already run a business, you can experiment with it a lot. If you don’t have enough in the budget to market your company to its full potential, you can prioritize your marketing efforts with maximum efficiency.

It takes a lot of experience and time to find out where the money actually works. Look closer what areas can be cut so that some funds could be freed up. Sometimes funding is not what the business actually needs. There may be a lot of things every businessman could improve to make the enterprise more profitable and efficient. Think of your new and current customers and how to be remarkable to them. It depends on the advertisement as well as the quality of the product or service. Also, it is essential not to sacrifice quality for saving money on the current expenses as well.

2. Difficulties in getting loans

While the problem number one of most Nigerian people in business is the lack of capital, the second challenge they face is related to securing loans from financial institutions. Many potential Nigerian entrepreneurs go through many difficulties when trying to get a loan for their business.

When Nigerians turn to banks to fund their business idea, they understand that getting a loan is not as easy as it might seem to be. The thing is banks and other financial institutions do not wish to risk lending money to businessmen who don’t have any experience in running a business. The banks are more loyal to those who already have at least a small business. There are higher chances that the loan will be paid back.

Another reason why securing a loan is so difficult is the requirements needed for securing this loans. Banks ask for high-interest rates so that small business owners or start-ups cannot afford. It sometimes works like a filter that defines which ideas are not practical, but most often high-interest rates simply discourage Nigerian businesspersons.
3. Poor state of infrastructure

Someone living in the developed countries of Europe or America might be surprised, but the lack of good infrastructural facilities is a serious problem affecting the development of businesses in Nigeria. The state of infrastructure in Nigeria is just destitute. The infrastructure challenge is faced by all the entrepreneurs, especially those who work in the agricultural or industrial sectors. The unstable power supply and poor transportation system have forced a lot of businesses to close down. To run the business, most entrepreneurs need to use generators and spend a lot of money on buying the fueling generators and on fuel to run them.

Sometimes businesses do not even get up to 5 hours of electricity in a day, and some companies introduced night shifts as power often comes on at night. The insufficient supply of electricity has negatively affected many businesses. The truth is that many businesses have even moved from Nigeria to other countries due to electricity problems.

Lack of good roads and railways is the second infrastructural challenge affecting entrepreneurship in Nigeria. As many entrepreneurs need to move raw materials and final products to the customers living in different cities, means of transportation are a kind of must-have for every developing country. This is one of the challenges facing entrepreneurship in Nigeria that the government is trying to solve.

The outcome of these problems is increased production cost which makes the products noncompetitive. Such economic challenges definitely belong to the Nigerian government’s things to do to promote successful entrepreneurship.
4. Unstable Nigerian economy and politics

The state of the Nigerian economy and politics is another serious challenge for entrepreneurs. The state of the country plays an essential role in any country’s development. All the socio-economic problems and political instability don’t help in the successful development of businesses. Moreover, any economic or political instability kills businesses.

5. Inconsistent government policies

There is a problem with continuity in Nigerian government policies. In general, the existing policies are not good enough to create the necessary conditions for the development of businesses in Nigeria. The entrepreneurs need more freedom and flexibility for running their businesses. The challenges start at the beginning. Entrepreneurs usually need to wait 30 days to register a business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). When it comes to registering with NAFDAC, or accessing funding from the Bank of Industry (BOI), it gets even more complicated.

While businesses are going on somehow, the government is trying to do its part. Nigerian government does not forbid the businessmen to speak out and share their experiences. This way the government knows what challenges entrepreneurs face and what could be the possible solutions to the arising problems.

One problem the Nigerian government has recognized is insufficient industrialization and cultivating the entrepreneurial culture. To solve this problem, the Nigerian Investing Commission (NIC) has introduced a policy that requires university students regardless of their area of study to take courses in entrepreneurship to promote entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Another serious challenge faced by many Nigerian entrepreneurs is multiple taxations. While businessmen are responsible for funding the government through paying taxes, in Nigeria entrepreneurs are charged too many taxes which negatively affects the businesses. While Nigeria’s Companies Income Tax Act (CITA) has approved only 39 taxes, over 500 various taxes are imposed by local governments that are in most cases duplicated and not lawful.
6. Poor knowledge on how to run a business

Sometimes the success of the business depends not on the government politics, economic problems or insufficient capital but on the lack of the entrepreneur’s experience and knowledge on how to be a successful businessman. While some people have a chance to take entrepreneurship courses, many start a new business from scratch with no economic background.

Those who venture into any kind of enterprises, do not always know how to manage and grow a business properly. They need to learn to get relevant and adequate information about management and marketing. What is needed is sufficient problem-solving skills in case problems arise. Every entrepreneur faces a challenge of getting familiar with high-tech trends that are especially hard to embrace in the modern business environment.6. Poor knowledge on how to run a business

Sometimes the success of the business depends not on the government politics, economic problems or insufficient capital but on the lack of the entrepreneur’s experience and knowledge on how to be a successful businessman. While some people have a chance to take entrepreneurship courses, many start a new business from scratch with no economic background.

Those who venture into any kind of enterprises, do not always know how to manage and grow a business properly. They need to learn to get relevant and adequate information about management and marketing. What is needed is sufficient problem-solving skills in case problems arise. Every entrepreneur faces a challenge of getting familiar with high-tech trends that are especially hard to embrace in the modern business environment.

7. Marketing strategy challenge

Many businessmen face this challenge which consists of the knowledge on how to market products and services: print, online, mobile, advertising, etc. Businessmen want to maximize their return on investment with efficient, targeted marketing that results in increased profits. This challenge depends on the economic state of the country. With no appropriate knowledge about the most effective marketing strategies, most Nigerian entrepreneurs are trying to save money and cut their spendings on basic needs. The solution to this challenge is to investigate the market and produce only those products and services that are currently or in demand or all time high-in-demand commodities.

Advertising is also helpful though if the quality of the product is not high enough, people will not be interested in this product. Businessmen should be adapted to creating marketing plans. Another way to get a marketing plan is by outsourcing the marketing strategy to professional. It is important to find out what marketing activities are effective in motivating purchases. The business might need to know what is your budget to craft a good business plan. If businessmen do not make a business plan, they usually get stuck, that’s why the business fails. It is advisable to imagine what you will achieve in 5, 10 years or more.

A lot of entrepreneurs choose the wrong path that leads to business failure. Being a businessman means being a good manager of finances. This is the main reason why many businesses start, run for a while, and fail. The solution is to manage cash effectively by limiting diverting funds from the business to the unprofitable liabilities.
8. Lack of patience

A lot of businessmen who just started a business expect to make money quickly. The statistics show that if the entrepreneur is more money oriented his efforts to gain a fortune quickly will not succeed.

It’s true that people mostly go into business for money but if they need to have enough patience to grow a business to fully realize its potential. Investors who want to get the quick returns, lose their patience. Sometimes they lack entrepreneurial mindset which might be considered a result of the post-colonial mentality. When many Nigerians were taught to be in the labour force and not to be entrepreneurs, they forgot that being an entrepreneur in Nigeria means to face many problems and challenge.

How to Win at Affiliate Marketing on YouTube

You can make money on YouTube by doing affiliate marketing, many people tend to assume that the best way to handle affiliate marketing is through e-mail. E-mail marketing and affiliate marketing make a good match because you have the chance to communicate directly with your audience in a personal way and convince them to click on your products.

This will give you a long-term route to market that you can then use again and again and if you have a big enough list that trusts you, it’s almost like having a license to print money!

But e-mail marketing isn’t the only way to promote an affiliate product. Many other effective methods can in some cases even be more successful depending on the nature of the product and the niche. One of these is video marketing…

Why Video Marketing Works So Well

Video marketing offers a ton of advantages that makes it perfect for selling an affiliate product.

For starters, video marketing is something you can use to quickly start reaching a massive audience. If you post a video to YouTube and you choose the right title, subject, and description, then even without having built an audience prior, you can immediately get a thousand views or several.

What’s more though, is that video marketing allows you to very quickly build trust and convince someone to buy. This works incredibly well because people get to actually see you and they get to hear you talk about why the product is so good. Instead of being an anonymous testimonial, this is now a testimonial from someone they can actually see, who seems to be honest and who is even able to demonstrate evidence of what they’re saying potentially.

Then, all you need to do is to include your link in the description or to talk about going to your site (which will act as a landing page) and you can start generating lots of big sales.

Why Use YouTube Affiliate Marketing?

Basically, it’s a natural extension of your current affiliate marketing efforts.

You’re already publishing content in the form of blog posts.

So you can simply repurpose those as YouTube videos.

But also because YouTube makes it incredibly easy to become a content creator.

All you need is a microphone, a webcam, or some screen recording software.

Some Tips

Some tips to help you get this right are to:

• Make sure your video looks professional but not ‘too slick’
• Dress smart, but don’t wear a suit or you’ll look like you’re trying too hard
• Get a good camera
• Try to be likable and personable
• Provide real value in the video with actionable tips and advice
• Pick a product you really believe in to sell – this will come across in the video even if you’re acting.

Say Yes to YouTube Affiliate Marketing

If you are worried that you’re too late to the YouTube affiliate marketing game, you’re not. There are more and more people coming online every day, and they want to learn from you on the platform.

Top 8 Reasons To Be An Internet Entrepreneur

If you’re thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, I hope reading this inspires you.

Here is the Top 8 Reasons for being an internet entrepreneur detailed below.

1 You Can Create Jobs

As an internet entrepreneur, If your business becomes successful, you’ll want to hire a few employees. The larger your business becomes, the more people you’ll need to hire.

2 Low Capital Startup Cost

The Internet has made internet entrepreneurs starting a business to be simple and cheap. With just a website or even a fan page, you can already start a multitude of businesses – such as a bakeshop, an apparel store, or a bookstore – without the need for a brick-and-mortar office or shop.

This also makes it very easy for you to test the validity of your business idea.  For example, we have managed to grow our offline review business into one of the biggest in our province within the span of 3 years without the need to maintain an expensive office.

3 All You Need is a Laptop and an Internet Connection

For a regular business, an internet entrepreneur will need more than just a computer. But for an online business, you will just need a computer (desktop or laptop), an internet connection, a target market, and a business mind-set.

As an online entrepreneur, you can work from a coffee shop, from the beach, work while you are traveling on the train or anywhere. You don’t need a permanent office to work as an internet entrepreneur. My office is wherever I feel like putting my laptop down as far as there is an internet connection there.

 4 You Can Earn Passive Income

Passive income is money that you earn on a regular basis without having to put in much effort to maintain it. One example of passive income would be the monthly rent check a landlord receives.

Just about everyone loves the idea of passive income because it means that you can make money while you sleep – and use the daylight to do whatever you like.

Because a good website can earn money without much maintenance, online entrepreneurs have a fast track to earning passive income. Some of the ways to do it are by hosting advertisements on your sites, selling products, and developing membership programs.

5 Supplier Research

The Internet can be a very valuable source in searching for wholesalers or service providers you will need for your business. This gives you the opportunity to look for the best and cheapest providers without having to do an inordinate amount of legwork and spend a lot of money. Along with the profile review feature of some buy and sell platforms like eBay or Amazon, this makes the Internet very effective in this particular task.

6 Online Business Opportunities

How you manage your business online will depend on the products or services you offer. You may be able to use the internet to:

• run an online shop
• manage your suppliers
• communicate with your customers, and get their feedback on your business
• offer services online
• allow customers to make reservations or appointments online
• manage your finances, such as online banking, tax, and employee pay
• research competitors.

7 You Learns Something New Every Day

Here’s another benefit to having the varied duties of an entrepreneur: there’s always more to learn.

Even if one day you were able to learn everything involved in making money online, you would wake up the next day and have more to learn. As an online entrepreneur, the better you’re able to keep up with up-to-date technologies, techniques, and trends, the easier it will be for you to be successful.

Personally, I love the sense of progress I get when I learn a valuable new concept or skill. I also like that I’m always challenging my mind and keeping it sharp.

8 It Helps Build Your Network

The difference between achieving your wildest dreams and being left in the dust can be as simple as knowing the right person.

Some occupations are better at building your network than others. But you probably won’t make a ton of connections while working in the same office every day year after year.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are always meeting new people. They have to reach out to potential clients, customers, and partners if they want to keep their business moving forward. All of that turnover helps entrepreneurs to have some of the biggest (and most lucrative) networks around.

With all these benefits of why the Internet is very important to entrepreneurs, it’s no wonder that small start-ups that maximize their use of online tools and opportunities are edging out established offline businesses everywhere and in a matter of a few years. Make sure your business doesn’t fall into the latter category!

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