This is an entrepreneur rant
In Nigeria, people can look. people can look for Africa. (You would have to be a Nigerian to understand). Me and my wife walk down the street and every eye falls on us. They can look. You would think at a time they would get tired of looking, but no. They won’t.
Getting married early isn’t a thing in Nigeria. I am 26. Some people think its too early. I think I’m 3 years late.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurship.
I started live blogging my experience because every now and then, someone stands on a stage and starts talking about entrepreneurship and tell you nice things about strategy, execution, customer acquisition, profits and those fancy words. If you are more into tech, you’ll be hearing of raising series in financing rounds, LTV, YoY, MAU, CTR, or more regular things like page bounce, leads, equity, sales funnel and those things.
I am actually here in real life in Lagos, Nigeria, Africa, earth, World. Actually trying to cut it! Some people have it handed to them — if success was handed to me through inheritance or sheer love, I wont turn it down. If someone walks up to me and say — hey bro, cool hair. Here is a cheque for $50k, I certainly wont turn it down. But here is the reality — It wasn’t handed to me and here is a cheque for $50k cos of your cool hair says no one ever! I have to work, strategize and actually execute. That’s the business part handled by me. But in order to actually make it, I need the customer to do his own part — use the product, like it, pay, evangelize for me. That’s the customers part. But if I only have to worry about my part and the customers part, we might have some fun. Nah, the reality is that the government has a part to play too. And they don’t like playing their part. They play politics instead of playing their roles. Government’s role is to create an environment that encourages innovation. If they do this well enough, nobody will need to them step into any industry to even pave the way or help out. Let everyone do their jobs.
Last month, I was selected for a grant, or I thought I was cos zero Naira was what I got. It was a political event put together by the son of a big wig in Nigeria. The guy stood on stage rubbing his tommy with reckless abandon, showing absolutely zero interest in the event, I bet he couldn’t wait for it to end so he can go tell his father he gave away 5 million in grant and the press was there.
People can sit in their fancy cars, buy drones and take vacations in the Euphrates. There are many kinds of entrepreneurs — those who were born into it and got groomed for it. Those who were forced into it by life’s circumstances or by happenstance. Those who chose it right from primary school.
I belong to the third. You would think choosing this path makes it easy or gives us a certain edge. No. Everyone still has to fight for a slice of the pie regardless of how you got into this path — I fought long and hard against the idea of going to the university. My dad won that fight. I fought against NYSC — I lost that one. I fought against ever working for anyone. I won that one. There is a subset of humns who believe you must work for someone to learn the ropes and gather experience… nice but I say otherwise. I got married at 26 (yaaay! #win). I am the sort of entrepreneur that learns on the job, that jumps off the cliff and fixes a plane before getting to the ground…yet I don’t have a million dollars in my account yet. In one corner of Lagos, I still prefer working from my couch. I have an office at Ikoyi, one of the most affluent areas of Lagos just because clients insists on physicality. Right about now, I feel this is that time the motivational speakers talked about — the darkest hour before dawn. I hope it is. Because I need a miracle to go forward. I need paying clients.
Make no mistake — I am not hungry. My wife is not starving. I still have clothes. I give. But there can be more. This is an entrepreneur rant. No lesson to be learnt here.
