For small businesses and startups, there is always a strong pull to come up with products or services that will serve the entire market. Even among bloggers and vloggers, you see the tendency to dwell on everything and nothing in particular. So they want to have writings on every possible sector or beat.

The truth however is that the easiest way to stand out is to stand in a niche, rather than spreading your energy and resources everywhere. When I say niche, I mean laser-like focus on a single beat, niche, service, product, or solution. It is focusing on the barest minimum and expands gradually only after gaining a foothold.

Where possible, focus on the market segment that the bigger brands have ignored, I mean the most basic consumers. At a time in the dairy sector, a particular brand was dominating in Nigeria. But somehow, another came into the market and decided that instead of the large packaging, it was going to focus on packaging its products in little sachets and target the average everyday Nigerian who cannot afford a big tin. Of course, they met with a huge market acceptance, and gradually moved to the bigger packaging with time.

By niching, you are deciding to focus on customers who may be underserved, and this allows for quick sales, more revenue and high turnover. You also build a following in the process, majorly among the market segment, you have chosen. Dig deeper and find untapped subcategories in your market, sell to that core customer and expand from there.

A second point to note is that niching allows you to have one strong angle that you can flaunt in your campaign to customers. This becomes a competitive angle for you, seeing as you are in business to solve a problem for consumers in that area. It is the secret to outpacing your competitors especially the bigger ones. You can now tie this competitive angle with your origin story about how and why you started the business. This is also now attached to your products and services and the market can now associate your brand with something specific, rather than everything generic. It makes for an amazing marketing story which customers can relate to.

Targeted products and solutions: Being in a niche will help you to be able to make products and solutions targeted at your specific customers and this way, you can always have something new, a new idea, a new upgrade etc. You will always be ahead of the big brands when it comes to your niche. You can deliver valuable promise and experience which will always stand out from competitors. Conquer and know your niche. Once you can meet the needs of a smaller group and gain their trust, you will have no issues breaking into other market segments. Don’t be the regular jack of all trades and master of all.

For instance, if you are in the software development area, you could choose to niche and focus on banking products and solutions, rather than being the guy that does any and everything. In medicine, you can choose to focus on maternal and child healthcare. In creative designs, you can choose to focus on creating ads rather than just designing all kinds of graphics.

Every industry has sectors and angles you can approach it from. Find your angle. Find your niche and fly with it.

Nigerian investors like Okomu Oil Palm Company PLC which continues to perform well. Now BUA Foods has come along also. Yes, food companies are rocking it in Nigeria; BUA Foods will soon join the N1 trillion valuation club in the nation just days after it joined the board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

BUA Group has emerged as a top-grade industrialized conglomerate with capacity to present two brands in the N1 trillion club; BUA Cement is already there.

BUA Group listed a consolidated entity known as BUA Foods, a combination of its five food businesses comprising pasta, edible oil, sugar, rice, and flour on the Nigerian Exchange Limited by introduction at N40.00/s. The total shares admitted to trading were 18.0bn units of shares, with a market capitalization of N720.0bn upon listing.

This marks the first listing on the NGX in 2022. Given the great enthusiasm that trailed the stock listing, it closed at N44.0/s (8th most capitalized stock on the exchange). BUA Foods has a 1.5million MTPA Combined Sugar Production Capacity, eight ultramodern factories for producing rice, sugar, pasta, flour and 20,000 hectares of arable land located in Lafiagi, Kwara State. (Source: CSL Stockbrokers)

Watch the video below to see the translation and what this means for Africa’s empires of the future redesign.

It is indeed beautiful because just from nowhere, we will have a trillion naira company that came out of the agro value chain. As my video noted, while the knowledge economy era is on the way, the great wealth, at least in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, will be powered by companies in the cement, food and technology infrastructure domains.

This mirrors the two phases the United States passed through many decades ago: in 1917, the largest companies in the US were steel companies. Fifty years later (1967), technology infrastructure firms like IBM took over. Today, the knowledge firms like Apple and Microsoft run the show.

The Nigerian path tracks that redesign except that we’re merging two of the phases as explained in the video.

BUAFoods Plc, the newest member on the Main Board, witnessed a 10% appreciation in share price on Wednesday, to close at N44.00 per share from N40.00, taking the market capitalization from N720 billion to N792.00 billion after the trading session, gaining N72.00 billion.

On Thursday, the company also recorded a 10% growth in share price which can be attributed to investors’ positive sentiment which triggered buy-interests in the shares of the company inducing a gain of N79.20 billion in market capitalization from N792 billion to N871.20 billion, at the close of trading activities on Nigeria’s stock exchange.

The shares of the FMCG advanced from N44.00 per share at the start of the trading day to N48.40 per share, the highest price traded at the close of the market, to represent a growth of 10.00% which in monetary terms is N4.40.

Simply, before Nigerian investors will recognize those apps in Lagos exchange, they need palm oil and pepper for their soups, amala, etc. Once they are happy, the next transition will begin.

As the season of politics begins, let us reflect on the promises of Nigeria. Some like us who received the best from Nigeria feel extremely unhappy about the state of things. I graduated when banks used to use stadiums (hello, TBS Lagos) to do employment tests because halls could not accommodate their needs.

My humble self received my first job offer nine months before graduation. The job offered a driver, a Mercedes Benz, a furnished 3-bedroom flat and a great pay. That was Bourdex Telecoms, to work with Canadian expats. I left that one for another. And others came. Even when I picked the bank, I had to enter the plane, the very first time, to excuse myself from Schlumberger that I was not coming. My alma mater FUTO was a center where companies were coming to hire the best months to graduation. That was Nigeria. The offer from the university was there as a backup!

So, as the political shows begin, the pundits must ask tough questions. This nation used to be super-amazing. We all became big boys because we earned GREAT money. People bought good cars just 3 months into new jobs out of universities. Whatever Obasanjo was doing was working, at least from my view!

In Alade Avenue in Ikeja, my nickname  was Chairman for doing something simple: buy mamaput for Area Boys who used to be at the Alade Av//Fela’s family house junction every pay day.

Fellow citizens, do not allow tribe, religion, division, etc to cloud your imagination for voting the right person. The TV pundits must do their jobs and present where these men and women stand. If we vote for the right people the good days will return. 2023 is another CHANCE.