Good People, I write daily here using Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Aliko Dangote, Tony Elumelu and other business leaders as case studies on business and entrepreneurial capitalism. But as a teacher of the Word and a Scripture Union kid, I also teach business with case studies from the Bible, drawing from the management and leadership experiences of Nehemiah, Jesus, Paul and others.

Join me at TREM Port Harcourt as noted. For members in Lagos, one is coming for Deeper Life in April. 

As we say in the Scripture Union, the next praise will be better because more songs will be delivered. Yes, 2022 will be great professionally because newer business models will be invented.

Happy Sunday.

There is this quote that if you build it right, the customers will come to you. Allow me to tell you that in the real world of startups, this is not always the case. No matter how excellent or perfect you have built your product, customers will not just come to you until you figure out a way to get them to learn about your product in the first place. You have to get them to the product or get the product to them.

Besides learning about your product and adopting it (customer acquisition), they also have to share it with others via word of mouth. This is the point when you begin to create velocity in demand and momentum for your business.

Let’s talk about how NOT to go about customer acquisition especially when you are a startup. Adopting a paid system of getting customers as a startup may seem like a good idea for you but there are a couple of reasons I don’t quite agree that it is.

First of all, if there is anything you have in short supply at the start of your business, it is funds. So, why would you channel the little or much you have towards buying users? It is neither sustainable nor does it give a true reflection of the situation of things at any point in time. If you have to pay to get customers, how then can we judge the actual market acceptance of your product? How do we know your numbers are not just improving due to money spent? What happens when you choose to stop whatever you are spending? Do these customers remain loyal?

Spending a lot of money on advertising to acquire users can mask the fact that people may not actually want what you’re building and it is important that you know very early, how needed your products are.

A good way to spur up excitement about your business can be the launching contests, giveaways, and promotions. Again, this may not be sustainable in the long run but it can help gather the initial momentum and with a good strategy, you can make headway with it. The shares and tags can get you jumpstarted on your campaign.

There are several ways to acquire customers, but if somehow you can get it done via word of mouth, it will be cheaper for you, and more sustainable in the long term. Social media shares, reviews, customer feedback, tags, and likes can be great ways your customers can help get the word out about your business.

Another thing you could do is blog relevant content for your audience. This shows you to be an authority in that field, while also providing your customers with relevant material they could find useful. It could be how-to articles sharing with them tips. If you are also able to contribute these contents to an established blog, it could work for you. You may not be able to get the press to write about you, but these articles which you contribute can contain backlinks to your site and bring hundreds and thousands of potential customers to check you out over time. It would be a win-win since you are contributing content to those sites, while also creating backlinks to yours.

Also writing Op-Eds can be of great help to you. Again, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement between you and any established blog you choose to work with, and you would be expressing your thoughts on industry trends related to your product or service.

If you have to choose between organic and paid, Organic growth should always be the way to go unless you are only interested in growing your vanity metrics without any actual impact on your growth metrics.

Happy New Year. Please as you plan your corporate training for 2022,  we share that we offer corporate training services in Tekedia Institute. Yes, Tekedia Institute offers virtual (online) corporate seminars, courses and workshops to startups, SMEs, NGOs, companies and public sector entities. On engagement, we design, develop and deliver live corporate seminars, courses and workshops on many business domains (see below) using our 200+ global Faculty.

Areas Covered

These are sample areas we cover; if your area is not included, please we will work to serve you as we have deep capabilities on most domains. Just let us know your area, and we will work to prepare for it.

• Logistics & Supply Chain Management
• Business Innovation, Growth & Sustainability
• Business Transformation & Project Management
• Risk Management
• Business Administration
• Innovation & Design Thinking
• Accounting, Auditing, Forensics & Taxation
• Workplace, Teams, Communication and Collaboration
• Media, Advertising & Branding
• Startup and Small Business Management
• Exponential Technologies and Singularity
• Marketing and Sales Management
• Digital Business Growth
• Agribusiness Management
• Human Resources Management
• Personal Finance & Wealth Management

Go here and learn more about this service and register your company. Watch this testimonial by a United States Army 20-year veteran on the quality and impact of Tekedia Institute.

Some of Africa’s market frictions cannot be fixed by software alone: we need hardware startups. Yes, you may have the best software skills, but to help certain sectors, you would need to have a physical device.

In the oil industry, software can help you in the reconciliation process, but before that can be done, you need sensors to collect the data. The same applies in agriculture and healthcare sectors where before the data can be processed and analysed, sensors must first collect them from the soil, land or humans.

Largely, the deal is this: without hardware, the impact of software will remain limited in Africa in helping communities and firms. Sure, software will eat the world, but hardware must first cook the world for it.

In this piece, I explain how hardware can become a moat, in Africa, at a certain level, to protect entities from the competitive voltages of the global ICT utilities which continue to take territories using the power of the positive continuum of network efforts and size. We need hardware startups in Africa!

Hardware Startups Are Rising in Africa