There have been men and women who successfully managed established businesses and brands, and yet when they decided to start up a business, they did not go far. There are also people who have started up a business from zero and grown it perhaps to $500,000 in revenue per annum but could not take it beyond that level.

Do you want to know why this is? Simple. It requires a completely different skill set to start up a business and takes it from zero revenue to hundreds of thousands in revenues. It also takes another set of skills to take it from that stage to a multi-million dollar revenue company. This is why you see some founders grow the business to a point and then step aside to let some other people take the business to the next level as CEO.

At the very beginning of the business, from the pre-launch stage, you need entrepreneurial leadership to move the business up to the point where it could be generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. At the next stage, it requires managerial leadership to move the business to a multi-million dollar company, and if the business has to get to the point of being listed in an exchange, it requires corporate leadership for that stage. Of course, intensive personal development could lead one person to have all of them, but it is not often we find such people.

In subsequent posts, I will talk about the skills needed for the growth stage of a startup but today, let’s look at two critical skills a startup entrepreneur needs to have.

Creating the product

At the very start of the business, all you have is an idea, and maybe a strong conviction that it can solve a problem or series of problems. The onus is on you to build or create a product from that idea, and you need to have the skillset for it. You should be able to create, modify, and continuously tweak the product until you get what the market needs.

This is a skill that not everyone may have. Some persons may be good at driving growth in sales, but not so good at creating it. Some others may spend months on the drawing board planning and replanning but unable to create an acceptable product. As a startup entrepreneur, product development is a key skill for you to possess. The presence of a product/solution is equivalent to an official announcement that the business has started.

Engaging and on-boarding initial adopters

Another skill that is critical for the entrepreneur at the startup stage is the ability to engage and onboard early adopters of your idea or product. This could include partners, investors, friends, and family, your first 100 or more customers, etc. This skill is different from that of moving the products into the hands of hundreds of thousands of customers.

At this stage, you are dealing with a small customer base. This is more like the point where you have to convince the first set of persons that the product is worth trying out. You may not have a huge capital to fund massive marketing at this point, so a lot of it will depend on your personal communication, networking, and marketing skills.

Once you have gone past this stage, the next skill set needed is for the growth stage of the business. We will talk about that in a subsequent post.

Emerging Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) market, which is becoming widely adopted, is about to take a hit. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said Thursday it is opening an inquiry into its popular programs.

The financial watchdog said it is particularly concerned about how BNPL impacts consumer debt accumulation, as well as what consumer protection laws apply and how the payment providers harvest data.

“Buy now, pay later is the new version of the old layaway plan, but with modern, faster twists where the consumer gets the product immediately but gets the debt immediately, too,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.

“We have ordered Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, PayPal and Zip to submit information so that we can report to the public about industry practices and risks.” The findings from this inquiry will be published later, the CFPB said.

The move comes a day after six Democratic US senators on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, including Elizabeth Warren, wrote a letter to the CFPB, urging it to look into potentially abusive practices in the industry.

“While the emergence of BNPL as affordable small-dollar credit has potentially provided an alternative to more costly forms of credit, these products also have the potential to cause consumer harm,” the senators wrote.

“Nonbank BNPL providers currently operate without meaningful oversight. They are not generally subject to federal supervision that can spot unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices or other violations of federal consumer protection laws,” the senators added, noting that “consumers may be unaware of these regulatory gaps and may be erroneously led to believe that credit obtained from a BNPL provider comes with protections that are similar to those for credit cards.”

BNPL programs came to life following the outbreak of COVID-19 and have been spurred by a surge in online shopping, largely created by the shift to digital life.

BNPL firms have seen record growth buoyed by the trend. Affirm shares have nearly doubled from their initial public offering price. The company announced a deal with Amazon in August. And Klarna has become one of the world’s most valuable privately held startups with a recent valuation of $45.7 billion.

However, the watchdog is worried that installment buying could encourage consumers to spend more than they can afford and juggling multiple payment plans can be harder to keep track of.

This year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping weekend “saw massive growth in BNPL,” the CFPB said.

Following the announcement, Affirm’s shares closed down 11% on Thursday. Australian companies Afterpay, Zip and Sezzle dropped 8%, 6% and 10% on Friday, respectively.

Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, PayPal and Zip have until March 1, 2022, to gather detailed information about consumers’ shopping behavior, fees, loan performance, users’ demographics, data collection and other elements of their business models, according to the CFPB edict.

This is coming at a time when the U.K. government is also planning to introduce BNPL regulations. Part of the regulator’s aim is to put the companies under the auspices of the Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates financial services firms. The legislative research, which is expected to end Jan. 6, is being handled by the Britain Treasury Department with the help of BNPL companies.

Some of the companies who responded to the CFPB’s investigation said they welcome the move.

A spokesperson for Klarna told CNN Business that “we believe proportionate regulation is a good thing and set the standard by providing consumers with an interest free, fair and sustainable alternative to credit cards.”

“Through this process, we believe those benefits will be made abundantly clear and will continue our work with regulators to inform them about how our products are structured, used, and benefit both consumers and retailers,” the Klarna spokesperson added.

Zip said in a statement Thursday night that it “has always believed in transparency and we welcome the opportunity to continue sharing insights with the CFPB’s research and markets division. We have a shared mission to prioritize consumer financial wellbeing and as such we applaud the CFPB’s dedication to consumer protection.”

It added that the company “already abides by a number of federal and state regulations and we will continue to prioritize regulatory compliance as we create consumer-friendly products and services.”

The offense of dangerous driving.

It’s Yuletide. The time of the year where most people engage on road trips to their different destinations. Motorists tend to drive with total disregard to road signs, over speeding and driving recklessly.

It is the writer’s advice that even as you embark on your road trips for the holidays bear it in mind it is an offense, a serious offense in Nigeria to drive recklessly and cause the death of another person or drive at a speed or manner which is dangerous to the public.  This offense carries the punishment of not less than 7 years jail term for the offender.

This is the provisions of section 5 of the Federal Highway Act. This provision will be reproduced here for your perusal:

Any person who causes the death of another person by the driving of a motor vehicle on a Federal highway recklessly, or at a speed or in a manner which is dangerous to the public, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including the nature, condition and use of the Federal highway, and the amount of traffic which is actually at the time, or which might reasonably be expected to be, on the Federal highway, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of seven years.

It’s better to drive carefully and resist the urge to over speed so you don’t become an offender with seven years jail time waiting for you.

We just finished now the presentation. Here is the link to the recorded video.

“The 2022 Outlook – Nigeria, Africa, Global: Potency of Entrepreneurial Cambrian Moment” – Ndubuisi Ekekwe