He was featured on Forbes under 30, list of young millionaires, celebrated far and wide by friends and well-wishers, even the “God-Wheners” who envy his success as an Entrepreneur and a young African force to be reckoned with. That was Obinwanne Okeke, a.k.a Invictus Obi, the founder and CEO of Invictus Group of Companies, not long ago. He was basking in the glory and honor of his successful empire until a few days ago, when the FBI’s investigative wind blew toward his castle and exposed the skeletons his empire was built upon.

In a painstaking investigation, the FBI revealed that the high flying young man, whose investment in real estate, energy and construction, is operational in 3 African countries namely, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa, have been a kingpin of wire fraud. The $11 million graft investigation started in June 2018, when the victim, Unatrac Holding Limited, a UK headquartered caterpillar and industrial heavy duty machines company filed a complaint with the FBI, reporting that company has been defrauded through email phishing.

The Bureau went to work, started connecting the odds and putting the pieces together to find that the email address of the company has actually been compromised and the traces are pointing to Nigeria. There was a well calculated move that took the unsuspecting company unaware.

According to the FBI’s Affidavit, on about April 2018, Unatrac’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), received a Phishing email containing a weblink, purportedly to the login page of the CFO’s online email account hosted by Microsoft office365. When the CFO opened the link, it led him to a phishing website crafted to imitate the original Office365 login page. Not concerned about the legitimacy of the page since it appears the same, he put in his login credentials and they were all captured through the spoofed webpage.

After capturing the legitimate credentials, the Fraudster was able to log into the original Office365 email account and accessed the entire information. For over 464 times, he accessed the account, gathering information and planning how to use them.

Satisfied with the information at his disposal and with full access to the account, Invictus Obi started working full time. Manipulating templates, cloning invoices and receipts, forwarding them to partners and clients of Unatrac.

During the period of unauthorized access, activity logs show that the Invictus created modified filter rules for the CFO’s account on seven occasions between April 10 and April 17, 2018. The filter rules intercepted legitimate emails to and from employees on financial team, marked them as read, and moved them to another folder outside the inbox. Thus, he hid from the CFO, responses from the individuals he was sending fabricated emails.

It was on the belief that those emails were coming from the CFO that the company’s financial staff processed and transferred in installments, the whooping sum of $11 million. And it was too late to recall by the time it was discovered to be fraud.

Wondering how in the world Invictus Obi was able to pull that off? He had a degree in forensic criminology with distinction. So his criminal mind outsmarted the unsuspecting protocols, and the fraudulent proceeds were worth the risk. But as smart as he thought he was, he gave himself away with one important detail – his email.

Invictus Obi, in his smartfulness created REDACTED emails and phone numbers to carry out his schemes. One of those emails happened to be his company’s email that he has severally used to apply for US visas. He was still in the US when the FBI uncovered that and issued a warrant for his arrest.

So the wind did not only expose the skeletons beneath his castle, it also shook the foundation so that it comes crumbling. But not only for him but several others, especially those doing legit online businesses in Nigeria. The green passport has taken another jab, and the impact will be felt at the airports, seaports and shores away from home – especially by the innocent.

Those whose only crime is to live in geographical territory where criminals thrive, and to share the same means of identification with them when it matters. Their cry of innocence wouldn’t change the status quo, and their good reputation will make no difference. It’s the index finger that got dipped into the oil, but the rest of the fingers got stained by it.

It is no longer news that Gokada is on a 12 day journey to improve its services. The question then is why do you have to take a break before you can improve your service? In this piece, I will highlight a few developments that I believe informed this move.

1. The Need for Blue Ocean

Within two years of growing activities in the motorbike hailing space in Nigeria, the small drop of water has turned into a great ocean and surprisingly it’s now a Red Ocean. With players like Max.ng, Gokada, ORide, the movement of activities changed. Price is no longer a big deal as ORide came with a ridiculous price that left others with no hope.

What then can possibly be done differently? The answer is Service! Professionalism must be weaved into the fabric of any brand that will compete with ORide. This is primarily what GoKada set out for.

In the note released by Fahim Saleh (GoKada Co-C.E.O.) he said “It’s not easy criticizing your own company. But either I could ignore these issues and move along happily like everything was fine. Or I could realize that this kind of thing is happening to our customers thousands of times over. I am not ok with that. Gokada was started to change the perception of what the bike taxi could be in terms of safety, convenience, and transparency”. 

This was a statement that narrates his unpalatable ordeal while trying to hail Gokada bike from Lagos V.I. to Third Mainland Bridge.

He believes the brand is far from fulfilling its promise (safety, convenience, and transparency).

I also have a series of experience with different motorbike hailing brands. So, I can talk about how service can make a difference. The best of my experience is always when I take MaxOkada, there’s this premium feeling that accompany their brand, from the type of bike and helmet to their champions’ (MaxOkada called their drivers Champion) driving skill. However, Gokada and ORide hardly give me the same feeling.

Fahim however stated that the 12 days shutdown will result in improved service from the brand with a re-trained Pilots on using navigation and adequate use of the app for service delivery, new set of bikes, among others.

My Take: Price will take you far but exceptional service is the only guarantee to keep you up. Sure, Gokada has received a great hit in market share within this break but if they can be back with a significantly improved service, then, I can speak of their survival.

2. The Loss of Key Resources to Competitors

Like I stated earlier, the most obvious reason is the need to create a Blue Ocean however, a lead to this need is the loss of key resources to their competitor (ORide).

In less than a year, Gokada has lost key resources as high as its Co-founder to ORide. Below is a list as reported by WeeTracker.

1. Awolowo Moses: Awolowo Moses was the co-founder/COO of Gokada. He currently works as the Director of Business Operations at ORide.
2. Ebunoluwa Shipe: served at GoKada as Head of Driver Support/Experience, currently working as a Senior Operation Manager at OPay
3. Awe Oluwakayode: currently working as a Senior Operations Manager at OPay but previously as Driver Acquisition and Road Operations Officer at Gokada.
4. Akinwale Afolabi: left Gokada earlier this year (Feb 2019), and joined OPay May 2019 as the Senior Manager, Growth and Marketing.
5. Riders Dumped GoKada for ORide: there are reports that upon confirmation that a driver is from Gokada, he will get a sign-on fee of N36,000.

Report also has it that both Jumia’s dispatchers and MaxOkada riders have been poached by ORide.

So, I believe this is a big blow that can lead to service inefficiency for Gokada hence the need for urgent restructure (Gokada 2.0).

While working on a better service, I will advice Gokada to also pay a very good attention to Talent acquisition and retention because it’s all about PEOPLE.

Photo Credit: originally the Game of Throne season screenshot.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final and complete set of features are only designed and developed after considering the feedback from the product’s initial users according to Techopedia. 

As an entrepreneur or founder, there are a lot of risks you face in business, it is therefore your responsibility to ensure that you have a Minimum Viable Product that won’t fail when it’s introduced to your prospective audience. This is one of the most difficult tasks of an entrepreneur because your Minimum Viable Product can determine if you will continue or halt your entrepreneurial journey, depending on your attitude and disposition.

The question now is how can you create a Minimum Viable Product that will interest customers? We share some helpful tips.

Identify an actual problem

Any innovative, viable and scalable idea or product must be aimed at solving a particular societal problem. This will ensure that the idea won’t hit the rocks from the initial phase. No matter how fantastic your idea or product maybe, if it does not tackle a human problem; it will definitely fail. Before going further, ask three questions to figure out whether the path you’re heading down is a useful one: 

• What problem is being solved? 
• How is this product’s solution better than the competition? 
• Is this an issue that occurs frequently enough to keep customers coming back? 

These questions are critical to a development process that will result in more than something that just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Identify how the product will fit into users’ daily lives

While it isn’t possible to check out every single use case for a product before it’s released, there are ways to get an idea of what typical use might look like. Develop representations of a variety of users with their own stories surrounding when and how they use the product. Knowing what the user is doing with your product helps bring a project into focus and indicates which features will be useful in the final product, and which can be scrapped or delayed for future versions.

Perform frequent A/B tests

Just because a product works well for developers doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to do the same for real-world users. To avoid succumbing to unseen biases, perform A/B testing when possible to better capture customer preferences. A/B testing is a significant part of the Minimum Viable Product. It will help decide on which features, approach, design, and branding to be modified throughout multiple prototypes to best drive user behaviour and increase audience buy-in.

Consider the design process & user flow

Design the product in a way that is convenient for users. You need to look at the product from the user’s perspective, starting from opening the product to the final process, such as making a purchase or delivery. In addition, user flow is an important aspect as it ensures you do not miss anything while keeping the future product, and its user satisfaction in mind. To define your user flow, it is necessary to define the process stages; and, for that, you need to explain the steps needed to reach the main objective. 

Build your MVP

Once you have decided upon the main features and have learned about the market needs, you can create your MVP. Keep in mind that a prototype is not lower quality than a final product, and still needs to fulfill your customer’s needs. Therefore, it must be easy to use, engaging, and suitable for your users.

The world has moved from the stone, iron and bronze ages to the jet, digital or modern age. One of the central cores of the present age is the social media. A large number of people will find the link to this article on social media platforms. Social media is robust with real-time attention. Timelines are filled with reaction and raw responses. Opinions are wielded like swords. Political and popular figures are skewered with aplomb.

ICT has turned the world into a global village with the chief tool to achieve this being social media. One can access life transforming messages through social media platforms, distance barriers in relationships have been broken, and with just a click, one can access the current news, and world trend, amidst a few to mention. Everyone has to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone involved in this evolution.

Social media is often referred to as the worst and best thing to have happened to this generation. It is a platform where billions think they are connecting with the world, but are disconnecting with reality and connecting with only illusions.

The allure of social media is the desire to be seen, omnisciently seen, if not always affirmed, at least always put in view of others. It promises to protect us from athazagoraphobia — the fear of being forgotten. So we impulsively connect, from the moment we wake up to the moment we must surrender ourselves to sleep.

It is a panopticon, a type of prison in which you never know who is watching. A panopticon is a type of goal that was proposed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham in which a single guard tower stood in the center of a prison in which guards in the tower can visually see every inmate in their cells causing the inmates to have a feeling of paranoia because they can not tell who is looking. Isn’t social media like this? One can update my status on Facebook and in seconds get notifications of likes and comments.

But not to be deceived that is not the number of people that have viewed the update. With one click, marriages have been shattered and visions destroyed.

The world is full of illusions. Magicians use myriads of things to trick people into believing the unbelievable and capture their attention. Today, a large percentage of people engaging in social media also perform this kind of magic. Life is full of illusions but social media has amplified this. Many put in their profiles who they are not, there are the tools we have to update our status, share pictures and perform magic that can make who we would like to be in the real sense. With everyday, social media is moving us from the real world into the magic world.

It is easy to get the impression that friends are more famous, powerful and knowledge than they really are these days. It is also easy to form the impression of the nice guy or lady than in real life. Everyone of us must be humbled enough to accept we have fallen for this magic before.

With the tools available people look more beautiful or handsome than they’re, locations can be changed, voices can be made more sonorous amidst others. Truly, with social media all that glitters is not gold.

Millions go to the extreme ends with social media today. Why? Because with social media racking up likes, comments, and follows has become a way to measure someone’s worth. A writer starts to measure the worth of his or her article with number of likes gotten.

And with everyday, we disconnect with people near us while fighting to connect with people far from us.

Next time you are posting something – ask the critical question – do I just want a reaction or something else?

The search for perfection embodies our social media and in that hunt we are deviating everyday from who we are to who we wish to be with a less appreciative manner in the society.

In the 1890s, physiologist Ivan Pavlov discovered that when he rang a bell to signal mealtime to dogs, they would begin to salivate whether he brought food or not. Many researches have been done in recent years to confirm his findings. Brain researchers have found that people have more brain activity anticipating a reward than receiving one. With this, whenever the ping of your phone rings it sets off a dopamine loop in your brain. Dopamine isn’t simply a pleasure chemical but a wanting chemical. With this, people send all kinds of pictures and messages hoping for responses.