I went in person to give Zenvus Enterprise Award for 2018. Chief Uche Sylva, CEO of Rewardn, made us better; with his partnership, we found new markets and territories. The quest to cure cure extreme poverty continues.
Rewardn is a leading soil water trap which works on different types of crops. It increases the water holding capacity of soils and generally enhances plant growth. With Rewardn, water and nutrients are available in the root zone for optimal absorption by plants. In agriculture, use cases include tree planting, nurseries, transplanting, landscaping, large scale farming, etc.
Also, Rewardn provides a buffer effect against climatic hazards with applications in erosion control, land reclamation, land embankment, among others.
The Nigerian government has hinted that it would establish an Entrepreneur Bank to help fund companies. Vice President Osinbajo dropped the hint when speaking with women traders. This bank would become a more structured form of TraderMoni, MarketMoni, and FarmerMoni through which the government has used to offer micro-credits to micro-entrepreneurs. The vision is “a bank that will be a bit more nimble about entrepreneurship; a bank that has a bit more flexibility”. Certainly, government has given up Bank of Industry which was designed to seed enterprises as a local DFI but transmuted into a colossal bureaucracy, demanding sureties that only those with rich uncles can have.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the federal government plans to establish an Entrepreneur Bank to provide flexibility in provision of facilities to businesses.
Mr Osinbajo disclosed this while fielding questions from a cross-section of women traders at a programme tagged `Next Level Conversation’ on Monday in Abuja.
The women, who were mostly entrepreneurs, were drawn from the education, environment, agriculture, real estate, hospitality among other sectors.
The vice president said the issue of giving cheap loans to small businesses had featured prominently in the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
“We have been able to deal to some extent with small and micro businesses; we have TraderMoni, MarketMoni, FarmerMoni; which are basically very small credit schemes.
“We are also looking at an Enterprise Bank or an Entrepreneur Bank which is one of the types of establishment we are looking at.
While I commend this micro-effort to fix the funding paralysis in Nigeria, the nation needs reforms to stimulate real capital injection into the economy. Government cannot be involved in all these areas: private sector can do them more efficiently if government offers the path for companies to make money, and do well for society.
Government should offer new VC (venture capital) firms in Nigeria a ten year tax incentive on profits if they have asset base of at least $50 million and will deploy the capital in Nigerian startups within 10 years.
Offer new VC firms in Nigeria the opportunity to repatriate 100% of profit within ten years. That will help the country to attract foreign investors to make Nigeria home.
If we have this type of incentive, we will see many VC funds making Nigeria home to explore opportunities in Nigeria and continental Africa. That influx of capital will have many multiples of benefits to our economy, our people, and the Nigerian technology space. Most especially our tech firms will stay home.
Yes, Entrepreneur Bank can have asset of $100 million but Nigeria can unlock $50 billion through smart reforms in the venture capital and private equity sectors. Mr. Vice President should take that conversation to the next level and push for reforms in the capital market. We need entrepreneurs and not just small business owners; TraderMoni is for small business owners, VC capital (and similar funds) create entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs build nations; TraderMoni supports families.
A LinkedIn update has something that looks like a real miracle: Aba is going to get a makeover just the way you want it. Yes, those things many have written including yours truly are about to happen in the Enyimba city. If this Leather City Park works, by 2030 Ibom Deep Seaport will be running. Yes, they are connected as building the seaport will become an urgent national project.
Platform Capital is pleased to announce the ground-breaking ceremony of its Leather City Park (“Leather City”) and NIBRA Designs Limited (“NIBRA”) – a shoe production initiative in Ariara market, Aba, Abia. The shoe factory will be the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, leveraging world class Brazilian technology.
The NIBRA facility will launch with an initial capacity of 10,000 pairs a day, growing to 100,000 in 5 years. The project is scheduled to be commissioned by Q4’2019. NIBRA will employ 1,000 people for a start growing to over 5,000 in the medium term. Under secured offtake arrangements for our initial installed capacity, we will serve domestic and international markets. Leather City on the other hand, will provide opportunities to increase productivity and product quality for a significant number of the 120,000 individuals currently in Ariara market.
We at Platform view this as a transformational initiative for the state of Abia, the entire South-East region and is a testament to Nigeria’s tested entrepreneurial spirit. Our sincere appreciation goes to our partners who have made this possible.
This represents further validation of Platform Capital’s growth strategy, where we take a long-term view with a bottom-up approach to value creation.
I welcome Platform Capital, the investor, to Abia State (God’s State) and certainly wish the team the best of luck in my home state. Our governor has waived taxes to anyone investing. I personally took that opportunity and invested in my state. Take advantage of this and invest in Abia. If you have any issue, email me, I will connect you with the government people. We are serious in Abia State on development.
May I note that Obinna Ekekwe is the commissioner of Strategy & Development – he is the best commissioner in the nation!
In this video, I describe three ways to build and monetize software systems. Essentially, these are the main three ways all software solutions are monetized.
When I was starting my electronics business, I sent hundreds of business plans to investors, no help came; none wanted to hear about hardware business in Africa. Then, I stopped writing business plans and started working on Business Models, using small savings from scholarship support. One model I arrived for Africa was partner-driven strategy. With that model, you can enter markets without raising money as partners will help you fund the products, and also distribute them.
Loci which I announced here on Saturday now has hundreds of Partner applications. If these Partners place orders and we fulfill them, our products will be in the market. Magically, we will not need to raise any single kobo except the development cost which is largely minimal.
In Q2 2019, our business will launch a platform-anchored hardware product, named Loci, engineered for both consumer and enterprise markets. As a company built on partner-first go-to-market strategy, we are looking for partners across Africa.
Our solution will work in the following sectors: security, transportation, logistics, and general mobility. This product is coming out of a real market friction I faced when I visited Nigeria in October 2018. So, we do think many are experiencing the same challenges. Hence, we want to hit the market with a solution, using available proprietary technologies we have already developed in Zenvus.
The biggest challenge in hardware business is that it works on scale. Most times to get that scale, you raise tons of money which means you have huge inventory risk. I do not follow that path: I rather invest in the engineering and innovation and ask my first-level customers to INVEST in the product. Those customers are the partners.
Response on Loci is superb; we are excited
Using that model, we can be in 30 countries without having to raise any money from investors. The partners do the business development, marketing, etc. We simply create contents, documents and systems to support them. Sure, we share the gains with them, and we are very generous in that space.
To all the potential partners who had sent emails, team will revert. We are still asking for partners to send emails and indicate interests (contact us here). The opportunity we are addressing is huge and the product we have is superb. It would be great moments for everyone: we want to work with you all.
LinkedIn Summary
First, thank you all the prospective partners who have applied to work with us on Zenvus Loci. This is highly appreciated. Interestingly, I am using this process to teach our young hardware entrepreneurs a business model lesson: investors rarely fund hardware startups in Africa. Over the years, I have developed a strategy to get products to market. That strategy is partner-driven strategy.
By the time we are done with this process, we will have all the funds we need for production run. Then, once we produce, we ship to partners who then distribute the products. Magically, the products are in the market even though no capital was raised in the usual way.
The key thing is building trust and relationship so that partners can give you a window to deliver. Without that, it would be challenging since electronics is a volume business. You need volume to reduce unit cost and when you do not have access to tons of capital, you struggle. But an alternative exists: do not eat alone, and if you have that philosophy, help will come.
I have said this always – the best investors are CUSTOMERS. They can give you money to build a business if your vision is great. Besides product innovation, business model innovation is catalytic.
