As I have noted before, nothing is more important in a startup than having the capacity to acquire new customers, easily. A startup must grow because without growth, the alternative is bankruptcy. So, over the last few years, we have seen companies introduce new roles like Head of Growth, Growth Hacker [we used that in a Lagos client two weeks ago], and Vice President of Growth. In a network effect business, the most important product is “many users” because the more the users, the more useful the product becomes.
You need to know that in a perfect online market, the marginal cost of a digital product, under most scenarios, is zero. But markets are not perfect. And that means you must find ways to deliver great values to users even as the marginal cost tends to near zero. Why? Customers in the digital space congregate more into an ecosystem when the marginal cost is very low. When you have a low marginal cost, customer growth improves and when that happens, you would experience a positive continuum of network effect where great products trigger more customers and more customers enable building better products.
Scalable Advantage (SA) is a nexus with numbers between 0 and 1 which is used to ascertain the organic capacity to grow an enterprise, by examining the inherent elements like marginal cost and external forces, within an unconstrained and unbounded internet economy, where if nearly perfect, all transaction and distribution frictions between demand and supply disappear, producing an SA of “1”.
Today, I want to ask you: What is your Scalable Advantage? Does it get towards “1” or “0”? The trajectory will determine how far that business will go. I have a simple chart to help below.
Join me on October 4, 2018 (Thursday) at an invitation-only special event in Ikeja Lagos to discuss cybersecurity under the World Bank’s Center of Excellence with Obafemi Awolowo University. Speakers are as follows:
Prof G. A. Aderounmu (Dean, Faculty of Technology, OAU, Ile-Ife)
Prof O.O. Eyitope (Vice Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University)
Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe (Chair FASMICRO Group, USA)
Dr Wale Adeagbo (COO, Halogen Security Group)
Through First Atlantic Cybersecurity Institute (Facyber), a Fasmicro Group company, we are supporting entities on cybersecurity manpower capacity building across Africa.
We have already given out many passes but we just got extra. Please email my community manager; she has the final decision: first come, first serve.
By this time in 2022, APC will select Bola Tinubu as the presidential flagbearer of the party for Election 2023. Mr. Tinubu will select a retiring governor from the southeast as his running mate. The main goal is to quench any agitation that 2023 will be the turn for southeast.
The present governor of Ebonyi state will likely be his running mate. Engr David Umahi will win with PDP in 2019 but will decamp to APC shortly. His “friendship” comment on President Buhari was not a lapse.
Largely, the best time to decamp as a governor is during the second term as you may not have to face any regional election. Decamping will be very popular because in my model, I expect Buhari to win in 2019 if he continues to show physical energy as he has recently demonstrated.
Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State
Then, once he wins, the recent effervescence in PDP with all the migration from APC to PDP will fade. These men did not migrate because of any core principle; they moved because they want to perpetuate their permanent interests: stay in power.
A PDP defeat in 2019 will cause massive dislocation in southeast with many term-limited governors. Some of those governors would not have much in play as federal power could sway some to decamp to APC.
2023 will be a consequential election in Nigerian history; 2019 is already history. With 5 months to go, PDP has not articulated any message. By this time last four years, we knew APC was coming for CHANGE. PDP needs to find a message fast to even have a decent outing.
After this note ran, I received the private message: “Sir, Why did you put a paywall on Tekedia.com your blog?”
My response:
“To get people to commit to read great insights, the human psychology has demonstrated that paid content is typically appreciated more than free one. To help my readers invest the time to read the most exclusive contents, I pushed them to spend that $20 per year. My blog has no traffic tracker as no one cares about traffic. Though we can make it free, my understanding is that few will value it if it is free.”.
First, you can subscribe here to read past, current and future contents.
People, this is not a business but it does not matter. It is a hobby. But as I explain in my workshops, and coaching sessions across Africa and beyond, the greatest enabler to wealth creation is business model. You need to find ways to monetize even your hobby while making those consuming the output better. As I explained in the Inversibility Construct and the Law of Diminishing Abundance of Internet, there are many things you can do online to thrive.
For the Inversibility Construct, you need to turn a typical frustration in the meatspace into strength in the digital space. That means, you need to INVERSE the experiences of people, so that what annoys them in the physical becomes strength in the digital space. I provide some examples:
In this videocast, I discuss what I am calling the Law of Diminishing Abundance of Internet. It is a construct that some companies become poorer even when they are growing in numbers of customers reached.That applies to industrial sectors like publishing and telecoms. The lesson here is that risk in any business model must be examined from the lens of this mirage abundance which Internet has provided in some sectors.
Even in that hobby, find a way to help yourself. You have the skills and capabilities – build on them. Anything can be a business – it does not need a business plan before it can be a venture. The key is figuring out how to fix frictions in the markets and be compensated doing so.
LinkedIn Summary of this Piece
Even in a hobby, find a way to help yourself. You have the skills and capabilities – build on them. Anything can be a business – it does not need a business plan before it can be a venture. The key is figuring out how to fix frictions in the markets and be compensated doing so.
As I explained in the Inversibility Construct and the Law of Diminishing Abundance of Internet, there are many things you can do online to thrive. We are in the age of dollarized hobby. And do not make a mistake of thinking a career can only be built by working in an office. If that comes or if that is what you want, fine. But if there is no job, see if what you have can support you.
What is it that you do well? Improve on it and people will pay you for it.
I do not write for money on my blog, Tekedia.com, but a young lady in my office made a case that she could monetize the contents. She did just that and I allowed her to do whatever that pleased her provided the content area has no adverts. She had explained that she was fine with only 1 reader per day than 100 free readers. She added the subscriptions. Her numbers look great.
She took off traffic tracker on the blog, making sure her decisions were not made on traffic. That is our community manager which many relate daily.
Understand one thing: we are in the age of dollarized hobby. Sure – even Nairalized hobby works.
Today, I want to wish everyone Happy Independence. Our nation needs leaders to “restore the dignity of man” [thanks UNN] with the “fierce urgency of now”. Yes, leaders who are unimpeachable, diligent, and pragmatic, with traits of decency, honor and service. With them, Nigerians will rise to the mountain-top, experiencing the unbounded promise of Oct 1 1960 as Green White Green rose even as British’ Union Jack was lowered.
People who can engineer Nigeria into rebirth and restoration to offer a prosperous nation that is colorful, fluidic, vibrant, and open for change. May Election 2019 deliver that promise even as we celebrate the sovereign liberation from Britain. The fangs of evil are still evident around the land as corruption, tribalism, and nepotism are derailing a once-dynamic nation. Nigeria must be independent from them before Nigeria can experience the true promise of Independence.
We need a Leader – a person of integrity, broad knowledge, enormous vision and solid experience; one that can stimulate more vibrancy in the private sector and move the public sector out of its stasis. With that leadership, Nigeria will witness changes in trade, education, and commerce as battalion of knowledge workers emerges to give us the needed clout in the global arena.
I re-share a message last year that our generation has a moment on this Day.
In Nigeria, everyone is a victim. The rich, the poor, the welder, the banker, and everyone. The rich citizens believe they have paid taxes and nothing is returned through government services. The not-so-rich citizens believe the nation has rigged opportunities against them. From the north to the south, east and west, everyone has a problem with Nigeria.
Take a trip to Bayelsa State’s Kolo Creek. You will see wealth out of the sands, but walk few kilometers from the flow stations, you will see poverty. As an intern for Shell, I slept inside one of those Kolo Creek buildings. I had the best food possible, but was troubled in the evenings when the villagers would gather looking for crumbs to gather for dinner. I wept; it was painful to see mothers with daughters eating from crumbs in the midst of unbounded wealth in their lands.
Then I was sent to an Akwa Ibom village close to the aluminum smelting company. We had gone to mount telecom equipment. As far I could see, the waters were polluted. Yes, waters everywhere but not a single drop to drink. That day, we went through Ogoni, connecting with boats to Akwa Ibom. The villagers needed water, but could not find any, even when living nearly on top of water. Very painful.
Then I left the East/South for NYSC, and went to the North. I was stunned. What I saw in southern Nigeria was even manageable. As a student that grew up in the East, the mindset was that North was a paradise and the Southern part was marginalized. I am not saying otherwise here. I saw small kids begging for food, at scale, in Bauchi. That was not a possibility in Owerri. My heart broke because everyone is really marginalized in Nigeria. I had a different perspective of Nigeria.
Yes, everyone is a victim, in Nigeria. The difference is the form. The kids I saw in Bauchi were marginalized just as the villagers in Bayelsa. Nigeria needs to work for them. Let men and women be selfish enough to fix our commerce and markets even as they get rewarded for doing so. Let the greed of capitalism work in the land. We are positioned and we have opportunities, far ahead of many of our people. If things are this bad now, imagine the post-petroleum era when our small national budgets cannot even be funded
