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Business Idea #6 – Car Repair, Home Improvement Lending via Artisan Contractors

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
0

This daily series focuses on business ideas for those looking to launch new ventures in Nigeria (and Africa in general). The short ideas are archived here.

The Problem

Cars break. Homes need improvement. Finding funding to do some of these things is hard in Africa. Largely, you either have the cash or you will be forced to abandon the project. It does not have to be that way.

The Opportunity

There is a clear need to provide lending in some of these areas. The plan will be to make it possible for a fintech to provide on-the-spot financing for repairing cars, home improvements, etc by using a network of the contractors that do the job for end-borrowers. By using these contractors to lend to borrowers, the fintech can reduce default rate since the contractors know the customers better. There is a possibility to deliver great service to customers, and yet profiting at two levels (i.e. both sides) of the deal with no risk of default.

Action Roadmap

A bank will be the lender while the fintech will be the underwriter. If fintech has funding, it can handle the lending itself. It will work with contractors like mechanics and home renovators to deliver services to customers who need loans to fix their cars and homes.

There is aggregation construct here: the fintech is the aggregator with the contractors working for it. For the fintech, the business delivers double-side profits at near-zero default rates. The fintech has to focus on recruiting the contractors while the contractors look for the borrowers. Typically, these are customers that call these contractors for services. The contractors will present the financing options to help the borrowers finance their needs. The contractor will be the executor of the service. I present the full process flow here.

PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI APPROVES NEW APPOINTMENTS

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
0

PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI APPROVES NEW APPOINTMENTS

Following their confirmation by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria has approved the following appointments:

(i) Mr. Anthony Okechukwu Ojukwu – Imo State (S/E)

Executive Secretary,

National Human Rights Commission.

Initial term of five years.

(ii) Mr. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa – Ondo State (S/W).

Non-Executive Director,

Niger Delta Development Commission.

Initial term of four years.

(iii) Hon. Chika Ama, Nwauwa – Imo State (S/E)

Non-Executive Director,

Niger Delta Development Commission.

Initial term of four years.

(iv) Mr. Nwogu N. Nwogu – Abia State (S/E)

Non-Executive Director,

Niger Delta Development Commission.

Initial term of four years.

(v) Professor James Momoh – Edo State (S/S)

Chairman,

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Initial term of five years.

2. The appointments take immediate effect.

(Signed)

Olusegun A. Adekunle, Esq.

Permanent Secretary,

for: Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

[Apply] Vice President’s Office Offers Equity Free Capital to Startups in Southeast and Northcentral

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
20

This is a good opportunity to get support for your startup and business if you operate in South East and North Central. The deadline is May 5 2018. It is the Office of the Vice President that is coordinating this.

Startup Nigeria is an intervention of the National Social Investment Program (NSIP) under the Office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as part of the program to support private sector innovation hubs  for the strategic increase of entrepreneurial and technological capacity across Nigeria.

It is a 3 month incubation program designed to help Nigerians with great innovative ideas – create viable products, go to market and gain traction.

The program will provide training, mentorship and equity free funding to selected startups, with a specially curated curriculum designed specifically to help idea and early stage entrepreneurs find their footing and grow in Nigeria’s socio-economic terrain. Startup Nigeria gives founders the needed leverage to excel.

Other startups that don’t get accepted into the incubation  program will also be able to access support in business model generation, customer acquisition and other business engineering skills – from Startup Nigeria representatives located in every state in the North Central and South Eastern zones of the country.

North Central

Any Individual or start up who has an idea or a solution in Agriculture and Governance as it affects the North-Central Region or the nation as a whole. Your state of residence or startup must be located in any one of these states; FCT, Benue, Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa or Niger.

South East

Any Individual or start up who has an idea or a solution in Commerce or Fintech as it affects the South-Eastern Region or the nation as a whole.Your state of residence or startup must be located in any one of these states;Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia or Ebonyi

IDEA STAGE APPLICATION

If you are still at the idea stage of your product, you can apply to participate in the Startup Nigeria Hackathon from which you get a chance to qualify for incubation

EARLY STAGE APPLICATION

If you have a startup with an MVP that falls into the listed sectors you can apply directly for incubation

Deadline – APPLY 7 APRIL – 5 MAY 2018

Business Idea #5 – Election and Campaign Tool for 2019 & Beyond

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
2

This daily series focuses on business ideas for those looking to launch new ventures in Nigeria (and Africa in general). The short ideas are archived here.

The Problem

Nigeria will hold general elections in 2019 covering local, state and federal offices. With the permanent voter card (PVC), pure rigging will be largely curtailed since every PVC will produce one vote and the total number of votes cannot exceed the number of issued PVCs [the anomaly between PVC and voters register .has been updated]. Consequently, politicians will need to take their messages to the constituencies because power will be in the hands of the electorates as old-style rigging like ballot stuffing cannot just happen. Communicating, collecting data on voters, sorting and aggregating them remain a huge challenge in Nigeria.

The Opportunity

Provide data systems for parties and candidates. Using these systems, the candidates and parties can reach voters for their votes, and communicate their visions. These parties and candidates will pay for the services, ranging from mobilization, voter sensitization, get out the votes, etc.

Action Roadmap

Use big data and analytics [this includes web, SMS, apps, field data, etc] to build election/campaign tools with capabilities to handle elections/campaigns from ward to presidential levels. The tool will have the following features among others (I detailed a possible system architecture here).

  • Mission-oriented platform with secure and intuitive architecture core to win an election for the candidate
  • Allow volunteers at polling places to update the camp’s database of voters in real time as people cast their ballots. This will help the campaign deploy resources more efficiently and wring every last vote by knowing those that have not voted.
  • A data-driven tool to discover voters which can be targeted and persuaded to vote for the candidate
  • Technology has three core modules – Field, Analytics and Digital – and unifies the voter file, various field offices, the analytics people, the website, and mobile elements.
  • Targeted and efficient communication via email, SMS and other methods to voters
  • Empower field workers with tools that provide on-demand political intelligence. In real-time, gives state’s offices information on volunteer activities – number of voters persuaded, their locations and feedbacks
  • CtizenMatcher: Outreach opt-in Facebook plugin that target and can send direct messages like, “Your friend, Uche in Minna, hasn’t voted yet. Go tell him to vote.” It has an SMS version also.
  • A tool that engages voters with measurable metrics and manages volunteers from the Campaign Headquarters.

Imbalance: Fixing Nigeria’s Geometric Problems with Linear Solutions

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
-
1

It has been extremely tough knowing that I am living in this generation where nothing (catalytic) seems to work in Nigeria. The last few days have been unbelievably shameful: killing of priests, kidnapping of soldiers, sacking police station, jumping senator from a moving car, killing of farmers (again, again and again), and add your list.

In my business, I receive reports weekly from teams. Last week, one began with “Sir, our risks are no more just markets but sovereign-infested quagmire where our strategic imperatives are uncorrelated with elements of any efficient economic systems. We have asked men to stop work in […] to make sure that girls and boys will have their dads tomorrow”.

Many of us pray. Please pray for Nigeria. This is no more about APC and PDP– this is Nigeria.

What can be done to help our leadership to fix these issues? Keep politics out of this: what can Nigeria do now? My concern is that if we do not fix the root causes, they grow out of control because our capacities to provide solutions are linear [arithmetic progression] while the stimulating root causes are geometric [geometric progression]. Simply, any problem not solved today multiplies faster than our ability to get the problem under control in future. I see massive hopelessness anchored on unprecedented unemployment as the main root cause: that is the gray lizard.

We have a big problem in Nigeria right now. Unemployment is destroying the promises of a generation of young people. With extremely limited decent labor entry points, our young people would lag their peers in career developments within years.

In America, they talk of black swans: ” high-impact risks that are highly improbable and therefore almost impossible to predict”. Yes, “an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences.” That is it: “something extremely rare”. So, because it is rare, you do not (usually) plan for it. Arab Spring was a black swan as the leaders of North Africa could not have modeled that risk.

In Nigeria, we do not just have black swan. We have gray lizard. It is a high impact risk, that is highly probable and evidently visible but totally, widely and irresponsibly ignored. The massive youth unemployment in Nigeria is a gray lizard. Governments see it daily but it is totally ignored.

We need to CREATE jobs in Nigeria. It may be time to bring $1 billion home [from the foreign reserves] purely to stimulate job creation through SME growth, and possibly see if the companies can help provide jobs in the nation. I have proposed how these jobs can be created in Nigeria . The greatest weapon in our nation is the economy. Yes, while we spend $1 billion on weapons [guns, grenades, etc], there is also a need to invest in the growth areas so that we can use jobs as weapons against insecurity. If we can have average of 3,000 jobs per ward within a year, things will improve across Nigerian communities.

Our problems are in geometric progression while our solutions are coming in arithmetic progression [source: trans4mind]
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