As I noted in a Tekedia Mini-MBA module on Competition, if your core playbook is to go to court to sue and blast your competitor into submission, on the grounds of IP (intellectual property) thefts, your mission might have expired. Simply, you rarely win markets via the court as a startup because the legal system is so convoluted that you may not even survive it, no matter the merit or demerit anchored on it.
This is not to say you should not defend yourself when your intellectual properties are used illegally. My point is that unless you make great products and services which customers find useful enough at the price points you are offering them, the court will not change the outcome for you! Young companies win on products and nothing more!
As Twitter plans to seek help from the court on Threads, in this age everyone does everything, including the bigtech integrating that product you have worked for years into an add-on, into their core products, what would you do as an African startup? In this Harvard Business Review article, I provide some tips on how you can compete in the age of Google, Facebook and bigtech when they seem to be doing everything and everywhere.
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In that piece, I asked a question – “Can African Tech Startups Succeed in a World Dominated by Facebook and Google?” My big answer is YES because those companies can also help you succeed. As I noted, see them as ICT utilities. In other words, just like your electricity company, water board, etc which you have to rely on, in your city, the asymmetric dominance of Google, Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, etc means you have to recalibrate to operate in their worlds. And if you do effectively, there is a huge opportunity therein.
In a newsletter, Firstbase shared how to identify promising business opportunities, via a wide variety of primary and secondary data sources that will ensure you’re on the right path to building a business that is positioned for long-term success. In the examples, you can see that bigtech can also help because they’re data reservoirs.
Customers: We guide you through one-on-one interviews, surveys, and observation. These methods will help you validate your business idea and gain a deeper understanding of your market.
Industry Associations: Discover how industry associations can serve as a valuable resource for finding market research reports and gaining industry-specific knowledge.
Investor Data : Explore the portfolios of venture capital and private equity firms, public market data, and aggregated investment data to find fresh business ideas and understand industry growth prospects.
Consultant Data : Market research consultants can provide a wealth of information about potential business opportunities. We’ll share tips on accessing free reports from renowned consulting firms.
Marketplace Data : Learn how to utilize Amazon and other platform marketplaces to gain insights into customer demands, product offerings, and pricing trends.
Search Data : Discover the power of Google Trends, keyword analysis, and social media platforms in understanding consumer behavior and identifying market trends.
Well said, prof.
"…see them as ICT utilities."
The application utility space is wide open for tech startups in Africa. There are a lot of gaps to cover.
— Elvis C. Umez (@elviscumez) July 7, 2023
My Response: It is like an oil well. If you do not have the tech to unlock the hydrocarbon, it means nothing. Africa has many latent opportunities but most times we may not have the resources to unlock them.
When business models work, moments happen as in the “America’s highest-paid CEOs” roll call.
America’s best-paid CEOs are not necessarily running its biggest companies. In 2022, six of the 10 highest-paid CEOs were not at the helm of S&P 500 companies, said The Wall Street Journal, citing C-Suite Comp data. While Tim Cook, CEO of Apple — the first company to close with a market value of above $3 trillion — made $99 million last year, the CEOs of Hertz, Peloton and Pinterest all earned more than $100 million, beating almost every S&P 500 chief. No one made more than Blackstone boss Stephen Schwarzman, however, who walked away with $253 million last year, beating Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s $226 million. Meanwhile, the world’s 500 richest people added $852 billion to their wallets in the first half of 2023, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, saw his net worth increase the most — adding $96.6 billion to his pocket in the last six months.
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If not lack of imagination and capacity, why would anyone think that the only route to successful enterprise is to repeat what someone is already doing? As long as everyone on earth is dissatisfied in one way or another, there will always be market opportunities.
If your aim is to build another Google, Facebook or Twitter, you may run out of luck, but you can leverage them or build something adjacent to them.
There are even more disgruntled people out there today than before, so they are all market opportunities, plug in where you can.