On Oga Jason Njoku..

Ola Dolls,

Been a minute I know but I will not abandon ship. It is important to me that I document this journey. My audience might be small but it very important to me. I want(NEED) for my daughter to one day read this blog and know that her mother fought. Valiantly.
 So it's official, am running a tech startup. Never in the world did I think I would. It has all happened by accident. But in re-thinkng my business and getting a business model that would work for just little old me, I've stumbled onto something. No details, I am not giving the keys to kingdom away. This town is rife with copy cats.

The Oga!

Back to Oga Jason, tech giant n Lagos, Nigeria (scratch that,the world), been reading his blog and his story is nothing short of remarkable. To say am inspired is an understatement. The man is a visionary. I am bereft of what to say. If you are a player in the tech scene in Africa,I  recommend you go read his blog (the entire thing). He is launching(or has already) Irokotv in East Africa. A friend and I were debating that we(East Africans especially Ugandans) are not ready for that yet. Data is still expensive. Yes, there are 6.5m Ugandans online but what are they doing. Facebook, Porn and Sports betting. No one is willing to spend 100mb(2500ugx) on watching videos. Even I don't download videos when they are sent to me via watsapp, I ask the content of the video and if it's useful, I download. And I never ever download anything larger than 5mb. So streaming movies seems like a far fetched idea. We both agreed that this man has not done enough research and is just stumbling into this region.

Well, soon after that, this friend went to buy a battery for his phone at one of the malls in town. A few minutes to 7pm, the shop attendant went out to buy airtime and proceeded to load a data bundle worth 100mb. His reason, he was going to watch the NTV news bulletin live via the recently launched app. Mind blown!We checked later that evening and the app had already been downloaded more than 5000 times. In 3 days! Oga Jason is onto something.

For the longest time ever, I have wanted to meet Dangote. Not to ask for a handout mind you but to know how he could turn a small retail firm into the amorphous conglomerate it is today. I believe in enterprise yes but there is no need to reinvent the wheel,copy, edit and paste works just fine.I actually asked Robert Kabushenga to host him for the next Pakasa forum. (He responded that he would try). I have a new request. I want   need to meet Jason. As if I needed another reason to go to Lagos.Tsk tsk. Saving up for that ticket money is on! I leave you with this snippet from one of his articles;

"Ecommerce was another naked opportunity a year ago, today that opportunity has disappeared. Done. Between Jumia and Konga, I speculate they have raised $50Mn+ in the last 10 months. All of the future funding will be absorbed by those two as they duke out to be the number 1 in Nigeria and Africa. Everyone else, the 60+ guys racing around attempting ecommerce should polish off their resumes or go niche. I would rather go niche. There are big businesses within the cracks of the big bland consumables. Search there for your alpha. 

Today is today. Stop the delusions of grandeur of a successful future. Some distant alignment of events which will connect to make you the next Dangote. The future is 5mins in front. What can you do today to own your market tomorrow and thus control your future." 

Bisous.