Vconnect has pivoted away from their core service of listing of Nigerian businesses, it is now a marketplace.
Everybody wants a piece of the ecommerce pie, why let Konga and Jumia have all the fun? Yet, I still have a deep gut feeling that there is always going to be a place for local search and that local search cannot be replaced by ecommerce.
The Nigerian startup space is littered with numerous takes on local search that failed. Some people might remember that before Konga, Sim Shagaya actually tried his hands on local search also with Gyst (later renamed Infomob) and the startup failed.
When the going gets tough, do we keep trying to stay afloat or do we jump ship and go with everyone else? I like businesses that set a vision and follow through with tenacity and never give up. People who keep digging into the core of their businesses without looking left and right and following the trends.
I think Vconnect was just about getting into mainstream attention now with the listing of over 1 million Nigerian businesses, I doubt if we had a close second. But now, they seem to have thrown that away and become yet-another-ecommerce-website.
I am observing in HD.
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Watching The World
- Tech hubs are springing up across the country. Check out nHub, a hub opened for the business of innovation in Jos.
- Paga has just raised $13 million.
