The journey from where we are right now to where we want to be is increasingly looking long and much endurance would be needed.
We all know that there is a lot of mobile solutions that would greatly simplify people’s day-to-day life if they were there, but they are not. We still do not have working portals for most Nigerian cities or even student communities, we do not have a simple and convenient way to make payments on mobile. Anyone who looks into what the future would look like and then comes back to the present sees a lot of opportunities and of course, a lot of work to move from here to there.
As Iroko TV clocked 4 recently, the founder and CEO, Jason Njoku had a lot of interesting things to say about their journey. I found this part the most interesting to me:
In Africa we are super early. I feel even in 2016 and 2017, we will still be too early for widespread data-driven long form video adoption and consumption. As everyone who isn’t a betting company has realised, Nigeria is immature for most internet startups.
The hard work at this point is not really to build stuff. Building an app now is so “easy” that anyone can do it. You can even get an Indian developer to build it for you in a few weeks and you are done. The hard part would be to convince enough users to patronise you so that you can generate enough money to stay alive. While you can attest to the popularity of various Nigerian betting startups, I am yet to see any Nigerian internet startup go mainstream yet. (Konga and Jumia both seem to be on their way, Nairaland had a good shot too)
If we are still in the dark times and yet we are sure the light will come (It has to, everyone will switch to modern, faster and more efficient tools digital technology makes possible), then we must not allow the journey to wear us out. It is a lot of work, hard work. But it is doable, we can definitely hold on.
