I have been very busy lately working on my new start-ups. One is a recruitment search engine and the other is a mobile content network.

This two startups would work seamlessly together, but the before, that is the recruitment search engine is still in alpha, and only the mobile content network is ready for beta testing. I have started sending beta invites to people and the response I have received so far is very positive.

The new mobile content network is named Advertfarm. Advertfarm is a mobile content network that delivers permission based content to its members via their mobile phones.

Advertfarm currently provides daily stock alerts, free sms, reminders, and job alerts to its members, who in turn get bonus points that is convertible to products on its website. We provide a variety of content on a subscription bases from our partners to your mobile phone.

We share the revenues generated from our partners with our network members. We allow our members to opt in and opt out at anytime. We have privacy policies in place to address all privacy issues that relates to the usage of our service. We only send our members contents they want to receive, and pay them by sharing a percentage of the revenue in doing so.

We are working on an API that allow businesses to plugin our signup module on their websites for their campaigns, in return we provide a discounted broadcast of their campaigns to their members. That should be ready by June

We would be partnering with a lot of agents would be representing us in their locality. For more information visit Agents Registration.

We have an interactive forum that allows agents, members and the staffs of Advertfarm to discuss on general topics, and also share information on how we can improve the network.

Advertfarm is still in private beta, and I have 10 private invites to my blog readers. If you are interested just comment so, and I would send you an invite.

The other start-up is Nairajobs, which is a recruitment search engine that provides you with live updates on jobs availability on your mobile in real-time. This would work seamlessly with Advertfarm, but its still in alpha testing mode, as there are still a few things I need to fix, so please stay tuned.

I came across a very shocking news on the internet today, the Senate President of Nigeria David Mark, in a news report titled “Nigeria has no apology for 419 victims” says and I quote

“I have no apology for victims of 419. If somebody asks you to bring, say $200,000 in order to get $20 million in return without investing anything concrete or rendering valuable services and you go ahead to do so. If you are ripped off in the process, you should blame yourself and not the system”.

This is very insensitive of him, to use an umbrella to qualify all victims of 419, is literally saying all scams by criminal minded Nigerians is allowed and the victims deserved to be scammed. On behalf of myself as a Nigerian citizen, I hereby denounce his statements, he does not represent my thoughts or opinions, but rather represents his illiteracy in the subject matter. He is uninformed on the depth of 419 scams in general. Many victims of 419 have been caught unaware in mimicked legitimate business deals with criminal minded Nigerians.

I hope he would withdraw his statements by correcting them appropriately and putting them in proper context, before this statements of his gets misinterpreted and acted upon.

I feel sorry for Nigerians that are so uninformed about the depths of 419 scams, and I hope our Initiative would help in educating the uninformed Nigerians, on why we should act and why it is wrong to think the victims deserve to be scammed, because that is the impression the Senate President made.

Yes, I am a Nigerian and no I am not a prince nor the son of a rich ex president or minister, wanting to share my riches with you, Rather I am a young entrepreneur and developer trying to change the world. The good news is, this is my blog and not your email box nor even your spam box.

The image of Nigeria today has been tarnished, the damage is beyond measure, and there is no is no doubt about that. The most troubling issue is the fact that every single day, within every single hour, some Nigerians in Nigeria and overseas have dedicated their time and money to ensure that the reputation, stays that way.

Crazy as it may sounds, this happens to be true. This group of Nigerians are called the Yahoo Yahoo Boys, they plague peoples email boxes with money laundering proposals every single day, in fact within every hour of a day, the probability that you would get their proposal is growing to 1. They are traitors and deserve to go to jail.

The question now is, how do we, the other innocent 140 million Nigerians in Nigeria or the other 50 million plus Nigerians overseas do to actually fix this problem? Well we can scream, lament, complain or even try to be intellectual about it, through seminars and conferences on re-branding Nigeria. We can even just debate about it, but the fact and reality is, such efforts has been ineffective, as the daily the rate of advance fee fraud emails streaming from Nigerians or people pretending to be Nigerians, is alarming. I won’t bore you with the the detail on the type of emails they send, but I would tell you how we can put a stop to this.

So what would work?
A proactive measure is definitely the answer. We need to set-up an initiative that monitors, reports, and ensures that this traitors go to jail. This is my simple and straight forward proposal.

1. We set-up an in initiative that contributes through individual expertise in law, enforcement and information technology.
2. We set-up a one dollar per member per month fund, where members donate just one dollar every month.
3. We set-up branches across the globe with at least a branch per geographical region that takes reports, process reports and liaise with its headquarters in Nigeria to investigate matters and ensure that they are brought to book.
4.We Set-up a website that keeps a database of convicted perpetrators, our charters, members, finances and things we do etc
5 Lastly we keep the initiative running on a 24/7 time slot, through the contribution of man power by its members.

What can we do with the money.
1. We can provide monetary rewards to local based informants that provide evidence that leads to the arrest of reported cases.
2. We can run our headquarters in Nigeria with a well funded legal department and technology department, that would work primarily to ensure that this perpetrators are brought to book.
3. We can run talks and shows and represent Nigeria in telling the world what we do to stop this problem and how we are doing it, and how they can help.
4. We can set-up a library that provides free internet, books and training in usable skills like programming and web design
5.We can set-up a micro-start-up fund for entrepreneurs that have great ideas but lack funding resources to ensure it happens.
6. We can do all the aforementioned and much more..

CAN WE DO IT?
Yes we can, if we try.

Imagine 1 million Nigerians across the world donating 1 dollar every month to this initiative?
Imagine Nigerians for the first time from all walks off life, across the globe coming together with one purpose and one goal?
Imagine a Nigeria without any Advance Fee Fraud email emanating from it?
Imagine a re-branded Nigeria?

This is not my Utopia, but this is a world you and I can create for our generations and generations to come through this priceless effort, which I would like to call The “SAVE NIGERIA” Initiative.

Are you interested in been part of this initiative?
Send me an email at me[@]kayodemuyibi.com to tell me how you can help in saving Nigeria. I would love to read from all of you, and I would try to reply as fast as I can.

This might sound very unorthodox of me, but localizing your web start-up is the way to go in some countries in Africa. Don’t get me wrong, It is not a myth that the internet creates a global frontier for your web based business, nevertheless global sales requires certain tools and experience to guarantee patronage not to talk about even a success.

It would be myopic  to underestimate the potential of your local nationwide market, with an effort to target a global market from inception. Targeting a global market from inception creates a huge burden on your small business and presents a lot of logistical challenges.

Lets take an example of your web shop in Nigeria with an inventory located in Nigeria with a global market target. Here I am assuming the shop accepts credit cards and is able to deliver its products to anywhere in the world within 7 days.

I am also assuming that the products cost you about $10 USD from your supplier, and you want to sell it at a 10% mark up price for $11USD. I am also assuming that the credit card gateway you are using charges about 2% per transaction, and your per unit shipment cost comes to about 40% of the cost price of your product.

This makes your total selling price of the product to come up to $15.20 USD. You would realise that, for every product costing you 1 dollar,you would end up selling it for about an approximated 52% above the cost price per unit, whereby I am assuming that you provide free shipment for your products. Now would that make your products very costly? Yes?

So what should web based shops in this locations do?
Web based Shops in a disadvantaged location should focus on their local nationwide market. This would allow them to create enough volumes, which thereby could allow them to benefit from overhead cost reduction through the law of economics of scale. By localizing you would be able to understand running a business on the internet, learn from certain mistakes, experiment with certain  with a much lower cost in a more controlled environment. In the future you could always consider expanding to the global frontier, and all the experiences gained from the local market would come in handy.

Economies of scale, in microeconomics, are the cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. This are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as output rises. : Wikipedia

Do you have a localized or a global web based business in Africa?
Tell me your story through your commentaries.

I have been a little bit troubled by our standards in evaluating startup solutions that are worthy of celebrating and that which are not worthy of celebrating, in our dotcom industry. I am using the “our” in this context, to address dotcom start-ups in Nigeria, as I am a role player, and because I don’t want to be accused of being a “traitor” to the Nigerian dotcom industry.

I have on several occasions came across start-ups being featured on Nigerian technology blogs without benchmarks and in-depth scrutiny on the quality, effort, standards and even whether the solutions help or contribute to the targeted community in any way.

What I believe this mediocre start-ups need, is an in-depth objective analysis to help them improve on what they are lacking or doing wrong, and also how to become a case study worthy of celebrating.

I am not going to point fingers as that defies the purpose of this entry. Rather, I would make an effort in not celebrating mediocre Nigerian start-ups.

I don’t see how celebrating mediocrity would help in encouraging young Nigerian start-ups to grow and develop in the competitive world of today?

I would start featuring Nigerian dotcom start-ups that are worthy of mention, and from time to time I would feature mediocre start-ups with an objective analysis and an in-depth scrutiny on why they should go back to their labs.

Do you have a Nigerian startup you want me to review?

Yes? No? Until then, I leave you till tomorrow with

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”
Socrates quotes (Ancient Greek Philosopher, 470 BC-399 BC)

The bad news is, our business in Nigeria, is facing a lot of challenges,  in the battle of the US Dollar vs the Nigeria Naira. The US Dollar appreciation against the Naira, has caused our business tremendous pain and agony. Our business in Nigeria has lost about 50% of its revenue to the currency market this year alone. Its disheartening. At 180 Naira to a dollar from 120, our bills cost us 0.50 USD cents more for every dollar we spend paying the same bills we paid last year.

We rely on a US backbone in running our services to our customers in Nigeria, hence 90% of our cost of running the business goes to the USA in Dollars.

What Strategies have we considered

1. Increasing the cost of our products and services (This could hurt our customer acquisition efforts)
2. Hedging against the dollar (its too late, because it seems that the Dollar against the Naira its at its best high)
3. Doing Nothing, and hoping the position would reverse soon (This seems to be our best shot as we are not aquiring any loss yet, winks:)

Is your business affected by the appreciation of a foreign currency?
Let me know through your commentaries.

This post was inspired by an entry on “Ubigen” titled “In business, are you a Chef or a Cook?“. His post was more directed towards answering

What should a business be? A cook? Or a Chef?

I am going to deviate a little with my own perspective of business itself.

So My question would be, Does your business develop products and services that taste like chicken or beef? If either, how does your business cater for “vegetarians”. Or does it cater for meat lovers only, because it is niche oriented? Or perhaps not?

My questionable analogy delves into various debatable areas, such as what a business should look like and should run like, in general.

What should a business look like?
A business should look like a very particular dinner party thrown by a host that catered for all the invited guests that still remains memorable in our mind.

When you design a business, even if its a niche based business, all your customers for that particular type of business should be catered for, in the way your business presents its products and services.

This can be done through analysis on the kind of customers your business expects and how this customers are different from one another. This is done through developing a product and service that caters for all your expected customers, thereby giving all your different type of customers the perception that the business was specifically developed for them.

When you design a business environment, you need to keep in mind, what makes your products and services acceptable to all your targeted customers, hence during designing your product or services, you should keep all your customers needs and expectations in mind.

What should a business run like?
A business should run like a charity that takes money for a thoughtful cause.
Your business should run like a charity, and treat every single customer like a contributor with a thank you note. A charity treats all their contributors with great respect, understanding and unmeasurable appreciation for donating. Your business should do the same.

Your business should also be able to operate with or without you, through the design of a system that ensures that all your business process can be done with or without you.

Now what do you think a business should look like, and run like?
Let me know through your commentaries.

Most smartphones of today including the one I use, The HTC Touch Pro support
1. MMS
2. 3G
4. Cut and Paste
5. and even stereo bluetooth.

To Apple marketing department this is a “COOL” feature, and I guess they got that right with the “WOW” buzz they created with the release of their iPhone OS 3.0 software, which according to them is the next version of the world’s most advanced mobile platform. I am sure this would lock in new buyers.

Perhaps I should get one too?

WOW

Yes she is..The time magazine (March issue) had an interesting coverage on Investing in Africa with a case of a bank in Togo “Ecobank”. Ecobank employs 11,000 people and has 620 branches in 26 countries with an excellent balance sheet of $8 billion dollars, and not only that, it actually makes money in the current world economical crisis; it made a whooping 32% profit in 2007 amounting to $104 million dollars and its up 47% this year.

Why is Africa the perfect destination for investment today?
1. Africa’s average annual growth from 2004 to 2008 according to the IMF is more than 6%, which is better than any developed economy.

2. According to the world bank Africans living on $1.25 a day or less dropped from 59% to 51% from 1996 to 2005, and has decreased further.

3. According to the February Issue of AllAfrica Journal, two Oxford University economist by the name of Collier Paul and Witney Schneidman wrote in an advisory to President Obama during his campaign and I quote “Africa, usually the poorest performing region in the world economy, is now likely to be among the best performing”.

I could go on and on with references, which beats the point.  It seems that Investors from China are the only investors actually flocking to Africa for business opportunities. This is acknowledged by the fact that trade between Africa and China has grown to an average of 30% in the past decade, topping $106 billion last year.

The rest are busy either saving Africa from poverty and sickness through pumping money into ineffective aid programs or watching Africa with Scepticism. This needs to change, as Africa is open for business.

Do you think, Africa is the best place to invest now?
Let me know through your commentaries.

Social Networks are extremely addictive and bad for you and I. I am loosing my discipline !! Not only me, even some of my friends are lamenting, as they have grown from spending 2 hours a day browsing the Internet to spending more than 6 hours parading social networks, from one network to another, depending on which connects them to friends, to which allows them to share their pictures and even to which tells their friends and colleagues what they are up to at that particular moment. The variety of what you can use social networks for today, is alarming.

Social networks developer’s themselves don’t make it easy on you, as they have spent millions of dollars and would continue to do so, into building a platform that glues you to their sites and help them convert the dollars into more dollars, hence making their shareholders happy.

A social network like Facebook, allows you to stay  updated with your networked relationships.  Twitter on the other hand allows you to communicate on what you are doing at a particular moment to your followers, and  I can see that many members are already using it as a chatting platform, to blabber their thoughts away and get responses to the blabber. I doubt that the developers had such usage in mind, during development.

How many Hours do you spend on social networks?

Do you spend more than 2 hours a day on any social network? If you do, then you surely need help. You can start by helping yourself make a list of things you gained through spending such an amount of time on a social network and comparing it with your daily goals in life.

I spend approximately 2 hours on week days and perhaps more on weekends, that I have been missing my book and magazine reading timetable.  I  spend most of my time reading up on picture commentaries, following up on status post, and even the links in facebook. I feel sorry for myself, as I have started deteriorating intellectually, on a daily basis, thanks to this social networks. Don’t get me wrong they have their justifiable usages and perhaps applications, but certainly wasting my precious hours in them, is not one.

I don’t learn anything new on this social networks, hence they are more of an instrument to waste of my time than a platform to actually benefit from.

How to avoid wasting your precious time on social networks?
1. Have a list of things to do online and assign time to them.
2. Don’t go drifting into checking every status and picture commentaries you see on this networks.
3. Use the logout button once your time expires, I mean it. Staying logged in would lure you into checking out something else.
4. Make a list of why you visit this social networks and ensure that you actually benefit from the lists.
5. Ensure you follow 1-4 religiously.

There are some usage of  social networks which doesn’t fall under this category such as
- Business Networking
- Public Relations for Businesses
- Marketing
- Organisational Collaboration
and even
-Keeping in touch with distant friends

Do you feel or think otherwise? Let me know through your comments…