The best place to do business right now is on The Internet! Outside The Internet, you either have no opportunity or the opportunity you have is limited by lack of cash and logistics. There are so many businesses you can do online that you dare not try offline.Between the last 15years and now, great companies have emerged from The Internet 100% from the scratch, without reasonable financial investments. Today, they control the world. The two biggest examples are Google and Facebook; these Online based companies started few years ago with almost nothing - No reasonable funding, no sophisticated technical entourage, and no names. Just few years after they were founded from practically nothing, they now control the world with cash, own some of the most recognized brand in the world, and boasts of some of the world's best technical sophistication!
Within the last five years or so, the Internet awareness has become more pronounced. More and more people are finding The Internet and using it. In Nigeria alone, close to 50million people is said to be using The Internet and throughout the world, the number of internet users are in billions! With this greater awareness comes greater business opportunities for everyone.
Just like Google and Facebook, you and I now have the opportunity to take any business to the Internet and leverage these billions of internet audiences. But while guys in The United States of America and other parts of the world are getting it right and raking billions of dollars on the Internet, Nigerians are busy getting it all wrong. Apologies to few great Nigeria Techies like Jobberman & co who are really getting things right. Millions of dollars kept going down the train as a result of lost opportunities in online businesses in Nigeria due to mediocrity.
From what I've seen so far, it seems as though the online business atmosphere in Nigeria is dominated by sycophants who are too lazy to get simple things right. Yet they think of nothing other than cash and how to make money online but never interested in learning exactly how business on the internet works.
Fortunately, There is medicine for every sickness but before we talk about the solution, let's identify the problems first. In this post, I will tried to identify some of the major problems militating against the online business in Nigeria. Go through it and see if you're guilty of any of the mistakes and you have to be honest with yourself.
Here are the top 10 Internet business flaws Nigerians commit:
1. Lack of Concepts - Ninety percent of Nigerian trying to do business online are just copy cats. Granted, you do not have to invent the wheel to make something out of your internet business since almost every thing you could think about already has someone doing it. However, you need to reinvent the wheel by picking an existing idea and adding some new concepts into it.
Instead, what Nigerian online business aspirants usually do is: Copy the idea, copy the site design, copy the logo design, and copy the name and everything else - hoping to make it just like the one they've copied. The truth is that you can't make a silk-pulse out of the Internet let alone build a brand when you lacked concepts of your own.
2. Bad Domain Names - Like I've said in my previous lectures: Get your domain name wrong and get your business wrong - Get it right and put your business on good foundation! The trends among Nigerians is to either start their domain name with "Naija" or end it with "Ng" or both. Google wouldn't have made as much impact on the Internet as they are doing if the domain name were to be AmericanaSearchEngineUS.com.
Even Corporate Nigeria companies such as Punch Newspaper, Glo Mobile, and Vanguard Newspaper - All of them operate their websites on laughable domain names. Please, understand that the companies and individual in the USA who invests millions to buy quality, brandable domain names are not fools... You can't build a great brand online with wacky domain name.
3. Lack of Creativity - Most Nigerian websites usually looks like the famous African Ankara prints. Sun Newspaper & Thisday Newspaper websites for instance, are nothing close to how professional news website should be - they look more like a music download website and porn site respectively. There are no creativity or intellectual investment of any kind in those websites!
You can tell that a website is of Nigerian origin from afar, not because of it's creative design but because of how poorly and unprofessionally developed it is.
4. Chronic Laziness - You blog only when you're sincerely willing to blog - You don't blog if you know you can't blog. Most Nigerians who claimed to blog are just pretenders who only do copy and paste. They're too lazy to think and too lazy to write, yet they want to be called 'Bloggers'.
Blogging is intellectual endeavor, it's not a cheap occupation neither is it for charlatans; true Bloggers stays overnight thinking and writing what readers could read the next morning. I wrote this article awake all night - that's why I'm proud to be called a Blogger. You can't copy other people's work, paste on your website and expect to be great at what you do.
5. Much Eyes on Money - The only motivating factor for online business Nigerians is money and that's not healthy. It's good to have your eyes on the prize while you run the race but, if you overly focus on the trophy, you'll miss the track and loose the race.
All the great businesses you see online today started with services in mind. As they focused on the services they intended to render and get it right, the money starts coming naturally.
6. Not Willing to Invest Money - You want a free anti virus, free operational system, free laptop, free internet connection, free domain name, free web host, free everything. The implication is that you end up undermining your business in effort to get all things free.
Good businesses are built with money and good money for that matter. Be willing to spend money to build your business. Reputable sites are hardly on share hosts, let alone free one. When you put your site on servers where other cheap sites are, whatever sin they commit, yours will become guilty by association!
7. Unwillingness to Learn - So many things I do online today, I learned by merely observing others. I wonder why those great sites online with quality designs and quality services are not enough for Nigeria online business guys to learn from. The answer is that they are not willing to learn.
You can't be good at what you're trying to do when you are not willing to learn new tricks and follow the latest trends.
8. Self Deception - The number of Nigerians who parade themselves as online experts in subjects they know almost nothing about is mind boggling. Especially affected are those seminar and MLM guys who teaches stuffs and claims to earn big online.
If you assume the status of expert when you are still a learner, your prospect of growing in online business will be greatly undermined.
9. Internet Trends Bug - Because there are too many opportunities and prospects online, people tends to loose focus and try to follow all things. Nairaland is big - everyone wants ho have a forum. Linda Ikeji is blogging entertainment - everyone wants to setup blog on entertainment news. Tomorrow, another great thing comes up and you abandon all others and move in there.
That's what I called "Internet Trends Bug." Until you define your goal, choose your niche, stick by it, and never let go no matter what - until then, you will keep getting things wrong. You can't be here and there and expect to make it in online business. You must take your stand on one niche and work it out.
10. Social Factors - Average Nigerian prefer to work in environment that carry so much bell and whistles; Politics, entertainments (Music and Nollywood), and corporate employments. Even when they try doing business on the Internet, they do it halfheartedly.
Naturally, everyone wants to have good things but few are willing to work for it - If you want good internet business and online success, you got to work for it. Start by choosing your Niche very carefully. Let's have your opinion by dropping me a comment below.
I love this! Well said. Nigerians are copy cats, that's why they can't make money in the internet business.
ReplyDeleteYou ideas of your own to pursue with passion.
Very insightful my brother; keep up the good work!!!!
ReplyDeleteNice work: very educating and straight to the point. Keep up the good work; God rewards. Really inspired.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful my brother; keep up the good work!!!!
ReplyDeleteInteresting read. Now everybody wants to have a retail store online, offering free delivery. I wonder, what is the profit margin if you sale Groceries of 5,000 and yet offer to deliver the goods free of charge (you either create your own logistics or use Fedex, either way it is a cost centre) or you offer Pay on Delivery? Bross, the goods have left your warehouse, what if the customer change his mind? what if the delivery guy cant locate the address? So many variables, all cost money. I always wonder if these companies crunch the numbers before making these promises. Ahhh, I forgot, Lagbaja is doing it, he must be making money, so I must do same.
ReplyDeleteWell said. Some people who are going into eCommerce offering pay on delivery should understand that Konga and Jumia are well funded by foreign investors. Yet, I don't see them making profit that is proportional to the level of investment they are putting in.
DeleteIn my own opinion, pay on delivery is even killing eCommerce niche and internet transaction generally in Nigeria because it's making Nigeria customers not to develop the online payment culture which is very bad and supportive of the internet business growth in Nigeria.
People can be nasty and loose all sense of good judgement when they are exposed to unlimited funds, and I think that's what Mr. Shagaya and co are doing. I never know Shagaya to be very successful with his internet ventures despite the huge funds he always attract. I expects someone like him who is highly connect to The Silicon Valley to have done more.
I think i learnt something here. Please who will help me to create my own website? Thanks a lot.
ReplyDelete