How are these “uninnovative” ideas/companies doing today? Anyone with status updates? Essentially, the comments that followed that statement was “we’ll see”. I think the time has come for us to “see”. It’s exactly 2 years now.
I can’t fault their logic. The Nigerian market is difficult. Investors will be wise to pitch their tent with proven solutions. Think about it, who Nigerian innovative company really don epp? This is assuming you define innovative as something completely not in the market anywhere. Borrowed concepts don’t count as innovative.
You know hotels.ng is a Spark company, right? And that bus.com.ng/insured.ng was acquired. Last I heard, Foto.com.ng is still running. Oh, there is Spark 2.0 now and OgaVenue just got in, and that my friend, is a good business, if not better than hotels.ng. Tolet raised $1.2m recently.
Spark’s companies might not be grand scale rocket surgery type of companies, but we can never say they fund companies that lets you pray, and give testimonies online. And in the same post compare it to Facebook and iPhone.
I really don’t see the point of this. All these “I told you so” taunts of investments don’t help. The last time it was about Kuluya. And it does even less good pitching those funds against each other.
Besides it was 2014 and everyone was giving away money. Not picking up some then is still one of my regrets.
Did you read their response defending their portfolio? Oh, this is not a “I told you so”, and nothing like Kuluya’s.
I mean, a tech accelerator/incubator, I no longer know the difference these days, posted an article with the title: we don’t invest in innovative companies. And you don’t think it’ll be interesting to ask what the outcome has been after 2 years. OK sir.
Or do you expect/think anyone working on anything close to grand or interesting or “Innovative” will pitch them? Do you?
Fuelvoucher is doing well. The parent company Seamfix did a billion naira project with MTN later this year that saw the bosses smiling to the bank in new cars and cribs.
FV is doing well. I know someone who works there. Never heard of the rest.
Not trying to put down a man’s hustle, but some ideas eh…
Every time I hear of this, I think “Are you for real?”
And the pitch…to me, the pitch… I’d better
One thing about investments: it’s their money, they can do whatever they want with it.
I’ve never used Prayerbox, but there’s nothing wrong with that pitch other than his revenue model, and being a startup is about figuring out which model(s) work best for you.
How is Snapchat a stupid idea? the idea was refining an existing idea: Connectivity and Networking…Reason Social Network sites sell is how easy or faster they can connect us…Seriously what would a Prayer app do for you that you cant do on your own and in church???.
He asked a valid question, there are like 20 or more Accelerators/Incubators/Hubs who market they will help xyz startup reach IPO in xyz years and preach how they are the best thing to happen to the tech industry only few years down the line( After collecting Money from LPs abroad and home) you find out their cohorts are still roaming the place trying to acquire customers.
For the sake of Showcasing they just accept everyone into the cohort, do a shallow demo day event and thats the end you hear of the guys, i think that is not helping us truly as an Ecosystem.
If we cant actually have strong Startups who can grow how then can the industry grow ehn?
touche!