This is a ThrowBackThursday story on how not to start a startup in Nigeria. Ideas can be all beautiful, sound fantastic and even actually have great potential. Do you know what the problem is? Potential. If all you have is potential, you are like:
That thick cloud that have gathered but refused to rain, or
That sneeze you so badly wanted to come out, you will almost sneeze (one of the best feelings ever), but you never did…
Even with seed funding and promise of another major funding round, CashMadam failed. It would’ve been “Big?” today if:
Verbal consensus were put on paper: It’s not enough to trust or assume that everyone on the team understands; make sure to write them all down on paper and all that it’s binding.
Verbal consensus were put on paper: It’s not enough to trust or assume that everyone on the team understands…
Verbal consensus were put on paper: It’s not enough to trust or assume…
Proper paper works must be laid down in the beginning. You don’t necessarily need a lawyer (if you can’t afford one), write the consensus down in plain language first (even if it’s in an email or email attachment).
My dear entrepreneurs, pay attention to your first and early steps. Don’t say “s/he is my friend” or “we’ve never quarreled since we became friend X years ago”. If you are not able to set ground rules from the early days (starting from day 1) and formally agreeing to these rules (in the form of Founders or pre-incorporation agreement), please don’t start a co-founder this or co-founder that; unless you are starting alone. People (even your friends, even me) may change so fast, and you will be pretty badly burned in the process.
Be bold! Demand for a pre-incorporation agreement; then build an amazing team and product. Remember if it’s not working out well, change method, change the idea, change fast until something is looking good. If the other party is not changing “at-all-at-all”, leave/quit while your honour and respect are in tact.
#HowMarketNah
If you were inspired by this, kindly touch my mah-kate here.
I lost a good business simply because there was no written agreement. This is a business i LABOURED for 2years. Even when my “friends” went MIA for months , i carried everything on my back while we shared profits equally.
What did i get in return?
We had an issue and i was kicked out with nothing. No equity , nothing. All my hustle went down the drain just like that.
I started from ground zero and built another one in about a year and i almost made another foolish mistake that would have cost me everything.
Some guys contacted me last year December to “INVEST” 5m in my business for 70%.
Back then , 5M was big money to me and i really needed it badly , so i signed their letter of intent while waiting for them to draft a legal agreement.
I told my girlfriend and she talked me back to my senses , got me a lawyer and cancelled whatever agreement we had.
Anyone that means well for you will not ask to invest for 70% of your business unless they’re buying it outrightly. And the business was even worth far more than 5million.
This year we increased revenue and profit by over 2.5x and we did it without their money.
I recall (but your feedback was not encouraging on the OP,
… and you can say that again; everything unravels too fast. Feels like mistakes are mandatory for growth. Have you checkout my latest hustle: www.touchabl.com? Kindly let me know of your thoughts.
lol, I had to go double check. because i remember liking the product and even downloading it. Bro these where my comments… Didn’t know they where discomforting.
Love the website… now let me download and give feedback
…
Yeah downloaded app but crashes after you provide your number… android 6.0
…
I am not sure this is a good decision merely because of sms credits…So in the interim you don’t mind raking in negative reviews on the app store.
Also I am not sure why the SDK for sms is on the mobile app… shouldn’t that be on the server side.
.
