Someone asked on Twitter - If Uber was first launched In Nigeria, would it have found funding?
This was my reply:
Never! Firstly, Our investors/VCs here would have called it a foolish idea and if anyone had a very high risk appetite, he would have demanded too much equity and/or invest less money.
On the part of the startup, they would have been very lazy/unable to leverage Big Data, AI and R&D the way uber has done.
The major reason mPesa is doing so well is because it’s not actually being run by Kenyans and there was a lot of research before launching. Infact mPesa was born out of a research! Look at Paga today, the only guy in the country, 7 years later and still cannot penetrate Lagos even with all their funding.
Bottom line is if Uber started here, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere!
What do you think? I’d love to hear other opinions.
It would have been very difficult. Although they might have gotten funding at some point but must have been after they’ve shown some kind of credibility
Like regular usage and had a wider reach than just Lagos but before then, the founders for chop sand tire
It’s not logical to invest in startups in a high interest, high inflation economy. In such a country, there are high returns to be found in safe investments like stocks, bonds and real estate. Therefore Nigerian investors would be wise to seek out those over risky startups. If you want funding, look for it abroad then bring it back home, like what Jumia and Konga did. In stable countries, you can barely make any money in safe investments, so they look to startups for returns.
I still remember some people say…how can uber work in nigeria? how will riders enter a “strange” unpainted (yellow cab) esp in lagos. ? so many reasons they taugt it won’t work…
My startup philosophy : build what you can start small ,profitably and grow. I have product ideas that are out of my “building” or funding ability. So I focus on the ones within reach.
If you can’t be the first investor in your company … it’s hard convincing someone else. .so bootstrap is the way. But what ever works for u
I initially did not believe that uber will work here in Nigeria, but see where it is today. If uber was first launched in Nigeria then it wound have been a failed startup by now. And if the startup luckily get funded here is the type of news we will be hearing now Jumia made NGN21 billion loss in six months replace the jumia with uber.