Noticed they use this panorama view http://www.jietusoft.com/ for the event centres which is quite cool.
First,everyone seems to ignore @davidsmith8900 these days?
To the thread topic,thanks @akindolu for seeing my point.However,I think the whole announcement has very little to do with validity,likely more of a way to send a message to some group of people,competitors,rivals etc (we are doing what you can’t do)
I do know for one,there doesn’t seem to be much friendliness around.
Success stories should be shared so the community can find the right kind of inspiration and encouragement.
If there is a 19yr old Reservoir engineer bumping loud music in his convertible everyday on my street on the way to and from work, what do you think the kids on the street will want to be when they grow up?
If someone in the tech Sector buys a volkwagen golf, it should make news.
If someone in the tech sector rents a new office, it should make news.
If someone in the Tech sector buys a Private Jet, it should make news.
Last week I had a conversation with some folks and we all agreed that it is morally wrong not to show off success or bend our definition of success to create the hype required in driving more participation in technology startups.
So the more hype we have or create, the more we inspire our community to take to technology startups.
To Hype or not to hype…it largely depends on the players involved, some fancy very quiet funding that is meant to just improve the business and life goes on, others use it as a means to drive customers ( Hearing Mr A got 50 million dollars will pique my interest as to why he did, i visit site and i am a lead, if his sales funnel is good i can be converted from the PR Article to a buying customer), while others do it for a show off or brand building for their own firms.
But it is very important companies release financial figures not because of the fanfare but because we lack data in critical areas mostly on business performance, lets look at the Konga and Jumia case, if they had no outside investment we wouldnt have been able to guess the metrics of the biggest Ecommerce firms, we would have heard schtick like ‘’ We cant release financial information but we are doing Six figures in Revenue and have Large customer base yidi yada…’’ Well we know that so far things are not so great and the target to beat is over 200,000 Active paying customers and smarter ways to market via reaching out to offline markets.
We must announce raise and figures which is a record for how firms are transparent and accountable to the public but most importantly for the Community benefit.
David - all those startups, the ‘idea’ sounds cool, but how about the ‘business’? This venue idea has been floating about for AGES. Every 2nd person who has an idea for me is always about Venues. We should add venues to hotels. Of the 30 people that have pitched that idea, maybe 3 have executed on it. Of the 3 that have executed on it, only 1 person is posting great numbers and has built a business on that back of it.
So it’s easy to say ‘this idea is great’, but does that idea have someone who can turn it into a business? OgaVenue is a great idea, and it has someone who can turn it into a great business - because he has.
You need a bunch of things to come together to get funded - OgaVenue obviously was a fit for us, we happen to have money, Jason happens to like the guy, the guy happened to pitch Jason, the guy was making money, etc. All those factors would not have been true for all the others on the Radar list.
Even the name set.What’s it with the “Oga” word? That word sends my mental monitor to create a very negative imagery(oga hotel, oga taxi,event oga).
Which is next : probably (oga ecommerce,oga payment,oga rideshare).
Anyways,my opinion obviously doesn’t matter.Am not an investor, neither am I a potential customer.
In summary,I still maintain announcing a funding round like this isn’t worth it.Its more of showoff,unnecessary noise making.
Besides, isn’t it time tech companies begin announcing their milestones and not funding?
Keep maintaining then, they will keep announcing. The End
I think the oga word is actually creative as it can easily be remembered by any Nigerian because it’s a very common word and has a very high search rank potential; anyone can easily find them by Googling ogavenue.
I wouldn’t blame too many radarians if they get excited by these funding announcements .The economy is down, and a way to comfort oneself could be to read funding stories,probably excites you to believing your tech product/outfit will one day raise money.
However I see it all as a distraction.Probably,makes sense for the Nigerian Olympic team members,to all be awarded with Oon,ofn etc simply 'cause they participated at the games,even though they were woeful.Isn’t participation an achievement?
However, no one is doing that,and that’s 'cause participation is only an entry point to the Gate and probably not an achievement. The question is,will Ogavenue win a medal in 2,3 years time or Uncle Jason will go on another randevou about how a company he funded two years ago died a natural death.
Kuleya games was funded years back,but its practically dead and if someone had written an article at the time,he would had claimed they displayed “good numbers”.
My take: Give us the numbers,and it will begin to make sense,and motivate the ecosphere(intrinsic motivation).I raised that issue on my new thread.
A distraction to you maybe.
If the business dies, we all learn and infer whether it was due to management spending the money lau lau, or strategy that did not work for marketing or user adoption, it ultimately lies with the team, Again they play in a field that well never dies but may get reduced, they havent covered even half of the hotels in Lagos not to talk of Nigeria and beyond, its left for the team to fail.
Like Jason said investment is a gamble, it may or may not work, if it doesnt u learn, if it works u earn, thats the game.
How do you gain from an assumption,that isn’t backed with fact/data? Probably sit in the comfort of your room and judge a company,without any knowledge about their numbers?
We learn from other peoples experiences,however if we were all to infer,like you have suggested :no one will learn anything.
Funding and its announcement isn’t peculiar to Nigeria alone. I’m sure if you follow tech sites like Venturebeat, Techcrunch and so on you’ll see it’s a similar trend. It’s a harsh reality that a lot of these startups, including the well-funded and publicized ones with initial promising numbers, end up losing their breath. That doesn’t mean startups who really need funding and low-cost or free publicity shouldn’t get it. In addition, something like the OgaVenue startup is what, with the right publicity, can go a long way to gain massive traction and retention among potential customers, at least based on a background work-based statistics given by the founders, which I read somewhere, Nigerians spend hundreds of millions of dollars on events and the likes annually, 25% of which is channelled towards getting the venue for such events. With data becoming cheaper, and more people becoming aware of how stress-free things like booking the right venue for their events could be with their mobile phones, I think these dudes can go a long way if they play the game right, and the publicity, most importantly, from this funding will give them every reason to work much harder.
LOL, well thats where both of us differ.
A company crashed, its a small community, we would know user rates and adoption even if they dont release the numbers, people talk, we would deal with the facts.
I dont see why this should even be a concern to you, its their money let them do as they see fit please.
We can ask for more Numbers be published by Privately held firms as a Transparency campaign which i would join in but the Dont Announce six or eight or 1 figure deal will not fly.
Its a small community?That’s cause you assume every tech outfit will turn out on Radar?
And his do you miraculously know the numbers,when you are not an insider at the said entity.
I rest my case.
LOL like i said earlier, we are different folks and we get data differently and i would live it like that
@mauri don’t compare building a startup to the olympics. Getting to the olympics is hard but Building a startup is brutal. It’s 24/7, sometimes a lifetime. The pressure is crazy. Only founders understand. Dont know OgaVenue, but I do imagine if they got funding from @Jason_Igwe_Njoku and @mark , the numbers probably make sense. (But Mr @Jason_Igwe_Njoku , we Radarians would love to get numbers)
Turning an idea into a functioning startup business in sub saharan Africa is harder than winning a gold medal in the olympics.
We are two different people, and I can state here you haven’t got access to data like I have…I deal with data every minute of my life, its my job.You are probably just a programmer/software engineer.
And I guess you have won an Olympic medal before?
State away, im not here for popularity contest, Google is your friend if you want to know about me than jumping into conclusion very wrongly.
If you deal with data everyday as you claimed , Good for you, i know where i get my Data, direct from the Owners themselves.
Anyway this is pointless.
Bye
@mauri and @Freshboi_Ekundayo Fight! Fight!! Fight!!!
By the way, ogavenue.com is a great “business”. The founder is a very smart person also, and armed with an incredible team.
Now his investors publicized the deal but if you noticed, he (Andrew) didn’t. Baba is busy iterating and optimizing his conversation funnel and we are here arguing… lol.
I bet Andrew’s numbers are good and the margins are just ridiculous. But he doesn’t owe anyone anything especially for the fact that he is not publicizing this deal.
“Data Lords” please rest this case.
… bye