Phew! What a long week! E-commerce commentaries and calculations left right and centre! My perception about some smart “experts” has changed while my respect for particular individuals who you would have called “non-experts” has gone through the roof.
Having read a lot of posts and seeing that no one hit the nail on the head… I will like to throw a little spanner in the works (see chart on our growth in tough times)!
KONGA is a beautiful engine… roaring even in difficult times! Our business model is not setup for short term gains but focused on fixing core issues and providing real solutions and we believe that we will ultimately get rewarded for adding value (Difficult to grasp in a short term minded environment). Over the last week, it seemed as though everyone was on the prowl to take a stab. But I respect that, you have to be tested and questioned at different times.
Even though we are a commercial entity, our intention has always been to bring a way of life and service that makes things smoother and improves quality of life in Nigeria and Africa at large,.….(reminds me of how some people also dream of a Nigeria with 24hr power). I didn’t come back from the UK only to take up a nice job, neither did I leave my cozy telecom role to join a great startup like Konga (where we built processes from scratch without a playbook) without the conviction that we could make a difference in the society.
Have we grown? Absolutely! Do we believe in our dreams! 100%! Are we perfect? Nah! but we are constantly improving our services and not resting until the last customer is happy. Our customers have in turn responded by doing more transactions than seen in many other countries and sites (Amazon, Flipkart, ebay all included)….just to throw some light on our DELIVERED revenues have trended in a Nigeria going through RECESSION, please see attached image! These numbers come with stronger margins than we have ever done in the past.
Make what you want of this chart! I just love numbers…they speak louder than words.
Konga’s future is bright……my genuine fear is not for Konga but for Nigeria and Africa…our deep issues lie elsewhere and not in ecommerce or the size of Konga’s customer base! Only time will tell!
I hold my peace in a world where the value of what you bring to the table is not assessed by those that you serve!
Disappointing. He should have waited till he was fit for a better reply.
Was expecting a more focused reply. He didn’t pick any group to address.
Either you ignore the invetsor-types and addressed your weary users - who may not even know what the noise is on about - with renewed vigor on service delivery or you address the former with breathing/living numbers and a real chart.
Jason already resuscitated his blog with a nice little optimistic post, within hours of the same news on Konga dropping, leaving Konga alone in her misery.
Oh, well an emotional reply may well signify a good thing as a matter of vested entitlement. Konga aren’t the only ones laying off but theirs have come with little to no pettiness, post layoff.
An emotional, non-factual, and incongruous outburst unexpected of a CEO of a company like Konga. I doubt whether he had passed this public statement through several pairs of eyes before publishing it.
I thought CEOing is demanding work?
How do they find the time to type up kneejerk, my enemies in the village will not prevail over me kinda posts?
Why the need to defend. Feedback has been provided. Whether you like what has been said or not, why not filter out the noise and take the constructive criticisms and come out stronger?.
I would expect this from the head of a one man startup and not a top tier company.
PS: Ogbeni, why the use of three exclamation marks? are you in painment or is that some kind of code?
As I read Shola’s post, I couldn’t help but think of Donald Trump, all emotions, no hard-hitting fact. I liked him when he was CFO, good head on his shoulders and plays a mean FIFA on PS4 but been a war time CEO is different and he should’ve hunkered down and got to work not try and be a poor man’s Donald Trump.
To be fair, critics everywhere, even those that haven’t sold a meat pie before rush online and criticize konga for their numbers. They know zilch about business, sit at the comfort zone of their couch and just type gibberish on Twitter, Facebook and tech-cabal. All for the sake of sounding “smart”, just like the “TwitterNG economist” we see every day on Twitter.
Konga is valued at about $34 million by Kinnevik, a Swedish entrepreneurial investment group focused on building digital consumer brands.
The above statement from the Nigeria Communications Week’s article is incorrect. How can Konga be valued at a meagre $34M after raising about $78.5M from investors (according to Crunchbase).
Howbeit, I won’t be surprised if investors are divesting from Konga. Every investor hopes for any of these three positive outcomes for his investment: high-returning Merger and Acquisition, Public Listing, or a highly-profitable Private Venture. If the chances of these outcomes coming to pass are very slim, then the wise thing to do is divest by considering offers of acquisition just to recover some or all amount invested.
Lessons from Yahoo’s experience has taught investor not to hastily turn down acquisition offers only to regret tomorrow.
A company or any item for that matter is not worth what was invested in it.
It’s worth what the market is willing to pay for it. It is worth what is assumed to be its fair market value at any point in time.
At this point in time, an investor (Kinnevik) with a 34% market share stated those shares are worth a market value of $11.7 million.
That puts the net worth of Konga at about $34 million.
It’s like that car you bought for N1 million. The one that you put in about N500,000 in pimping up. Only for you to want to sell after about 6 months later and you are getting offers of about N900,000 with the max offer being N1 million.
That car was worth only what the market is willing to pay for it and not what you invested in it.
I see. Thanks for the clarification. In this case, the investors will be rushing to sell off their shares as fast as possible to avoid it losing more value.
Might be a temporal loss of value, given that market situation where it operates isn’t in that great a shape itself at the moment.
Just another possibility putting your recommendation in context. It could lose more or gain more. It all depends on both on the company and market fundamentals.
