Yes, you don’t know it because you are Nigerian. This is a very Kenyan product we are talking about, and I can say with confidence that over half of internet users in Kenya know my startup. We are talking about local solutions vs the international Silicon Valley ones.
And trust me I have tried all revenue models(ecommerce, affiliate, daily deals, subscription) before settling on ads.
You’re making an excuse for your Kenyan product not finding a way to spread outside Kenya into other African countries, yet you expect to compete fairly with companies with a global mindshare when it comes to advertising budgets? I’m getting you.
Here’s my 2 cents on this thread:
“eBay may be a shark in the ocean, but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean, we lose—but if we fight in the river, we win.”
You needed an opener and you got it right there at the expensive of grandstanding.
Banning is within the power of protectionism. References from the start of this discourse suggested as much.
There was no admission or retraction.
Protectionism is an economic ‘enabler’ wielding a ban hammer.
Like I said banning is within the power of protectionism. Certainly isn’t the whole meat!
Practically speaking protectionism is as old as time, even before the world was a settlement of walled cities. It may have taken an economic birth name during the industrial revolution of the 1800s but it will certainly continue to make sense long after the digital age.
If you cannot see the market discrepancy of a company owning 30% of an entire online population but still earning peanuts relative to foreigners, I don’t think you are being reasonable.
Jack Ma has said it himself. As formidable an entrepreneur as he is, he would most certainly lose if Alibaba was pitted against eBay on open market terms. African startup Vs Uber/Google/Rocket/FB is not a level playing field, even if you have world class execution, they have a head start that is insurmountable without government intervention.
@xolubi those small niche apps that I am seeing on your profile, were they your first ideas, or are those the tiny niches that you settled on because you knew all the lucrative niches were snapped up by the big boys of Silicon Valley? Funny how you are facing the problem of African tech scavenging for scraps yet you are defending the foreigners who have taken all the opportunities. And you know Uber would probably be fine without the African market. But African techies without the African market are doomed to a life of niche apps and barely getting by. So why should the governments be scared to ask them to leave? They would probably just shrug and move on
Any one who waves off the economic advantages, gains or the existence of government institutionalized protection of her own products is not Serious … Its very neck deep into every countries policy who is serious about economic, industrial or tech development… We all know the gains of competition, but we should never underestimate the power of capitalistic operations(big eating the small …remember how Standard oil swallowed all the refineries in the west?) and …survival is not always about the fittest, it is also hugely hinged on how far the weak operates away from the strong…and by weak I don’t mean “mediocre”…you will never eat Abakaliki rice if the “foreign rice” is plentifully cheap in the market…and trust me, the only option for the local rice is to improve in processed quality if its a monopoly (market demand)…China did it successfully within a few years, many of us are typing comments here with Chinko phones, few years ago…no one will want any Phone made in China…China has knock offs of every thing…inferior but promoted by the Chinese government…
You can mature only when you grow, …and thats only If your mum didn’t let the dogs eat you while you were crawling… Let’s not argue…More.
Brilliant comment
And how many people in the world can build a search engine like Google?
That is a very deep and insightful quote right there. I believe that quote has basically answered all our questions and closed this topic.
I’ll just leave this here. www.producthunt.com
How many apps there were built by Africans? This is not even slave mentality or anything of the sort. Yet, interesting product ideas are built by people (humans, I may add) and put up there all the time. Fuck this victim mentality. We didn’t ask to be born black but here we are. Now get on your computers and build something useful.
I counter your producthunt with Afrihunt ~> http://www.afrihunt.io/ and Agegelist ~> http://agegelist.com/ . Look at all the fresh apps/ideas/services but yet they can’t survive because some tech giant keeps taking over. Keeps bullying/intimidating them. Check this article of how Google faced a lawsuit of stealing ideas ~> http://valleywag.gawker.com/lawsuit-claims-google-wrote-down-plan-to-steal-idea-on-1621674163 . When SnapChat came out and Facebook couldn’t buy them, Facebook came out with Poke ~> http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/facebook-poke-vs-snapchat-what-is-the-difference/ . Check this Google Search of people afraid google will still their ideas ~> https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=can%20google%20steal%20my%20ideas . Check this video of Google stealing ideas ~> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKHUc2ouMXA . Here is a security concern of Gmail stealing people ideas ~> http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/58376/does-gmails-tos-allow-google-to-steal-your-emailed-ideas .
Well we can start with developing our local talent base. Ban it and people have no idea of what world class means anymore. Before China could be the behemoth it is today, it had to develop its talent, send it all over the world and open up its market to foreign competition. If you permanently close your market you will never know how to develop it.
Nairaland only gets about 1 - 1.5 million visitors per day (including Nigerians at home and those in diaspora), Facebook on the other hand gets 7 million Nigerians (only at home not including those in diaspora) daily. Is that even a competition? Or will you like to compare Nairaland to Reddit? Naij.com gets about 1.3 million visitors per day as well (including Nigerians at home and those in diaspora).
You talked about banning foreign companies here. Giving locals some advantage over foreign companies is something I can get behind. Banning foreign companies is not the same thing.
You would be very surprised at how difficult it is to raise money for Nigerian companies on the international market because of negative experiences here in spite of our large population and GDP. In the grand scheme of things we are not that consequential. Several other emerging markets offer similar or better return.
Man Godaddy has been in business several years. Angani is growing steadily and it just starting 2 or 3 years ago.
Like I told someone earlier this evening outside of this forum…
I’m tired of people not trying to act global in the digital age. your competition is everybody else doing whatever you’re doing anywhere else in the world.
That said, fuck your agegelist/afrihunt self congratulatory wank pit. It counters nothing - just reinforces the sentiment that you are not yet ready for competition on the global stage.
I use expletives liberally so take no offense.
Jack Ma benefited from Chinese protectionist policies
Nairaland is bigger than reddit in Nigeria and in that sense its bigger than its international competitor. Facebook is not a competitor…
How can you compete globally when you have not even conquered locally?
Truth be told…if You think there is no bias ,check what we see as our Naija success Iroko, Hotels.ng, jumia, konga and co…take it to silicon valley and see how they fare…
Ma brother , there is what we call home advantage, IT IS REAL…
There is
1.rubbish,
2.mediocre,
3.good,
4.super and
5.super duper product categories…
Keep 1 in the zoo and even the animals reject it,
Keep 2 in the desert as the only product and the guy who finds it is thanking God(remember Sagem, Triumph and Sendo phones?)
Keep 3 protected in Nigeria and it grows ( I put our success startups here)
Have 4 and you are global but you get fought by protective policies think UBER, airbnb
Then make 5 and your are a world Brand …Google, Apple, Toyota, Facebook…no one fights you, everyone wants you, looks up to you and creates knockoffs of you.