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There is so much buzz about Lion Heart – the first Netflix original film produced in Nigeria, and directed by Nollywood actress, Genevieve Nnaji. While the movie was such a breadth of fresh air, we decided to pick business lessons from it (just like we did with Game of Thrones). Here are some lessons we learned from Lion Heart: Collaboration! it is better to own a bit of something then all of nothing Learn to harness the power of negotiation Don’t run your business in isolation, institute a corporate governance structure for your business. Have a succession plan, train your staff! Be open to learning, and building your credibility. See difficulties as opportunities to build credibility. Believe in yourself. When people don’t believe in you, don’t get angry and make enemies of them, revenge by being successful. Your work will speak for you. Don’t change the essence of your business (brand promise) even when faced with difficulties. Listen, listen, listen!! Listen to your customers, listen to your staff. A contract should not be considered sealed based on word of mouth or promises. Learn to pitch, and sell yourself convincingly. Get your hands dirty. Business goes beyond sitting in the office to do paperwork Be kind. You do not need accept all investments offered to you. Listen to these and more in the audio below:

Access to finance is one problem that limits Entrepreneurs across Africa. However, sometimes it’s not about the availability of funding but about being Investor ready (which we discussed in one of our previous episodes). In this episode, we pick the brains of an exceptional investor, Luni Libes, Founder & Managing Director of fledge.co. Fledge is a global network of conscious company accelerators and seed funds, helping entrepreneurs create impactful companies and co-ops at scale through intense, short programs filled with education, guidance, and a massive amount of mentorship. Luni details in this episode what Investors look out for while accessing entrepreneurs, one of which is: Team Impact Odds of Success Listen to our podcast as Luni shares his life, work and experience with us.

Happy New Year Afropreneurs!!!! Welcome to 2019!!! We are super excited about this new year and we hope you are too. What is so exciting you might ask? GOALS! Our Goals are making us excited. The beautiful thing about goals is, they give you something to look forward to. This year, we broke down our goals into financial, social, personal and business goals. We didn’t stop there, we summarized them in S.M.A.R.T ways into 7-point Agendas. We went on to create plans and get an accountability partner. Why does this concern you? Because sometimes you need to hit the ground rolling with a road map and start strong. Your actions can be clear and the impact of your actions can be felt. Remember don’t just write goals for 2019 alone. Write goals that help you reach the future you innately desire – the ultimate goal. Start the year with a bang and great goals. Listen to the podcast below P.S: Apply to the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme for funding, training & mentoring- www.tefconnect.com

At a meetup recently, we discussed with a few entrepreneurs and we discovered that a lot of them struggled with knowing which to put first – Quality or Quantity. They struggled with knowing which mattered more and we realized this problem was not unique to them. With our high population and sometimes high addressable markets, we often feel the need to fulfil the promise of quantity because it yields a higher return when more people buy your products. There is also the concern that quality often costs too much and your target market may not be willing to pay for the quality they so dearly want. However, people have also been known to ditch goods for higher quality especially if the price difference is not too much. When asked, a lot of people admit to wanting quality over quantity. They believe that quality lasts longer and holds more benefit and prestige. Does this mean you should lower your standards? Could this mean quality is not that important? Does this mean you can ignore the quantity, hike your price and focus on quality? Should you alternate both? What exactly should you do? Listen to our view and the view of others in the podcast below. In addition, tell us the conclusion you came to. Do you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. Finally, If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

In our last episode, we featured Onyeka Akumah, CEO of Farmcrowdy, Nigeria’s first Digital Agriculture Platform, where he spoke about Being Investor Ready. This week we are analyzing two amazing concepts and pitching them against each other – being efficient vs. being thorough. When we googled the meaning of thorough these were what we saw: complete with regard to every detail. taking pains to do something carefully and completely. And when we googled the meaning of efficient, these were the results: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. working in a well-organized and competent way. We discovered that there are people who are extremely meticulous and follow processes to the later and there are others who get the job done well and on time. Upon conversing with some entrepreneurs, we found out that while they appreciate their thorough team members, they lose out on other things in the process while the efficient team members get things done on time and fast. Which then is more important? Should we compromise quality for speed/resources or vice versa? Is it possible to be both? Find out our thoughts below: Do you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

In our last episode we featured Onyeka Akumah, CEO of Farmcrowdy, Nigeria’s first Digital Agriculture Platform. Onyeka gives us tips on how to and make your startup attract that investment you need. What do investors look out for? Team – the people and history Team – competence Team – chemistry/blend The idea – real, rich & impactful ideas with depth. Market – where? How many people? Where are you today? What have you done? Listen to Onyeka explain all the points above Do you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

As Entrepreneurs you will need funding for your startup at one time or the other, many get confused about the best source of funding per time. What are the types of funding that exist? Personal savings Friends, Family & Fools (FFF) Grants Angel investors Venture Capitalists Bank Loans The entrepreneur we feature in this episode – Onyeka Akumah, CEO of Farmcrowdy, Nigeria’s first Digital Agriculture Platform. Farmcrowdy recently secured a $1m investment from a group of VCs. In this episode he speaks on how to prepare yourself for investments and make your startup attract that investment you need. Do you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

Many startups founders and entrepreneurs are caught between building their personal brands or focusing on the brands of their startups or businesses. While there really isn’t a clear cut position on which brand (personal or company) you should focus on at the different stages of your startup, it is still important to build a personal brand. What is a personal brand?Your personal brand is how people perceive you. It is a combination of your career, professional experience, network and online presence which eventually defines your reputation online and offline. Creating a good personal brand requires that you deliberately build people’s trust in you. Why is it so important?Building your personal branding gives you leverage in the following ways:– It lets people see your expertise and previous experience.– You’ll find it helps you attract business partners, employees, and customers.– People might seek you out for speaking engagements, articles, videos, and more based on your personal branding because it establishes you as the expert. How to build a strong personal brand?Here are some steps to building a personal brand:– Choose what you want to be known for, choose your voice– Pick the right social channels relevant to the audience you want to reach– Go beyond social media, network and meet people offline– Be consistent in your content/message In this episode we speak on the benefits of building a strong personal brand and how to go about this. Do you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

The World Cup has come and gone, with all the fanfare and drama! France was the standout team for one reason – Teamwork! As a startup founder / entrepreneur we often struggle with recruiting people into our team for various reasons, however good teamwork is essential in all organisations. It signifies that: People are working towards a shared purpose and common goals and They are sharing their varied skills in complementary roles and in cooperation with each other But why is a Team so important? Without the ability to effectively build and work in a team environment, you could delay the success of developing, formulating and implementing new and innovative ideas. This will affect your ability to solve problems, as well as achieve your set targets. Important points to note when recruiting or building a team: Every role is important in the team Define each team member’s role Recognize  and reward results/efforts Hire competent hands Learn to delegate Soft skills are also important Communicate your goals appropriately Design an effective onboarding process Find out more by listening to our conversation below: Do you think an African team can win the World Cup??? Please send us an email or share in the comment section If you are an entrepreneur and you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

Entrepreneurship to many people is an escape from the 9-5 life. It creates a door to “freedom” especially as people feel like they are their own boss. Many quotes and founder stories give the impression that as an entrepreneur you get to call the shots, e.g. You can wake up whenever you like Choose when you want to go on a vacay Decide what days should be public holidays Make your own rules Make so much money and control that money Live above the “9-5 rules” and many more Unfortunately, these are not exactly the realities of entrepreneurship. It takes way more than this to be an entrepreneur. Truth be told, you never stop working for someone. Your business must make money and for that to happen, you need clients, customers or investors. These 3 groups of people become your bosses. They call the shots on a different scale. Your business becomes your new 9-5 (actually 24 hours) if you believe in the idea and passionate about bringing it to fruition. There are so many things about entrepreneurship that is not as rosy as it is portrayed in the media. To many, being called an entrepreneur is cool because it is “trendy”. There is so much more that happens behind the scenes to yield the glam you ended up with. It is almost like being a celebrity. To many, it looks glam but the BTS (Behind the scenes) are far from glamorous. It takes grit and mindless courage to attain the glam! A few entrepreneurs were kind enough to share their discoveries with us – Things they were never told but they experienced in their entrepreneurship journey. Listen to our entrepreneurship conversation below: Disclaimer: We are not trying to discourage you from being an entrepreneur, we are just preparing you for the work ahead. Many times, we wish someone was a kind enough to tell us these things. We are being that kind someone and we hope it prepares you to tackle those challenges and turn them into opportunities. Most importantly, we hope it eases your entrepreneurship journey. Listen and share your thoughts with us. If you are an entrepreneur and you have experiences in relation to this topic to share, please send us an email or share in the comment section. Someone might just learn from it. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the newsletter mailing list.

Who likes to fail? Surely no one I know. Besides, failure is an integral part of our journey as entrepreneurs, why then do we run away from it (I am not saying we should aim to fail)? We believe there is a lot we can learn from failures, ours and other people’s failures. We had a chat with Chude Jideonwo, and he shared his success and failure stories. Chude Jideonwo is a Nigerian lawyer, journalist and media entrepreneur. Working several years in Media, Advertising and Public Relations, he has become the go-to media entrepreneur and influencer in Nigeria.He is a co-founder of The Future Project, which is focused on inspiring leadership, building entrepreneurs, and innovative use of the media tool for sustained social change. If you stop, you stand 0% chance of succeeding! – Chude Jideonwo You can also contribute and ask questions, we will definitely reply and even share in our next podcast. Did you enjoyed this Episode? Please leave a comment below and share with your friends.If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. Keep spreading the JOY

Happy New Year!!!! We are super excited to bring you our first podcast for the year. The year always begins with a ton of people making promises, goals and resolutions on how they intend the new year to be. However, statistics show that over 70% do not follow through. No matter how busy you are as an entrepreneur, it’s important to still take the time to reflect on what you can do better in your work and life. This sets the tone for successes and even the failures that you will encounter all year long. Listen to us discuss what we think about setting Goals or Resolutions at the beginning of the year. You can also contribute and ask questions, we will definitely reply and even share in our next podcast. Did you enjoyed this Episode? Please leave a comment below and share with your friends.If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

50 episodes!!! Wow! Thank you for joining in this journey of learning, we have lots more in store you and will be unveiling our plans as they mature. What makes the best companies standout? Is it their brand colours, logo, product, services, staff? What makes a product or service great? How did great brands get loyal customers? How then can you be buzz worthy? You can do this by having a Unique Selling Point. Show the customers why they must choose you over others, this is what gives you a competitive advantage compared to your competitors. You can increase your competitive advantage through: Patents Contracts/subscriptions Speed of service delivery Easy of use Cheaper (not cheap) Better Niche Human In our podcast today, Tunde Phoster speaks on how a business can become buzzworthy and the steps to take to make your startup stand out: Listen to our conversation below: Don’t be regular, Be Different” – Tunde Phoster” If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. – Startup Grind Lagos is hosting Nigeria’s former ICT Minister and Venture Capitalist with TLcom, Dr. Omobola Johnson, at her meetup on the 25th of November. Get ticket info here  – Do you think your startup/idea is innovative enough? Apply for the Startup of the Year Award which is an international innovative competition created by Bonjour idée with the support of 70 partners (major business groups incubators, chambers of commerce, media, competitiveness clusters, influential blogs). – Apply here  Sharing is Caring

What exactly is ‘Outsourcing’? and why should businesses even consider it? Outsourcing is the practice of having certain job functions done outside a company instead of having an in-house department or employee handle them; functions can be outsourced to either a company or an individual. Businesses outsource for a number of reasons including Reducing and controlling operating costs Improving company focus Gaining access to world-class capabilities Freeing internal resources for other purposes Streamlining or increasing efficiency for time-consuming functions Sharing risks with a partner company However, it is important that you analyze your business and make a business case for outsourcing any function of your business. You do not just outsource for the sake of outsourcing – The goal should be to get better outcomes for the business and customers while using the resources available to you. Before you outsource to any individual of company, you have to ensure that you have carried out an appropriate background check on them, have your deliverables well detailed out and a contract that binds them to it. In this episode, we try to find out if outsourcing should be considered by small businesses. Listen to our conversation below: If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. – Do you think your startup/idea is innovative enough? Apply for the Startup of the Year Award which is an international innovative competition created by Bonjour idée with the support of 70 partners (major business groups incubators, chambers of commerce, media, competitiveness clusters, influential blogs). – Apply here  Sharing is Caring Do what you do best, outsource the rest Peter Drucker

While preparing the podcast for this week we came across a recording from one of our Startup Grind Lagos meetups and thought it wise to share with you all. Business, as we all know, isn’t the easiest to succeed in especially if you take the socio-economic challenges entrepreneurs face in Africa into consideration. However, there are people that are thriving despite all the challenges, which is one of our motivations to bring The Afropreneur Podcast to you. The Entrepreneurs succeeding aren’t succeeding by luck, they had to put in the research and hard work. Putting it in perspective, it is even harder to stay successful. One core attributes of these entrepreneurs is that they are strategic in decisions they make. What makes an entrepreneur strategic? How can we be strategic in our thinking? In this episode, Jonah Ulebor takes us through how best to be strategic as an entrepreneur. Listen to our conversation below:   Strategic Entrepreneurs always win – Jonah Ulebor If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. In case you missed it, our last episode was on Lessons from the TEF Forum. Click to catch up on the interesting discussion, you will definitely love it. – If you are in Lagos, do not miss Startup Grind‘s meetup with Afua Osei (Co-founder, She Leads Africa) on October 28th. Purchase your ticket here – Are you an entrepreneur, an innovator, or creative? Apply to join 700+ global entrepreneurs for the world’s largest digital accelerator program – Do you think your startup/idea is innovative enough? Apply for the Startup of the Year Award which is an international innovative competition created by Bonjour idée with the support of 70 partners (major business groups incubators, chambers of commerce, media, competitiveness clusters, influential blogs). – Apply here  – Apply for the SXSW Accelerator Live Pitch event, get to meet industry experts and VCs. Sharing is Caring

The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme is the most inclusive gathering of African entrepreneurs, where over 54 African countries represented met with business leaders, established entrepreneurs and policymakers to forge partnerships, share insights and fashion Africa-made solutions to accelerate the transformation of Africa and we were there live! With about a thousand entrepreneurs in attendance with guests and VIPs ranging from the Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbano, to Aliko Dangote, Jason Njoku (Iroko), Shola Akindele (Paystack), Funke Opeke (MainOne), Tara Fela-Durotoye (House of Tara) among others, the atmosphere was electric and very empowering. The Forum was an avenue to not only network and meet entrepreneurs from across Africa but also to learn lessons that are relevant to our journey as entrepreneurs. From masterclasses on Finance and branding to plenary sessions that harped on how African entrepreneurs held the keys to the future of Africa. One profound statement we took home was made by the Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo – Dreams pursued with single mindedness are more powerful than facts.  Dreams pursued with single mindedness are more powerful than facts.  The current state of Africa doesn’t matter, what matters in our doggedness in making the change that we so badly want to see. In this episode, we discuss some key lessons we got from the entrepreneurship forum. Listen to our conversation below:   If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. In case you missed it, our last episode was on Understanding Market Sizing. Click to catch up on the interesting discussion, you will definitely love it. – If you are in Lagos, do not miss Startup Grind‘s meetup with Afua Osei (Co-founder, She Leads Africa) on October 28th. Purchase your ticket here – Are you an entrepreneur, an innovator, or creative? Apply to join 700+ global entrepreneurs for the world’s largest digital accelerator program Sharing is Caring

Dear Afropreneur, The bedrock of a product, service or a business starts with a solid understanding of your target market. Your product is designed specially for this group of people. Their needs form the bedrock of the solution your product/service addresses. A product cannot be for everybody. It can be for a group of people with similar interests, goals, features, demographics etc. These group of people are your target market. Target marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments. These key segments consist of the customers whose needs and desires most closely match your product or service offerings. Your target market is a group of customers within the serviceable available market. They have to be serviceable and available.  This does not in any way mean people outside this target market will not use your products. However, it is important to concentrate your marketing efforts on a particular group of people for the best results, appeal and impact. We as humans are more likely to use a product tailored to fit our lifestyle, personality and needs as opposed to something general. An example is sachet water. To appeal to different people, water is packaged differently, although water is a basic need for survival. Water packaged in sachets may appeal to low to middle income earners. Sachet water is not premium, Kim Kardashian is more likely to drink bottled water instead of sachet water. In getting your targeting right, you need to understand your target market in relation to your business. Together with Didi Uwemakpan, we discuss and explore how we can effectively utilize the information to improve our business. Listen to our conversation below: If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. In case you missed it, last week we talked about Business Lessons from Game Thrones. Click to catch up on the interesting discussion. You will definitely love it, if you are a Game of Thrones lover and an entrepreneur. Sharing is Caring

Dear Entrepreneur, This week we decided to explore the business lessons from the most unlikely source – Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, the fantasy series on HBO, is a drama series that is mostly about loyalty and conflict resolution. With such an amazing story line of power, love and wars, it is difficult to ignore the leadership and business lessons embedded in it. So we decided to share some amazing tips with you to help grow your business, increase conversion and earn the loyalty of your customers. If you wield these tips well, you will definitely increase your sales and establish your place as a thought leader. This may not be the first or last article/podcast you will listen about GOT but it will be worth your time as we have detailed the lessons that will help every entrepreneur grow. Disclaimer: We tried to ensure there were no spoilers, however we are not promising anything. There may be spoilers. You listen at your own risk but you are a risk taker so we are sure you can handle it Here are key takeaways from this podcast: Be credit worthy. Let competition destroy themselves, find your niche and focus your resources on them. Be deliberate and grow your influence over time. Listen out for feedback but be careful about who you listen to. Be known for something. Grow your brand. Your team matters. More lessons are embedded in the podcast. If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. In case you missed it, we talked about Money vs. Network, click to catch up on the interesting discussion with two key Nigerian artists, Davido and Wizkid as case studies. Sharing is Caring

What is most important to the budding entrepreneur, money or network? I’m sure a lot of people will scream money! What is a business without capital to run it? Especially with the fact that the African Entrepreneurs is the ‘government’ to him/herself. He/She has to provide power, water, pay premium for rent etc I bet that if we conduct a poll, we will get differing views. [highlight1]Vote below:[/highlight1] [poll id=”2″] We think that your Network is very important too! There’s a saying that goes – Your Network determines your Net Worth. 1. Your network can connect you to those people that will fund your business, open doors to new opportunities, give referrals and a whole lot more. Using two of Nigeria’s top Musicians as example we attempted to explain which is more important to the Entrepreneur. Listen to our conversation below: If You Enjoyed the Show Please leave a comment below. If you want to hear more from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. Sharing is Caring