Before now, one could say Nigeria’s startup scene was dull, every startup seemed to focus on jobs, news and social networking, and then one man; Jason Njoku came forth to change everything. From humble beginnings as NollywoodLove on YouTube, iROKO Partners has metamorphosed into a true media powerhouse that can hold its own anywhere in the world. What more, their decision to approach movie producers and sign deals to give them rights to stream the movies over the internet – legally shoots them light years ahead of any competitor.
Most people would have stopped at that, but not Jason. Iroko Partners then unveiled iROKING, a music streaming service available on the web, android, iOS and most recently a Windows Phone app. Simply put, Iroko Partners is solving the global distribution and monetization issue for Nigerian entertainment [industry]. They operate about 5 web brands; iROKOTV, iroktv,iROKING, nollywoodLove and yorubaLove. It was really no surprise when Iroko Partners announced that they had raised $8 million funding.
Jason Njoku’s progress is exciting news for the local startup scene as it proves without doubt that if you build an awesome product, investors will find you. The idea behind iROKO Partners isn’t in any way unique or really game changing, but the execution has been superb. Proving that ideas are actually relatively useless, its all about the execution.
Think outside the box, the fact that something has not been done before doesn’t mean it cannot be done, Start-up entrepreneurs need to become more innovative. With real innovation, I don’t see why we cannot have more success stories before the end of this year.
And for the nay – sayers who ask if anything good can come out of Nigeria, we now have an answer: iROKO Partners.
