I have always been a proponent of building well rounded individuals; the more reason why I believe that geeks must begin to learn the business side of geek. If they are ever going to strike the right balance between putting in the required efforts to build the right solutions and making a profit, geeks cannot afford to have only coding skills anymore.
In the face of the new reality that the Nigerian technology ecosystem is fast coming of age, someone had better tell our tech entrepreneurs to wake up and smell the coffee. We have gone beyond the days when wearing glasses, putting on earphones and coding away in a little corner was enough. Now, if you want to build something lasting, you have to learn the business side. This means you must understand the kind of market you are building solutions for and have a plan to convince the market that your solutions are not only worth using, but also worth paying for.
Yes, everybody wants to build that next big thing, but do we ever stop to ask questions like ‘How do I intend to make money from this?’ ‘Is there a model approach to my execution?’ or ‘Do I even have a plan at all.’ Because business works differently from coding, geeks must begin to study business models, read business case studies and, if possible, get some sort of business degree (if they can fit it into their schedules). We need to observe brands that have made it in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, start by studying models such as 2go, M-pesa, Eskimi, Saya and find out what they are doing right.
As someone with a tech background who runs a business, I have come to realize that you cannot run away from acquiring the right business sense. You must learn things such as equity, premium, business development, branding and getting products to market in a timely fashion. There is a reason why it is called entrepreneurship in the first place. It won’t hurt to reach out to the community to find out what problems they want solved and would readily pay for. I hear somebody ask ‘how could I possibly combine all of these with coding?’ Well, there is always your spare time.
The right perspective would be to see business management sense as a necessary evil. It is this kind of sense that tells you to get your solutions to market quickly, upgrades can come later. We have heard of great products that were wack at first, but improved drastically with subsequent upgrades. They had built a user base with their first offerings. The idea is to put in your best, but do not tarry by waiting for perfection before you introduce to market. Timely introduction could attract valuable goodwill in the market base. It also offers an efficient leverage to build on with your upgrades. Ask the guys at Maliyo Games who understood that game development through Flash could be quicker to get to market once the concept was right. They developed something that simply took on a life of its own and for such, it cannot be hard to attract funding. Some would say their team lead has got a business degree; maybe that is not far from my point.
It is easy to say that there are not enough angel investors or venture capitalists willing to fund ideas in this clime and as true as that is, we should put ourselves in their shoes. Who will want to throw money into a venture that does not have the slightest idea how it intends to make profit?
Our hubs are doing a great job of creating enabling environments for developers, but they need to do more in selling the business aspect of developing products. Kudos to innovative conceptions such as the Nokia Growth Academy for a comprehensive deal, that includes both apps development and the business side of getting products to market. It is nice to see Google, Microsoft and Research In Motion organize three day programs, boot camps and others – investing in homegrown technology for their platforms – but they need to start making geeks understand there is the business side to the deal. Yes we know the hubs want to be business consultants to developers while they concentrate on the coding, but we must realize there are some decisions that would eventually be left to them to make.
Here are some quick tips to get you started on learning the business side of geek:
1. Read widely, know a bit about everything. Create time to read books by tech entrepreneurs you admire. Business at the speed of thought by Bill Gates is a good start.
2. Partner and leverage on team abilities. Get a PR/social media guy, a business development guy, a branding guy and other initiatives, so that you can sell a well thought out idea.
3. Work out how to make profit; how much equity you might be ready to yield in the event of an investment opportunity.
4. Think business. Learn something about intellectual property, follow Forbes, Harvard business review and such on twitter for links to helpful articles.
I look forward to a day when Nigerian startups get the basics of business such that they get enough investments to move out of hubs to their own place. Right now, there are a few who don’t even need funding; they have the potential to make money eventually, if only they can work out that great business model quite meticulously.
