I am Nigerian now living in NY. I used to run a successful Internet Cafe at Yaba,Lagos. Before Nigeria and most other African countries can join the tech startup world some big infrastructure issues needs to be addressed.
While I was running the internet cafe, the bigger problems I had to deal with had nothing to do with my line of business.
I had to bribe employees of the electric company (NEPA) to hook me up to a more reliable power line where electricity is more stable. Stable electricity in Lagos means you get it like 6 hours a day. The rest of day, you had to power your business with Generators. For the Generators, we had to buy drums of diesel to keep them running. Buying diesel was something else because Lagos always had a fuel shortage going on. We had to buy tank loads of water to keep the business location clean because otherwise we had no running tap water. I had to deal with thugs showing up every now and then, asking me to pay for street protection. With all these problems how do you focus on your startup and grow your business.
My wishlist for Nigeria will be a wireless internet solution that is cheap and can reach the whole country, the type that the company Teledesic tried to provide. Also an Energy solution that will free us from evil Oil companies and evil electric company. Something you could just plug in and get cheap, clean, efficient enegry to run your entire business. But thats just what my wishful thinking. When we can have that, we will see more startups from Africa.
While I was running the internet cafe, the bigger problems I had to deal with had nothing to do with my line of business.
I had to bribe employees of the electric company (NEPA) to hook me up to a more reliable power line where electricity is more stable. Stable electricity in Lagos means you get it like 6 hours a day. The rest of day, you had to power your business with Generators. For the Generators, we had to buy drums of diesel to keep them running. Buying diesel was something else because Lagos always had a fuel shortage going on. We had to buy tank loads of water to keep the business location clean because otherwise we had no running tap water. I had to deal with thugs showing up every now and then, asking me to pay for street protection. With all these problems how do you focus on your startup and grow your business.
My wishlist for Nigeria will be a wireless internet solution that is cheap and can reach the whole country, the type that the company Teledesic tried to provide. Also an Energy solution that will free us from evil Oil companies and evil electric company. Something you could just plug in and get cheap, clean, efficient enegry to run your entire business. But thats just what my wishful thinking. When we can have that, we will see more startups from Africa.