The Nigerian tech space has recently taken a progressive turn with many investors looking in to tap into the opportunities and invest in promising businesses. For this reason, five African investors sat together to discuss the opportunities in this market and what investors are really looking for in digital media in Africa.
These are 8 quick tidbits from the conversation that make up the crux of the matter for tech entrepreneurs looking to get investments down the line:
- Localized copycat models of a global success need to be tested before scaling because the African market is different and is largely not prone to early adoption.
- Tech entrepreneurs in Nigeria read too much of Techcrunch and because of that, they are stuck in a different reality
- The best place to raise capital for your business is from your customers, because that way, you have in place a well structured working business that would look attractive to prospective investors
- It’s important to ALWAYS flesh out your business’ market share math
- Investors currently consider it a huge challenge to invest in digital media because it’s very hard to monetize it well enough to
- Early stage entrepreneurs in Nigeria need to focus on unit economics and building their businesses first before looking to get investments
- The Africa market is really on the radar now with an increasing number of Venture Capitalists looking to take the plunge. Now is the time.
- Hot trends and new opportunities for tech entrepreneurs include; Financial Technology, Augumented Reality and Virtual Reality. They are however still in the conception stage and would be really hot in the next 3 to 5 years!