Business Insider by Pulse presented an enlightening session for aspiring startup founders

Tagged “Business Insider by Pulse”, the event aimed to inspire, inform and educate young minds on the practical steps to running a startup, how to go about pitching investors, getting valuation for your company and backstories to help the audience better learn and appreciate the dynamics of the journey a startup business would undergo.

Ife Bakare, who is still setting up his startup ‘’Passportbus.ng’’ was the moderator of the session that had Kola Aina CEO at VenturesPlatform.com, an emerging accelerator and early stage fund located in Abuja, Nigeria, Femi Kuti of “Kangpe.com’’, a health advisory online based startup and Odunayo Eweniyi, Co-founder and COO of SharphireGlobalLimited and Piggybank.ng.

Kola Aina advised on knowing your product, establishing a moral compass from day one, focusing on getting customers as against investors for the business, having a balanced founding team, a scalable business model, gaining traction and record keeping of the business books among other.

On the factors he looks at before deciding to invest in a startup, Kola said some of his questions will include him asking “Will I work for this person”? Can I introduce this person to my network? Is the product/service offering a value that is 10 times better than similar ones? And is the product out to solve a social problem other than just money?

Femi Kuti, a medical doctor started with how Kangpe was conceived. The platform, he said, came about the idea when he noticed that patients would still send messages requesting for more health related information after they left the hospital.

He as well narrated how the startup was able to raise funding through Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator (an accelerator which he highly recommended for any business idea needing funding).

He highlighted factors such as a credible team, having a minimum viable product, gaining traction and valuation of the startup. He believes “a valuation is more or less a mixture of market trends and negotiation, a decision between buyer and seller.”

“Valuation is what your investor is willing to pay,” Kola Aina added.

Odunayo Eweniyi of SharpHire narrated how her company came to be. The first class graduate of computer engineering applied for a job she felt she was going to get but was disappointed not to. That incident was the turning point that led to her bootstrapping PushCV with six other founders.

Odun highlighted the importance of a mentor named Olumide, an investor who was instrumental to the team. She stressed the importance of having early stage investors, while talking about the challenges getting customers and scaling the business.

She pointed out crucial factors like passion for anything one sets out to do, and having a solid team for the business to thrive.

“If your product is great but your team isn’t solid, you’ll fizzle out eventually,” Odunayo said.

Sharphire Global Ltd, the parent company has now birthed other promising startups like piggybank.ng, Household, 500dishes, Frontdesk and more.

Her co-founders have now taken each product as a portfolio to manage.

Then there was an interestingly demonstrated mock investor pitch between Kola Aina and Femi Kuti where the latter sold well the idea of an online delivery suya business. The audience got to feel how a real life pitch could be like.

A questions and answers session then followed and with more resourceful information given out by the guest speakers.