Oluyomi Ojo, Chika Uwazie, others kick off Day 1 session "From Lagos To Silicon Valley"
The interactive sessions about growing your startup was an eye opener for all attendees.
The event aims at focusing the spotlight on young emerging entrepreneurs looking to scale up and achieve its fullest potential.
The day 1 session moderated by OluseyeSoyede-Johnson was tagged “From Lagos To Silicon Valley”.
Kicking off with keynote speakers, angel investor Ike Eze took to the stage and gave some invaluable business advice on having and keeping a motivated and happy team, running with a vision and if possible walking the road others have not thought or dared to.
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Techstars Regional manager and social entrepreneur Ahmad Sufian Bayram showed great enthusiasm for the Nigerian startup scenery and hoped one day Silicon Valley investors in the US will be making their way down to Nigeria.
A representative from The Nigerian Stock Exchange also shared some insights giving startups a visionary talk of how to get to the exit stage of declaring Initial Public Offerings.
Then panelists comprising startups that have gained significant footing in funding, traction and more were invited to the stage.
Yele Bademosi of Micro-traction, Chika Uwazie of Talent base, Oluyomi Ojo of Printivo and Shola Akinlade of Paystack were the special guests.
They all contributed greatly to what it took them to get to where they are such as how they got funding from Silicon Valley investors in the US.
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Other areas touched included focusing on customer acquisition, understanding and adapting to your local market, building your product as a founder as well as coming through the eye of an investor in getting the right business to fund
On biggest fears, Printivo founder Oluyomi Ojo said “technology has broken down the walls” refusing to see any fear. Although he did express his candid thoughts about local investors not having the resources and will to invest in a local young Nigerian startup.
Chika Uwazie of Talent Base however addressed the Nigerian government as her fears because they seem not to have a definite vision and plan for the citizens. She advised founders to keep updating initially uninterested investors of progress made, which could change their minds.
That same thought was re-echoed by one of the other founder panelists, Shola Akinlade who said sometimes an investor may not show interest in particular area of business because he has not seen the potentials of it being a major success.
Paystack CEO Shola also thinks things are very unclear with the government right now, as well as talent deficiency.
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Bademosi of Micro-traction said his own biggest fear is “the sustainability of the ecosystem, and not just from a funding point of view but also of the talent to build the business.”
Questions and Answers were then taken from the audience which was quite interesting.
The session continues tomorrow Tuesday September 26, 2017.
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