The CEO of Emerging Platforms Group (the creators of Ventures Platform), Kola Aina, sounds enthusiastic about the improving direction of technology and innovation in Nigeria, as well as the cutting-edge environment that he and his team have created to support the country’s next set of game-changing entrepreneurs. Starting this month, a successful group of incubates will congregate at the Ventures Platform innovation hub in Abuja, to kick start a 16-week programme aimed at producing world-class technology entrepreneurs who will improve the ecosystem in the capital city, Nigeria, and the African continent as a whole.
Without a doubt, innovation is one of the hottest topics in Africa today, with technological breakthroughs currently leading the charge. Nigeria has not been left out of the innovation revolution, and the increasing number of innovators in the country featured on various platforms for their efforts is a testimony to the fact. However, as innovation hubs like Ventures Platform are demonstrating, these innovators should not be made to go it alone.
An integral factor in realising the innovative potential of Nigerian youth – particularly in the field of technology, as in the current case – is placing them in an environment where their ideas can not only be harnessed, but can be formed into viable products to improve their communities. This is where innovation hubs come in. Lately, these hubs have become recognised for their essential role in helping to bring out the best in aspiring technology entrepreneurs, by providing them with the resources that they need to finish their products.
This mission, coupled with a keen interest in helping to eliminate unemployment in Nigeria and beyond, is what Mr. Aina explains birthed Ventures Platform.
Ventures Africa (VA): Why do you think innovation hubs and incubators are crucial to the development of budding entrepreneurs?
Kola Aina (KA): First of all, I think the whole idea of a hub is to create community. Just like how as a child growing up, it helps to have a community around you, I’d like to think of a new enterprise as a child that needs to be nurtured. And so, just having that community of like-minded people, or people that have more experience within one environment does very well for the development of a new venture.
But, more importantly is the fact that one thing that we’ve come to realise, and that research has shown, is startups generally need a combination of ingredients to be successful. And hubs, when done correctly, are able to bring about that mix of components that startups need. So it’s really the fact that hubs provide community, and when done properly, provide a good balance of all the ingredients that startups need to be nurtured.
(VA): Speaking of “doing hubs properly,” how important is a comfortable and conducive working/thinking environment for entrepreneurs? And how has Ventures Platform tapped into that?
(KA): That, I think, is our main differentiator. I, for one, – and we generally – as a main philosophy, believe that that is extremely important, because we don’t see how you can produce any great products or great solutions in a harsh environment. Look at the more advanced environments for startups, like the Silicon Valleys of this world – I mean you step out of your office, and you have a lush garden that you can go meditate and think. That plays a big role in how you can stay fresh and creative.
At Ventures Platform (VP), with our first campus Ventures Park in Abuja, we paid very special attention to this. First of all, the design of the space sort of forces you to think outside the box. Because the space itself was designed in a very innovative way to challenge your thinking. And then the surroundings are welcoming and comfortable, so that when you have to pull those long hours, you’re doing it in a very comfortable environment.
I believe that that has a direct impact in the outcomes that startups can produce, and VP can produce.
(VA): Can you tell us more about the 16-week incubation programme that VP has lined up for successful incubates?
(KA): We’re about to get into the final lap for selection. We had close to 500 applicants from all over Nigeria, and beyond, including West and East African countries. Our primary focus is startups that are at the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage. Startups are typically at three-level stages of growth…I’m not going to preach to the choir here, you probably know all that stuff. But, somewhere in the middle is the stage that we call the MVP stage, and that’s where we like to engage with startups at. This essentially means that they have a prototype, or a demo, or have some skin in the game.
If it’s an e-commerce site, for instance, then they’ve built the first version of the site. Or maybe they’ve just mocked up what it would look like. We are looking startups that have moved beyond just having an idea. The objective of the entire programme is to move these startups from that stage to where they are ready for larger chunks of investment. Or they are ready to scale their markets or customer base. So, at the end of the programme that’s what we would like to have achieved with the startups that are coming out.
We are interested in the MVPs because they show commitment and traction. Our target is to bring in 10-12 startups, if we can find some good ones. Right now, we’re working through the list, coming from about 500 to about 220 now, over the last two stages. We’re just entering the final stage where a selection committee will meet the startups before we select them.
When they come into the program, we’re essentially offering about five things. The first thing is an intensive training curriculum that is practical. After each module, they [the startups] get to work on what we call a ‘startup challenge.’ For instance, if they learn about the business model canvas, then they have to build their own. Or if they learn UI/UX [User Interface Design/User Experience Design], then they spend the next one week working on their UI/UX [for applications]. So, startups learn and do. That’s on the training side of things which goes on through the 16-week period.
The second thing on offer for startups is business reengineering. This means that we sit down with the startups and look at their business model, market entry strategy, and price model, and help them fine tune it based on the information that we have and based on the knowledge of the in-house team that will be working with the startups. Obviously, the startups are at the driver’s seats of the game, it’s basically about providing support and guidance.
Then the startups also get access to mentors throughout the programme’s period. Our mentors are mainly a wide pool of people who are sector experts. You know, guys that have gone ahead and have some experience, and just have a better interest in seeing more successful Nigerian startups. And most basic of all is they get access to workspace and what we call ‘back office support.’ By workspace we mean that every startup has a work area within the campus, and we also provide them support in terms of HR, accounting, and PR.
For startup founders that are form out of town, we have on-campus residency, so they can also stay on the facility. There’s accommodation as well – boarding facilities on campus. Then, networking. One of the things that we realised as we were planning our programme was that for some startups, their challenge is not money, it’s just network. Access to markets and access to partnerships. Maybe you’re a startup that can grow your market by government patronage for instance, and all you need is an introduction to somebody or to an agency. That networking and access to markets they get is something that will also help startups as well.
So finally… well not finally, I said five and now I’ve listed seven, even though I’ve sort of grouped some of them together. Penultimate would be access to investors. So basically, the programme culminates in a ‘Demo Day’ event at the end of the 16th week, when we will invite investors and potential customers to come and interact with the startups and hopefully invest in some of the startups.
The investors would be coming around throughout the programme so they get familiar with the cohorts and they can already start indicating interest in certain startups. Finally we have seed funding which would be given to the startups. Every startup that comes in, depending on need basis, would get some seed funding as well from VP.
That’s the long and short of the programme. The whole idea is that at the end of the programme, the startups will be investment-ready, and they will able to attract larger chunks of investment on the one hand. On the second hand, they’ll be ready to scale their market and serve more customers.
(VA): You mention [in your press release] that unsuccessful applicants “still gain valuable business knowledge,” even though according to your selection process they leave at the third stage of your 8-step programme. Can you expatiate?
(KA): We’re achieving that in two ways. The first way is one that we’ve actually implemented, and it’s that to move to the second stage, we had a ‘startup toolkit’ which comprised of videos and various learning resources that we aggregated and sent to the startups. The material included stuff on how to build your business model canvas, market segmentation, how to develop a winning pitch, and a couple of other resources that are useful for startups and were also useful in answering the questionnaire to the second stage.
We wanted to make sure that the startup had as much knowledge and know-how as it could to scale through to the second stage. And in the case where they don’t scale the second stage it’s good knowledge anyway. They had about three days to review the learning material and then respond to the questions. The second thing we’re doing is, we discovered that lots of people have great ideas but didn’t have any prototypes or didn’t have any MVP, and were not ready to come into our incubation programme.
What we are doing for those guys is that we’re designing a smaller ideation programme that can help them fine tune their ideas to start working on a prototype or a kind of MVP so that they can either be ready for our next cycle, or they can be positioned for incubation elsewhere. Those are the two basic points that we’re sort of ensuring that everyone wins along the way.
(VA): Great! So in May, the Federal Government made an announcement to support the tech ecosystem in Nigeria. What do such announcements mean to tech incubators like VP?
(KA): Because I also happen to work in volunteering (I’m working on the president’s job creation committee), I’m also aware that there are efforts in that direction. There’s been lots of discussions, we’ve had meetings where we’ve articulated the kind of support that we need as operators. As hubs. And there are clear commitments to provide support in the way the government can, primarily in the area of policy.
One of the policy support we’ve asked for is looking at how the procurement law can be more favourable to startups. That means if you have a startup that provides solutions to government, going by the current procurement law, government can’t really procure that service from a startup, because they wouldn’t have all that evidence of past business or the tax history. So, those are some quick ways that we’re hoping to be able to extract from government from a policy perspective that will definitely strengthen the hubs and the ecosystem at large.
There are also some harder sells, including government potentially matching our investments in startups or in the hubs. Largely because we all know that Nigeria is experiencing a paucity of funds now. But, yes, there’s a lot progress in that direction (government support). We also know that the government has an interest in either establishing or strengthening hubs. What we have said to them is that the focus should really be on strengthening hubs.
I can speak for VP hub, for instance. Currently, we’ve engaged with Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE) to see how they can strengthen us. Either by sponsoring candidates for some of our other programmes, or things like that. There are certainly close partnerships with OIIE, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Sure Communications and Technology, and the Job Creation Unit (JCU) in trying to strengthen hubs. And these are in the beginning stages.
(VA): How would you describe the contemporary Nigerian tech scene?
(KA): I think it’s an amazing time for the sector. There’s certainly lots of international interest, and I think the players in the sector have learnt a lot. Two or three years ago, there were lots of funds that came out and were invested in startups. But if you look back and do a review of some of those startups, not a whole lot of them have been extremely successful. I think everyone sort of realises, now, that startups need much more than money, you know? They actually need to be nurtured.
We need to understand that startups are nothing more than a business. So you really need to learn how to understand people, you have to understand your customers and the market. We’re all coming to the realisation that it’s much more than having a great tech idea. You also now have to convert that basic idea to a scalable business. And not just scalable to Nigeria, but globally scalable. Because, the playing field is global now.
That awareness has certainly arrived. Everyone is also looking at innovation and its ability to lead the way for employment of our young people. That certainly puts a lot of pressure on the sector. But it’s a great time for the sector. By the time we do a review in another year, I hope that we can point our fingers to some much more outstanding outcomes.
(VA): What factors do you think can help drive innovation further in Nigeria? Both in tech and other sectors?
(KA): I think the government needs to continue to play its role. Globally, governments support innovation, particularly at the bottom level. It’s like a pyramid. At the idea level you have tons of people, but that pyramid continues to shrink as you go up. The risk at that idea level is very high. Now the best person to fix that kind of risk is really the government. Because it’s very difficult to get private investment to drive innovation at the entry level.
If you look at countries like Finland, for example, their government aggressively supports innovation at that bottom level. Especially at their tertiary institutions where they are supporting ideation and startups. Not all those ideas are going to be successful, but you really have to go through that first step to produce the great idea eventually. So, it’s government playing a much more significant role in supporting the ecosystem.
Secondly, I think that we’ve got to see more improvement in the area of bandwidth. It’s easily a problem. We tried to hold this interview over Skype, and we couldn’t. And this was even without video. It’s amazing how that also affects the ecosystem, because for young startups struggling, if your Internet won’t connect there’s a limit to how productive you can be [without bandwidth]. The availability of bandwidth is something we have to tackle more seriously.
And then I think everyone in the sector needs to realise that we need more connections, we need to collaborate more, and we need to work together more. As opposed to it being ‘camps’ and being overtly competitive, it really has to be about the community. And that’s the role that we hope we can play, at least in Abuja for now. To be a gathering point for the ecosystem here in Abuja, so that there’s lots of sharing – of experiences and learning – and that way we can move the entire sector forward.
Finally, I would just add that for us it’s not so much about the tech ideas or solution, but much more about the business of it. How are you going to take the solution to market? How are you going to scale it? How are you going to support your customers? Are you in touch with them? People need to realise that it’s much more about the business than the technology itself.
Those would be my four submissions.
