Mark Essien: Ideas for those looking to make a startup in Nigeria

Hundreds of founders in Nigeria are going into e-commerce. Why repeat what a large number of people have done when there are so many problems in Nigeria? To get a good idea of how you should think of it, do this:

1. Find a problem
2. Come up with an invention or a method on how to solve that problem (at scale)
3. Execute on that solution to see if it will work. If you picked the right solution and execute it will, you will create a good startup.

Below are a bunch of problems I quickly thought of, that if someone can come up with a good fix for them, they will create a big and impactful startup:

Problems to Solve in Nigeria

• There is not enough power in Nigeria. People want electricity, and don’t have it
• The roads are broken and it takes really long and a lot of money to fix them
• People do not know how the government spends money
• Public servants do not report to the public. They basically can ignore the populace and nothing happens
• Good healthcare is very expensive. Public healthcare is really bad
• There are a lot of charges for using the banking system
• The environment is quite dirty
• There is a big mess of power lines everywhere
• The single biggest cause of death is in road transportation
• There is a lot of traffic in a few Nigerian cities at certain hours- Lagos and Port Harcourt most especially
• People pay a lot to study abroad
• Smartphones are too expensive for many
• The internet is too expensive for many
• Rent needs to be paid 24 months all at once
• Getting a visa to any other country is a big problem for many
• There is a shortage of highly skilled labour for many parts of the economy
• A lot of civil servants are not competent
• A lot of teachers are not competent
• A lot of cars break down and are abandoned
• A lot of people do not have the know-how on to export
• A lot of people do not have the know-how on how to start manufacturing
• A lot of people do not have the capital to start manufacturing
• Transport is uncomfortable and very stressful etc. There are thousands of problems everywhere._________________________________________________This article was first published on Mark Essien’s personal blog, MarkEssien.com