 Why startups fail? A lot of people start businesses without doing the proper research and footwork needed. There are three main reasons why most startups don't get funding or fail very quickly. They are struggling because they either don't have one, the right team to pull it off. Two, a solid product. Three, no USP in a saturated market. As founders, they need to recognise which one is killing them and very quickly tweak their business model. A solid product with the right team and a good enough USP will attract investment and customers in weeks. Why USP? You mean unique selling point? Yeah, unique selling point. I remember those days when I was taking a course in management from the Institute of Strategic Management of Nigeria. When you talk about branding, people talk about branding from the surface of gallery, just like you see playing to the big screen social media representation. But branding is beyond that. Branding could be strategic. How are you solving people's problem uniquely to define your brand? I guess that's what you mean by unique selling point. So that's it. I think when it comes to startups, a lot of people struggle in addition to what you have said, which makes perfect sense. A lot of people struggle because they don't situate their business in their location. I'll give you an example. Somebody makes, I mean this is just plain off a bit. Somebody that stays in a place like, I don't know, let's say Ajeg Mule or somewhere, not necessarily Ajeg, but a place like a residential area where middle stroke lower class now builds three-story building or four-story building. And this is a real-life story, four-story building of shops. And you look at the money that has been pumped into the kind of shops and where the shops were situated. The question is, if you want to transform how we do businesses, is that the best place to build those kind of shops? Number one, the amount of money people need to rent the shops and the sales they can make in that area, does it correlate? Can they make the money back? Now what I'm saying is, a lot of times we invest in something that might not fit the actual location. And at times when we get into entrepreneurship drive and we have that brainwave and we're investing, we have all the knowledge, but we don't understand the environment where we are applying the knowledge. So you study abroad and you're coming to Nigeria to set up and you want to be an entrepreneur. There are certain principles that work here that you will never be taught abroad. So when you come here, you need to unlearn certain things. You know, you might have your unique selling points where even the approach to it might be completely different from what you've seen in the books. So you need to come here and understand the environment, understand what people want and that's what politicians do that better. I've met a lot of young politicians who tell me that they said, listen, when you're going on the streets, you don't wear suits because the people must know that you're approachable. They must see you as one of them. So you're wearing your jeans and your t-shirts and stuff. So if, for example, I have all the ideas and I know I want to change Nigeria and I come and I'm speaking all the big grammar and you ask yourself how many of these people that speak huge grammar have ever penetrated. So those are part of things. Your unique selling point is there. Understanding market is... Something like that. You know. And comfort. We don't feel because of all these 20-20 grammar. We feel because we are FIRSs after all this year. There's no lights. Our mark is on the problem. It's stopping us. Dollar is going on. These are doing business. Please. And then when the customers even come, they will not want to under-priced you. Under pressure to pay your landlord. So in this way, out of desperation, you take the money that they're giving you only for you not to add up. But having said that, really, points well taken. But the truth is here, the climate here for business is really taxing. And if we're going to be honest, a lot of the time, the businesses that do succeed have external help. Either a parent has been in government before, there's some favor that needs to be paid to the... Whatever. So you get a consensus on the rent or something. There's always a lot of some host trading going on that does help. And you have to be corrupt in other times because we don't pay even the full government fees that come, let's be honest. Because if you pay it, if you pay full, you're going to crash. That's the truth. So yeah, I think that's all I want to say. The unique Algerian position. Yes, NSP. UNP. UNP. And that's what I'm saying, that you need to situate whatever you want to do in the current state, the realities on the ground for you to really make it. And comfort is very, very correct. A very small business. So now the government doesn't help you. They don't aid your effort. Instead, they dampen it. So I was talking about this topic more for tech startup founders who will probably watch this program on Sundays so that they will know like, you're not doing something wrong. You can always very quickly tweak your model if you think you are failing because I've been, I'm a startup founder and I failed. And these are some of the things I've noticed and that one, if you don't have the right team and by having the right team, you need someone with connection, like comforted. You need someone at the background that will do the old shaking and you need that person on your team. So you need that. Secondly, you need a solid product. If you are building a tech product, you need a solid product, you need something very solid to compete with your counterpart abroad and even in African countries. And thirdly, you need a solid USP. Oh my God, that one cannot be overemphasized. If it's selling sleepers and I'm selling sleepers, the people that are patronizing them won't leave him for me. What is my USP? What is your USP? And my sleepers are more better quality, cheaper. Are they massagers? Are they made in Nigerian villages giving money to the villagers? The USP must be solid. In addition to the USP, the USP can be as easy as your marketing. Because you might have, there are products that are selling and you're wondering what's so different from these products. What's the big deal? But they approach to it. Some people, your USP might just be your customer service, which we lack in Nigeria. Customer service, making the person feel at home. Your USP might even just be the way you've branded your area. People enter your shop or whatever and they feel that, okay, there's something serious about your brand. Buy one sleeper to save one child. So those are things that we need to get into. And I really agree with that idea of getting the right team. I struggled with that. I know what it means to get people. We do, we do, we do. When you're waiting and nothing is done, you have to do it yourself. I wonder why do I even have a team. It's not about that I can see the vision. The vision. Without incentive. Of which, like we said, in other climes, let's use the West for example. We have so many times when people have start-ups, have gone into business and they have support from friends, from people around them. Who are not just looking to pilfer. There's something you have. Just like the story of Mark Zuckerberg, while he was in Harvard. He divided many of his classmates. He turned up. Maybe perhaps, I'm busy, I don't know what and they turned it down. But you see, those guys are billionaires today. So those are the things that for us as well, it's while you know that you're starting a business and like Comfort said, you know the governments, there are rules, there are processes, there are things we do. We start in the first thing to do, we start building a lot of these things. We know it is wrong. But that's the reality on the ground here. That's why I'm going to say this. I like what you said, what you said are gruities. But the reality is most everyone have somebody in government. Why can't the government for once thinks of sustainability? That is the future. That's the future approach. But for now, if you want to start now. But we still have to say it. You see, at times all these things all you need, why you need somebody in government and it's true. I've seen people that have just because of the approach and the sincerity of purpose. Like you told me something earlier on about going on a journey and how the person quizzed you back and forth and felt that okay go and people were telling you how did you survive. A lot of people have been sent back. Just sincerity of purpose at times opens doors. A lot of us, the way we package it the way we talk, we all make it it's not always the situation but at times you just need to look for a way around. And these things are times I've seen people that have gone into business just because when they were in secondary school not in the school in university or whatever or even before that they had gone ahead to serve other people, learn the ropes get which we don't do a lot of. I always say that one of the reasons it's easier in my view to lend money to a startup abroad is because that person right from the age of 15 or even lower younger has had a bank account. There's been a flow an inflow of money. They've seen how he's kept his money. He's not just using his money to buy the latest iPhone. He's busy working. So to a certain extent he has an understanding of how to manage finances. He can tell you how he saved his money to buy this how he saved money to fund this. So there's something he can fall back on. But for us at times the first bank account we're having is after university where we want to start to use this Exactly. So the thing is you don't have any track record of financial management. So how then am I going to be able to trust you with this being your first. There are so many things that come into play when it comes to finances and startup and USP that's one thing we should consider. We thank you for your attention while the program lasted. We hope our conversations resonate with you. Little drops of water they say make mighty ocean. Don't forget the advocacy continues on our social media platforms on Facebook plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate ng and Instagram at plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate ng. 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