[sociallocker]Yudala, the Nigerian e-commerce company owned by tech billionaire and Chairman of Zinox Group, Leo Stan Ekeh, makes an average of ₦200 million, the owner has told a tech event underway in Abuja.
The tech billionaire, Ekeh, told participants at the ongoing e-Nigeria conference that his Yudala rakes N200m sales on a daily basis underscoring the growth underway in the Nigerian e-commerce landscape.
Yudala, a major e-commerce unit owned by a team of Nigerians including Ekeh has become the technology supplier of choice in the Nigerian market, he says.
Ekeh who spoke at the e-Nigeria event on ”Stimulating Nigeria Youth and Women for Techpreneurship” advised tech start-up in Africa to remain focused and determined to achieve their dreams and aspirations in their chosen profession.
The Yudala owner told attendees at e-Nigeria that he has had a distinguished career in ICT sector because of his vision, passion and enthusiasm.
”I launched the first e-commerce platform in the country but failed. Then Jumia and Konga came in but my son studied why I failed and he took it up as a challenge, so that’s how we started Yudala and as we speak today Yudala makes an average of N200m cash on a daily basis”, Leo Stan Ekeh says.
”I launched the first e-commerce platform in the country but failed. Then Jumia and Konga came in but my son studied why I failed and he took it up as a challenge, so that’s how we started Yudala and as we speak today Yudala makes an average of N200m cash on a daily basis”, Leo Stan Ekeh says.
The Zinox Chairman however challenged tech start-ups and innovators by saying founders get bored and discouraged, when things fall apart but the zeal to move on will make them stand out among their contemporaries.
Giving an account of how he had his first windfall some years back, Ekeh told attendees at the event that ”I was one of the lucky Nigerians that made it in the ICT sector. A young man walked into my office for me to configure some Apple system and at the end of it I had a N4.3 million windfall. At that time the exchange rate was 85kobo to one dollar.”
”You need to be humble to learn, and have a good knowledge of the business. Your passion is key to any business you want to do”, he adds.
Also speaking at e-Nigeria, Helen Anatogu,CEO iDEA Hub, a Nigerian startup incubator based in Lagos, advised that young startups should think of local problem and how to solve them to spur employment and wealth creation in the country.
“It will be difficult for you to develop a solution- Facebook better than Mark Zuckerberg, because you do not have the education process and the vision he had, but Zuckerberg can not create better malaria solution than you because he is not in this environment. It requires taking cognizance of the problems in our immediate environment and how to solve them”, the iDEA Hub CEO says.
“We also require less bureaucratic process to open the system for startups to meet their targets and do more for the society. Look at Jobberman and what the company with probably less than 100 staff has done to transform the job vacancy and recruitment ecosystem.”
According to the iDEA hub CEO ”as a country we have to choose between organic innovation ecosystem where the startups develop at their pace or to make it a priority to enhance their capacity and leverage on the innovations to better our economy”
She says that broadband penetration and data analysis are key towards the expansion of Nigeria’s innovation scope.
“It still revolves around data, analysis and usage in creating or recreating solutions. The key driver here is broadband. Broadband has become ubiquitous like roads, electricity, because it has direct impact to people’s growth. We need to unleash this very important national infrastructure to help our innovators do more”, Anatogu says.
According to her, the funding mechanism is not yet favourable to startups. “There are venture capitalists who fund solutions worth minimum of $2 million. What happens to the innovator that needs just N200,000 on the immediate to deploy? This is a hindrance to innovation and loss of focus.”[/sociallocker]
