🎧🎧Podcast Fridays
"...we spent $3m in 5 months."
#76
Back again with podcast Fridays (!!). After how many weeks, right? I’d try to be consistent with it this time. One of my favorite podcasts is (was?) Building the Future with Dotun. All your favorite African tech businesses were feature till Dotun became a big man and went off to be a partner at Novastar Ventures in Kenya and doesn’t have time for us anymore. Really appreciate the time he put into interviewing all these founders, from Jason Njoku (iroko tv) to Mark Essien (hotels.ng) to Iyin Aboyeji (Andela & Flutterwave) to Akin Alabi (politician and founder of Nairabet) and tons more. Honestly, I learn something new every time I listen and re-listen to episodes. Comes highly recommended. Today, I’m sharing my notes from Jason’s interview on the journey to building Iroko TV. These are my notes, so if you need full context, please listen to the full episode here.
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Jason had an early self-awareness of his unemployability and knew he wouldn’t be comfortable working for anyone else. Know yourself and where you can and cannot work. (Lesson: know yourself before anything else. You’ll be doing yourself a favor).
Jason was very independent from an early age. He wanted to do things his own way and didn’t fit into a conventional institutional frameworks.
He almost became a doctor but found out that he wasn’t really interested in that and found it to be boring. (Lesson: don’t enter businesses you’re not passionate about.)
He learnt a ton from starting his first company, e-functions. Wrong move was that he built the product before talking to his market (BIG mistake). Spent all his money developing the idea but if he had made 5 phone calls to people he was targeting, he would’ve realized it wasn’t a good one. (Lesson: Do your research, because you take this to your customers and they might just tell you the product is shit)
This man is a serial entrepreneurs. 10 businesses failed before he hit the right one. (Lesson: entrepreneurship is not rosy. Look at your failures as lessons).
“When you’re broke, you start to think different.” Wanted to be an entrepreneur but also understood that bills needed to get paid. (Lesson: do what you need to do to get to where you want to get. If you need to take a temporary job to fund your dreams, do it. There’s no shame in that.)
He didn’t give 100% at his jobs. He just needed to reach his targets and get paid to sort out these bills. Was always working on side projects (Lesson: refer above)
“Focus on outcome, not activity.” A lot of companies focus on activity, when they’re not results-driven.
He has always been thinking long term
Concerned only about performance- “I don’t give a shit about what you wear or do. Just put the numbers up.”
“You stay small by getting things done.”
Jason literally only cares about outcome
Moved back into his mom’s house. (Lesson: Again, no shame in that. And why are you even concerned about what others think? Face your front, and do what you need to do.)
Original content of Nigerian music to the world was Jason taking CDs back from Owerri to London and selling on eBay
“When someone leaves your organizattion, the way you treat them as they leave defines their whole experience with you”
The way you treat someone when they’re leaving also tells a lot to your employees who stay
Jumped into Lagos to do on the ground research. Bastian supported him financially. (Lesson: if you want to run a business in Africa, you better be in Africa. Personal experience here and trust me, I know what I’m talking about)
Went straight to the source to see what was going on in the market
Saw his company as being the bridge between producers and the online market. None was solving that problem at the time (Lesson: your business must always be solving a problem.)
Leveraged the TechCrunch story by Jessica Hope and built relationships off of that. Also helped them raise money because of exposure to Silicon Valley. (Lesson: press is always a good idea.)
Tiger Global was taking big bets on video company. (Lesson: Find the investors who want to make a dent in a particular industry and pitch them on why you’re the best.)
Iroko changed the game in buying content. Jason separated himself from the competition…created a moat that discouraged anyone else from competing because it didn’t make financial sense. He used money to demoralize his competition. (Lesson: moats (and cash) are the lifeline of your business. Learn to build them.)
“In life, it’s not about the 1000 things you do but about the 1 thing you do.”
Used to teach his guys how to do his business (big mistake IMO)
When you’re a small company, what you need to do is WIN. Be focused on winning.
He’s always in survival mode - always competing like it’s do or die
“Lets win first, then we optimize margins later.” (Lesson: This reminded me of Travis K. and it’s funny, because this is any unicorn’s mindset. Granted it works for some companies and doesn’t for others but when you see companies raising mega rounds to separate themselves from the competition, this is their mindset. Think Uber, WeWork, Netflix, Airbnb. But now Wall Street is pushing them to focus on profits.)
Big fan of returning value to share holders (as everyone should be).
When you build value over the long term, people appreciate it
Vast majority of companies in Africa don’t do 100m$ in ARR (Surprise 👻)
“Nigeria is our biggest market….not Africa…Nigeria.”
What we need in Africa are fundamentally good strong value generating business (Definitely).
Don’t listen to the hype. And theres a lot of hype right now in the system. The hype will burn itself out. Hype is driven by money going into certain spaces. (Ahem…fintech).
(Lesson: Share real actionable data, not vanity metrics.)
Q: “What tech has grown exponentially in Nigeria?”- A: WhatsApp. Fundamental communication tool in Nigeria today.
Most important thing is about investing is getting in early. (Lesson: Big risk big returns)
This country (Nigeria) isn’t known for building big large stable sustainable businesses
First, you have to survive. Then think about making money. Do what you need to do to survive.
Look under the hood for real companies
To founders: “When push comes to shove, are you still going to be around and make this business work? If you’re not willing to sit and build this company for the next 10 - 15 years, you’re going to fail.”
If you don’t have that long term attitude, it’s just not going to work
Skip the hype. Is the company providing value?
If this company disappeared, would people’s world change? (Ding ding ding ding ding. Right on the money!🛎🛎🛎🛎💰)
Value is in the problem people are solving, but at what scale? How massive is that problem?
How many are solving problems that are going to touch everybody, and by everybody, I mean, the 95 percentile?
To solve big problems is very hard
Very few companies would be 100m$, so set high but realistic goals
Don’t optimize for companies like how silicon valley does, optimize for revenue. Cash flow is where the money is at (literally).
📱📱Quote of the day
“A genius is the one most like himself.”— Thelonius Monk
Remember folks: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”