Midweek Check-In: Innovator, Your Product Is Invisible
and that’s a BIG problem! 👀👀
Vitaju, Dear Innovator 👋
Pronunciation: ‘veeta-you’. It’s Belarusian for “hello”.
So if you’re ever in Belarus, it can come in handy as a conversation starter
And since we’re on greetings…
How’s the founder life treating you these days? 🤓
Most importantly, since this week began, how many people have you told about what you’re building?
This is precisely why we have social media!
Yet, many solutions and solution providers, in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and other African countries often remain underrepresented online. Reports show that over 65% of African small‑and‑medium enterprises don’t have a website or even an online listing, and African startups are often undervalued globally because they don’t tell their stories well enough!
This thing is, you could have the most brilliant product on the continent, one that’s solving a problem that affects millions of people in a unique way, but if it’s not out there for the whole world to see, it’s really just you, your laptop and your team in a committed relationship 🤷
REALITY CHECK:
Take a short break today.
Use someone else’s device (yes, this part is very important), google your product’s name and look through your socials as well.
Take a deep and long look at it like this 👁👄👁
You like what you see?? (in Lasisi’s voice)
Would a random person understand what you’re offering from the very first glance of socials? Does your message and solution speak to their pain points or are your posts just pretty?
Right now, a potential user is searching for a solution that you 🫵 have built and as expected, they WILL find something, it just won’t be yours!
The other guys that will come up in their search are not necessarily the best. They are not necessarily the cheapest either. They are just the most visible.
TL;DR:
No social presence = no proof you exist. Let’s fix that!
What Else Is Cooking in the Ecosystem?
Nigeria’s Ministry of Education has opened applications for a ₦50 million, equity-free grant for student-led ventures. There’s a portal now available too.
Wanna know the full deets before you get into anything? 😉 Click the headline for the full read!
Fresh out of secondary school, Okechukwu Nwaozor, is building an LLM from scratch with his startup, OkeyMeta, and it’s not just a pet project!
Thousands of developers are using its API 🤯, and his model is already live.
Click the headline for the full story!
Past Publications: Old But Gold
It’s not enough to build something great, your users NEED to see it. See how other Innovators are navigating this 👇
We’ve explained how Open Banking works, why you 🫵 should be leveraging it!
Opportunities:
Tech News:
UmrahCash is building the “OPay for pilgrims” travelling to Saudi Arabia
Some startups believe that AI can make childbirth safer in Africa 😁
Nigeria’s ZOOMe is building the infrastructure that will power electric mobility across Africa
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Coming This Saturday…
What’s actually reshaping the African innovation space? Is it the big ideas/solutions or the “small” ones?
We’ll unpack it on Saturday. Don’t miss it! 😉