Oluwole Ogunlade is an inspirer of startup founders. To him, he believes startups with potentials need to scale and grow fast in order to drop the toga and escape the possibility of failing.
Starting a business might seem easy, but running it, growing, scaling and making it profitable is the ‘Holy Grail’ for many startups that are proliferating Nigeria’s tech and small business community.
In this exclusive interview, Oluwole Ogunlade, a scale and growth expert for startups shared some of his proven nuggets for actual and intending startup founders on how to scale a sustainable business in the face of adversity.
One of Nigeria’s tech veteran said there is no tech ecosystem in Nigeria, do you agree?
We all have different perspectives. I believe we have a tech ecosystem, even though I will regard it as nascent. Some people might think an ecosystem does not exist yet maybe because they are expecting validations from government interventions or a visit from Mark Zuckerberg or a $1 billion exit to happen.
I believe what we should focus on is how we can collaborate with each other the more to sustain the ecosystem as I wrote about here.
Startups are believed to have 95% failure rate, is Nigeria worse than this going by your experience?
Startups fail everywhere for various reasons and Nigeria is not an exception. Going by my experience, the issue of low funding and infrastructural deficits are major reasons for failure. Unfortunately, there is no data to determine how many businesses in Nigeria fail.
Apart from the ‘given’ harsh economic climate in Nigeria, Why do most startups fail in Nigeria?
Startups fail for so many reasons. While we often blame it on the harsh economy, it is usually as a result of how individual businesses respond to the harsh economy that matters. Many startups fail because they do not address real needs, especially when they are just clones of Western ideas; so if they do not solve any specific needs of users, they will die eventually.
Other reasons include bad business model, poor execution by the founders, low funding and several others are reasons why startups in Nigeria fail. Overcoming the reasons why startups fail is a collective responsibilities we must all be willing to invest in.
As a data-driven marketer, what are you doing to encourage startups and small businesses to imbibe the culture of data-driven marketing?
I have earned myself the title of “growth evangelist” as a result of my work experience with companies like VoguePay and the tech community at large. Also, I have demonstrated how startups can scale their growth using data-driven approaches.
To encourage other people who want to imbibe this culture of data-driven growth marketing, I launched SpokenTwice.com in 2015. The blog is focused on growth marketing strategies tips for startups. In addition to this I also guest write for 2 leading tech publications and contribute on tech forums.
My other involvement includes being the convener of #hackgrowth; a proposed monthly meet-up for startup founders and growth marketers. We held our first event last year with support from our partners. As part of my contributions, I am also a mentor for the Tony Elumelu foundation for Entrepreneur (TEEP) where I offer guidance to up to 4 entrepreneurs every year.
Which startup have you successfully scaled into profitability?
I have worked with several startups (in full-time positions or in advisory capacities), I can tell you that they are all competitive and in top 10% of their market segments. These startups cut across payment/fintech, logistics, accounting and household furniture retail businesses.
Many startup founders are strong willed, how have you been convincing them that they need people like you?
(Laughs). There is no need to convince such people. In fact, they will end up as the worst people to help. I will rather make myself available to someone who is open to the ideas. Most of the people I have worked with reached out to me after reading my articles or seeing me speak. These include people working in Google, Jumia group and other leading startups. I have never advertised my service.
Are we in a startup bubble and how can young entrepreneurs avoid this trap?
It also depends on your school of thought. I believe there is no startup bubble yet, however, you can’t just launch something so that people will call you CEO of “another startup” and expect to succeed. To really succeed at your venture, it might be important to work for others in order to gain valuable experience before starting your own as Tayo Oviosu, CEO of Paga once advised.
How will you assess the investor community in Nigeria?
The local investment climate in Nigeria is becoming interesting, thanks to initiatives like Lagos Angel Network and Africa Business Angel Network led by Tomi Davids and Collins Onuegbu. The individual and corporate efforts of players like Maya Horgan of Ingressive, Eghosa Omoigui of EchoVC, Chika Nwobi of L5Lab and Jason Njoku of Spark are making a dent and causing us to get considerable attention. But there is still more to be done to ensure that more startups access fund at favourable term sheets to grow their businesses.
Tell us about your company?
Right now, I work as head of digital media and strategy at an online payment company called VoguePay. I am responsible for driving user growth and revenue north of N500 million quarterly for a bouquet of innovative financial and SMS products including online payment, long code and shortcode SMS services etc.
About Oluwole Ogunlade
Wole Ogunlade is a growth strategist for early-stage startups; he has worked with startups with revenue up to $100million per annum.
As a seasoned speaker, he has worn the “Speaker’s badge” at events across Africa like KPMG Fintech Summit, Finance-Indaba (biggest Fintech event in Africa), West Africa Convergence Conference, NITEC Summit and even hosted #hackgrowth summit.
He writes about growth marketing topics on his personal blog, SpokenTwice.com and also contributes to leading tech blogs in Nigeria and diaspora. He is a mentor at the 2nd edition of the Tony Elumelu Foundation programme for entrepreneurs. You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter @spokentwice.