- Only work with people you actually want to be around and can see yourself spending time with. This includes investors
- Start small but start what matters
- The commonality amongst most of the successful tech startups is that they have an amazing product to market fit. They provide a product that is so needed that the market adopts it quickly.
- Get your hands dirty early on and learn the ‘hard skills’
- His advice to his 25-year-old would be to work for a high growth startup
- A lot of founders didn’t know what they had when they
- The timing of your product in the market is crucial. If the timing isn’t right you have no business
- Focus on local problems rather than foreign ones and build your business around that. Nigeria is blessed with a massive population teeming with problems that need to be fixed. Focus on them.
- The more you can delay fundraising when starting out the better. Don’t reduce your equity on the cap table too early on. It’s expensive
- Getting your first 5 users is harder than getting the first 10, but the most crucial
- Who you expose yourself to in your career is a major key to success. Surround yourself with smart, successful, talented people you can work with
- The best founders are very empathetic.
- Build something people really want and need
- Silicon valley took 70 + years to get to where it was so don’t expect instant success in your local ecosystem.
