SELF STARTERS NIGERIA

The Student Innovation Challenge is about collaboration, innovation and creativity.  Students from across Universities and Polytechnics in Nigeria will pitch their innovative ideas, learn the skills required to start and grow a successful business, perfect pitch delivery, receive business developmental support and join a network of successful entrepreneurs and innovators. 30 FINALISTS WILL RECEIVE 1 MILLION NAIRA EACH IN SEED FUND. Eligibility SIC is open to undergraduate students in any accredited University or Polytechnic in Nigeria. Your pitch must be solving a local challenge. Applications MUST be submitted on or before 15th of April 2018. For more information.  Visit  http://studentinnovationchallenge.ng

Presentation Skills for Entrepreneurs Presentation is a way to represent your idea through pictures, but it needs excellent communication skills too. Effective presentation can help your business in growth. Once you explain everything digitally in a conference hall, everyone likes your product. A few steps which you should follow for convincing your target audiences are as follows − ●       Step 1  − Before proceeding to the presentation, you should clear your objective in advance. During a presentation, you can try to focus to a specific topic, so the users are impressed with it and understand your key motive and take a decision. ●       Step 2  − Practice your point of view in advance, so that you can be prepared for the target audience at the time of the presentation. It is a big challenge to impress everyone, but when you know the people, then you can give presentat...

Starting product based business is not easy. Manufacturing and selling a product involves setting up production, business systems, and a sales team. It is exciting, challenging and includes a lot of hard working. knowing what motivates you is key to starting product based business.  Here, we explore 10 crucial things to consider in starting product based business of your own. #1. Check Your Idea Before starting, check your idea twice. After developing the idea of the product, check your potential competitors in the market, both direct and indirect. Define your ideal consumer demographic. #2. Get Market Feasibility Report Starting product based business includes manufacturing, sales, marketing, accounting and HR operation. You may have a great product, but are you in the right market? Having a market feasibility report prior is highly recommended. It will define your distribution mechanism, pricing structure, and other business variables. #3. Craft A Busines...

Meet Timilehin Bello, 25, is the Chief Executive Officer of Media Panache, a public relations and digital marketing firm. In this interview, he says though there may be challenges, he finds fulfilment as an entrepreneur.  Tell us about Media Panache.   Media Panache Nigeria is a public relations and digital marketing firm founded in 2016. We serve both individuals and organisations in community, government, and media relations.  How did it start?   The company’s journey has been quite a riveting one. I founded Media Panache in March 2016 shortly after exiting my previous place of work. With the ample knowledge I had procured in the field, I visualised and put together a PR agency with a young and vibrant team that would exert unique approaches in the execution of creative PR ideas.  We initially started on a WhatsApp group, attending to clients and setting projects in motion thereon – before moving into an office space situated in Ikeja, Lagos. What motivated y...

TIPS TO ATTRACT ANGEL INVESTORS FOR STARTUPS  More and more  startup entrepreneurs nowadays are looking for advice on how to attract angel investors to grow their business. An angel investor is always an attractive funding option for the startup entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur needs to understand having an idea is not enough to attract angel investors. Entrepreneurs need to understand what angel investors exactly look in startups. Angel investors are accredited investors, who invest their own money for a percentage of the business. Here we put some tips about attracting angel investors for startups. 1. Build a Convincing Business Model Angel investors always look to see a well organized  and thought out business model. They will be interested if your startup model is profitable, expandable and revenue sharing. It is important to clearly define your competitive landscape of the business and how the product has a cl...

How to be a True Entrepreneur A careful decision must be made to move on to a position involving leadership. This means that, entrepreneurs should begin to inherit attributes of great leaders from now onwards. This can boost entrepreneurs to be capable of thriving in their varied roles in the organization. To become a true entrepreneur.  Take these steps: Set a Role Model Choose leaders whom entrepreneurs idolize most. They may be leaders of modern world or may be legendary leaders from history or maybe both. Start working by combining styles that entrepreneurs think are most suitable for them. They might include personally known mentors as well. Maintain Discipline and Decorum To become an entrepreneur, you need to change some habits that you inherited when you were a follower. A good control over the working process and a consistent rate of implementing ideas are necessary qualities of an entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs, who we have seen before, basic building blocks of a great le...

Most start-up entrepreneurs view a business plan as only a fund raising instrument to submit in bank or any other financial institution. But truly a business plan is a tool for understanding how to put together everything in your business. It is useful to monitoring progress and keeping the business accountable. It also helpful in making sales strategy, recruitment and overall financial planning. Business plan is a written document that describes the nature of business, sales and marketing strategy and a financial calculations with a projected profit and loss account. According to Investopaedia, A business plan is a written document that describes in detail how a business, usually a new one, is going to achieve its goals. Sometimes, a business plan is prepared for an established business that is moving in a new direction. Here are 10 critical reasons to have a business plan. To Define a New Business Venture By creating a business plan you will be able to define the new business ven...