Despite the pandemic pushing millions of Nigerian businesses to the brink, it has also created new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Some entrepreneurs are now diversifying into new businesses to leverage these opportunities while others are tweaking their existing business models in line with the new normal.
Start-Up Digest in no particular order will be taking a look at some start-ups that have taken advantage created by the pandemic to create wealth.
Steven Nwadike
Steven Nwadike, co-founder, Peexoo Technologies who is on a mission to change the African narrative through photography launched the Peexoo Lookalike strategy to survive the difficult moment of the pandemic despite operating in an industry that is one of the hardest hit by the pandemic outbreak.
“The pandemic put us on our toes to start thinking of other ways we can generate revenue as a company, engage our users, and churn out great content to photographers on our platform,” he says.
“We launched some cool features like Peexoo lookalike -a facial recognition web app that enables you to find your famous African celebrity lookalike,” he explains.
The strategy made a success as lots of Nigerians who were bored during the initial lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus visited the website and participated in the Peexoo lookalike initiative.
“We had no idea that Peexoo Lookalike would spread like wildfire because within a week we had gained 12,000 users,” he says.
Similarly, Steven launched the Peexoo Learn which was dedicated solely to online courses for photography and targeted at amateurs and professionals in the industry looking at redefining their skills.
The business is generating revenue from the newly adopted strategy and has been successfully paying its ten employees their wages when other similar businesses operating in the same industry are struggling to survive or shutting down.
Established in 2018, Peexoo Technology is a SAAS and online photography marketplace powered by Artificial Intelligence to provide impactful images of the African continent and opportunities for other photographers on the continent to thrive.
The computer-scientists who started his entrepreneurship journey while he was an undergraduate was inspired by the ‘Entrepreneur Creed’ by Thomas Paine and now is building a platform that showcases beautiful imagery of the continent.
“My dream is to empower the creativity of black men everywhere brave enough to lift a camera while declaring to the world that Peexoo is the gateway to changing the perception of how the outside world sees Africa,” he says.
“Photographers can single-handedly change the Africa perception but first, they need to change their mentality and start thinking as revolutionaries using just the power of images,” he adds.
Abraham Ojes
Abraham Ojes launched Saya during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with a mission to revamp the Nigerian supply chain which was badly hit by the virus outbreak for informal retailers across the country.
He explains that his platform can transform and formalise Nigeria’s informal supply chain by bringing more distributors and retailers online.
“It is a direct-to-retailer (DTR) channel that can be vital to small scale FMCGs trying to bypass big shot distributors who would not move their products,” he says.
Abraham was inspired to establish Saya out of a desire to create a unique product for a particular segment of its logistic business in March -during the peak of the COVID-19 to address disruption on the food supply chain.
Since starting, the platform has continued to get orders from resellers across the country.
The business which is a bootstrapped start-up now has 10 full-time employees including the two co-founders in nine months. The agriculturalist says the business plans to continuously scale its activities.
“The logistics industry is vital to the survival of companies in the FMCG sector whose products have short shelf lives and need to reach the final consumer in ample time,” he says.
“Startups are bringing innovation to the upstream, where it is less capital intensive and not prone to policy flip-flop,” he adds.
He further says that Saya is focused on developing the right technology needed to make the industry very efficient.
Babajide Esho
As lockdown and social distancing measures forced schools to shut down in a bid to curtail the spread of the virus during the first wave, students had to switch to digital platforms to continue learning.
Babajide Esho, chief executive officer of Edustripe.com developed virtual content that helps improve digital learning as well as educating parents on educational processes and ways to incorporate the Edustripe tools and products.
Speaking on how the business is re-strategising amid the pandemic, the University of Lagos graduate says the business is focused on building products to reach parents directly without going through the schools.
“We have also carried out work on creating virtual content for students and parents through programs like V-Engage by Edustripe,” he says.
Babajide was invited to the 2020 Founder Institute Class of Businesses. Also, Edustripe is a graduate of the 2019 Startup School program by Y Combinator where it got the AWS Funding of up to $3,000 and other key resources.
The business has also completed workshops on Data Privacy Reviews facilitated by Global Partners Digital, Paradigm Initiative, and Co-Creation Hub.
Barbara Ndugbu
Despite the pandemic negatively affecting her business as sales declines significantly owing to the shut-down of event centers and restrictions on large gatherings, Barbara Ndugbu, founder of Oven Secret Limited had to remodel her business strategy to tap pandemic opportunities.
Barbara who creates beautiful cakes for clients that want to celebrate their birthdays, weddings, and graduations or mark special occasions in their lives resorted to virtual training for students interested in learning the art of baking.
She also started making small-sized cupcakes with home delivery. She aggressively marketed the small-sized cupcakes on social media platforms.
She has continued to survive the difficult moment of the pandemic has orders for her cupcakes have increased rapidly.
“We aggressively advertised and marketed smaller products which were in higher demand and also substituted highly-priced raw materials with less expensive ones while maintaining the quality of products,” she explains.
“During the lockdown, we had three private delivery personnel to handle all our cake deliveries within Lagos,” she discloses.
