BusinessDay interviews Sim Shagaya, CEO Konga.com

Extract:

Q: What is your view on BusinessDay’s Mobile Money Conference?

I believe the event is incredibly relevant and it is a good idea that BusinessDay is driving it because it has wide implications for the economy and business. I’m not sure the larger society really understands the implication of the combination of mobile and money and how transformative it is going to be regarding every facet of the Nigerian economic sector. I think it is a really great idea.

Q: As one of the pioneers of the e-transaction platform in Nigeria, what are the major challenges that you have come across?

Even as Konga, we see the progress being made every day. I say that because as a business, 70% to 80% of our transactions are cash on delivery so we have to handle a lot of cash. It is our hope that as we go into the future the cash would start to reduce and that some of the innovation we see in the realm of mobile payments and transactions would start to get rid of those problems.

Q: Advice to young entrepreneurs in Nigeria

The first thing is that there’s no better place in the world today to be starting a business, there is so much opportunity in Nigeria. Even as a business, Konga has so many needs and things that we look for but cannot find in Nigeria. So I will say that the environment is really good. Unfortunately with entrepreneurship comes failure. They say you fail an average of 2.5 times before you get it right so I’ll really urge the young people to be persistent. Be patient and keep pushing. This is very difficult because people of Nigeria probably have it the hardest. You just have to persist and keep pushing.