The Afropreneur

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a while and we thoroughly apologize.

This week we are focusing on ‘Multitasking’, is multitasking the best way to handle tasks? is it efficient? Does multitasking help you achieve more? Does multitasking equate productivity? What are the alternatives to multitasking?

Is it safe to text while driving? I am sure you’ll be wondering how relevant this is to businesses. Let me explain, last week I sent an email to a client (easy stuff) but I forgot to add an attachment, just because my mind was occupied with completing another task at the same time.

I have also been in situations where one task suffered because I focused on just one and missed the deadline.

Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we’re getting more done. In reality, our productivity goes down by as much as 40%. We don’t actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process.

An HBR Research has shown that heavy multitaskers are less competent at doing several things at once than light multitaskers. In other words, in contrast to the ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ saying, the more you multitask, the worse you are at it.

But this is not often true. Our body was born to multitask. We multitask involuntarily. We type, think, blink and breathe all at the same time. Millions of nerve commands are flying across to our brain and they are getting processed along with the conscious activities in our to do list.  It is possible to multitask if the right activities are paired together. But multitasking is not for everybody.

Listen to our discussion on what we think about multitasking and what alternatives exist.

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

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You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

In case you missed it, we discussed   ERADICATING POVERTY THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH YVETTE ONDACHI. Listen and share

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Hello Afropreneurs,

Entrepreneurship can be hard, yes we said it, really hard! Especially with the socio-economic problems we face in our continent. However, solutions lie where challenges exist!

We believe the key to reducing poverty in our continent is through encouraging and promoting Entrepreneurship and small businesses.

According to a report by National Bureau of Statisitics, at least 112 million Nigerians now live below poverty. This accounts for about 67 percent of the total population. The level marked as global poor is on the one billion mark and Nigeria accounts for 112 million.   Read more here. Over 47% of people in Sub-saharan Africa are poor.

These statistics call for concern and a rethink in our strategies. We questioned our system and searched for possible solutions to the problem of poverty in Nigeria. One solution particularly stood out for us. That solution was Entrepreneurship.

Startups account for over 50% of jobs created in Africa. We hold solutions bigger than the direct solutions we address. We can eradicate poverty if we practice Africapitalism.

One Entrepreneur that caught our attention last week was Yvette Ondachi, we instantly fell in love with her after reaching out to her. We felt she was the perfect person to discuss this with.

Unfortunately, we had an electrical fault damage our recording equipment so the audio isn’t up to the standard you expect of us. This doesn’t take anything away from everything Yvette spoke about!

She talked about Partnerships and learning to leverage on people, she also harped on the importance of determination and setting milestones in starting and running your business.

Listen to all the advice she had to give entrepreneurs in the audio file.

“It is our time to have home-bred solutions rather than wait for solutions from ‘outside’, we have it in us”

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

In case you missed it, last week we shared nuggets from Startup Grind Lagos’s meetup with Chris Kwekowe of Slatecube. It focused on Grinding from Scratch

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Hi Afropreneur,

This week we had the honor of speaking to a talented young entrepreneur making waves in Nigeria, we jokingly called him the Mark Zukerberg of Africa.

I’m sure you are wondering who this is? He is Chris Kwekowe, CEO of Slatecube. Chris is an interesting young man whose entrepreneurial journey is filled with lessons for the everyday African Entrepreneur.

One quote from him that got me thinking was that on Passion and how passion is never enough.

Passion is a feeling, and as every other feeling it diffuses away when you don’t get results. Success (no matter how small) drive passion.

Chris, who started the parent company – microbold, at age 18, is also MIT and Harvard trained. He is passionate about technology and the average African youth.

He is popular for being the guy who turned down a job offer from Bill Gates (as a result of bloggers and news sites) but you can find out the real gist in the podcast below. Chris clarified the rumors and took us on a journey through his life.

His venture, Slatecube, aims at developing young African talents into world class professionals for today’s distributed workforce. He’s shared this model with the likes of US President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and across several continents and countries within the last 2 years.

We have made snippets of our chat with him available below. However, the full audio clip will be available for sale in a week.

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

In case you missed it, last week we discussed Hardwork vs. Smartwork

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Hello Afropreneur,

A question has bugged us for a while and it inspired this podcast. A bricklayer and a web developer, who works harder?

This question is not intended to undermine anyone’s hustle. It just got us thinking. What should we define hard work by? Is hard work defined based on mental activity or physical activity? Why do people rate mental activity above physical activity? Why do we pay more for more mentally tasking activities in comparison to physically tasking activities?

We evaluated the work environment across industries. We also compared pay grades and the factors that determines the amounts people are entitled to. These questions led us to a few discoveries which we summarized into ” Hard work vs Smart work”.

Hard work involves making effort physically to get results while smart work involves making physical and mental/intelligent/creative efforts to yield results. In this currently fast paced world, is hard work really enough for an entrepreneur?

Listen to us go back and forth on this. Also, we share tips on working smarter and obvious signs/qualities that show you are a smart worker.

Stay tuned.

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA TOO: @theafropreneur on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In case you missed it, we shared nuggets from Startup Grind Lagos’ February Meetup with Nimi Akinkugbe and Dr Olumuyiwa Oludayo. Awesome meetup!!!

Never miss another meetup, write us on [email protected] to indicate interest.

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The Month of February has been absolutely awesome for the entrepreneurship scene in Lagos. Startup Grind, a community for entrepreneurs to network and learn. Startup Grind Lagos have not relented in making this global vision a reality in Nigeria. The recent meetup was held on February 25th, 2016 where they hosted Nimi Akinkugbe (CEO, Best Man Games) and Dr. Olumuyiwa Oludayo (Director, African Leadership Development Centre) and it was an amazing Experience.

Nimi Akinkugbe taught on the theme of the day “Mastering your Financial Grind” and she expatiated on why the African entrepreneur has to take understanding Finance important.

Dr. Muyiwa Oludayo broke down steps to “Effective Time Management” in such a way that left everyone enlightened.

The Chapter Director of Startup Grind Lagos, Uwem Uwemakpan took us through a series of “Entrepreneurship Musings”, asking questions like:

* Are all entrepreneurs business men?

* Which is more important to a startup, money or network?

* Should startup entrepreneurs pay themselves salary, especially as a 1 man company?

The Co-director, Blessing Abeng, had  a brief chat with Nimi Akinkugbe, delving into her personal world and her financial world. It was an insightful program and we hope you can make next month’s meet up.

We provided snippets of all they had to say in the audio clip below, however the full recording is available for sale for just N1,000. Send an email to questions[@]theafropreneur.net or visit http://theafropreneur.net/shop to purchase your copy.

We also compiled all the activities that happened at the meetup, you can read the article here

You can also view pictures from the meetup here

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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The African youth is enterprising, innovative and loves to solve the problems that affect his/her immediate community. However, sometime we do take on too little or too much as the case may be.

Entrepreneurship is all about deriving value from helping people solve their problems, as well as bettering our immediate community and the African continent as a whole. We spoke to one passionate serial Entrepreneur from Ghana, George Sylvanus Niikoi Neequaye, and he tell us about his journey as an Entrepreneur, his passion and how he identifies opportunities.

In whatever you do or believe in, strive to be the best at it

The Afropreneur Pitchdeck Workshop holds in Lagos this weekend, Saturday the 18th. Do not miss this opportunity to learn how to pitch and sell your ideas impeccably. You will also learn to draft your pitch/slide deck so it’s going to be a hands-on and rewarding experience.

Register here:- http://workshop.theafropreneur.net

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Hi Afropreneurs,

Last weekend was quite interesting for us, first we hosted Audu Maikori at our Monthly Startup Grind Lagos Meetup and I joined my first book reading club (I noticed I don’t read anymore).

Audu Maikori is not just a lawyer, he is an entrepreneur that changed the terrain of the music industry in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, we can’t give you all the full text/audio of our chat with him but we can share some snippets that will no doubt be beneficial to you.

Here are some noteworthy points he made in our discussion:

* Where there’s a problem, there’s a money making possibility/venture

* With every failure you have an opportunity to be better

* You succeed because of what you believe in despite what people say. There is always a reason you can fail

* People want to start from the top floor, rather than from the foundation. Scale step by step

* Dress for the occasion, do not be cliche in the way you look.

* Failures are blessings in disguise, sometimes we rush to do things that we are not ready for

Click to Download

See some tweets from the event below:Tweets by StartupGrindLAG

Always remember that your failure do not determine how far you will go.

Be Awesome!!

~Uwem & Blessing

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Have you ever heard about “Okafor’s Law”?

Our Nigerian listeners would have probably heard it at one time or the other.  Okafor’s law is the law of “repeatable” action: If you have done something once, you can do it again. If you have been somewhere before, you can go there again. Although it is often mischievously applied to the sexual relationship between a boy and girl, Okafor’s law is actually a principle of life.

Many businesses owners feel that since a business strategy worked for me yesterday (or over time), the same strategy will remain effective tomorrow and in the future. This leaves us with a lot of businesses/companies stagnant, failing to compete with more innovative companies and dying off slowly.

Although, there are certain principles that stand the test of time and can be retained as long as you want but do not build your business and processes to be rigid.

Examples of companies that stuck to their guns and failed to innovate quick enough include Blackberry, Nokia and even Barnes and Noble.

Below are key points from our discussion

* Innovation doesn’t have to be about your product/service offering, it should also be focused on processes

* Customers are not loyal, they will jump ship once they see a better product / service.

* Constantly listen out for your customer’s feedback, understand what they want

* Train you staff to carry and live the ‘brand’.

* Don’t fight change, embrace and make change

* Your competitors are not resting, so why should you?

* Always evaluate and analyze your strategy and numbers. It will help you identify the right time to innovate.

* Innovate the process, not just the product

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Our Nigerian listeners would have probably heard it at one time or the other. Okafor's law is the law of “repeatable” action: If you have done something once, you can do it again. If you have been somewhere before, you can go there again.

Many businesses owners feel that since a business strategy worked for me yesterday (or over time), the same strategy will remain effective tomorrow and in the future. This leaves us with a lot of businesses/companies stagnant, failing to compete with more innovative companies and dying off slowly.

Dear African Entrepreneur,

We often make the mistake of attributing all that’s wrong in our continent to our leaders forgetting that each and every one of us, and not just the leaders, hold the key to Africa’s development. Leadership is everyone’s business and responsibility.

We caught up with the inspiring Olatorera Oniru, who is the CEO of Dressmeoutlet.com. Dressmeoutlet.com is one of Africa’s fastest growing, fashion-focused, quality-focused and customer-centric online retailers. You can read all about her here. She shared her thoughts on Leadership and the role of entrepreneurs in it

Here a key points from our conversation:

* Run the country like your business because it is our business

*  Talk about problems not as complaints but to find opportunities and solutions

* Inspire members of your family to emulate your attitude of accountability and integrity

* Support other entrepreneurs to grow their business as the growth of our businesses have effect on the economy of our countries.

* It starts in the little things like staying organized, respecting queues and people’s time, respecting each other etc.

* Don’t give up on the country. We are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs never give up till they see the results they expect

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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