Thread by @NaijaFlyingDr

So for people that were at the Founders conference this morning promised I would tweet out learning resources in the following areas a. Professional Development b. Funding a business c. Running your business d. Investing

Will start with professional development. Developing yourself through various learning resources is a major key, Books especially audiobooks /Online courses/Youtube videos and offline courses can help you do this.

Best site hands down for audiobooks is audible.com. Advantage is that you can listen with others, whilst you are typing, whilst you are in traffic and switch btw an endless number of books as you can carry hundreds on your phone. Plus your first book is free.

However, the books on audible.com are a little pricey. Sites that you can get free audiobooks from include openculture.com/freeaudiobooks, librivox.org, loyalbooks.com, freeclassicaudiobooks.com, scribl.com and ejunto.org

Here is a list of my favorite business books from audible

medium.com/@drola/my-favo…

The second set of questions were on getting funding. Investors are looking for profitable companies, with competent teams ,transparent financial records, sustainable business models and realistic expectations. This combination is often difficult to find.

The most likely source of funding is your own personal savings or your customer

A long-held notion in entrepreneurial circles is that the way to start and grow a thriving business is to come up with a great "idea", write a great business plan, raise capital from angels or VCs, flawlessly execute the plan, and (Voila!) get rich! Na lie.

Even in America, where there is excessive capital the vast majority of fast-growing companies--like those on the Inc. 5000 list--never raise venture capital.

And even when they raise, they don't raise much. Venture capital investor Fred Wilson says "The fact is that the amount of money startups raise in their seed and Series A rounds is inversely correlated with success. Less money raised leads to more success.

There are numerous examples of large, successful companies that have grown using their customers’ cash, like Airbnb, Banana Republic, and Dell.

More examples here: businessinsider.com/bootstrapped-c…

They may have raised money, but they did it later, once the business model was proven and generating revenue. Those conditions make it easier to attract funding, giving the entrepreneur a lot more control over the terms of the deal.

I am from a poorly connected, working class family. I was unable to raise capital for my business for the first few years. So I had to use my customers cash to build. You can too. Make your customer your VC.

Learn the 5 models that you can use to customer fund your business here:
americanexpress.com/us/small-busin…

You can also read the Harvard Business Review article on the topic, summarized in this diagram 👇

Ladies who asked about men coming onto them/unwanted attention in the course of doing business. I actually find men our age are pretty easy to do business with. Older men are not. Many are abgaya's and will try to toast you.

Avoid them as much as possible, if you must interact, come to the table with financial strength/expertise or both. And follow the LAWS of executive presence here: medium.com/@drola/a-ladie…

Lots and lots of questions about venture capital funding. These are some of the things that most investors look for when selecting companies to invest in.
medium.com/@drola/how-to-…
There are a few of the VC's active in Nigeria and their portfolio companies.

I gave three tips for running a business in Nigeria in this article.
1. Watch you money like a hawk
2. Remember you can't do it alone
3. Be prepared to work extremely hard
medium.com/@drola/3-tips-…

Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is paradoxical, we operate in an environment where there are huge opportunities, but also many challenges.

The trick is to exploit the opportunities as best you can whilst ensuring that the challenges don’t kill you. This is easier said than done :-)

For the questions on where & how to invest, this is my article on investing in Nigeria. Unfortunately advice on how and where to invest in Nigeria is sparse as even account officers don’t know or choose not to encourage clients to invest their money wisely
medium.com/@drola/a-quick…