Thread by @Adamtilde

You cannot afford to be poor. Pause and reflect. A Thread:

@Marzuq_Ungogo &I reached this position around Dec 2017 for the simple reason that, as a northern Nigerian, you are bounded by responsibilities you're neither consulted for nor a signatory to. The so-called Black Tax.

The income of average Hausa-Fulani man is, directly or indirectly, tied to the responsibility of at least ten people. And you're expected to shoulder these inherited responsibilities with equanimity&defiance even at the face of the existential threats of poverty and squalor.

Entrepreneurship is the only industry that can swallow the football team you're carrying around. And here, too, you're also constrained by 2factors: absence of family wealth to rely on for the required initial capital & inherited cultural reservation on bank loans&funding by VCs.

You're likely to survive this wahala by investing in developing your intellectual capital, which would open doors and access that were hitherto closed and inaccessible. You would get to friend rich kids and meet influential people that can vouch for your creditworthiness.

Alternatively, your intellectual capital can fetch you jobs in posh MNCs & IOCs where you will be paid handsomely. Thereafter you can engage in massive savings and investment until you sufficiently have appreciable capital that can kick-start a business.

I must quickly add a caveat: run as fast your legs can take you from those fancy but unrealistic business ideas and cases you read in HBR and other grand publications. This does not dismiss the endless jewels of management, innovation, creativity you can mine.

Entrepreneur's job is to solve problems and America's problems ain't your problems. Don't waste money trying hard to satisfy the expensive taste of the elite class. It's a no brainer. We are a poor society dealing with basic problems and challenges of production& value addition.

Think of targeting 5% market share of Banana consumption in Lagos. Think of value addition in Meat supply&processing chain. Think of setting a state of the art Farm Machinery Centre where farmers can hire machines for land clearing, planting, weeding, harvesting, and packaging.

I mean think of problems that bedeviled us and in need of urgent attention e.g. post-harvest technology to solve the challenge of perishable vegetables NOT drone technology or service delivery solution that only 1% of the population have the luxury to patronize.

Whatever the case, you cannot afford to be poor, for Nigeria will drive you crazy. Don't be poor. Do whatever you can (legitimately) to escape the pangs of poverty. Poverty is not a virtue. I repeat, poverty is not a virtue. Get that & good luck.

Yours,
Adamu Tilde.