1/n A few thoughts about the potential impact of some of the new AI tools on businesses with @get_carbon as an example but applicable to other startups, particularly those with limited capital or resources.
2/n On marketing, we use graphic designers for images but #dallle can produce some stunning images. I wanted to push something out highlighting annoyed customers queuing for an ATM. These three images in a digital art style were done in less than 3 minutes.
3/n At the extreme, we may no longer need graphic designers; more likely this will help graphic designers in being more efficient right now and helping in generating ideas. But its a game changer and allows startups with nothing to start quickly - and these are free for now
4/n On customer research / branding. I asked #ChatGPT the question "what differentiates Carbon as a bank in Nigeria" and did the same for other competitors. Kuda, Fairmoney, Branch, Sparkle and for now it gave similar responses because of the limited training but ...
5/n ...singled out Carbon for its mobile-based credit card. The key point is that the extensive nature of the training data ultimately can help in research in learning about our brand positioning OR from a different perspective, provide insights as to what the market thinks
6/n Customer Service. The dirty truth about digital businesses is that there is significant manual/ analog compoenents with large teams. Imgaine training ChatGPT on your ideal answers for your most frequent customer problems. This is a chatbot on steroids
7/n programming in ChatGPT
You could provide the following prompt: "write python code to calculate factorials" or provide code and say "this code is not working like i expect — how do i fix it?"
In both cases you would likely get a viable solution even with with no experience
8/n Like in the marketing example this can help coders or replace coders in the future but this is just the beginning
Already @github claims that Copilot empowers coders to "complete tasks 55% faster by turning natural language prompts into coding suggestions"🤯🤯🤯🤯
9/n More exciting for me is in generating insights that are not obvious?
- Who are the most profitable customers?
- On what days to customers transact the most?
- Which state did we have the most losses in January and July?
Some of this natural language query already exists...
10/n... in different plaforms but the ability to query data independently, and at much lower cost will have a catalytic effect on productivity to a wide variety of compannies
11/11 I need to stress that the potential impact listed above are surface level and there will be 2nd/3rd order effects. The key is to keep an open mind and be creative.
Whilst these tools can replace humans, they are more likely to increase productivity.
Exciting times indeed
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1/7 Increasingly doubtful of lending as a standalone business when I look at the fortunes of companies I used to track. The reasons vary; business model failure, market downturn, poor underwriting to flouting regulation - but it seemS that legacy banks outlasted their challengerS
2/7 In the UK, wonga and Provident Financial were opposites but excelled. Wonga pioneered digital lending and wrote many of the rules everyone uses today including that famous slider. Yet it seems they were only able to operate through eye watering fees and some sharp practices.
3/7 Provident thrived for >100 years with a community led model that used a door to door approach. Arguably they began to stumble when they drank the kool aid and tried to go digital. They also had issues with misselling insurance which led to significant fines
0) After a decade of building @get_carbon, I thought it would be fund to share a few facts that are not widely known. Its been a wild ride and a book must come out at some point but for now, maybe just a few titbits!
1) We actually started out as a debt collection company, Uno Credit, and worked with 5 Nigerian banks to recover bad loans.
But we saw that these banks were bad at credit assessment, even worse at collecting on their loans but most importantly, customers were keen to repay.
These insights coupled with < 5% of Nigerians having access to credit and only 200k credits in a population of 100mm adults convinced us of the opportunity in credit. And so the first iteration of @get_carbon was born.
Are we going through the great reset in the Nigerian startup ecosystem?
I think we are.
What are the features of this phenomenon? It cuts across all stakeholders. Here are my predictions / wishes/expectations.
Please push back, agree, even insult me! All join
2/n Capital. Goodby good times, welcome normalcy. Foreign capital will not be as generous in valuations and I expect to see greater participation from local angel investors. This is a good thing because local money has more context, smaller cash and so are more judicious
3/n Founders calm down. In the last few years, there have been a group of founder that have done a better job raising money from investors than getting money from customers.
In a system with excess sources of capital no wahala. In Nigeria, this is one chance
Careful what you wish for as you may just get it. Most founders will say that capital is what is holding them back. @get_carbon I'd argue we were too lucky in our early raise. But it brought some k-leg. @ChijiokeD how you see am?
2/13 So what are the issues with getting funds too early. There are three issues but the overarching them is that you do stupid shit!!! Before you start stoning me, yes we were blessed & I wouldn't change history o. But for those who become lucky like us - shine your eye.
3/13 So for @get_carbon first we borrowed money from family to start our operations and leveraged a Mr Biggs Franchise we owned for lending capital. But we built sufficient traction and reached a point where we needed more equity to continue growth. Fundraising begins in 2014
1/13 Inspired by our senior auntie @ElohoGM’s recent 30/30 marathon I’ll be sharing hopefully 30 days of random musings on our entrepreneurial journey. Just threads o, not essays as I dont’ know book like that yet. So today’s is on our experience ‘collaborating’ @get_carbon.
2/13As a credit-led digital bank there are three key levers of success; cost of our finance, our distribution and the ability to underwrite loans. Finish.
In the early years, we felt we could accelerate by partnering with banks who had low deposits and millions of customers.
3/13 We believed mobile money would turn us into billionaires; For a year we worked with a telco and bank partnership but when we began doing user acceptance testing, they stopped returning our calls. A few weeks later they launched competing product.