Afolabi Abiodun, who started business as a phone voucher vendor, hawking recharge cards and providing mobile phones for people to make calls, shares with Adetutu Audu how the business evolved from a call centre outlet into telecoms solutions brokerage.
Born and bred in metropolitan Lagos, Afolabi Abiodun is unlike most Lagos boys of his background. He was never comfortable with the security that came with having a roof over his head, full complement of meals, clothing and the sweet middle class life. Rather, he worked and wore his knuckles off, earning his stripes in the hall of fame of entrepreneurship in Nigeria’s blossoming technology SME sector just like any other successful young Nigerians born in the hinterland who were lured by the chronicles of abundant milk and honey wealth to Lagos, the city of aquatic splendour and Nigeria’s commercial capital.
FOR Afolabi, seeking paid employment was never in the picture. Beyond his understanding of the exciting opportunities Lagos affords, he was further dissuaded from seeking a white-collar job for two reasons.
One, his mother and grandmother, who he describes as “entrepreneurial folks,” laid a firm foundation for his future entrepreneurial pursuit, as a result of the work and holiday jobs he did for them. The second factor was the entrepreneurial studies course he took while in the tertiary institution. During a lecture on entrepreneurship studies in his polytechnic lecture hall filled with students, Afolabi and his course mates were told emphatically by their lecturer that the government and private sector could barely employ 40-50 per cent of graduates being churned out by tertiary institutions. The lecturer went further to advise the students to start something rather than waste time seeking plum government jobs or utopian private sector appointments that may never come.
His entrepreneurial studies experience set Afolabi thinking almost immediately. The savvy Lagos boy revaluated his plans. According to him: “I didn’t want to be a part of a problem that was so obvious, rather I wanted to be an agent of solution. If I am creating jobs and not part of the problem this teething problem would be solved.”
Spurred by the desire to make a difference, Afolabi decided to take the bull by the horns, and ventured into business. He was so anxious to make his mark that he embarked on several ventures, making him worthy enough to be spotted by the Lagos State government for an internship programme. However, one important point that his lecturer failed to reiterate was the bumpy road entrepreneurs travel. He was to learn the hard way.
Afolabi, who started business as a phone voucher vendor, hawking recharge cards and providing mobile phones for people to make calls, ran into trouble early in his venture. The dilemma forced him to abandon his business and flee Nigeria after accumulating millions of naira in debt.
But as the popular maxim goes, “Winners never quit”, Afolabi, determined to prove that his first attempt into business was only a misadventure and not a total catastrophe, came back to Nigeria, having learnt his lessons from the previous experience to begin life as a businessman afresh.
He restarted his business activity from where he missed it – a call centre outlet. He, however, dreamed of expanding his business beyond the call centre business. But as he contemplated moving his business towards a wider spectrum, he was hampered by his vision which was just to run a small business that would pay his bills, and is wholly Nigeria-focused.
This led to the birth of SB Telecoms and Devices, one of Nigeria’s fast growing technology firms based in Lagos. The company was to evolve from a call centre outlet into telecoms solutions brokerage. It started powering solutions in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) space, recording achievements regarded as lofty for a local tech company.
However, his achievements were barely noticed, based on his decision to work with a diminutive mind set for his company. This, however, took a new turn when he encountered the Stanford Seed Programme, a programme which changed his business and world outlook forever. The programme’s objective is to identify organisations with the potential to scale up and extend beyond their countries of origin, building these businesses into multinationals to create wealth for their nation.
SB Telecoms and Devices was identified by Seed for its potential to expand and provide technology solutions beyond the shores of Nigeria. For Afolabi Abiodun, who was content being a “local champion” that works to pay his bills without hassles, this was an eye opener. He, however, leveraged the Seed advantage to the optimum. He attended the Seed programme with peers from different parts of the world at the Seed Faculty at Stanford University. For him, it was an enriching experience, “a game changer.”
Hear him speak: “Before Stanford, my objectives have always been to just run a small business, be Nigeria-focused, and pay my bills. That was what I was particular about, but Stanford Seed was a game changer. It made me see beyond Nigeria, beyond making profit and to understand that the ultimate objective is to actually solve a real problem.”
After the Seed programme, Afolabi returned to Nigeria, armed with lessons and advice from mentors assigned to him. He began to reposition his business to function more effectively. He also began looking beyond basic telecoms solutions that the company was doing at that period. The company transformed to a full-fledged ICT service company.
Afolabi diversified his business operations, creating solutions needed by organisations, which had hitherto not been envisioned by other local tech firms in Nigeria, to resolve age old problems.
Together with his team, Afolabi’s SB Telecoms and Devices took upon themselves a cause that would help Nigeria to be more efficient and help organisations get high returns on investment. The company created Time Attendance Management Software (TAMS), a human resource application that manages employees from recruitment to retirement. The software is an identity management and human resource solutions, with time management supervision as its major focus.
Through this software, Afolabi intends to eradicate the “African Time” syndrome. According to him, the mismanagement of time is the reason why Africa is backwards in terms of its development. His mission, he says, is simple; “I want African time, in the nearest future, to be synonymous with punctuality. It is a myth that has to unravel – we need to eradicate the African time syndrome.”
TAMS, a little initiative which began from a little abode in Lagos, today caters to over 1,000 organisations in Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea. The novel initiative did not go unnoticed. He was recently described as the “self-appointed timekeeper of Nigeria” by an American online magazine. For Afolabi, who habitually refers to his upbringing as the reason for his strict time consciousness, the recognition motivates him to further propagate the gospel of time.
Not resting on his oars, Afolabi, a firm advocate and supporter of Nigerian organisations, says his company is looking at inventing a new solution to track and evaluate contracts. “We are looking at introducing a new time management metrics. This involves tracking contracts, when it was awarded and if it was executed on time to ensure we move our society forward.”
Looking into the future, Afolabi hopes that his application, which already has a steady footing in the West African sub-region, would go on and make waves in Eastern and Southern Africa, and, ultimately, become an African brand. In his words: “In the next five years, we would not just be a Nigerian company but a Pan-African company.”
And for the youth, especially the ones who want to venture into entrepreneurship, his message to them is: “Don’t procrastinate! If you can think it, you can get it done.” As one who has experienced the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, he further adds: “entrepreneurship also requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice.”
Indeed, for a man, who despite his zeal and looming potential, failed in his sojourn into business, bounced back, and is now attempting to “conquer” Africa and the world with his home-made solution, the sky is not just the limit, but, indeed, the stepping stone for Afolabi Abiodun and his budding tech company, SB Telecoms.