Title: How They Started: Innovative Nigerian Brands
Author: Kachi Ogbonna
Reviewer: Collins Nweze
Entrepreneurship is the heart and soul of every thriving economy. And economies themselves are built by people, who through sustained efforts and keen interest in entrepreneurship develop, build and sustain viable brands.
How They Started: Innovative Nigerian Brands written by Kachi Ogbonna provides insight into Nigerian business environment and key sectors that drive it as well as the opportunities available for those who play in it.
The 252-page book, which featured key brands in the technology, internet, entertainment, Learning and development, manufacturing, health and food industries, provides an insight into why many local brands were built, nurtured and sustained in the tough business environment.
From Slot Systems Limited, Zinox Technologies Limited to Jobberman, insights provided by the author is an indication that Nigerian brands have come to stay.
The book also looked at the youth unemployment, and how their potentials can be harnessed through entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable economic growth.
Most of Nigerians are aware that youth unemployment has gone beyond just an economic problem to also become a social problem. The issues of pipeline vandalism, terrorism, electoral violence, kidnapping and sectional agitations are triggered by unemployment.
Those clamoring for entrepreneurship have also come up with different approaches for tackling this, the most notable of them being skill acquisition. Ogbonna has however done something completely different. As much as he believes in entrepreneurship and skill acquisition, but in his book, he argues that the solution to unemployment in Nigeria must begin with a fundamental mind shift.
He believes that Nigerian youths are talented enough to tap into the numerous opportunities that exist in the country, but they must first of all believe that they can. They must first accept that those opportunities are there because, according to him, no one can feature in a future that he cannot picture. The author is an entrepreneurship and youth consultant.
From his many years of mentoring young entrepreneurs and growing startups he discovered that the ‘entitlement mentality’ and the ‘blame game’ has become about the biggest hindrance to the realization of the full potential of Nigerian youths. He insists that everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her own success or failure.
The author argues that the solution to graduate unemployment in Nigeria is not rocket science. He maintains that if the universities can focus more on how to produce job creators rather than job seekers then unemployment will soon become an issue of the past. He insists that each problem in this country provides a great business opportunity for those who are willing to add value to the society.
In showing how Nigeria has always been a land of opportunities, the author traced how businesses that started decades ago are still waxing strong. He also gave examples of how other businesses that were launched just about four years ago have grown to become multinationals today. He profiled 25 innovative brands cutting across different sectors including technology, the Internet, entertainment, learning and development, manufacturing, restaurants, health and transportation. Through these, he showed that opportunities abound in almost every sector of the Nigerian economy. His efforts in securing one on one interview with the founders of these brands also goes a long way to validate the information in the book. Each of the founders shared his own unique experience of what it takes to start, the challenges faced and how they handled them, how they funded their businesses and most importantly every one of them has words of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
This book couldn’t have come at a better time than a period when the Nigerian economy has plummeted to an incredible low. It couldn’t have been more appropriate than at this time when the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently reported that 4.3 million jobs were lost in just 10 months. Maybe that is just a mere coincidence, yet government and citizens alike will benefit immensely from the latent force of possibilities the book ignites as we seek to drag ourselves out of the present mess.
How They Started: Innovative Nigerian Brands provides a very good roadmap for producing a new generation of entrepreneurs who will run the upcoming global brands with roots in Nigeria.
It is impossible for me not to recommend this book to both the federal government and National Universities Commission (NUC) as a manual for practical entrepreneurial studies across our higher institutions.