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4 Entrepreneurship Lessons from a Nigerian Founder

Challenges of starting a venture in a frontier market in Africa.

by

Adetayo Bamiduro

by

Adetayo Bamiduro

October 24, 2019

HBR Staff/John Phillips/Getty Images

Summary.

Global analysts have proclaimed that the dynamics of economic growth, demographics, and connectivity make Africa a promising environment young tech entrepreneurs, with Nigeria sitting at the intersection of all three trends.

But being a young entrepreneur in Nigeria still comes with steep challenges, like accessing capital and talent, and solving for market size and a fragmented customer base.
Nigerian entrepreneur Adetayo Bamiduro shares the lessons he’s learned firsthand from building and scaling a company in the local market.

Frontier markets — developing countries that are more developed than the least developing countries, but are too small, risky, or illiquid to be considered emerging markets — are high-risk, high-reward opportunities for today’s young tech entrepreneurs. Among such frontiers, global analysts have proclaimed time and again that Africa is the future. Dynamics in economic growth, demographics, and connectivity make this obvious — and Nigeria sits at the intersection of all three trends. Nigeria has been an innovation hub for sub-Saharan Africa and a hotbed of entrepreneurship and young talent.

AB

Adetayo Bamiduro is the CEO and co-founder of Max.ng. He founded MAX at MIT and built up the initial team at MIT throughout the fall of 2014, bringing on graduate students and undergraduate software engineers from across MIT. He developed a full business model and a minimum viable product, launched in Nigeria, and has successfully raised over $9m in funding to scale across West Africa.

4 Entrepreneurship Lessons from a Nigerian Founder

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