I have observe how cool it is to feel successful when “tech” startups are happy to announce to “we have raised money” from some people especially when the dollar sign is in front of the figure. Nobody hardly comes out and shout about real paying customers as much as money been raised.
The reason is that %80 of the apps been built are free, cause many are not good enough to get users to pay and I don’t mean Nigerian users (we know ourselves) but global users. In the real sense of it, many of the startups don’t even build.
I don’t know if it is the escape from poverty mode, which is a Nigerian default mode or the fact that many that call themselves “tech” startup are not really tech startup since truth be told they are not really doing anything technical there, so I guess it just startup.
In the few years since this whole hype around tech has started in this new era I am yet to see any major breakthrough in technological advancement in the country.
Minus the guys in payment, no breakthrough in hardware or bio-tech. No body as built a better github or a smarter slack. No body has built a framework designed to help us Nigerians build faster and better.
Nobody has built a system that the big four tech companies as acquired or in talks to acquire. No conspiracy theorist have come out to say that any major tech is backed by the DSS. It all about rising money.
All tech guys on online are quick to write commentary about conferences held in silicon Valley where real tech is demoed but when we do our own conferences we call celebrate speakers and talk about money raised, we don’t even demo any tech, it so funny we don’t even demo common browser that we can call our own. It almost as if the hype is all we live for. Perception is better than reality as It is said.
I don’t know if it is a Nigerian thing, which is escape from poverty mode or our inability to build from lack of skill set. We can all talk about hoe having the right business model is key to success but you need to have something to sell. How long our we going to keep build taxi hailing app when we don’t have light. How long are we going to act as if we don’t know that you can’t count more than 10 data centers that are built by Nigerians in Nigeria to meet our needs.
We all think startup is all about a dot Com dot ng thing. We have missed the point. We need a startup that can come out to say they have a new and cheap way of building house to help low income earners.
Tech in the East has an advantage, one, we are far from the noise, two people don’t expect us to do wonders cause of the notion they have towards tech in the East, so we are not under pressure to impress anybody.
We need to focus on real research centers to make breakthrough in chip development. Chip that consume less power – since we have power issues here. IoT breakthrough to help our farmers. A.I that can help diagnose disease fast and at a low cost that can be used at our local health centers.
Let’s build, let’s build so well that when we do a conference we can demo our own tech, show our own A.I and our own OS.
How long our we going to do this to ourselves.