Mark Essien, founder of Hotels.ng, was a guest of the Uyo developer community last Thursday 6th November. He spoke at an event organised by the Startup Innovation Hub, a new tech hub in Uyo that has been organising events for developers and founders in the area.
Over the course of about 2 hours, Mark provided classic advice to the developers on raising funding to support their ideas. Many would have heard some of this before but it’s worth repeating.
You’re not likely to get angel investment with an idea. You are going to need a product with traction because investors are driven by return on investment. An idea is unlikely to show that.
Most founders cannot raise enough money from their families to get their businesses going. While crowd-funding gets a lot of hype, there hasn’t been an effective product that has been funded that way. And even though politicians have money, they haven’t been proven to invest in startups.
If I’m not mistaken, that’s a picture of Mark Zuckerberg in the corner on the wall
Great to see the number of women attending this event.
Uyo is still very early in its startup scene but the developers and geeks in the area are eager to make their mark on Africa. Perhaps, Akwa Ibom shall be in the news again soon.
Material for this article was contributed by Hanson Johnson at the Startup Innovation Hub.
