So, Our Tech StartUps Missed Out at Viva Tech 2016

Recording over 45,000 visitors in three days, 300 seminars with the world's biggest names in tech, and over 10 million euros distributed to startups, Viva Technology Paris 2016, apparently, exceeded expectations.

Unfortunately, not a single tech startup from Nigeria attended this first edition of the event, held between June 30 and July 2, 2016, dedicated to the growth of startups and the collaboration between large companies and startups has been a success, across the globe.

Not that we don’t have smart people with rugged and tested applications, but one wonders what could have been the limiting bar before our ‘great’ startups that prevented them from being among the 5,000 peera who were in Paris as exhibitors, contributing to the challenges set forth by Viva Technology Paris Lab partners, where over 50 awards given out, or simply as visitors to the event.

With assurance for return ticket, event ticket and simplified visa processing, West Africa's biggest marketing communications group, Troyka Group and its digital division, HotSauce, offered Startups with ‘disruptive’ ideas in Nigeria, and other West African countries, the opportunity to participate at the event. Therefore, the ‘failure’ can’t be blamed on logistics.

The Group confirmed they reached out and collaborated with innovations hubs in the likes of iDEA, Co-creation Hub as well as Lagos Angel Network, and others, in search of tech startups with competitive prowess. At the end, Viva couldn’t select even one.

In some quarters, there are questions about timing, but reports have it that information dissemination, with regards to Viva tech, was faster in Nigeria than in some other African countries, like South Africa and Kenya. You know what? Close to 20 startups from South Africa applied to pitch at Viva Tech but only five startups from Nigeria yet none scaled through.

What or who is to blame for the inability of our champions to knock horns with other global champions, or even learn from the stories of the biggest names in tech and business who participated in panels and fireside chats, such as Tim Armstrong (AOL), Rania Belkahia (Africa Market), Jim Breyer (Breyer Capital), Jay Carney (Amazon), John Chambers (Cisco), Jim Gianopulos (20th Century Fox), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Harvard Business School), David Kenny (IBM Watson), Isabelle Kocher (Engie), Robin Li (Baidu), SY Lau (Tencent), David Marcus (Facebook), Stephane Richard (Orange), Eric Schmidt (Alphabet), Joe Schoendorf (Accel), Jimmy Wales (Wikimedia Foundation), and Reem Younis (Alpha Omega Ltd).

It is rather unfortunate! I have met tech starts in Nigeria developing ‘crazy’ applications, ‘disrupting’ industries. Today, there is likely no smartphone imported into this market, without one app or the other developed by/in Nigeria on it. We have emerged champions at DemoAfrica, ImagineCup, Cyberlympics, to name a few competitions. Our startups are toasts of a ‘few’, pious and dedicated venture capitalists and early seed investors but something is seriously missing.

In my opinion, these startups missed out due to two major factors: policy inconsistencies and lack of marketing skills/mentorship. For the sake of this piece, I will dwell on the second point- lack of marketing skills/mentorship. Marketing and mentorship are different subject areas, however, I have chosen to pair them, because with skills, every startup ought to be familiar with marketing and mentorship cultures. They are sine qua nons!

It’s a no brainer that if an entrepreneur is found wanting with regards the ability to sell and promote, no matter what other skills he or she might have, the business will sooner or later hit a rock. We need startups that must never be fearful or shy or apologetic about selling.

This warning is timely, because Viva Tech and several other opportunities will arise for our startups to prove themselves. The truth is that we are late in the block, unlike Kenya that is about ten years ahead, but have we learnt from the mistakes of the past, to push harder and farther?

It is also instructive to bring this case to the attention of the Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA- Hub) located in Lagos to support digital entrepreneurs in developing the most appropriate Business Models for their ideas. That is the mandate of iDEA centres in simplified form.

iDEA is singled out here because it has the ears of the government closer than other private Incubators in the country and the below excerpt explain part of the strategy behind the establishment of iDEA: “Beyond the provision of space, entrepreneurship training, capital, a significant value proposition of iDEA Nigeria is the ability to expose and connect start-ups to a pool of key mentors and advisors that provide expertise in growing a business.

Through the mentoring relationship, mentors have the opportunity to coach, guide and share experiences, knowledge and skills, which will contribute to the Mentee’s growth.

From the mentors’ perspective mentoring gives them the chance to give back and directly influence the prosperity of the next generation of business and organization”.

I want to believe, our tech startups were ‘shunned’ by Viva tech, not for lack of disruptive solutions, but the conviction that these new generation of Nigerian digital entrepreneurs can pitch to high powered venture capitalists.

Our goal should be to get our startups to acquaint themselves with HR, Team Building & Strategy; PR and Marketing; Product Development; Business Modeling/ Strategy; Leadership and Teamwork Advice; Legal; Law; Financial Sector knowledge, fund raising; Start-up Funding Programs and Opportunities; Entrepreneurship, economics, venture capital, among others, as preparation for Viva Tech 2017 has already started. Are we going to be there?