4 ms·

Nigerian web start-ups to watch

21 points by agegelabs 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
seldo 17y ago
In hindsight, it's obvious that a country famous for internet scammers would have enough savvy people with access to the internet to have its own startups as well. Nice to see the positive side of Nigerian internet access for once.
yangyang 17y ago
Most of them look like Nigerian versions of existing sites. Nothing particularly new.
- agegelabs 17y ago
  I agree, however the existing sites do not necessarily cater to the Nigerian market or have local content. Cragslist is not in Nigeria; Nairalist stepped in to fill that gap. I'm sure you saw the piece in NYT about how web companies are shifting focus to the profitable “Western” markets. http://tinyurl.com/cv8eoz http://tinyurl.com/cv8eoz The gaps that open up will be filled by local start-ups. Interesting times ahead!
  - yangyang 17y ago
    I'm not saying they're not good, just saying they're nothing really new - just a locally produced "clone" (for want of a better word - I realise they're more than that) of another site. Not particularly innovative. I hadn't seen that article, thanks. The point of it really seems to be that video sharing sites find it expensive to deliver to developing markets.
IsaacL 17y ago
Ha, good to see my friend Oo linked to on there (he's a Nigerian who studies at the University of Warwick, where he's been trying to build a startup community). According to him, in Nigeria, everyone knows that internet fraud (and politics) is the way to get rich, but there aren't the same role-models for entrepeneurs as there are in Western countries. Interesting stuff.
muddylemon 17y ago
something else to watch... your wallet. Nigerian startups have to overcome the hurdle of the assumption that any packets crossing their border are intent on defrauding you.
jonursenbach 17y ago
So this is why they started 419 scams; they couldn't get any funding from VCs for their startups.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Very tired "joke".
  - jonursenbach 17y ago
    I love how my comment went up to 7 points last I checked, then almost immediately down to 1 after this was posted.
erikwiffin 17y ago
I think it would be cool to see some kind of google maps mashup showing various startups around to world. There would obviously be a lot on the US West Coast, but I'd like to see how distributed around the world they are.
bemmu 17y ago
Nairalist.com and nairalists.com are waging an interesting battle, the sites look exactly the same, even the categories seem to be the same. For now nairalist seems to be winning based on amount of classifieds posted, which is probably the only thing that users really care about.
- seunosewa 17y ago
  Many of the ads you see on "Nairalists" are copied from Nairalist. It's an "interesting" battle if you're not involved, I guess, but it's not a very fair one. :-(

21 points by agegelabs 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

seldo 17y ago

In hindsight, it's obvious that a country famous for internet scammers would have enough savvy people with access to the internet to have its own startups as well. Nice to see the positive side of Nigerian internet access for once.

yangyang 17y ago

Most of them look like Nigerian versions of existing sites. Nothing particularly new.

agegelabs 17y ago
I agree, however the existing sites do not necessarily cater to the Nigerian market or have local content. Cragslist is not in Nigeria; Nairalist stepped in to fill that gap. I'm sure you saw the piece in NYT about how web companies are shifting focus to the profitable “Western” markets. http://tinyurl.com/cv8eoz http://tinyurl.com/cv8eoz The gaps that open up will be filled by local start-ups. Interesting times ahead!
- yangyang 17y ago
  I'm not saying they're not good, just saying they're nothing really new - just a locally produced "clone" (for want of a better word - I realise they're more than that) of another site. Not particularly innovative. I hadn't seen that article, thanks. The point of it really seems to be that video sharing sites find it expensive to deliver to developing markets.

IsaacL 17y ago

Ha, good to see my friend Oo linked to on there (he's a Nigerian who studies at the University of Warwick, where he's been trying to build a startup community). According to him, in Nigeria, everyone knows that internet fraud (and politics) is the way to get rich, but there aren't the same role-models for entrepeneurs as there are in Western countries. Interesting stuff.

muddylemon 17y ago

something else to watch... your wallet. Nigerian startups have to overcome the hurdle of the assumption that any packets crossing their border are intent on defrauding you.

jonursenbach 17y ago

So this is why they started 419 scams; they couldn't get any funding from VCs for their startups.

mahmud 17y ago
Very tired "joke".
- jonursenbach 17y ago
  I love how my comment went up to 7 points last I checked, then almost immediately down to 1 after this was posted.

erikwiffin 17y ago

I think it would be cool to see some kind of google maps mashup showing various startups around to world. There would obviously be a lot on the US West Coast, but I'd like to see how distributed around the world they are.

bemmu 17y ago

Nairalist.com and nairalists.com are waging an interesting battle, the sites look exactly the same, even the categories seem to be the same. For now nairalist seems to be winning based on amount of classifieds posted, which is probably the only thing that users really care about.

seunosewa 17y ago
Many of the ads you see on "Nairalists" are copied from Nairalist. It's an "interesting" battle if you're not involved, I guess, but it's not a very fair one. :-(