I met Simeon Ononobi at an event for Entrepreneurs tagged #TheIncubators. He was there with his beautiful wife, Madonna and they were the Special Guests at the Event.
They blew us away with their perspectives on business and what they have done so far that has brought them great success in the field of Entrepreneurship.
Before I forget, Simeon Ononobi is the Founder of MyAds, a revolutionary app that allows advertisers reach target users with minimum budget.
It is an amazing platform because with MyAds, everyone is a winner. The user of the app gets rewards and the advertisers are able to reach their targeted users.
It helps businesses to grow business by connecting them directly to users. For the app users, MyAds app rewards them when they use it to connect to great brands and products. MyAds is an app that rewards everyone.
According to Simeon, MyAds was born when he had advertising needs and needed a solution that could solve it. Now, MyAds has launched in India and plans are underway to launch in more countries across the world.
Simeon believes that when you solve a problem you are facing, it could just be that several other people across the world are facing the same problem on a daily basis.
He is also the Founder of SimplePay which has recently experienced a refresh. It is a payment platform which allows you to accept payments on your website, recharge your phone as well as pay over 171 bills.
Recently, he shared his thoughts on the following issues: –
THINKING GLOBAL
“Nigeria currently has social startups that are doing very well and helping the economy grow; there are also some small startups that are striving to solve problems. What I’ve learnt so far is because we don’t think global, we think local first and I think it’s causing a lot of problems for us. We should start looking at the future.
“At a recent tech conference, guys from Russia and the USA talked about how they can expand globally first before expanding their local presence. I think we should start thinking in that direction where we don’t just solve local problems but we solve a global problem.”
STOP BLAMING GOVERNMENT
“Policies are always going to be there; it’s always going to be an issue but my theme has always been – don’t blame everybody else for our problems.
The government is not going to be doing everything for us – we’ve been at the same spot since forever, our problems remain the same and we will always talk about the same problems when we have conversations.
We do have more problems than many developed countries of the world and these problems are what startups can pick and develop solutions for them. You don’t want to solve problems that Facebook and Twitter had already solved. Instead, you can talk about electricity and the rest.
“We are seen as the giant of Africa. We should take our position as giants and take Africa by storm and take the world.”
HELP THE AVERAGE MAN – THE MYADS EXAMPLE
“(MyAds) is something that is going to solve a lot of problems. It’s a solution I developed for myself, it was meant to solve my advertising needs. I found a way to help people on the street and to help myself to advertise. It’s like helping businesses and helping the people on the street.
The bus conductor can make money from his phone and I discovered that I don’t need to start just in Nigeria – it’s the same problem in India, Pakistan, and Philippines where people on the street don’t get to earn big bucks.”
SCALING GLOBALLY
“If a startup is solving a problem here (in Nigeria), that same startup can solve the same problem in Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and elsewhere. Such potentially scaleable services include products for transportation, and aggregation platforms for menial jobs.”
LAUNCHING A STARTUP OUTSIDE NIGERIA
“If your startup is not doing what the Indian environment needs, it is not really necessary to expand to India. MyAds allows you to earn money every time you see ads when you receive calls. It is the same everywhere in the world – everyone in Nigeria, India, and Malaysia wants to earn money. But it’s a different thing when you want to start e-commerce platform or a blog for instance.”
ADVICE FOR NIGERIAN STARTUPS
“Stop thinking about it, hit it at the head, go straight out in the market and start selling your product. Don’t worry about the problems because there is always going to be challenges. If you’re a startup, you will face challenges.
Let us all help ourselves. Owners of Facebook, Twitter, and Google are already billionaires, they are unicorns. Let’s help local guys succeed. Let the 180 million Nigerians help us to also become unicorns so that we can also help grow this economy. If 7 Nigerian startups go globally, we will be talking about helping other countries grow.”
Do I need to say more? Get out there and change the world.
Arise!
