Ibukun Adeniyi is a young man with an uncommon drive. There is job for everyone, he says, the only problem is that only a few know that software programming is a goldmine. A 2010 graduate of Redeemers University, Adeniyi studied Computer Science. He then became a self-taught programmer. He has, to his name, at least three online startups.
He is currently on a mission to teach as many Nigerians as are willing the nitty-gritty of programming. “The jobs are out there, lucrative offers of between $3,000 to $5,000 salaries,” he insists. In this encounter with Nigeria Xpress, he supports his perspective with a narrative of his own trajectory.
The launch into e-commer
After I graduated, I had to look for a job, but I also started researching. I went to APTECH to ask questions. A friend that was there previously advised me and introduced me to online tutorial at lynda.com. I learnt WordPress and Joomla, which were in vogue then. I started designing websites for people. I made little money here and there. That was how my career started.
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After experimenting, I decided to go into e-commerce in 2012. At the time, Konga just started. Jumia was still Kasuwa and Sabunta. I started warehouse.com.ng to sell consumer electronics. Even without marketing it, every morning, somebody would wake me up, asking for a phone. So every day, no matter how bad it was, I would sell at least one phone. Business was brisk.
Then Kasuwa and Sabunta merged to form Jumia and they raised $25m. I told myself, if these guys could raise $25m, why can’t I? The only difference between us was Jumia was selling everything, while I was selling consumer electronics such as laptops and phones. I decided to scale up and I learnt my first lesson that you don’t rush into any business. First, understand the market first.
By the time I scaled up, I discovered the logistic problem of e-commerce. Imagine
economy, the business model that Uber operates. By the time, I had started learning proper programming. I spent time learning programming on my own.
I read, took online tutorial and joined an online community, freecodecamp.org. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do ––to be able to code and build my own app. Eventually, me and a friend, Jide, built our own app from scratch and founded Bukka.
The state of programming
If money is provided today to recruit 1,000 developers in Nigeria, where will you find them? It is almost impossible. Foreign companies have started coming to Nigeria to poach even the few developers available.
The friend with whom I started Bukka got a job offer of $5,000 per month from a company in Qatar. In 2016, when the naira plummeted and the dollar skyrocketed, $5,000 was about N1.9m. He had to leave, understandably and it was challenging for me to build my startup.
I recruited more people but there was always the loyalty question. It was difficult to get an employee that stayed for three months. Most of them acquired experience and moved on.
This was fantastic for Nigerian developers, but it was detrimental to entrepreneurs, because the foreigners have inflated the value of the developer. My quest to solve this challenge led to the founding of another startup.
Hack Academy
I set up Hack Academy (www.hackacademy.com.ng) to train programmers. In 2017, I trained the first set of people for free. In four months, the three students had become capable programmers, building amazing apps, but because we hadn’t worked with Google or other tech giants, we fell short of industry standards.
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We had the skill, but lacked the exposure. But people noticed their capabilities and the old problem reared up again. They got job offers, even from outside the country and had to move on.
They were proof that it is possible to teach people to become software developers in 16 weeks, even with little or no experience. Learning programming is not difficult.
It is rather intensive. In programming, if you miss one statement, one step, one logic, you won’t be able to understand the next one.
There are many tools, texts and tutorials to help any one become a programmer. We mentor and ensure that what they learn meet the industry standards, and that they build experience as they learn.
The students are fused into the Bukka app, so they work with the real thing and not just abstract learning. So far, Hack Academy has trained close to 50 developers.
How to make money online
The best way to make money is e-commerce. When I was selling phones, I made N5,000 profit daily. If that business model can be replicated on a grander scale, one would still be making money no matter the interest you are pursuing.
Take for instance, Bukka, an app developed to help restaurants sell online. We have done over N10 million in transactions. We sold food for caterers. Now we want to focus on restaurants, to help get their business online and sell their food directly to customers.
somebody buys a phone and mattress, the phone could be in Agege while the mattress is somewhere else, by the time you successfully moved the items to his doorsteps, you would have made a loss.
Logistic was a nightmare. I was daily under pressure and I was not making good profit. In addition, there was the risk of people who came to the website just to rob. I was a victim a number of times.
I managed the business for two years. Then, I ventured into another company, Ticket Nigeria, a side business that helped people to sell their events’ tickets online.
Though, a good business, I had issues with my partner. I returned from National Youth Service to discover there was no proper accountability in my absence. We went our separate ways and the business was abandoned.
Yet, I believed in e-commerce. By 2015, Uber started rising and I discovered the sharing
Advice to budding entrepreneurs
Don’t be overconfident that a venture will work until you know the nuts and bolts of the business. You must be prepared for every possibility. You must be able to change or adapt your business model.
As problems crop up, try to solve them, for that is what will ensure your survival in the long run. And just keep going, no matter what. More importantly, if you want to start an online business, it pays to learn software coding.
Even if you are a lawyer or a teacher, learn how to code. It is the future.
