WHAT WENT DOWN AT THE YOUTH ENTERPRISE CONFERENCE 2018; FOURTH EDITION 1

Source:http://youthenterpriseconference.com/

The fourth edition of the Youth Enterprise Conference 2018 scheduled to begin at 10:00 am began at thirty minutes past ten with an opening prayer by one of the male participants who was called upon by Otunba Akin Alabi. The man went on and on and Akin wished he had invited a babalawo whom he believes will do a shorter prayer.

Akin Alabi, the founder/CEO of Nairabet and the convener of the YECO4 said that he started this business conference when he clocked ten years as an entrepreneur. 

He said that he rented the hall at the Eko Hotel and Suites where this event took place for N16m and that he will keep on organizing this conference as long as he is not broke. 

He explained the difference between wants and needs. He says that there is a difference between what people want to buy and what people need to buy.

He says that before starting a business an entrepreneur should look for what people want and satisfy that want instead of creating a product or service and looking for how to sell it.

He says,"Do not be a student of a product. Be a student of the market. Look for a starving crowd and create a product that the crowd wants."

After his opening speech, he enquired for participants who came from the farthest part of Nigeria. Finally, two men who came from Sokoto got up the stage and showed Akin and MC Tall their bus tickets. 

Both of them were awarded with the following compensation;

1. Their transportation fares would be refunded.
2. They will be given a room at the Eko Hotel to lodge for the night.
3. They will be given return tickets to Sokoto state.
4. They would be given N100,000 each.

 Obviously, both of them were rewarded for their determination and tenacity. Their efforts were not in vain.

SPEAKERS

Source: zoominfo.com

Sola Akinlade of Paystack was called upon. He used to be a software engineer who worked at the Nigerian Breweries. 

He gave us gist about how he and his partner were given seed money by the Silicon Valley tech lords. 

People are inventing o! He said that at Silicon Valley, he met a guy who invented a shirt that would never get dirty. A bucket of dirty water was poured on this shirt and it did not get dirty.

He met a lady that invented a bra that can detect breast cancer. 

He and his partner, Ezra Olubi, were told that it was either they got an email or a phone call after their presentation. A phone call meant that their business would be supported with money and an email meant that their application was not accepted. A phone call they got. The phone call lasted for about thirty minutes. 

At the meeting of investors at Silicon Valley, about forty investors were interested in the Paystack business. On the slide, if an investor liked the business, the picture of the business owners would be slid to the right. Businesses that the investors were not interested in were slid to the left. Sola and Ezra's pictures were slid to the right and they got about $1.3billion from the investors.

Sola's business nuggets

1. Young people should not be afraid of solving big problems.
2. Keep making progress and be inspired by it.

Question 

At what point do you think of giving up? 

Answer 

Have a good support system; your friends, family, staff, neighbours, etc can be the ones to encourage you to hold on when you encounter problems are about to pack up your business.

Source:consisenews.com

Desmond Elliot believes that there is a purpose for why we are alive. There is always a room for one more actor or star. 

He advises youths to start from the scratch; the beginning. It is remaining at the scratch level that is the problem. 

He goes on to say that it is not always about being a star. He admonishes youths to toil and work hard.

He asks,"How can you make a difference in whatever sector that you are? I advise you to change the polity."

Polity is a form or process of civil government or constitution.

He says that he is trying his best to change the situation of the country at his level as a lawmaker in Lagos state.

Asiri Comedy

Asiri Comedy requested for some participants to come to the stage with their chairs. A lot of people rushed there to the jeer of the audience and some participants were sent back. 

He used these people sitting on the chairs on the stage as a comedy skit to paint a scenario of passengers on their way to Ikire. 

Some of the passengers were pressed but they do not talk until a brave passenger shouts for the driver to stop that he wants to urinate. Others who are pressed also agree that they want to urinate and ask the driver to stop. 

His explanation for this comedy skit is that we should be confident about our desires and voice out our pains when need be.

He promised to give each participant of the comedy skit a copy of his book which sells for N3,000. Akin Alabi was able to convince him to sell the book at the conference for N2,000.

PANEL OF SPEAKERS

1. DJ Cuppy
2. Ubi Franklin
3. Biola Kazeem 
4. Japheth Omojuwa

  

Source:youthvillageng.com

Ubi Franklin, the CEO of Made Men Music and Instant Apartment told us that to be successful in business, one has to serve before you can be served. With this nugget, he gave us a brief history of how his entertainment career started. 

He started out as Julius Agwu's personal assistant; carrying his bag for him and running personal and business errands for him.

He also told us that we should build relationships to get to the top. He told us of how rough it was to promote Iyanya at the beginning of Iyanya's career even though he has just won the Project Fame reality show. He told us of how his relationship with WizKid, whom he lived in the same area with in the past, helped him to get through the door of an event and up to the VIP section where WizKid was sitting.

Source:omojuwa.com

 Japheth Omojuwa, a Nigerian blogger, public speaker, socio-economic and political commentator and social media expert, gave us the following business nuggets;

1. Legitimacy is more important than talent. I guess that by legitimacy, he means that integrity, experience and school certificates are more important than mere talent.
2. Convert your current resources to money. He said this after a participant asked him how he could get money to run his blog as he had been writing for free for a long time. Japheth told him to meet businesses and individuals and ask them if he could manage their blogs and social media accounts. Money from there will be used to promote his own blog business.
3. Business is easier at the early stage. According to Japheth, this is so because the start up has nothing to lose if he decides to pack up the business. An established business has a reputation to protect.

Akin Alabi chipped in to say,"If you want something badly, you get it. If you don't, you make an excuse."

Source:vanguardngr.com

DJ Cuppy tells women to kick down doors because confident women do not take 'no' for an answer. 

Her nuggets;

1. Never let anyone tell you that because you are a woman, you cannot make it.
2. Her father's money is separate from hers.
3. She treats her deejay talent like a business. She has a staff of seven and their is a business process.
4. She admits that she still lives with her father but this is because she is still twenty-five years old and she is not yet married. 
5. She says that she stills gets 'no' for an answer when she goes marketing her business and that even though her father's reputation has helped opened doors for her, it cannot keep her there as she has to prove herself as a talented DJ to get out of the door and stay at the top.
6. She has just launched her foundation; DJ Cuppy Foundation.
7. She has just released a music single as she has discovered that DJs make more money when they are also music artistes. In a future blog, I will bring you more juice about her music.

Source: theNET.ng

Biola Kazeem, CEO of Elev8 Sports and Entertainment, is a sports media and marketing professional with vast experience in creating, managing and marketing sports properties and assets and ensuring that they deliver social and economic value for clients and consumers. 

He told us to unlock the value of our business. He also told us his struggles as a student with no money but only passion for sport commentary.

Akin Alabi announced that fifty people would get a business grant of N100,000. Unfortunately, I did not apply for this grant because I did not know the criteria to assess the grant as I was too busy with my mother's burial to make enquiries.

Just then, Akin Alabi committed a blasphemy. He said that he saw people praying and that it was too late to pray because nobody could change the names on the list of selected entrepreneurs and that even God cannot change the names of on the list.

Hmn! Akin Alabi, thread carefully. There is nothing that God cannot do. Mind how you wag your tongue!

Anyway, fifty names and business names were called turn after turn by the panel speakers including Akin Alabi. 

I heard the name of one of the grant winners; Christie Olamide of Christie Bloom; food processing business. She is a Facebook friend. I have already told her to get in touch with Akin to collect the money before he changes his mind because she was absent at the conference.

SPEAKERS

Adewale Yussuf, CEO of TechPoint.ng told us to read! He said that successful people read before and during their success.

He spoke of how his father could not afford to send him to a university. He got the job of a security guard at Lekki and he whenever he got his salary, he spent a greater part of it on purchasing books.

Afterwards, he got got admission to study at the Lagos State University. There was a time that he was supposed to pay his school fees but that was also the time that someone introduced him to coding and programming. He decided to use his school fees to buy a laptop and here he is today to start learning about coding and programming.

However, he did not tell us if he completed his university education.

The following are the other nuggets that he had to offer;

1. Guard your mind. Do not do drugs, fraud, women and other vices that will affect your success in life.
2. Volunteer for a company that you are interested in their services and that have a knowledge that you want to tap from them.
3. The capital that you have is your mind. Do not let anyone throw trash on your mind.
4. Generate original content for your blog (like I do). 
5. Write timely blogs (like I try to do).

He says that he started a Facebook group titled; African Book Readers. He advised us to join the group.

Tomorrow, I will bring you the concluding part of this workshop. Subscribe to my blog for latest updates.

Cheers!