Entrepreneurship Basic Class 101: Part 2 - INNOVATE

"Innovate: Whatever it is you are doing, someone else is doing it. So find ways of doing it better." -David Chiaka, culled from the interview on Pinpointmag.net

I spend a lot of my time studying great people. I do not believe I have to make mistakes on the job. I should be able to learn from others who have gone ahead of me so I can avoid similar mistakes they made.

The likes of Steve Jobs (late founder of Apple), Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Donald Trump, Tayo Aderinokun (late MD of GTBank Plc) et al, have intrigued me as great and successful business men, leaders and innovators.

There is a common phrase that has driven me in this direction, and its from the Bible - "follow them who through FAITH & PATIENCE have inherited the promise". That's vision and persistence,

I study the bible. I love to learn from successful people in the bible and also from real life. Why should I go around making mistakes when I can learn from those ahead of me?
Why should I make mistakes that I may not recover from?

There is a common trait among "The Great" and that trait is innovation.
There once was a time when we had to travel hundreds of miles for meetings now you can Skype straight from your office Pc, Laptop or even your mobile phone. Why would you spend 5 hours of your day stuck in traffic when a video chat can solve this?

There once was a time when marketing was done in the market place, on buses, in crowded places etc. Yes, organizations still adopt this marketing model but guess what, I would rather identify my target market and market online.

Facebook offers adverts that push your product into the faces of a specified target market and guess what, Nigerians love Facebook. Same as twitter and other social media channels. Identify what mediums your market use to communicate and express themselves, then interrupt them with your products. Get them to look at it and you will be shocked at how effective this is.

Listen, marketing your products is not a one size fits all.
If I have a N250k travel product, I wont waste my time marketing in a public bus!

No! that's not my market. My market are graduate trainees in Banks, Blue chip companies, Energy firms etc. The fast rising middle class and they drive fairly used cars.

They are the ones that want to take selfies and post on Facebook.
They want opinions from Twitter.
They want to show their friends what they have been doing on Instagram and so on.

If you do not sit down to identify your target market, then find ways of reaching them, trust me; YOU WILL NOT GROW B-I-G!
These thoughts will keep you up late at night. It will keep you very busy at your office and it will help you position a great team that is critical in thinking and strategic in marketing.

Ask yourself, what more can I do? What more products can you perfect?
How can you make it better in my product and make it more attractive?

If you continuously do things the old way, you will wake up one day with a negative balance sheet.
You must know when an email will suffice and when an actual physical visit is required.

You must know when its okay to receive cash and when a simple bank transfer is perfect.
These decisions matter.
These innovative ideas must translate to decisions that will alter the face of your business.

Hope this piece has been helpful?
Please share your thoughts and innovative experiences.

Till we meet again, keep winning.

David Chiaka
Follow me on twitter - @MrChiaka

Entrepreneurship Basic Class 101: Part 1

I was recently featured as Entrepreneur For The Month on Pinpoint Magazine and I shared entrepreneurial tips for start ups.

I will be expounding on what I shared and I do hope, this will be helpful to someone reading this:

 Set policies as you go. It will help reduce risk of loss and position you for success

There is common phrase that necessity is the mot
her of invention.
This saying is quite true.

In my early days of entrepreneurship, I was contracted to coordinate a birthday event in a particular location. I deployed staff to comb that location for a cost effective and exotic location and we got 20 hotels and event centers.

After all inspections were completed, we scaled it down to 5, then we picked the best event center based on price and aesthetic.

I prepared a bill complete with pictures of the location, catering, parking etc.

That was it, the client stopped calling. 
So I called to find out what happened and she says "I know the place". Implication was, she did not need my services any longer.

I licked my wounds and came up with a policy of restricting the amount of information I give to clients until I have a financial commitment from them.

Irrespective of how many MBA's you might have or maybe you have an uncountable number of PHDs, what you have learnt in class is useless unless you apply that bit of knowledge in real life scenarios, deduce your own conclusions, then evolve.

I cannot emphasize this enough - the Nigerian business scene is a tough one. The business terrain has disproved many a theory.
We are a unique people and if you must survive as a business person in Nigeria, you may have to be humble enough to unlearn most of th;e things that you learned in school.

As you do business in Nigeria and as academic principles are disproved, make new laws (policies). Let these policies guide you. Remember why you made these policies and carefully do not break them.

Reasons why you must never break your policies are:
(i) It is a bad precedence for your staff. They will not take your laws any serious.
(ii) Let these laws stop you from making the same mistake again, albeit with larger funds.
Many business have gone under because they allowed history to repeat itself.

Hope this tip has been helpful?
Please share your personal experiences and how it has led you to come up with your guiding principle and policy.

Till with meet again, keep winning.

Mr David Chiaka
@MrChiaka

Understanding Nigerians Along Sentimental Lines

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything "- Alexander Hamilton



Nigeria is a unique place. We are a nation with 250 ethnic groups. We are governed by sentiments. Religious sentiments, ethnic sentiments, family sentiments etc. These sentiments affect our perceptions and subsequent actions and in-actions in politics, work & justice.

In politics, the average Nigerian will vote along ethnic and religious lines. Do not be deceived by the approximately 6.5 million internet savvy Nigerian's on social media. With a population of 170 million, we have not scratched the surface of actual political perceptions and the non internet savvy populace that will influence the outcome of political events.


At work, we all want to employ our  relatives irrespective of their attitudes, educational qualifications etc. We cover up for inefficiencies due bias, and if you kick against it, your family comes after you.


Justice; this is where sentiments has caused the must damage. Justice is denied simply because the thought of locking up a child or relative is unfathomable. Irrespective of the crime, we deny justice along the lines of bias.

These sentiments are the cradle of corruption. By whatever means necessary we protect the wrong people at the expense of the qualified. Do you know money is spent (on bribes) to deny Justice? Do you know Politicians influence the employment and promotion of wrong individuals into the force, government institutions etc? If employment was done via the proper selection process, the best of the rest would emerge & we Nigerians would be better of.

These bias translates into high level corruption. Thieves walk away, militants & terrorists are compensated with cash rewards & justice is denied the Nigerian people.

To get things right, we must be on the side of Justice and Objectivity. Religions speak of Justice so uphold it. If your child steals, let Justice be served so they can be better of. What use is a community filled with thieves and criminals? They still destroy the fabric of society and are of zero economic impact to the community. Roads remain bad, water does not flow & the schools are still dilapidated. Yet we have Senators that have done 3 terms with zero impact in their constituents but still want more tenures (Senator for life).

We must wake up.
These sentiments destroy corporate culture and the lack of justice is the reason why the international community have reservations doing business in and with Nigerians. We need a para-dime shift in mindset. We are either Nigerians or we are not. We cannot identify with the Nigerian nation but fight ourselves internally. 

Can true federalism prevail?

There must be justice for the oppressed and respect for human life.
We must hold leaders accountable after their tenures in political office. Leave no room for sentiments. There is no such thing as "its our time to chop". Its either all or nothing. 

Change starts with you. It starts in your mind. Change your mindset, change the world.

Till we meet again, keep winning.

David Chiaka
Twitter: @MrChiaka

The Winner In You: The Economic Impact of Ebola In West Africa

The Winner In You: The Economic Impact of Ebola In West Africa: Health is wealth ... Unknown I recently participated in the ALS ice bucket challenge over the weekend as I was challenged by my employ...

The Economic Impact of Ebola In West Africa

Health is wealth... Unknown

I recently participated in the ALS ice bucket challenge over the weekend as I was challenged by my employee (it also was his birthday).

After this exercise, a friend buzzed me up to ask why I am raising awareness to the ALS disease when the Ebola epidemic was not only ravaging West Africa but was having a serious economic impact.

Well after explaining that is was in honor of a birthday, in the spirit of fun & charity, I took out time to do a little research on the impact of the Ebola epidermic in West Africa.

Now the Ebola virus is not curable. The recent drug "Zmapp" is not 100% efficient and it is in its early test stages. This virus is only communicable in its severe state (fever-sweat, vomit, stool etc). It has recently infected over 2,000 victims out of which less than half have survived.

Several countries have closed its boarders to the West Africa infected areas - fact.
Several airlines have stopped flights to infected regions in West Africa - fact.
Even the government of infected countries have cordoned off high risk areas in their own country.
Food and medicine are in very short supply and people are not only starving but are dieing.

The economic implication of these actions are increased poverty, starvation, inability for foreign aid or Foreign Aid workers to move quickly or efficiently and an economic shut down of the highly infected West African states.

No doubt, Ebola virus is deadly and the level of deaths witnessed recently by this epidemic is quite alarming.

A certain doctor on CNN did say the secret to the cure of this disease may lie in the blood and anti-bodies that helped previous survivors recover. I think this is something Governments and Medical Research institutions need to look into and I think it is time we helped raise awareness towards the Ebola scourge and treatment.

So this is my way of raising awareness. When I come up with something similar to the ice bucket challenge & a research center to donate to, I will definitely let you know.

Thank you.

Mr David Chiaka

The Winner In You: Run, Stop, Think,Then Run Again

The Winner In You: Run, Stop, Think,Then Run Again: "Use your number six"- Nigerian maxim The Nigerian business terrain is a truly tough one. It is very importa...

The Winner In You: Run, Stop, Think,Then Run Again

The Winner In You: Run, Stop, Think,Then Run Again: "Use your number six"- Nigerian maxim The Nigerian business terrain is a truly tough one. It is very importa...