jesseoguns

[jesseoguns]

In April 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did the unthinkable. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson said that Instagram was likely one of the big factors in Facebook’s impressive increase in the fourth quarter’s ad “impressions,” which increased 29% year-on-year. Facebook recognizes this problem.

[jesseoguns]

Courage in Life’s Highs and Lows

Letter from Shanghai

No room for rhetorics. No time to waste time. People write to escape the low (or emptiness) they feel at times, but I have never thought myself to be one of them. 

Thinking about it, I think I am moved to write when I am feeling high or feeling low. 

Twitter a is book

Everyone who tweets in a writer. There are good writers and there are poor writers. If you tweet (or Facebook), you are a writer.

You must have observed that you tweet more when you are feeling very happy (high) or sad (low). Those two moments are the best time not to tweet/Facebook–what you write then are instantly public, leaving less room for editing or thinking twice before publishing.

It can be high or low

How do you get out of a low moment? Some can’t help the feeling of being low. It is an ailment for some. while for some, it is a very brief moment. I am sure some musicians write/sing sad songs when they are low and sometimes draw us to playing those sad songs when we are low as well. Humans are built to survive. Each person go about surviving in the best possible way they know. 

One fact that remains is, everyone survives it–even those who die (accidental/natural/suicide) at the end, see death as a way of escape, a survival.

Some sad truths needs to be told. Most times we don’t tell/share this truth. We are busy concealing a lot of things that becomes so much weight under our skin and make us ugly outside and inside. The only way is to first tell the truth to ourselves, we can then share it to the world. 

One truth we deny

We are all afraid (vulnerable). 

Many people show strength in the public and then privately, they shed tears. Truth is, it is okay to be afraid. The cure to fear is not strength, but courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to proceed even while afraid. 

At the end of the day, to survive life’s high and low, we need courage. 

[jesseoguns]

We are here for the screening of FIFTY by EBONY LIVE TV. We have 100 special TECNO gift bags to give to 100 winners among the guests. Say hello if you're here. (at Eko Hotel And Suites Victoria Island Lagos State Nigeria)

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I introduce to you, Mr and Mrs Jesse Oguntimehin. My wife and I are indeed grateful to all that came, those that sent their love, those that prayed with us and for us, those that supported with gifts and all well wishers. You made our day. We shall never forget 14.11.2015. Thank you. #RayJay2015NG

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P R A Y. #Reflection #MirrorImage #Phantom5 #blackandwhite

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B L U E. //Shot by Phantom 5 #TECNO

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We're still outchea!! #OwnTheStage #TECNO It's been fun, tiring, but fun. #THETEAM (at Protea Hotel Leadway Ikeja)

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10 mins of recess and there are still more people out there. #OwnTheStage #Phantom5 #TECNO (at Protea Hotel Leadway Ikeja)

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Getting set for the Lagos TECNO #OwnTheStage auditions. The pre auditions are going on already. #Phantom5 (at Protea Hotel Leadway Ikeja)

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This is for the pain of working on a Saturday. #Phantom5 #OwnTheStage (at Protea Hotel Leadway Ikeja)

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The New Phantom War Room #TheNewPHANTOM (We are getting ready for tomorrow) (at Computer Village)

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Which is your favourite? #Filtered #InstaFruits #Fitfam #TheNewPHANTOM

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D O N T. W A I T. I N. V A I N.

[jesseoguns]

iROKO. Bad for the Industry? Part 1

I was speaking to an executive of one of the largest cinema chains in Nigeria. He was telling me how most people he spoke to thought iROKO was ‘bad for the industry’. To be honest this is something I hear regularly. My first thought was, If I am bad, who is good?

Then, second to that I thought, how does one come to that conclusion? He told me I needed to ‘communicate’ more about iROKO’s industry perspective, you know, shake hands and kiss babies, using political parlance. Anyway. This morning I awoke to the news that one of the most pioneering startups in the world had massive new competition. Apple Music. And had raised another $526m at a $8.53b valuation. Spotify is largely reviled in the music industry. Even though they have paid $3 billion to artists, with $300m of that being in Q1 2015 alone, they are continually slammed by the likes of Jay Z, Taylor Swift and others for the apparent little they pay to the artists. Spotify has 20m paid subscribers, 75m users overall. Apparently they are bad for the industry too. Even though they created its most promising model and future. Funded of course by $1.1 billion of venture capital money. Spotify recently announced that in 2014 it made $1.3b in revenue. With losses at $197m. Losses. FYI - Iroko loses money too. Lots of it.  

I just returned from a 4 day trip to Paris for the 3rd edition of Nollywood Week. The film festival has become something of a feature for Parisian Nollywood fans. Interestingly, it has been my fourth trip to Paris this year and actually my first actual creative Nollywood industry event. Ever. On the opening night they aired a documentary called Jimmy goes to Nollywood. It was the story of Haitian-born Hollywood actor Jimmy Jean-Louis (of Heroes and Arrow Fame). He walks through his experience shooting Dr Bello and the wider Nollywood industry at large. He goes on to discuss with the stalwarts the challenges of the industry. 

Cultural context

Culturally, iROKO isn’t actually very entertainment-like. We have never done a press conference. We typically don’t attend festivals or ‘industry events’ and although we have ridden on the crest of publicity and evangelised Nollywood beyond the shores of Nigeria, we typically stay far from creativity and talent. Even our choice of office location is isolated. First Festac, then Anthony Village. These aren’t really known as the centres of anything. To be honest, most in Lagos haven’t really even heard of Anthony Village let alone know where it is. For all intents and purposes, that is by design. When I first landed in Lagos in April 2010 I was approached by all kinds of businessmen / charlatans (movies and music tend to attract them in hordes) promising me ‘help’ in navigating the industry, attempting to tell me what to do. All manner of vices were thrown my way to attract my little capital via them into their pockets. 

So I made a decision very early on. We were leading viewers to content they’ll love, so in order to do that we needed to remain focused and absolute in our perspective. There needed to be a separation between Church and State. We erred on not mixing with talent and creativity. I was very happy with that, I find It too confusing, emotional and subjective. 

At the beginning I used to watch every movie title we acquired. Early 2011, I stopped that and hired a team of people to scale that activity. We now possess one of the best curative teams (albeit subjective) in Nollywood. We also brought a structured data-driven perspective to an industry where data integrity and availability at best is zero. Big data is in vogue now, but from the very beginning iROKO has been trying (and largely failing - thankfully) to distill success in Nollywood filmmaking to a formula. But although we have failed at that overly ambitious task, we have picked up a thousand different insights around the reality of Nollywood. Especially distribution. There is no platform in existence that iROKO doesn’t have a strong grasp of their root economics. None. So when we discuss the state of the industry, it’s grounded by that data and that is our reality. 

Bastian and I are nerds. I read Chemistry. Bastian was an oil trader. Those disciplines are grounded in numbers. They conceptualise the abstract. They seek for truths in low probabilities. It’s almost impossible for me to grasp a scenario without attaching a number to it. It’s impossible for Bastian or I to have a debate without a number or dataset being present. Yes, we use gut instinct as well, but the processing requires pulling into summations of previous conversations downloaded in data. Culturally, most of the leadership team at iROKO shares that value. It’s only when I am out in the wild that the core values of iROKO clash with the very being of talent and content creation. This is at the heart of the ‘iROKO is bad for the industry’ debate. 

Back to ‘In Jimmy…’. In the documentary, captains of the ‘Nollywood’ creative industry bemoaned the dire state of the industry. Piracy (zzZ), lack of investment, distribution etc. etc. At Nollywood Week Paris, I spoke on a distribution panel around the challenges in the industry. And they are numerous. But what was interesting to me was the constant lack of concrete perspectives. The lack of actionable solutions. The lack of numbers. Then it finally hit home. The lack of numbers. Nollywood rarely deals in numbers. Ever. When they do, it’s usually hyperbole. On the panel, every answer I had was direct and backed by numbers. Let’s take an example.

Nollywood is popular in Africa? 

The latest viewership numbers for most linear Nollywood channels in Africa are available. Whether it’s DStv or CanalSat or StarTimes or FTA network CitizenTV in East Africa. The numbers are out there. I simply made it our business to get them. In SA, Africa Magic Epic is #4/5 most popular channel, it reaches ~1m people per day and 7.8% of the daily reach in South Africa. Only after local free to air channels SABC1, SABC2 and e.TV, Mzansi Magic comes in just behind it at #5. Forget Telemundo, forget Disney, forget SuperSports, forget MNET Action, forget MTV. DStv Africa Magic Epic blows them away. What does it show? 24/7 Nollywood content. In SOUTH AFRICA. On iROKOtv, international content viewing after almost a year represents 6% of actual video views and hours delivered in Africa. At best, marginal. I can go platform by platform to demonstrate this. Crikey, our entire StarTimes deal is grounded on that single truth. The data is available. You just have to push through the door to discover it. 

When people think of ‘popular or hyped’ or content online, I smile, TV shows Gidi Up season 2 saw an impressive ~1.1m and An African City ~1.8m video views. A Nollywood movie Housewives of Lagos, saw in less time a hearty 2.4m video views. In fact our YouTube team in Q1 2015 saw 33m video views and 222.5m minutes watched. So popular? Methinks so. 

If the debate lacks a verifiable data perspective, folk at iROKO begin to struggle. We pride ourselves on being brutally honest. Executives call me out when I am inconsistent or wrong. Happy to be 100% wrong. I am cool with that. As long as it advances the cause. Most creative industries’ feedback is usually vague or ineffectual. Ours is brutally honest. Every movie we acquire we have a subjective opinion and a data perspective. Sometimes, when we give feedback, folk get emotional and begin to dislike us. But feedback one must give. On the economics of content creation we have a very strong opinion. And that opinion will probably create the most industry wide tension. Part 2 coming next week. 

[jesseoguns]

OVER 3 MILLION NIGERIAN’S PAY WITH PAGA

Paga is a service I use when paying for air time and TV subscription. I have be upgraded to a higher level as a customer to raise the amount I can trascact in a single transaction. They also recently launched an Android app. I still prefer to use the Web as that is what I am used to. 

They are really growing and have now reached 3 Million. Impressive! This is a service that some thing is not really solving any real problem. 

***

Lagos, Nigeria – Amidst the constant debate around the success of mobile payments in Nigeria; Paga, the country’s leading payments company today announced a significant rise in the adoption of its services, with over 3 million users now using its agent and online/mobile payment channels to send and receive payments.

Less than 8 months since announcing its last million user milestone – the company reached 2 million users in November 2014; Paga Founder and CEO, Tayo Oviosu credits the rapid growth to understanding the unique challenges faced by Nigerians looking for a simpler way to make payments.

“For my team and I, the issues around payments are far reaching. It goes past being able to move money from point A to B. In the 6 years Paga has been in operation we have developed a relationship with our customers. We hear their stories and we know that every transaction that occurs on our platform is more than just money. It’s someone trying to pay for something in a less stressful way. Whether it’s paying for a TV subscription; child’s school fees; a visa; people buying airtime to stay connected to the ones they love or a new business finally being able to accept payments from its customers. . With every transaction there is some emotional connotation for the end user and our ability to relate to that and create solutions that make everyday life possible for Nigerians is the #1 reason people continue to choose Paga.”

Founded in 2009 by Tayo Oviosu, the company remains focused on building a payments ecosystem that can be leveraged by banks, businesses, and consumers. Paga’s agent network is at the core of that ecosystem. Paga now has over 8,300 agents in 35 states – the largest and most active network in Nigeria. The agents are locations where people can comfortably go in to make payments within their community.

On what next for Paga and the future of mobile payments, Co-founder and Director of Business Development for Paga, Jay Alabraba said...

“We believe strongly that accessibility still has a big role to play in the future of mobile payments and financial inclusion. With the unique challenges around connectivity in Nigeria, having a viable agent network remains key to ensuring that every Nigerian, irrespective of their location has access to finance. Our agent network is a key part of the Paga success story, and we currently have over 8,000 agents...and the numbers are growing every day. We are now engaged with our bank partners for the next phase of our evolution is partnering with banks for agent banking -the delivery of banking productsthrough our agent network. By partnering with banks we believe we can ensure that all Nigerians get banked.This will also bring greater offerings to our agents who are all business owners in their own right. We are very excited about what the future holds as we further open up our network.”

Since inception Paga has processed over 15 million transactions worth over N154 billion and has over 800,000 active users. The figures and this new milestone for Paga show that the industry is making more progress than previously reported. Looking forward, it is easier to see the role Paga and the rest of the industry will play in reducing the obvious issues around payments in Nigeria, boosting economic returns and promoting financial inclusion.  

[jesseoguns]

Job Opening: LED product sales manager in Nigeria

LED product sales manager in Nigeria.

    RESPONSIBILITY:

    1/ Build up the strong sales team for further business growth

2/ Search the strong distributor and build up the distributor relationship system, set up the strong customer focus culture, rule for partner register/business development/credit etc.

3/Work closely with top management for policy integration and execution, for division strategy development.

4/Follow the payment receive/ Purchase plan/ Cargo logistic

6/ Develop the Led lighting business in whole Country; Identify and work for gaining business opportunities in both prospects and existing customers

7/Collect competitor information, market analysis report and provide timely and correct information for management decision making purpose.

    REQUIREMENT:

    1/ Bachelor’s degree and above

2/ Three years of related Lighting Sales / Marketing / Business Development experience; (better have related background of world famous company just like Philip/OSRAM/GE )  

3/ Fast in execution, deliver expected results with good follow & reporting sense;

4/ Mobility / willingness to travel.

5/ Global orientation and good sense of business

6/ Excellent in communication skills, including speaking and presentation; Customer relationship management skills.

Send email to je_og@yahoo.com with CV and cover letter. Only send application if you intend to work and you have the track record requested. 

[jesseoguns]

Great guy. He got a hang of the Lagos routes pretty easily. He’s going to be speaking at Andela later this week. Jeremy.