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Busola Akin-Olawore

Busola is a Data Analyst, Market Researcher and Consumer Behaviour Specialist with over 12 years experience planning, designing and conducting research in Finance, Real Estate, FMCG, Healthcare, Education, Retail, Sustainability and Telecommunication sectors. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Health Studies, a Research Analyst Post Graduate Degree and Master’s Degree in Market Research and Consumer Behaviour from IE Business School. Having studied, lived and worked on 3 different continents, she is knowledgeable in 4 languages. Her time is split between running the Market Research company Versa Research and teaching at Orange Academy.

How to Select the Right Investors

At this stage,  you have created your investment teaser deck, but now you are trying to identify which investors to reach out to. The first thing to remember is that the role of your investor is to provide the expertise, network, and investment to help make your business sustainable and scalable. As an entrepreneur, it is very important to know what profile you are looking for in an investor and how to attract the best kind of investors. It is okay to be picky, in fact, it is essential that you are picky and do not accept funding from just any investor who provides it.  In this article, I will share with you some tips on how to ensure you are selecting the right investor that will provide you with the resources to grow a sustainable and scalable business: Your investor should be someone you enjoy working with – not necessarily your friend, but someone you have a cordial working relationship with Your investor should be knowledgeable about your industry  Your investor should have some knowledge in entrepreneurship and/or funds raising Your investor should have a track record that is evident in their portfolio Your investor should have a track record for investing in businesses such as yours, industry, or the stage of your business Your investor should have a strong network  Your investor should be clear on why they want to invest in your business Your investor should do thorough due diligence on you and your business Your investor should bring diversity to your investment group Your investor should bring an appeal that will draw other investors to your business An extra bonus is finding an investor that has a reputation for providing multiple rounds of investments. Selecting the right investor for your business can make or break your business. Do not feel pressured, do not feel rushed. Take your time, keep the conversations going until you are confident you have found the right investor. Contact Versa Research your trusted data, research & consulting partner! References https://carta.com/blog/how-to-choose-investors-for-your-startup/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2018/09/30/how-to-find-the-right-investor-for-your-startup/?sh=4ca39e327b82

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How to be Investment Ready

Research has shown that in Nigeria, 80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, and out of the 20% that make it past 5 years, just 25% of them make it to the 10-year mark.  Being an entrepreneur in Nigeria myself, I can list out many different factors that affect the success of a business but one of the most important ones in our climate is access to funds. Having little capital is difficult to build scalable and sustainable businesses.  But another challenge could be not having the right network to help scale your business. Both these reasons are why entrepreneurs seek investors. Investors provide the expertise, network, and investment to help grow sustainable businesses and help scale these businesses.  Seeking investors, however, is very challenging and overwhelming for many. You have to first off know the type of investor you are looking for (for example, a banker, angel investor, crowd funder, venture capitalist), the profile of the investors you are seeking, and what these investors are looking for. With this understanding out of the way, you can then work on ensuring your business is investment-ready before you approach them.  In this article, I will share with you some tips on how to be investment-ready Solid Financial Analysis: you have to show your investors that you understand your numbers. Understand your past performance, your current performance, and your future projected performance (at least for the next 3 years). Show that your assumption is justified and your projected performance model is flexible and dynamic enough to account for changes in your assumptions. You should also create a solid revenue model that shows investors the path your business will take to make money. Market Strategy: no investor wants to invest in a company that is targetting a very small group of people who do not have strong purchasing power. You will need to show your investors that you have researched the market size of your business and you have a clear go-to-market strategy. You also need to show them that you have created some kind of traction within the market. Exit Strategy: as you have seen within the start-up world, people do not start a business without an end goal in mind. You need to identify your end goal; is it a merger or an acquisition or an IPO. Identify your end goal and be able to justify why you want this goal.  Strong Team: investors are less likely to invest in a one-man business (nor a sole proprietorship). Ensure you have people that believe in your vision and are inspired to join your team in the role of a co-founder or partner. Be careful when picking your co-founders or partners, ensure they have the same values, goals, and vision as you for the business.  Clear Ask: you have to know and be very clear on what you are asking the investors for, it could be one or more things but be clear. Is it money, access to their suppliers, distributors, network, and so on? Be able to clearly tell investors what the valuation of your company is. The tricky part about valuations is that there are different ways to calculate your business’s valuation, choose the best way, and be able to justify it.  Once all these 5 pointers are clearly defined and understood, you can now create an investment teaser deck, which is a deck (presentation) you send to investors explaining to them the above and why they need to invest in your business. You need to also have supporting documents and evidence. And most importantly you need to be proactive and prepared.    Read Also: Growing the economy: Attracting investment to Nigeria through franchising  

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Tips – Pitch Perfect!

“If you can’t explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough” – Albert Einstein Einstein said it perfectly! Pitching your business idea to a 3rd party is when you give a clear understanding of your idea, plans, and goals so as to get their buy-in. This 3rd party could be a potential client or a potential investor. Your goal is to communicate clearly and enthusiastically to motivate and persuade so as to turn your vision or idea into a reality.  Before you get to a pitching session, you must do your research. You must first research the potential investor or client; learn more about their likes and dislikes, their needs, pain points, the kinds of ideas they invest in, the relationships they have with the businesses they invest in. You need to understand the market opportunity of your idea, your target audience, your product-market fit, your value proposition, your financials, and most importantly your exit strategy.  As you are preparing for your pitch, here are 5 things that are essential for you to do to win the pitch  Story Story: Tell a story! Using the active voice, your idea should be in the format of a story. The storyline could be aligned with the problem and need your idea is solving or filling.  Implement the KISS strategy: Keep it stupidly simple! Use short sentences and familiar, everyday words but don’t stray too far from investor lingo (eg minimum viable product). Ensure you have visuals, people understand better when they can see, but keep these visuals simple.  Facts & Feelings: Quantitative as well as qualitative data. You need to show the data, it is essential. However, do not forget that emotions play a big role in decision making so use language and metaphor that will stir their emotions.  Mystery: Do not give all the information at the beginning of the presentation. The brain craves anticipation so give teasers that will keep your audience interested and wanting more in the beginning. Repetition: The more you repeat something of importance, the more likely it is to be remembered. Repeat information (your company name, your name, your idea) as much as possible so it is remembered.  Pitching can be a daunting experience; mainly because we place so many expectations on it. As long as you know your idea and pitch audience inside out, you can clearly state the market opportunity of your idea, your target audience, your product-market fit, your value proposition, your financials, and your exit strategy, and are prepared; go in, have fun, and don’t put too much pressure on the experience.  Contact Versa Research your trusted data, research & consulting partner! References https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/business-pitching https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-pitch-a-business-idea

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How to Determine Your KPI

“KPI influence management behavior as well as business culture”– Pearl Zhu KPI (Key Performance Indicators) are the quantifiable outcomes that are used to measure performance. They are used to gauge and determine achievements in comparison to others. It allows you to determine your performance vis a vis your objectives and goals or peers.  Your KPI can be financial-focused (eg revenue), customer-focused (eg customer satisfaction or retention), and/or process-focused (eg operational efficiency). When determining your KPI, the first thing to ensure is that your KPIs are SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Specific. Your KPIs also need to be evaluated and reevaluated consistently to ensure SMARTness. Another element to consider is to ensure your KPIs provide clear information about your progress. They must be able to track and measure efficiency, quality, and thoroughness in addition to performance over time. They must help you make informed decisions – KPIs have to be actionable and lead to overall company goals.  The first step in determining KPIs is to define your goal, then you will need to define actions that will help you achieve your goals and finally ways to measure the success of these actions. Here are some questions to ask to help you determine your KPIs What is your desired goal? Why is this goal important? What do you need to do to get to the goal? How are the actions going to be measured? How would you know you have achieved your goal? How often will you need to review your progress on your actions? Some examples of measures include revenue growth, revenue per client, profit margin, client retention rate, customer satisfaction score, customer effort score, net promoter’s score, and so on.  As mentioned, KPIs must be actionable, they must lead to informed decisions. When presenting your KPIs to stakeholders ensure you show your business objectives, your past performance, your current performance, your future targets, and rooms for adjustment.  Contact Versa Research your trusted data, research & consulting partner!

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How to define a Product-Market Fit

An antenatal app provides low-income pregnant women in hard-to-reach areas with medical information. What is wrong with this product? A product without a market fit is one where the majority of people are not buying (or using) the product and/or among those who buy (or use) they do not get the value out of the product. A product without a market fit is one where the biggest driver of growth, word of mouth, is not spreading and so the product is not growing in terms of usage and revenue.  What exactly is product-market fit? Product-Market Fit is when there is alignment between the value proposition of your product, your personas (users), and the channel through which you are delivering your product. Back to the example at the top, the most obvious problem with the product is the channel of delivery. Low-income women in hard-to-reach areas most likely do not have access to mobile devices that can host apps.  When you have either one of the 3 factors; personas, value proposition, and channel unaligned, you will experience a poor product-market fit. In some instances, you might experience success, which is extremely deceiving as it is short-lived. As so many Venture Capitalists, demand start-ups show evidence of product-market fit before they invest in the startup.  To show there is a product-market fit you will need to conduct consumer, market, and product research; here are the steps you need to take  Determine the personas: your persona is your target audience; the group of people you want to sell your product or service to. Learn more about target audiences in our previous post:  https://msmehub.org/staging/6671/tips-how-to-defi…ur-target-market/ Identify the needs of your target audience: conduct a need assessment to understand your target audience’s needs. Learn more about target audiences in our previous post:  https://msmehub.org/staging/6671/tips-need-assessment/ Define your value proposition: your value proposition is selected from a list of possible value hypotheses which are key assumptions that you believe underlie why a person is willing to pay or use your product. When listing your value hypothesis, think of value as a combination of features your product provides, the benefits to the users, and whether or not these are worth it. It helps to speak to people (through interviews or focus group discussions) when listing out your value hypothesis.  Determine your distribution plan: understand what distribution channels you have available that will be able to get your products to your target audience seamlessly. Develop & Test a minimum viable product: your minimum viable product is a test of the premise of your business idea. It is when you use limited resources to create a prototype of your product and distribute it through your channel to your target audience. When people interact with your minimum viable product it provides data that helps you validate whether there is a need for your product and how to optimize the product and channel of distribution.  Once steps 1-5 have been completed, you can be confident that you have accurately tested your product-market fit.  Contact Versa Research your trusted data, research & consulting partner!    References https://leanstartup.co/a-playbook-for-achieving-product-market-fit/ https://mailchimp.com/resources/product-market-fit/

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