Recalling a story of a young man who was involved in the team that set up one of the first Mobile Telecommunication companies in Nigeria.
He wrote about their meeting with a Nigerian business mogul, Olorogun Michael Ibru, the owner of Ibru Organization/ Ibru Fish, etc., who grew from little to build an Empire from Fish, and went on to build a business Dynasty, with his younger ones who came up to ride high in Banking. Publishing. Hospitality, Aviation, etc.
The man related how they made presentation to Olorogun Ibru on the Mobile Telecommunication Technology, Industry and business, the man was impressed with them, and especially liked him, but called him aside to educate him, that Telephone/Telephony was for the rich, and few. That he should look for a business that is more mass market oriented. In fact, that he should go and “Sell Fish, that everyone eats fish”.
Mobile telephone has gone on to become ‘fish’, almost everyone now uses, but Olorogun’s ideology and the principle behind it is still true and struck a lesson for me. Olorogun is still correct till tomorrow, the only thing is that we need to identify the fish, that everyone eats, or more importantly that everyone would soon start eating. – Soon, because if you come into the market too early, you may not get the most out of it, the first people that entered Mobile telephony in Nigeria with 090, etc, did not do much, so also the ones that entered ecommerce too early in Nigeria before the development of basic payment systems and internet penetration (before 2005). Jack Ma of Alibaba also alluded to this when he delayed starting Alibaba in the mid-1990s, because of level of Internet penetration in China as at then.
So, which market, Industry, products are the current fish, and next fish?
