Let us have a conversation on the soul of the market system within the framework of entrepreneurial capitalism. Who is a monopolist? How does monopoly come? Is monopoly desirable?
Good People, when you start a company, the most strategic objective is to fix the frictions of customers, and if indeed your desire is to do something big, you must have modeled that current providers of the required services have unserved customers (yes, opportunities). In other words, there are opportunities in the market which remain unlocked, and your thinking is that your business will go there, solve the problems, and be rewarded by customers.
Ideally, that “opportunity”, no matter how small, gives you a “monopoly status” since you desire to go there and unlock something latent. Indeed, every business is inherently a monopolist because you think no matter what others are offering in the market, you have an opportunity which remains unsolved. Going into that opportunity is the essence you have mobilized factors of production, to create products and services, for the market.
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If you innovate and set a new basis of competition, creating an orthogonal path which is totally different from what everyone is doing in the market, you become disruptive. And disruption anoints you the title of a category-king company which means you are the leader. Of course, once people see that you are making tons of money in that “area”, they will quickly come, imagining an unmet need within the space as they desire to create their own “monopoly” within the category or sector.
If all players play within the tenet of free market, even and fair regulation, being a monopolist is desirable, and must not be seen as bad. Where monopoly is bad is when it comes through asymmetric means, outside the rules of the universal market system.
Where am I going? If Nigeria which has zero steel capability has a company like Dangote Steel come into it, that firm falls really out of the sphere of monopoly even though there is nothing wrong being one, provided it has come via free market ethos.
Google is a monopoly. Amazon is a monopoly. Nvidia is a monopoly. Microsoft is a monopoly. And those are celebrated.
Sustained monopoly is a feature of market success. Today, I challenge you to go and build a monopoly business and be ready to defend the territory when others come after you! My desire is to become a “monopoly” in the provision of Mini-MBA programs in Africa, and there is no apology there.
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You cannot have a meaningful conversation with perverted minds. You will think that it’s only during elections that Nigerians show their worst sides, it’s even more absurd in the market place. You will not get a coherent argument from anyone accusing Aliko Dangote of being a monopoly. The things you will hear? He was given preferential rate in Fx, without ever providing evidence of course. They will say it over and over, but never with a supporting document or reference. These are the creatures you want to have a conversation with.
Aside from witchcraft, what else are most Nigerians good at? There is a lethal combination of mental laziness and envy, it’s an unbeatable combo. The irony is that, envious people don’t even notice that they are envy, because it’s very natural to them. Next they start ‘fighting’ for entrepreneurs who never told them that they were cheated by the government in favour of Dangote, not that they care about those ones anyway; but anything that undermines a successful person is pleasing to them.
Before now, all of us were wondering how Nigeria could not refine petrol, for many years we only heard TAM, nothing was refined. Dangote was building, and when it arrived? They started screaming monopoly! Witches.