I started today to think about the evolutionary path of 9ja Cosmos.
We have travelled very far, in respect of having two solid products in the marketplace, the Web 3 domains, .9jacom and .9javerse, and we made history as the first to bring a Country internet domain for Web 3, doing it for Nigeria.
This will be something Nigeria can be proud of forever.
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However, our ambitions, our meaning, and our intentions go far beyond Nigeria, or for that matter, even Africa.
We reflect on the thought processes that brought us to this point.
We have to recognise three people foremost. Not for having a vision especially for us, but for pushing out ideas that can positively colonise the thinking of others.
Who are they?
Top Left: Austin Okere. :
Who? Early educational life in Ghana, of East Nigeria (Igbo) extraction. Further education in Lagos.
Known for? Founding CWG Nigeria (Computer Warehouse Group), many board positions and philanthropic activities in later life. CWG made ground-breaking impact in its sector.
Why? Austin regularly produces great videos on business lessons for entrepreneurs, and they are worth checking out. One that particularly impressed me was a you tube on not selling your seed early, because VC’s will demand control of your future, and you might make an ok living, but you won’t realize the dreams of your idea.
Middle Right: Brian Munyao Longwe
Who? Huge track record of both senior salaried leadership and entrepreneurial activities across various countries in East and East Central Africa.
Known for? Spear-heading internet availability, particularly in remote locations. More recently spear-heading internet availability in Malawi, though his company Converged Technology Networks.
Why? Story about earlier on in his career. Each of the partners had to chose a balance of salary and equity as a hybrid means of payment for work contributed. He chose the balance slanted towards salary and regretted it later, as the company became worth billions.
He also made a profound statement – ‘It’s good to see more people looking unconventional ways of funding small business in Africa’
Bottom Left : (Prof) Ndubuisi Ekekwe
Who? Not really an easy way to follow the other gents format when it comes to Ndubuisi Ekekwe because that could just end up being a book all on its own. Ndubuisi Ekekwe is equally as active across his native Eastern Nigeria as he is across the US.
Known for? Endless academic writings and achievements; his Tekedia Institute with various affordable online tech focused, Africa centric programs – soon to spawn Tekedia Atlantic Univerisity; his special VC program targeting African Start-ups – Tekedia Capital, and his company Fasmicro, under which have come the incubation of many inventions, patents and techproducts.
Why? Well… the catch 22 situation with ‘Prof’ content is that the truly remarkable gets churned out with such robotic precision and at such pace, that each individual piece starts to become unremarkable amongst a constant wave of profound remarkability. Prof is in the US, because if he was in Lagos, they would need a new datacentre. Yes, 21CTL MDXi, Medallion, and Rackcentre would all overflow with Prof content!
The most impactful message aspect for 9jaCosmos would be his take on Aggregation Strategies, Scaling, and the compound multiplication effects of best fit elements in proprietary business ecosystems.
Where this has all led:
9ja Cosmos is trying to fuse all of these lessons and walk a sensible path.
Pantera Capital gave our peer, Unstoppable Domains $68 million for less than half a % of the business at a time when they only had 5 TLDs as income generating assets with a very narrow blockchain/nft/crypto focus.
At 9ja Cosmos, we are learning from these eminent leaders to think about how we do things differently
So, instead of running after VCs, we are thinking to offer 10% of the business split equally between 20 people, who will commit to pushing the program.
We are ideally looking for unique skillset (such as special coding skills) or access to unique resources so that they can make things happen without asking 9ja Cosmos for ‘fees’ (for example, achieving company registration, and securing intellectual property for us).
If VCs involved too early, they expect too big a chunk of the equity. This strategy ensures when VCs come looking later, they will have to pay more and get less. We are not VC engagement experts, but we watch Dragons Den!
Next, we will talk more about enduring value strategy, aggregation and scaling!
9ja Cosmos is here… Get your .9jacom and .9javerse Web 3 domains for $2 at:
https://www.encirca.com/handshake-9jacom/
https://www.encirca.com/handshake-9javerse/