Lanmodo Auto Car Tent Franchise: Population Dynamics from a Nigerian Business experience.
Over two decades ago, as a teenager, I read that then Nigerian military president — Ibrahmi Badamosi Babangida, IBB for short — ruminated on why the Nigerian economy seemed to defy logic, in apparent frustrations one must believe over the Nigerian economy’s inability to comply with known economic policies he tinkered with to kick start an economic revolution of sorts.
Mind you, I was in secondary school then and oblivious to the challenges of leadership in Nigeria at large or the depth of sacrifices my “middle class” parents were enduring to provide for my siblings and I within the context of a logic defying economy.
Fast forward a couple of decades later, I had graduated, was employed and dabbling into business in a Nigerian economy awash with fresh capital from our return to democracy and associated buoyancy marked by the banking sector, telecoms and associated derivatives of the associated value chains. In all of this, a consistent narrative was the potentials of the Nigerian economy based on its population. Population? hmmmmmm. Back to it in a bit.
The Lanmodo Automatic Car Tent franchise in Nigeria was born out of a need for a personal solution. I had just got myself a nice sleek car. However, I didn’t get the memo or email on its incompatibility with Abuja heat. Not long after I got it, I noticed the glossy buttons and some sections of the dashboard and steering wheel were being messed up by the intense heat. Worried, I sought solutions from the dealership who had no clue as to how to stop the issue or prevent its further degeneration.
Step in Google. After much research, I came upon this product which to me was just right. Easy to deploy, portable and best of all, delivers on its promise to drastically reduce temperature inside the car relative to the scorching heat outside. Impressed by the above and seeing a potential gold mine for the Nigerian market based on ‘Population’, I went into overdrive, researching, analyzing and eventually agreeing with me, myself and I that this was a great product which was scalable and sure I could pull it off with the Nigerian market.
Egged on by the large “Population” narrative and consequent millions (Nigerian Naira) spent on aggressive online and offline marketing promotions, campaigns, and even attending trade fairs and shows, I have come to agree with General Babangida that Nigeria’s economy defies logic.
In a recent article of 7th December, 2020, Dr. Ola Brown (someone I really admire for her combination of belief in Nigeria and tenacity to boot) indicated 2 Million Nigerians earning over 9000 USD made up the upper middle class of the country. Indeed, these were my target clients for the product. I just needed a certain percentage of them to break even and smile to the bank, but alas, I was so wrong.
So what happened? Well, Nigeria happened. You see, the country’s lack of a safety net automatically means we take care of ourselves and our own. Hence, the upper middle class Dr. Brown alludes to really does not have such disposable funds for things such as a car tent after meeting their needs and supporting so many of their own whose incomes /livelihood have been tanked or those that have not even started earning due to limited opportunities occasioned by varied reasons ranging from poor government policies, institutions and all others necessary to enable a more formidable sized middle and upper middle class.
Whilst the Nigerian economy has more often been defined in varied analysis with a toga of “potential” driven by its “large” population, the question analysts conveniently ignore or fail to answer is the “worth” of this much vaunted “large” population.
In summation, I have learned that with Nigeria, few things are the way they ought to be. For one, we are not as rich as we believe we are and the word population means nothing more than being a Noun, hence, its use as a definitive factor in doing business in Nigeria is at owner’s risk.
Ibodje Jude PMP, PMI –ACP, PMI -PBA
