Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Study Hall: MONETIZE ONLINE EVENTS, & BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

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Study Hall: MONETIZE ONLINE EVENTS, & BUSINESS IN NIGERIA · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.
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  Speaker 2: Shout out to Africa, to all of the countries in
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Africa too, man. Yeah, we got a lot of love
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: and a lot of support in Africa. We've charted on
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: some of the top charts in a variety of different
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: countries everywhere from Kenya to Zimbabwe to South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: all over Africa. We've been on the top charts at
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: some point in time. So you know, a lot of people,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of listeners in UK and all
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: over and they're like, you know, we love your content,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: but some of the stuff that you're saying is only
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff you're saying it's only based upon
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: American point of view. And that would make sense because
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: we're from America. But being that the world is our
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: oyster and we have we have supporters and listeners all
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: over the world, we can't just focus only on where
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: we live. So one of the goals for this year
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: was to broaden the horizon and to get entrepreneurs and
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: talk about content from all over the world. And you know,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Covid actually was a blessing in that regard because it
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: helped us actually get on our virtual wave and that
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: obviously helped with getting some content. So I put it
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: on Instagram a few weeks ago, like, you know, we
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: want to do some entrepreneurs in Africa, who should we
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: reach out to? And we got a hit up. A
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: lot of people hit us up like you should reach
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: out to this person, that person, this person and one
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of the one of the most requested people was John Obidi.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Did I say that correct?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah you did.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And so I looked on his page and yeah, he
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: had a nice following. I loved his content. He it
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: looked real, like real good. His page looked real good.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I did the research on him. So I reached out
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to him and I'm like, you know, would you be
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: interested in having a conversation to hit me right back?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Like yeah, And then when I spoke, it was even
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: better because he actually was already a listener of the podcast.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: So I always liked that.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always good to have guests that already are
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: familiar with the platform so we don't have to explain it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: They already kind of know. So I'm like, this is dope.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So John is a superstar entrepreneur out of Nigeria. He
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: is an author, he is an international speaker. He's a
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: social media an influencer. He's the founder of Headstar Headstar Africa.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: He just hosted the largest virtual summit in Africa. Fifteen
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: thousand people were on that. He does everything. It's online
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: business consultant, teaches kids how to achieve success.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: He's just a programmer, web developer, a little.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Bit of everything. Everything.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: We got everything, John, We got everything that you've done.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Man, So this is going to be a dope conversation.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about a lot of virtual stuff,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: tech stuff, texts, real big in Nigeria, and we're going
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: to talk about of course the content of Africa Nigeria.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You're gonna talk about economics, all kinds of stuff. So
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I'm very excited to have this conversation. I'm sure Troy
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: is a going on. So John, first and foremost, thank you,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: thank you for joining.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Us, thank you for having me.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, so so yeah, John, let's get into
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: it first and foremost, Like I said, we are extremely
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: excited about this this episode. So founder of Headstart Africa, right,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and so I did some research. So headstart is actually
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: it's a big thing. So what is Headstart Africa.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: Headstart Africa is a mentoring platform.
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  Speaker 3: It's different things to different people.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: But it started off as a mentoring platform where I
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: brought a couple of my colleagues to teach Africans about
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: business and personal development. So I started that in twenty sixteen.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: It is a Facebook group right now, it's about one
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: hundred and forty thousand members. Mostly Nigerians and then a
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: lot of Africans and then some sprinklings from all around
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: the world. So there we host our webinars and we
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: teach on everything on personal development, lifestyle and business.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: So that's what it is.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: But we also have other expressions like our podcasts, our videos,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: our interviews. We have a program called Night School that
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: holds every Friday, so it's basically about business, business and
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: personal development. And we have other people on the Facebook
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: group there also contributing about what it's like to achieve
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: success in Africa.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So that's interesting because yeah, I did some
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: research and I, like I said, I was watching a
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: couple of YouTube videos. So one of the things that
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you spoke about in Africa specifically is the lack of
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: infrastructure and when it comes to the Internet, and you
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: made an interesting comparison. It's like you said, for people
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  Speaker 2: living in America, the internet is like the ocean, but
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: for people in Africa, the Internet is like a bottle
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: of water. So that was very interesting. Can you explain
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: what you meant by that?
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  Speaker 3: All right?
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  Speaker 5: So in Nigeria specifically, so most people use internet in
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  Speaker 5: a limited way, so you have to buy like data plans,
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: of one gigabytes, two gigabytes, twins gigabytes. And so most
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: people use the Internet with the concept of scarcity like
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: this can run out. But in other countries, like in
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: the West, it's just it's mostly unlimited, especially when you
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  Speaker 5: have fiber optic and so on, so it's unlimited there,
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  Speaker 5: but here it's mostly limited only like the top zero
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  Speaker 5: point five percent of people are able to afford unlimited
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  Speaker 5: Internet access.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So even with the Internet access, a lot of times
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  Speaker 4: people get blocked from viewing things, which is something that
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  Speaker 4: I'll discover when doing the research on you.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: What's the theory behind that?
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: Okay okay, so okay, okay, I think I knew where
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: I got that from one of my TV interviews. So
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  Speaker 5: this thing I call the Third World fence, right, and
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: so it's this invisible fence where the third world is
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  Speaker 5: kept behind this border. And so we cannot actively participate
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: in certain activities online. So there are some websites we
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: cannot visit because people assume that a lot of fraud
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: emanates from third world countries, and so there are some
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: websites that we cannot visit. Some services we cannot access,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: like PayPal. You'd be shocked that in Nigeria we cannot
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: receive money through PayPal, but we can pay but we
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: cannot receive money through PayPal, we cannot use Stripe and
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: most of the top tier payment processors. So that's one
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: of the areas of the Third World fence. Also, Nigerian
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: cars are just not accepted on a lot of websites,
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: so we have to figure out a number of workarounds
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: just to exist on the internet.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: So that's what I call the third World fence.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: And yeah, we've got to keep on moving, so we
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: find ways to get around them.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what do you use that you have your
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: own like Nigerian payment system instead of Stripe or PayPal,
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  Speaker 2: Like you have your own one from in Nigeria. Like
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  Speaker 2: what do you guys use.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, we have Nigerian payment systems. We've got Paystack, We've
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  Speaker 5: got Flutterwave. Those are the two biggest ones in Nigeria.
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  Speaker 5: They do a pretty good job, but it's not quite
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  Speaker 5: as as expansive as say a PayPal or Stripe. So
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: sometimes a bank in maybe the United States might encounter
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  Speaker 5: our local payment system pay Stack and just not honor
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: the transaction. Occasionally that happens, but you know, we may
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: do with what we have while we seek better options.
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  Speaker 2: That's dope, I think, Like I said, I mean, it's
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  Speaker 2: important for people because we don't really a lot of times,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: especially in America, we just get caught in our own bubble,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: so we don't really even you know, think about like
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: how different it could be for somebody in a different country.
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  Speaker 2: And it's like, we run our business and we use
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: PayPal and Stripe and we can collect payments from all over.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: So if we was not able to use PayPal or Stripe,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: and then especially like you said, I mean in Nigeria,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: might not be a problem, but if you collect the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: money from people in America or in different countries, then
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: that could be an issue. And it's like now you've
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: got to try to find other alternatives to kind of
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: collect money.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: We even doing the research for this was like, I
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: may it made me realize how much we take for granted, right,
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  Speaker 4: Like me said a video to Shaddy, it takes and
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  Speaker 4: it's not even a thought. But where somebody in Nigeria
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  Speaker 4: or in a third world quote unquote third world country,
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  Speaker 4: it's like I don't have enough data, I might not
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: be able to send that to you. You know what
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: I'm saying, like these things don't come to mind when
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So but how do we.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Define third world though, because I don't want to use
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: that term. I mean, I don't know you probably would,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you know know better than me, but it seemed like
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a derogatory word term, like what what's defined by third world?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Just a lack of infrastructure.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: Or well, originally, I think the I think the first World,
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: second and third World originally originally started from the Cold
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: War a long time ago. So I think First World
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: countries were allies of the United States, Second World where
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: I think allies of the Soviet Union, and I think
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: third World were in between. But over time the meaning
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: evolved to mean developing or underdeveloped countries.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, well.
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  Speaker 5: The initial meaning of first, second, and third World was
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: relating to what alignment the different countries had during the
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Cold War.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: So in Nigeria though, speaking about Nigeria, because we've heard
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: different things about Nigeria, We've had a few different guests
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: from Nigeria, and so can you kind of just paint
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: the picture for Nigeria for people that are not in Africa,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: because it's an interesting country. It's the seventh most populated
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: country I believe in the world two hundred million people,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: the most populated black country in the world. It's the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: wealthiest country sub Saharan does it. I believe in Africa.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: In Africa some Saharan Africa the wealthiest country.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: It has one of the highest oil reserves in the world.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I think like in the top seven. It has the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: richest black person in the world, go Ti. We spoke
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: about him. So it has a lot of things. It
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: seemed like it has gone for us, and it has
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a strong tech community. A lot of people are interested
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: in tech, but obviously there's challenges as well, obviously, So yeah,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: can you kind of just you know, I did I
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: get that right on the things that I said?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was correct? That was correct. Okay, that's correct.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: So Nigeria is such a great.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: Land of opportunity, and I think we have one of
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: the largest populations of young people in the world. So
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: a lot of the business transactions are dominated by tech.
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of tech businesses going on, there's
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: a lot of tech entrepreneurs, there's a lot of startups,
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: so the startup scene is really big, and a lot
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: of Nigerians are really hungry for knowledge. So we are
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: very aspirational people and you're always trying to get better
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: at something. So the knowledge business is booming in Nigeria.
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: People by courses, people are always getting training. I mean,
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: it's my industry. I do a lot of trainings and
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: workshops and I play in the space. So Nigerians buy
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: a lot of courses, engaging a lot of training, personal development, business,
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: online marketing, and not just from Nigerian trainers. Nigerians know
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: a lot of American authors and speakers and course creators,
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: so we learn a lot of content from even the
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: American space and the Nigerian space.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: So it's a huge market.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: And so if anyone were to be considering new markets
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: for their products, I mean, Nigeria is such a blue ocean, right,
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: So like in America, you might have a lot of
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: speakers and some niches might be saturated. But if you're
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: targeting a country like Nigeria and you have something that
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: can really give people value, teach them a skill that
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: could change their lives, this is a fantastic market. So
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: this is one of the ways that AGRA is a
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: great opportunity. There are other sectors, but I can really
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: speak mostly about the sector that I play and that's
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: the online space technology and we are really booming there.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: So also open to collaborations because I mean, we're having
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: the Skype conversation now and it's not.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: A it's not an obstacle.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: Distance is not a barrier. There's a lot of people
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: just like me who are doing fantastic work on Instagram,
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: on the internet, doing webinar, selling knowledge and.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: It's a really great time to be in Nigerian.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, that's interesting that you said that the
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: population is so young. When I looked at the median age,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: it was eighteen, I'm like, that's eighteen years old. That's crazy. So, like,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: you live in Legos, but you're not from Legos, right,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Can you explain because I know it's a population of
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: nine million people, which is pretty much like New York City.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Can you explain what Legos is to Nigeria's for people
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: who have no idea what it is.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So Legos is the tech capital of Nigeria.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot like New York.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: It's fast paced, a huge business community, a lot of hustle.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: So if anyone one were to be trying to look
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: for the most vibrant business community in Nigeria, that will
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: be Legos. Abuja is the official capital, but Legos used
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: to be the capital a long time ago, but I
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: think that was before I was born. But now Abuja
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: is the capital, but Lego still retains that economic stronghold.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So the economy of Nigeria is largely tied to Legos.
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: It's got such a vibrant business population, a lot of
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: things going on here. So this is the place to
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: be if you're considering doing business in Nigeria, especially regarding tech.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: This is the place to be.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: All right, So we know we're on your legion. What
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: everybody loves us for is like breakdowns and like.
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• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Step by step, Suittorio. So we got we got the
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: you know, the land of delay in Africa. So now
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: let's get into it. Let's give to people some detailed
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: information on what you do best. So we'll start with
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: your most recent venture. So you did. You had the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: largest online summit in Africa fifteen thousand people. Right, yeah,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: so it's a whole business model. It's in resting because
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: we haven't covered this yet. In the time of COVID nineteen,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of people have been having online webinars, online summits,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: online presentations, online everything online school ye. So, and it's
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: turned into a revenue model or revenue stream. You can
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: make money on it. So yeah, let's dissect yours. So
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: all right, yours was called head Start Africa Summit, head
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Started Summit, Head Started Summit. Okay, so yeah, can you
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: can you kind of walk us through the summit?
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So head Start Summit.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: Our theme for this year was reinventing yourself for the
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: new global economy. So there was a lot of pessimism
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: about the COVID nineteen era and so people were losing
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: their jobs. Some brick and mortar businesses had to close
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: for a while, and there was a lot of pessimism. Man,
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: the mood was really low, and so we had to
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: teach people how they could reinvent themselves in the travel industry,
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: in the hospitality business, how people could reinvent themselves for
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: the new global economy because everything of the necessity had
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: to move online. And so I got seventeen speakers, most
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: of whom are my colleagues in the speaking industry, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: we held the summit for three days, six hours every day.
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: It was from like three pm to ten pm every
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: day for three days. And so we had about fifty
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: thousand people who actually registered for the summit, but about
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: fifteen thousand showed up. And this was a different kind
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: of summit. Most virtual summits take the easier route. I mean,
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: no disrespect, but that's pretty easy to record it and
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: put it up, schedule the content out. But we wanted
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: to put it out there live, and so all the
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: sessions were streamed live to YouTube, and most of the
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: sessions averaged a live viewership of about three thousand live viewers.
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: So I haven't seen those numbers, at least on this side.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: I would have seen that anywhere around the world. But
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: I don't want to brag.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: I'll just talk about this until it's done, until I
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: can verify those numbers.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: And so, but there's a science to that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: So there's a way that virtual summits can be monetized
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: and there's an entire business model around that which I'd
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: like to share with a lot of people and how
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: anyone can use that to blow up their business, especially
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: if you have a business that is involved in teaching
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: people something. You sell online courses, you sell books, you
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: sell audio, and you want to drive a lot of
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: attention almost instantly to your business and monetize all that attention.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: There's an entire.
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: Business model, a lot of things that we learned doing
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: this running the summits and monetizing it, and that's what
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: I would like to share with a lot of people here.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so how long did it take to plans on
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: an event like this?
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: That's all? I mean?
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Fifteen thousand piece a lot, you have fifty thousand registered.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: How long did it take to plan something like that?
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: And what goes into it when you're trying to.
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: Plan, right, So this normally would take me about a
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: month to plan. So here's the thing. So it usual
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: tastes about a month, but we planned it in ten days.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: So the President of Nigeria was due to give a
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: speech about whether or not the lockdowns would be lifted,
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: and so I told my team that look, there's a
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: good chance that the lockdowns would be lifted pretty soon.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: We've got to run this while everyone's still at home.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: So I didn't want to take a whole month to
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: plan it out. I wanted to have the summit run
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: while everyone was still at home, so that would have
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: all that attention and they'll be at home, everyone would
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: tune in, would have all that attention. So instead of
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: a month, we had to crunch it down to ten days,
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: and so we had to plan and execute in just
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: ten days. Yeah, so just ten days. So what went
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: into planning that. First of all, we had to build
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: an audience. We had to run a lot of ads
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: and let people know that a virtual summit was happening.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: But not just any kind of virtual summit. It was
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: one that was relevant to what was going on and
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: that's the COVID nineteen era, and one that was offering
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: a solution to the current problem, the economic realities of
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: a lot of people who were losing their jobs. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: we also had to invite people that everyone knew. We
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: invited the most recognizable faces in Nigeria for that virtual summit.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: I think a couple of them were in the US.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: I think like two of our speakers were in the US,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: but most of the faces were recognizable. These are people
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: who have been given solutions in Angeia for a very
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: long time, and so people saw this as very credible.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Everyone registered.
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: But an important thing that went to the planning was
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: the choice of platforms. So a lot of people have
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: I've seen a lot of virtual summits happen on Instagram Live.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: Instagram Live is not a great place to hold a
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: summit or any serious virtual event. And you know, in
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: online marketing, we have a saying that do not build
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: your house on rented land, right, and most of social
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: media is rented land. So we have a lot of
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: people who lose their Instagram accounts or their Facebook accounts
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: and there's no way to recover that audience. They have
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: to start building again from scratch. And so those social
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: media is important. You've got to find a way to
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: offload those people that follow you online onto a platform
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: that you own and control, and that is your email list, right,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: So that's the first thing that we did. So social
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: media it's a great place, but it's like a marketplace
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: where everyone comes, you do a business, and you go home.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: So while you're in that marketplace.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: You've got to be able to take as many people
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: in that marketplace home with you.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: That's the analogy that I could use.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: So we rite in a lot of ads, put out
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: a lot of publicity on Instagram. But we said, look,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: in order to get access to the live sessions, you
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: would have to register on a certain page in the
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: link in our bio, and so we started running that publicity.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: So we use that to build a huge email list. Right,
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: So here's the flow. We use that to build a
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: huge email list. But here's another mistake a lot of
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: people make after putting them on the email list. People,
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: a lot of people who hold virtual summits depend on
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: the email broadcasts to bring people to attend. And if
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: you do it a lot of email marketing, you would
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: see how low the open rates are a lot of times,
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: so a person might be opening an email when the
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: event is over. So you need to choose a platform
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: that sends instant notifications to your registered members. Right, So
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: we not only took their email addresses, we put them
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: onto this platform called Telegram. I'm not sure if Telegram
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: is it is a huge thing in America, but it's
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: really oh oh cool. So Telegraph Telegram and what's up
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: a huge in Africa, really huge. So but the greatest
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: the best thing about Telegram. Here's the best thing about Telegram,
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: especially Telegram channels, because Telegram has two sides of this,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Telegram groups and Telegram channels.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Right, but Telegram channels.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: You can have all your subscribers receive a push notification
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: whenever you make a post. That is very difficult to
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: achieve on regular social networks. So if you made a
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: post on Instagram, you have to hope that someone would
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: find your post while casually scrolling through their newsfeed on
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: Instagram or on Facebook. But with Telegram, once I make
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: a post, we have a number of Telegram channels now
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: about about thirty thousand people across all our Telegram channels.
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: If I made it post right now, at least half
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: of those people would see it instantly because it sends
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: them a push notification. So that is the best approach
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: if you're looking to hold a live summit. I mean,
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: if you're doing something like a blog post, you could
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: put it out there and just hope that they'd find it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: But if you need people's attention now instantly, you have
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: to use a platform like Telegram and so that's what
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: we use. So the flow was this, hit the link
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: in our bio register, they got the link in our bio,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: they registered, we got their email, We send them follow
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: up emails, but we specified that they had to join
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: the Telegram channel. So that's how we populated the Telegram channels,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: and from the Telegram channels, whenever we had a live session, we.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Just broadcast the link and had.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: This influx of people all at once, and so people
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: were wondering, how were you able to gather all these
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: eyeballs all at once to watch a live broadcast, especially
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: you know, this is Africa, when people are using limited
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: internet connectivity, we're still to still able to bring them
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: to watch hours and hours of broadcasts live. And so
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: that was the exact flow that we use from social media.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Offload them to your email list.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: From your email list, get them onto a platform like
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: Telegram where they can receive instant push notification, and then
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: you'll have all those eyeballs whenever you have a live broadcast.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: It's that simple, nothing complicated about it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: It's that simple. So that was the flow.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: Now the Telegram, I'm trying to think it doesn't take
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: as much megabytes as a typical like if I.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Was watching on YouTube, the live stream doesn't happen on telegram,
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: it happens on YouTube. Got right, Telegram that telegram is
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: to pull them onto YouTube.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, all right, So that that's the first part
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: as far as getting the people together. But you talked
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: about as far as the business model, how to actually
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: monetize it, because I'm assuming it's free, right like you
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: did the free it was free? Yes, So how do
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: you how do you how do you monetize it? How
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: does how does that work?
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Right? So there are multiple ways to monetize it.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: The most obvious way is by selling the recordings. So
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: it's put out there that you know, the live sessions
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: are free, but the recordings are not, and so you
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: get all that attention. Everyone watches the live streams, but
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: they cannot download the streams.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: The recordings are then sold.
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: That's the most obvious business model that we use to monetize.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: But there are other ways.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: So we also sell classes, specialized workshops.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: So the beauty of all that.
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: Attention is that once you have all that attention and
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: you're giving value to all those viewers, anything that you
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: sell to those people carries a lot of weight So
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: we had a lot of our guests who came on
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: to speak and they had affiliate programs for their products,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: and at the end of their sessions, I would come
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: on live with them to help pitch their products. They
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: would sell and we would get a commission. Right, So
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: the affiliate business model was there, the sales of the
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: recordings was there, and then our own of our own
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: specialized workshops and classes. That one also sold. So we
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: sold specialized classes in artificial intelligence, online sales, marketing, cryptocurrency,
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: and so on.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: We sold all those ones with the attention.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: And those ones also drove revenue.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So though those are multiple ways.
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: If you also if you have a book, you have
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: a course, you have a specialized workshop, that's the best
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: time to sell that sort of thing because you've been
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: able to attract all those eyeballs to one spot.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: You've been able to build.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: A lot of credibility by giving value upfront, so almost instantly,
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: then no like ca and trust you, and they're willing
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: to buy almost anything that is of value to them.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Now that's dope. And yeah, going back to the WhatsApp thing,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: WhatsApp is extremely big overseas. When I'm saying overseas and America.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: I just I realized that when I started to, you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: have different friends from different countries and even you, that's
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: how I contact you. That's how we communicated WhatsApp. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: so when Facebook brought WhatsApp years ago for nineteen billion,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: it was kind of weird because it's like they brought
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Instagram for only one billion. But the communication channels in
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: other parts of the world, WhatsApp is not really huge
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: like that in America, but I realized that in like Europe, Africa,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: pretty much everywhere outside of America, WhatsApp is huge. It's
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: a huge communication channel. And then Telegram. Shout out to
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Ian Ian he's he does our stock show with Market
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Monday is our stock show, and he has a Telegram
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: group and he's real big on Telegram. So what you're
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: saying pretty much is like you gotta diversify even your
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: ways of communication, Like you can't just do anything through
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: one channel. So it's like you use Instagram as the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: first barrier to like because you know that's where most
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: people are, and then you move them from Instagram to Telegram,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: which is another kind of social network kind of thing.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: But it's better because now you can actually have push notifications,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: and then from Telegram they sign up to the website,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: and then from the website, then they can watch it
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: on YouTube. Then from YouTube, if you don't watch it,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: you can or you can jump off and buy the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: course or go to the affiliate program. So now it's
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: like seven different steps in the whole process.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it goes back to what you said about
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: being on rented land, Like if Instagram stopped, you still
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: got your Telegram group. If Telegram stop, you still got
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: to email this on your website. If that stops, you
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: still got the YouTube. So being on rented land, it
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: works out perfectly for you.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, nah, that's a vibe and yeah, okay, that
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: makes sense. So yeah, I mean that's that's kind of like,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: you know, similar to what we see in America. A
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: lot of different people do affiliate programs. I was going
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: to ask you if you paid the speakers, but I
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: guess for the most of them, you didn't really have
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: to pay because they was going to be able to
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: make money on their courses that they sold on.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: The back end, right Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Matter where you're at in the world, the same language,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: it's the same language.
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: We always speak the same language,