Nigerians Success Story that inspires - Mark Essien

 Hello friends it’s been a while, I have been kind of busy trying to round off one of my writing projects. The truth is that I missed posting here so much.

So how have you been, how are you coping with what is going on right now with the economy?

Some of my friends already told me that it has not been easy, prices of everything have gone up like twice and even thrice in some cases.

 I will always tell you not to worry, keep managing as usual and we will get to the promise land. Remember what that tiny but wise insect called bed bug told her children; “Don’t worry, hold fast to that foam, for whatever is hot; much surely becomes cold”. This is the reason why majourity of them never dies after any raid. Try as much as you can, some of them will survive.

 

Anyway, am writing today because I want to fulfill my promise. I told you I will be presenting one of Naija’s elegant brains that inspires me so much and I strongly believe will inspire you too.

These days, am so bored whenever I come to the social media because of all the activities that is going on there. Youths no longer spend their time to research and share relevant information but rather discussing one politician or the other, condemning one leader or the other and even insulting and killing themselves with negative words.

The simple truth is that, the stake holders whom you seem to be advising, insulting and castigating does not even get to read your posts, even their media aids does not. So why spend so much time, energy and data discussing what will not benefit you in any way.

The truth is that, no one is smiling over the fact that the economy has become so bad, nevertheless, utilize your time, energy and money properly in things that are productive rather than unproductive.

Well, well, well, the Nigerian born Successful youth for the month of June is  Mark Essien, the brain behind Hotels.ng.

Below is a brief Autobiography of him.

I spent the early years of my life in Nigeria – my nursery, primary and secondary schooling were in Akwa Ibom – in the town called Ikot Ekpene.

As a kid, I was often fascinated by my father. He was always very interested in engineering, even though that’s not what he studied. My father built a number of fascinating machines. I remember the dredger he built from scratch with the purpose of extracting sand, and a robotic arm that was impressive in its dexterity. I would say that watching him do these things influenced me and set me on the path that I am on today, with regards to my skillset, my approach to business and the attitude I bring to problem-solving.

When I was done with secondary school at FGC Ikot Ekpene, I wanted to study engineering, and so my parents sent me to study in Germany. In Germany, I picked up a keen interest in coding (it was something I did to stay awake on a night job). I also acquired my BEng and MSc in Berlin.

Concurrently, and afterwards, I developed and built my own products and sold some of them to companies. I worked for some companies too.

Most of my fondest early memories occurred in Ikot Ekpene, Nigeria. I spent the first 18 years of my life in that beautiful, small and quiet town. In all that time, I travelled out of the town only sparingly – not more than ten times.

Of course at the time there was no internet so most of my time was spent in the library. I had a healthy appetite for science fiction.

Also – I remember the first time I travelled to Europe. It took me almost a week to figure out how to use the trains, which, naturally, resulted in personally hilarious episodes.

The transition was pretty straightforward: after my B.Eng in Computer Engineering, I went on to acquire an MSc in Computer Science.

Before Hotels.ng I created software, Gnumm, which was acquired by Snoopstar. I worked at Snoopstar for some time, before I began to build my own products. I created some useful iPhone apps when the app. store was still just revving up. I also created one of the first Mpeg Encoders, Standard MPEG, which has been bought by companies like Disney and the American Military.

I spent the years before Hotels.ng building my own products and doing contract jobs for other people.

Hotels.ng is Nigeria’s first and largest hotel booking platform. We make it easier and convenient for people in Nigeria (and people visiting Nigeria) to make hotel reservations and find the right bookings for their location and needs at any given time. We currently have more than 7,000 hotels listed on our platform from all across the country.

The fire for internet startups in Africa had just been kindled and all anybody needed to do was to identify the emerging markets. At the time, Jumia, Konga and the others were already riding the waves and I observed that travel was also going to be the next big thing. I had seen it happen in Brazil and India and I could count on internet technologies adding the boost to an already-growing market. I was in the final months of my M.Sc and I was beginning to critically look at my professional future at this point, and it was in one of these moments of introspection I considered the veritable virgin land that was hotels and tourism in Nigeria from the vantage view of a startup.

Of course at this point what I had was mere conjecture, but I believed that if a comprehensive platform was created to serve a well-defined market, it would be a remarkable feat. Already we had another company dedicated to airline bookings and tickets (Wakanow) leaving the hotels ecosystem still fallow, which I capitalized on. I needed to test this hypothesis, so I returned to Nigeria to test my model and the rest, as they say, is history.

We have 36 members of staff on-site, that is, in the office, and number of employees working freelance.

In the beginning I had some personal money, and this went into buying the domain name and the initial list of hotels when I was in Germany. I returned to Nigeria and started with Calabar. There, I – with the help of a friend – struck up relationships with as many hotels as possible, signing agreements and taking photos. We were already pulling impressive traffic numbers so much so that the day we enabled hotel bookings on the platform we instantly began getting reservations.

However, the expansion process that has led to what Hotels.ng is today started when I began to put out press articles which attracted the attention of Iroko TV’s founder, Jason Njoku. He contacted me on Facebook and told me that Spark.ng was interested in investing in viable startup ideas like mine. Spark.ng made an initial investment of $75,000 in Hotels.ng and I moved to Lagos to set things up. The momentum had picked up significantly and shortly after Spark.ng made another investment of $150,000. With this financial buffer, we began to grow our hotel listings and expand our customer base.

We currently have 80 people out there, constantly searching for new hotels and updating the information about them on our platform. Every state and town in Nigeria has been visited by Hotels.ng staff.

By adaptation. The Nigerian business ecosystem is unique in certain regards, and we have learned to take all challenges in stride. The issue of insufficient databases, for example, was a potential setback, but then again it was the opportunity for us as we became the first to beat the odds and rack up data where it was hitherto non-existent.

Hotels.ng’s profitability has been established by its records since inception, and we expect to control 90% to 95% of local hotel booking in Nigeria and 50% of the African hotel booking market within the next five years.

Finding the right people to work with has been known to slow down the flow of business, but with smart relationship building and streamlined recruitments, we have been able to surmount this. We face the same mainstream problems: electricity, internet downtimes, and bureaucratic bottlenecks.

HIS ADVICE

Always look at what you are doing at any time in this way: knowing the information you know now, is this the best choice? If you look back in time, would you understand why the you-of-the-past made the choices he did? If this is so, then you must pick that choice and support yourself with all your might.

Seriously, this guy inspires me alot, i hope you will be inspired to think more positive rather than negative henceforth. There is an opportunity in the problem you are facing right now, all you need to do to identify that opportunity is to think, then find a solution to the problem and the sky will be your starting point.

Until next time, have a blessings filled month.

CHEERS!