

Want to become an Internet billionaire? Move to Africa - Rayzar
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/04/get-rich-move-to-africa

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incub8or
Having lived and worked in Nigeria, I can say that there is enormous potential
but with net access costing $100 per month, it is out of reach for the average
person. Electricity supply is sporadic and generators/diesel is expensive. So
if you take a population of 160 million and then whittle it down to people who
can afford net access and electricity, the actual market becomes much smaller.
We have not even touched on the issue of online payment systems and lack of
postal service for physical delivery of goods, which would reduce the business
model selection. You might say that there is opportunity to provide cheaper
net access, electricity and other infrastructure items but these are heavily
licensed sectors that need a huge amount of capital just to be in the game,
which means the price to the end user will probably be high as you need to
justify a return. Plus you have to deal with running a business in an
environment where you need to pay for basic infrastructure (electricity,
security etc etc) which increases costs further. There are problems to be
solved and startups can find a niche in Africa but it means working from a
local perspective and not just transplanting a concept from a developed market
where the needs and requirements of the market as well as the cost base are
radically different.

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Rayzar
@PG, I'm just saying...

