Hello web admin,
Its lovely to hear all these interview made with you, I can see how long and what it takes for a new netpreneur to begin his own ,work and what it takes him to be of a great and immense service to the general public and the whole universe at large with all what you have said, and what I have been passing through, netpreneurship is such a time and money investing business. Because I am in the line presently, and have just started, moreover I am opstimistic, that sooner or later, I will start making money from the internet, in a legal and licit means.
Furthermore, I would welcome any advice and suggestion you might have to give me concerning the new venture I just embarked on, as a starter and new person in the business, I need someone to be= my mentor and guide.
This is my email: nathonlineu@yahoo.com
Phone: 08069183277
Please, do not hesitate to write and send to me any important information about becoming successfukl in the business, because I will so much count on you.Thanks.

Nathaniel.

I'm impressed by the gentleman's independence and un-stereotyped way of thinking. It's nice to have a site where you can actually have meaningful discussions with people of like minds and actually get help to problems that would otherwise remain 'problems'.

I agree that you should create your own independence. Make your failures, learn from them and become o force to be rekoned with.

Best of luck, seun

I would like to add the web business is perceived to be an easy business but a few would beg to differ.

Thats my 2 pence.

First of all I would like to give credit to this young man because it's not easy to stick at something long enough to get it to work. But I would like to add that his idea is not a new one and many of my friends and collegues have made the web business a success. It just happens that his is right on point on what many n igeria youth prove popular.

But I commend him for making work.

@ Nunu

But what? Please, kindly share it with us o

@ TLOASCM

I am waiting for your thoughts o

hi,
i don't like seun,can't tolerate him cos he is too cocky but i still give him kudos for trying to make a difference but .......

Wow - will post my thoughts on this later.

Sorry this software is giving me issues. The interview continues;

 

7.      What challenges did you face and kindly give strategies
adopted to overcome such challenges?

ANSWER: Spam and scammers are a constant nuisance on the forum.  I try my best to remove members who engage in such acts and their posts.  I also
have private messaging disabled so spamming and scamming can't be done
covertly.

Well-intentioned members who ignore the rules of the forum are also a
problem.  I find that I have to ban them frequently to convince them
to either follow the rules or stay away.

The 'best' problem I experience as the administrator of Nairaland is
that sometimes, during peak periods, there's so much traffic that my
web server can't keep up.  This is very frustrating because it
prevents further growth of the Nairaland Forum.  After upgrading my
hosting plan once, I've resorted to constant modification of the
software behind the forum to make it fast enough to run under my
current hosting plan.

  

8.      Before Nairaland, what other projects have you undertaken?
Would you say they were successful?

ANSWER: All my business projects before Nairaland were failures, except the
one that became Nairaland.  My web hosting business failed after just
3 months because I ran out of money, while I couldn't execute many
other projects I researched due to shyness and lack of capital.  My
blogs and the mobile phone forum that preceded Nairaland were
successful but not profitable.  However, it was on that foundation
that Nairaland was built.

 

9.      Would you say your passion and strength as a programmer
helped you create a world-class forum that Nigerians can be proud of?

ANSWER: All the programming I do today involves modification of PHP scripts
and SQL queries.  And you know what?  As a programmer, I looked down
on both languages and ignored them!  My programming experience wasn't
very useful. Even if I wasn't a programmer from the beginning, I'll
have learnt just enough PHP and SQL to make Nairaland a reality.  My
determination was and is much more important.

 

10.  Nairaland has been a sort of refuge (information, knowledge
sharing, escapism, etc) to Nigerians especially Nigerians in diaspora.
Would you say you foresaw this when building this project?

ANSWER: Yes.  Before starting Nairaland, I noticed that other Nigerian
websites had more Nigerians abroad than Nigerians at home as members.

In fact, I sought to reverse this trend, and to a certain extent I
succeeded.  The country with the highest number of Nairaland visitors
at this time is Nigeria.  Earlier this year, it was the USA, as it is
for most Nigerian websites.

 

11.  I remember speaking with you five years ago and you spoke of
developing software that will beat Windows? Are you still holding that
vision?

ANSWER: No. It was a foolish vision. Linux has already beaten Windows and few
people care.

 

12.  I also remembered how much you loved Linux that you refused
to install Windows in you computer. Do you still have that passion for
Linux?

ANSWER: Even though I still use Linux from the command line on my web server,
my desktop operating system is Windows.  I want to experience the
Nairaland Forum the way others experience it, so when they have
problems I'll be able to help them.

 

13.  What has been your driving force?

ANSWER: Survival, a strong desire for independence, and a desire to be influential.

 

14. The job situation in Nigeria is getting worse and worse?
Secondary School Students are dreaming of universities and avoiding
polytechnics. There is a great imbalance in the system. Jobs are few
compared with the job seekers. Would you advocate entrepreneurship?

I always tell job seekers to create their own jobs, because nobody
owes them a job.

«Look for a painful problem that others are facing, and then devise a
way to make people pay you for the solution. Look for problems that
don't require much capital to solve. In a developing country like
Nigeria, there are so many problems waiting to be solved. One man's
problem is another man's profit! Competition is often weak which
means you'll make a lot of money. So what are you waiting for?»

Unemployment is a problem of highly regulated and unionized countries
where job creation is made difficult by politicians and labor leaders.
Nigerians should not be talking about unemployment at all. There are
so many obvious opportunities around us waiting to be exploited.
Being jobless in Nigeria is a big shame indeed.

15. Taking Nigeria into consideration, you have been successful
as an entrepreneur. What secrets (strategy) would you share with
would-be entrepreneurs?

With only one success so far, I am yet to prove myself. If I am able
to start 2 or 3 other business projects and they succeed, then I will
feel confident enough to teach others how to succeed (I'm currently
looking into movie production).

However, one thing I know is that as a businessman, you have not
failed until you run out of capital or give up on your business.
Hence, one should be very careful not to spend money unecessarily.
And one should keep trying until one succeeds.

16. Just one word, phrase, clause, sentence for youths in Nigeria

Create your own job today.

17. What's the address of your website?

http://www.nairaland.com