I thought we all learnt from the WeWork IPO saga of 2019. It is sad to say this but startups are going to see a lot of reassessment of their valuations. This will lead to massive layoffs.
This is an incredibly pessimistic view "My stand is that all startup equity Nigerian companies wish to offer their employees is as worthless as the paper on which the employees sign those contracts, and for those who want to argue, all they need do is look at and compare outcomes between the founders and ex-employees of Fast, Konga, Fibre and a whole lot of other hyped startups."
How about you look at companies like Stripe, Flutterwave, Paystack and a whole lot of other viable start ups where employees have made a killing selling secondaries. You can also take a look at the plethora of tech start ups that IPOed in 2021?
I struggle to grasp what you intention behind your statement. Businesses are typically risky, they will either fail or succeed regardless of fund raised or not. Using a few failed startup as a yardstick for a whole industry filled with odds-defying success stories is mind boggling.
I think he's just trying to come from a more critical side which I personally do not see as being pessimistic.
Like you mentioned it's business and it's risky - it's either failure or success and both ends will definitely have an effect on those involved. Without been told we all want success for the Nigerian startup ecosystem and that's what I see I the entire article - telling the truth so that we learn from either the mistakes or successes to grow.
The truth is, learning from mistakes is double-hard😂 because we will be crying and learning at the same time. Truth is not pessimism, it's simply the truth.
Phil, you seem to be missing the point. The author used the absolute statement of "all startup equity Nigerian companies..". Babs's point is that that's factually incorrect as there are Nigerian startups whose equity have yielded life changing outcomes for early employees. You can't call it truth when there's clear evidence to the contrary.
I think the author could have passed their broader message of admonishing founders to build sustainable businesses and not get caught in the hype as they have a responsiblity to other stakeholders (which is all that matters), without the added commentary of assumptions that added little to the message.
I thought we all learnt from the WeWork IPO saga of 2019. It is sad to say this but startups are going to see a lot of reassessment of their valuations. This will lead to massive layoffs.
This is an incredibly pessimistic view "My stand is that all startup equity Nigerian companies wish to offer their employees is as worthless as the paper on which the employees sign those contracts, and for those who want to argue, all they need do is look at and compare outcomes between the founders and ex-employees of Fast, Konga, Fibre and a whole lot of other hyped startups."
How about you look at companies like Stripe, Flutterwave, Paystack and a whole lot of other viable start ups where employees have made a killing selling secondaries. You can also take a look at the plethora of tech start ups that IPOed in 2021?
I struggle to grasp what you intention behind your statement. Businesses are typically risky, they will either fail or succeed regardless of fund raised or not. Using a few failed startup as a yardstick for a whole industry filled with odds-defying success stories is mind boggling.
I think he's just trying to come from a more critical side which I personally do not see as being pessimistic.
Like you mentioned it's business and it's risky - it's either failure or success and both ends will definitely have an effect on those involved. Without been told we all want success for the Nigerian startup ecosystem and that's what I see I the entire article - telling the truth so that we learn from either the mistakes or successes to grow.
The truth is, learning from mistakes is double-hard😂 because we will be crying and learning at the same time. Truth is not pessimism, it's simply the truth.
Phil, you seem to be missing the point. The author used the absolute statement of "all startup equity Nigerian companies..". Babs's point is that that's factually incorrect as there are Nigerian startups whose equity have yielded life changing outcomes for early employees. You can't call it truth when there's clear evidence to the contrary.
I think the author could have passed their broader message of admonishing founders to build sustainable businesses and not get caught in the hype as they have a responsiblity to other stakeholders (which is all that matters), without the added commentary of assumptions that added little to the message.