Wande Adalemo dropped out of the Olabisi Onabanjo University to actualise his dream of building an Internet service company, which is now worth N1bn. He tells DAYO OKETOLA how it all started and what other young Nigerian entrepreneurs can learn from his journey.
The Co-Founder and Chief
Operating Officer, Oxygen Broadband Networks, Nigeria’s first
metro WiFi network, Mr. Wande Adalemo, is a young man who aspired to be a
university graduate and get a job. But an event in 1998 changed the course of
his life and he decided to pursue his dream of building an Internet
company.
Today, he sits atop a N1bn(One
Billion Naira) broadband network company, which has just rolled out a
WiFi network at the popular Computer Village in Lagos.
He said his greatest
challenge was funding, but the driving force had been the passion to ensure that
all Nigerians have access to affordable Internet access through WiFi
technology.
From the ground zero in
2005, dropping out of school along the line, Adalemo said he overcome the
challenge and was able to attract investors, who believed in his dream and
invested in the business.
Adalemo said the company
started with a $2m investment and as at today, had invested N1bn with a network
infrastructure already in place and duly licensed by the Nigerian Communications
Commission.
“As we speak, we are
currently at the Computer Village in Lagos, where we have our pilot network. In
the last two months since we started, we have had over 20,000 connections
sitting on our network,” he said
In view of this, he said the
company had laid out an expansion plan, which would see it invest another N200m
in rolling out services in six locations across Lagos State before the end of
2012.
“We are doing another N200m
investment and we are going to six new locations by December 2012. We are
partnering with malls on the Island, Surulere, and high traffic restaurants. We
already have agreements with all of these people,” he said.
The expansion, Adalemo said,
would see Oxygen Networks expand to 20 locations in March 2013, and 100
locations in Lagos by 2015; and then Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano,
thereafter.
“Of the N200m needed to roll
out services by December 2012, we have attained N75m equity investment to date,
which means that we are really set to move to these new locations,” he
said.
According to him, the
company currently operates with 100 per cent private equity fund from the board
of directors and “they are putting in more funds to see us expand.”
He said the company had
already attracted institutional investors such as Google and Main One Cable
Company, which were interested in investing in it and help boost broadband
access in the country.
While the start-up appears
to be on the right track, the Oxygen Broadband Network boss said the beginning
was very rough.
In an interview with Punch
on how it all started, he said, “I never saw a computer until 1998. I was with
my cousin Femi Adalemo, who was the Chairman of the Nigerian Internet Exchange
Committee at some points. So, I went to his office and he said he wanted to send
a mail to someone in the United States. Five minutes after, the person in the US
had responded to the mail and that surprised me.
“I couldn’t sleep that
night, and in the morning, I went back to him and asked him to teach me how to
develop something that will make Nigerians send and receive e-mails easily. I
told him I wanted to do something that would make it easier for every Nigerian
to send email.
“He told me it was
networking and that was how it started. So, as I grew in my knowledge of what
the Internet access and broadband were, it became more of a passion. Getting the
technology was one thing, putting it together was another, and getting funding
took a while. Between 2005 and now, you can see it has been seven years, it has
not been easy.”
On how he got the first
investor, who later became a co-founder of the company, Adalemo, said, “We had
spoken with a thousand of individuals to put their money in the business and the
answer we kept getting was no. Eventually, we found someone and it was an
interesting story. We met the first investor, who later became a co-founder of
the company, in 2005. I didn’t have a penny that day and then a friend of mine
called and said there was someone that ‘is interested in this crazy idea of
yours, let’s go and see him.’
“I had to trek from Iponrin
to Ajose Adeogun to meet him. He was the managing director of a bank then.
Meanwhile, I had met several potential investors who had discouraged me but I
did not give up. So, when I got there, he told me; ‘If you cannot convince me in
two minutes, I cannot invest in this because an idea that cannot hit someone in
two minutes is no good idea.’ Well, I think I was able to hit him in two minutes
and the next question he asked was how do we move?
“The first thing we did was
to go around the world to see where WiMax was failing because my own idea was
that WiMax will not work but WiFi will. So how do we get WiFi to work? And from
there, he got some of his friends involved in the business.”
Adalemo reiterated that the
company would continue to expand because he believed WiFi technology would play
a major role in boosting Internet access in Nigeria.
He said, “Because we believe
that everybody should be on the Internet and we are restricted
by regulations as to how to expand (we cannot cover wide area), we decided to
take the Internet to where everybody is going?
“Oxygen believes that your
Internet should be wherever you are going and instead of carrying your modem or
dongle around, if you know that Oxygen is present at the place you are going to
such as the cinema, restaurant, clubs and malls, among others; then, it becomes
a better option for you.”
According to him, the second
phase of the company’s expansion will be the ASPANDA Market at the Lagos
International Trade Fair Complex, Alaba and Oke Arin markets.
“For or us at Oxygen, we are
taking our WiFi network to a point where we have a hots pot in virtually every
major street in Lagos. It begins to tell us where we need to start focusing our
attention in Nigeria. It also begins to tell us where we need to start building
broadband ecosystems. We need to start looking at solutions that will enable
people to just plug and deliver broadband services to everybody,” Adalemo
explained.
He disclosed that the
company had sealed a partnership with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System
Plc to provide its WiFi network for PoS connectivity at the Computer Village,
adding that this was the driving force behind its planned extension into the Oke
Arin Market.
“Due to our partnership with
NIBSS, we are providing WiFi for the purpose of PoS terminals alone at Oke Arin
Market. These are some of the plans that Google is excited about,” he
said
Adalemo encouraged young
Nigerian entrepreneurs not to be deterred by challenges surrounding them, while
assuring them of success if they remained focused.
He said this was what made
him drop out of school when he found out that academic works were disturbing his
entrepreneurial drive.
“I will say that I am also a
proud school dropout because at some point, I realised that pursuing academic
excellence was interfering with my passion for this dream. May be Oxygen would
have become a dream earlier but for exams in school,” he said
When our correspondent took
him up on this, he said, “I am not saying it is good to drop out of school, but
I am saying it is good to think outside the box. The emphasis on paper qualification in our society has not helped us. If school will limit you as an
entrepreneur, get out; and if it will enhance you, stay with it.”
“I encourage people to go to
school, but once you find that dream, that passion that you can pursue and it is
a good idea, you will succeed. Once you are dedicated, you will get there. It is
not about everyone leaving school, it is about understanding what will work for
you.”
Punch
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