The people who were meant to mentor him and guide him are all leaving. They must be doing something right and maybe learning on the job as he is doing now is not enough? That was how Nnamdi and the entire team at that startup left and they are now dead.
It took a few months but the founders ignored the signs. They were recruiting but people were leaving faster than they could recruit. A friend asked me recently if I knew startups laying off workers because of the current economic crunch? I laughed. They can't even find workers
Nnamdi (not his real name) had worked only two years and decided to Japa. Peer pressure? Yes. Economic pressure? Also yes. The rent at Ajah was increasing and they never had electricity. It was impairing his ability to learn and function properly. He had to move to grow faster.
The pandemic suddenly made everyone in the world your competition. As a venture and also as an individual. If you keep making excuses for the constraints, you are gone. I recently analysed what a Nigerian startup spent monthly for operations. 95% of it was wages. It was crazy!
Their costs went up by 200% in one month as they were struggling to keep their people. Those people will still leave as the Naira get devalued further and outside employment becomes even more attractive. It was like a Ferris wheel. No progress but plenty of effort and money.
Spoke to a friend recently who decided to raise her next round in Naira from local investors and not dollar. Her reasons made a lot of sense. She said that if she had raised dollars, she would have needed thrice her current performance for the investment to begin to make sense.
For investors who make money in Naira and invest in Naira, it is not a problem. For investors who bring in dollars and expect returns in dollars, this should worry them. Talent has become very expensive and there is no viable replacement pipeline. Even pipelines suffer attrition.
This is a very very serious problem. Very soon, there won't even be opportunities to help others like Nnamdi learn and grow.
Every investor and founder thinks they are individually smart now and that they are the exception but collectively we are all dumb. This is now a systemic crisis.
We may be losing people today but market share is next. The reason why Indian software replaced locally built software in our banks was that the developers relocated. We are going to start seeing it soon for startups and their products. The great replacement doesn't waste time.
People are raising money now to hire globally. The days of the illusion startups creating jobs locally are over. Even the most of the value they create goes to foreign investors. I joked not long ago that the founders of some of our major startups don't live in Africa. It is true
Everything about tech locally is now a mirage. The more you look, the less you see.