In a recent development, Startup Nigeria met up with John Diginee who is the CEO of Hyfig Technologies – a web design and graphics outfit based in the city of Port Harcourt. The startup also specializes in branding and digital marketing; the team is well known for their clean, stylish but effective web designs.
In this chat with StartupNigeria, John expresses his displeasure at the dearth of skilled IT professionals in the Port Harcourt tech Eco-system; a problem Focus hub – Port Harcourt’s first technology and innovation hub is working tirelessly to remedy.
When StartupNigeria inquired as to what could be done to fix this problem, he had this to say;
“…As you know most youths in the Niger Delta think working in the oil and gas industry is a sure way to making something of yourself, a few others figure that setting out as an entrepreneur is way too risky and time consuming so they’d rather work a 9-5 job than develop a skill in this industry.”
He went on to identify “mental laziness” as one of the factors hindering young people from acquiring IT skills; he reasoned that if young people applied themselves more to the process of acquiring IT skills (which he actually thinks are easily learnt), the region would experience tremendous growth in the IT sector.
John buttressed his point further by encouraging young people to look past the lengthy training period it would take to acquire these skills and focus on the end goal which ought to be acquiring a 21st century skill that would enable them become self reliant and also contribute to the creation of sustainable business models in the region.
When asked what he thought were the major challenges facing startups in the South-South, the CEO of Hyfig highlighted startup capital and power supply. He says that
“…the government should set up financial systems that would provide loans for potential founders and innovators.”
He also wants the government to make constant power supply a priority as power supply consumes a large percentage of operating costs of any business in Nigeria.
We rounded up the brief chat with John encouraging potential startup creators to look for mentors who would, “help them understand the various challenges in running a business and how to overcome them as certain business decisions can only be handled with experience.”
