Mentoring Support for Business Start-ups: Media & Entertainment by Zik Zulu Okafor from The Kingdom Summit 2017.

1. 2017
Zik Zulu Okafor
Mentoring Support for Business Start-
ups: Media & Entertainment

2. Illuminating the Mentor…
and Mentoring
• Mentors are experienced business men with
expertise in new ventures, and have understanding
of the steps needed to validate a business idea or
get a new business off the ground.
• In other words, they assist young entrepreneurial or
aspirational people who have a concept or business
idea by helping them to make it a deliverable reality.
They work with the start up through feasibility
assessment and support you to build a robust
business plan if you decide to proceed. And if the
business plan has been done, Mentors help to
review, revise and recommend stepping stones to
success of the start - up business.

3. Illuminating the Mentor…
and Mentoring
• Good mentors strive for the success of the
business they assist and do it to pass knowledge
and not because it will bring them some profit or
add to their status or stature.
• Mentoring requires making time for Mentee, not
just by calls, emails or skype but meeting face to
face and chatting, at least one to two hours every
month.

4. What is a Start-up Business?
• A nascent entrepreneurial venture that aims to
meet a market place need by developing a viable
business model around an innovative product,
process, platform or service.
• A business may cease to be a start-up as it
passes various milestones such as becoming a
public quoted company at the stock market.

5. Remember
Remember these
• Solve a problem innovatively
• Closing the gap
• Start small but with model for scaling quickly
• Unconstrained by geography
• The mentoring period.
• No sentiments - Let go if you have to!

6. NOLLYWOOD – Cut of a business
start-up
• There was a problem
– The eclipse of celluloid films due to economic down turn.
– Fading of soap – operas, tele – novellas, series due to bad
policies.
• A yawning gap in motion picture entertainment.
– A market place need
• An innovative solution
– Closing the gap.
– The mentoring period.
– The birth of home video.
– The blockbuster, Living in Bondage
– N600, 000 yields N575million in 9months.

7. Phe
• 2007, Lagos state alone had about 6,841 registered
– video parlours.
– Estimated 500000 unregistered ones nation wide.
• The estimated revenue generated from sales and rentals
of movies in Lagos state was put at N804 million (about
US$5 million) per week with approximately 700,000 video
discs sold daily at Alaba Market.
• Revenue generated from the movie industry at the end of
2007 was estimated at N522 billion (US$3 billion) with
broadcast content valued at N250 billion (US$1.6 billion)
according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

8. Phenomenal growth
• 2014, Nigeria’s Nollywood industry now captured
under motion pictures, broadcast rights, sound
recording and music production has made a huge
leap to N9 trillion in size and now contributes 1.2% to
Nigeria’s GDP, reported Business Day, a Nigerian
business daily paper.
• It is this palpable potential of Nollywood that the
Princeton University trained New York Times
journalist, Norimitsu Onishi, saw when he wrote,
“Step aside Hollywood and Bollywood. Here comes
Nollywood”.

9. • A web platform that provides paid – for Nigerian films
on- demand. It is one of Africa’s first mainstream
online movies streaming websites, giving instant
access to over 5,000 Nollywood movie titles.
• Irokotv was launched on December1, 2011.
– Founded by Jason Njoku and Bastian Gotter.
– Njoku graduated in 2004 with a 2-1 in chemistry.
– Founded Brash Magazine, a student publication
which shut down after two years.
– Had other failed projects which included a blog
network.

10. iROKO TV
• A MARKET PLACE NEED
• Noticed the gap in Nollywood movie chain – absence of online
distribution after his mum sent him to buy Nollywood films.
• Noticed Europe had Hulu and Netflix but none in Africa
• A VIABLE BUSINESS MODEL / INNOVATIVE PRODUCT
• Flew to Nigeria in early 2010.
• Mentoring?
• Late 2010 – He and Gotter launched Nollywood Love, a
YouTube channel.
• Started at a two bedroom flat in Festac Town, Lagos, Nigeria.

11. The iROKO TV Growth
• Caught the attention of US based venture capital
fund, Tiger Global, early investors in Facebook who
were interested in expanding their reach in emerging
markets.
• Tiger Global invested $3 million in 2010.
• Launched a stand- alone video on demand movie
platform, Irokotv on December 1, 2011.
• Site instantly drew viewers from 178 countries
around the world.
• Njoku and Gotter have since raised an additional
$22million from international VCs.

12. • Used investment to build an extensive film catalogue
of 5000 movies
– launched offices in Lagos, New York
• In July 2012, Njoku was cited by Forbes as one of
the Ten Young African Millionaires to watch.
• In 2013, he was named the CNBC All Africa
Business Awards Young Leader of the year for West
Africa
• He has since launched a cable channel called ROK,
showing all Nigeria movies on DSTV.
• Iroko has also gone into production of movies and
TV series.

13. • Founded by three Babcock University alumni
– Damilola Taiwo (COO and Co- Founder)
– Tola Ogunsola ( CEO and Co-Founder)
– Dolapo Taiwo ( CTO and Co- Founder)
• A place where users can download their favourite Nigeria songs from the
web and mobile phones, using airtime credit for payment.
• THE PROBLEM / THE MARKET PLACE NEED
– No single source of aggregated Nigerian songs and African artists’
songs.
– Africa therefore is missing on the world map in terms of music content.
– Nigeria not a credit card society; it is a cash and carry society, so they
had to develop a form of payment that is easily accessible and
understood by the market.

14. Filling a Gap
• Mobile phone for payment.
– Users click the pay – by- mobile button, the
download is automatically initiated on their mobile
phones and the fee is deducted from their mobile
phones.
• Shifted to mobile model as Nigeria is one of the
largest mobile communities in Africa if not the world.
– For many of the users, their phone is their only
connection to internet and any form of technology
• My music has a collection of Nigerian songs from
about 30 years back to now.

15. Start-up business in Comedy
• The Ali Baba phenomenon
– Before him there were funny men, comedians. But it
was not full time business, neither was it a career
• Early comedians – John Chukwu, Bisi Olatilo, Femi
Jarret, Femi Segun, Tony st. Iyke.
• Appeared in their TV/Radio programmes. Learnt a few
things from them.
• Registered his company, ALI BABA HICCUPURAY 3RD
• His rise and rise
• MENTORING:
– Mentored AY, Ayo Richards Mayokun, the big
comedian and movie maker
– AY extends the frontiers of comedy.

16. Conclusion
• Mentors are still not enough. And mentoring is
deficient.
• This is partly due to lack of structure, bankable
competences, skills and experience.
• There is no question however that the few start-
ups and emerging ones, in spite of little
mentoring support, have shown potentials for
global success.

17. • Zik Zulu Okafor
– Managing Director
– Zulu Films
• Zulufilms@yahoo.com

18. 2017
Zik Zulu Okafor
Mentoring Support for Business Start-
ups: Media & Entertainment