ICON_PLACEHOLDEREstimated reading time: 8 minutes
MSME experts in Nigeria or influencers provide inspiration, tips, advice and other contents to help you navigate the murky waters of entrepreneurship.
Trust me; you need all the help you can get. And these guys on the list have built a reputation from helping entrepreneurs like yourself.
Check out this list of 10 MSME experts every entrepreneur in Nigeria should follow on social media (in no particular order)
Contents
Table of contents
Naija Brand Chick
Nelly Agbogu, widely known as Naija Brand Chick, is an MSME expert who has her base on Instagram. Her journey into the business world started with her struggle with weight loss. Her quest for a solution to this led her to start baking healthy options, and the rest they say is history.
“My biggest challenge birthed my business journey” are the words of Nelly which succinctly explains how she became the Naija Brand Chick and the proud founder of Nellies healthy food & snack company.
Her primary forte is helping small business owners maximise the power of social media to grow their businesses. If this sounds like something you’d like for your small business, then you know you should go follow her on Instagram.
Aside from dropping tips and advises on entrepreneurship and business growth, The Naija Brand Chick has put together comprehensive courses on the same topic for her followers.
Her website is naijabradchick.com, where you can find some of her courses and discover more about her. She also has affiliate programmes for individuals that may want to help her sell her courses.
So far, she has partnered with big names such as Access Bank, Google, Sterling bank, First bank, Pampers, and Lagos state government.
Nelly’s verified Instagram account currently has 222k followers and about 11,281 posts.
Hustlers Square
You probably know Jagaban, but have you heard of the Jagaban of Instagram?
Diyemowei-Odior Oluchi is the face behind the Hustlers Square Instagram page. She is an MSME expert who is also based on Instagram.
Her slogan, “We rise by raising others”, tells her story as she has continued to rise in popularity and influence as she continues to help small businesses grow.
Her journey started with helping friends and family members succeed in their respective small businesses. Soon, she figured she could share her experience with other small businesses so they can experience growth as well—that birthed Hustlers Square.
Her brand is focused mostly on women entrepreneurs. She started Hustlers Square because she believes “every woman deserves equal opportunity to make her own money, be independent and empowered”.
Today, she has featured on Vanguard, Business Day and Techpoint Africa. She has also worked with some renowned brands such as Vconnect, Rubies, Sterling bank, Flutterwave, Anakle, Nipost, Visa, etc.
She currently has 300k followers across all social media platforms, with 238k followers coming from Instagram.
Ife Durosinmi Etti
Ife Durosinmi is an author, entrepreneur and gender equality advocate.
She moved back to Nigeria from the UK in 2012 after working with Arcadia Group, a multinational retailing company in London. Back in Nigeria, she joined the Nigerian Breweries (Heineken Operating Company) as a Young African Talent (YAT), and her career has continued to be on an upward trajectory from there.
Her book, Accessing Grants for Startups: A guide for African entrepreneurs, is a book that “shows the opportunities available locally and internationally for entrepreneurs in Africa such as Grants, Fellowships, Business Accelerators and Incubators that can help take your business to the next level. It provides entrepreneurs with the skills necessary to fill out applications for opportunities in a more professional manner to increase your chances of submitting a successful application.”
If you are an entrepreneur, especially one in the startup line, and you’d appreciate some information on raising capital, then link up with Ife on Instagram.
Wole Oluyemi co
Wole Oluyemi is a self-acclaimed Market Place Evangelist. He has a particular interest in MSME, specifically Food, Travel and Photography.
The Chartered Accountant regularly speaks on Tax, SME business, Finance and Strategy. These are areas every entrepreneur would most likely appreciate some help.
His Instagram page, @WoleOluyemiCo, has a touch of excellence and class and among the fastest-growing Instagram pages in Nigeria.
He has diversified experience, which spans Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Angola, Congo and the USA.
Wole has been featured in major newspapers and blogs in Nigeria, including Business Day, Punch, The Guardian and Bella Naija.
His target market is “high net worth individuals (HNIs), CSuite executives and other senior executives of large organisations” to “develop or refine their investments and corporate strategy through conversations that inspire and ignites high-performance culture, efficient resource utilisation and sustainable business growth”.
He currently has over 122k followers on social media, 62k on Instagram, and 60k on Twitter.
Ken Ndubuisi
Ken Ndubuisi is a famous paid traffic specialist and social media consultant. He is the head of operations at TCY Africa, a digital marketing consulting firm specialising in harnessing social media’s power to help small businesses generate more leads.
So, if you a small business looking to generate more leads using social media, you know whom to connect with.
Ken has worked with renowned clients such as Printivo, Hotels.ng, WhoGoHost, Lagos State Government and MAX.ng.
His primary forte is Facebook, and he is a Facebook Blueprint Certified Digital Marketing Associate, a member of Facebook Blueprint Trainer Network and a Facebook Blueprint Certified Media Buying Professional.
Ezim
What more do you need as an entrepreneur if not paying and returning customers? This is what Ezim is committed to helping entrepreneurs, and MSMEs get.
Sometimes referred to as “The StartUp Fairy”, she is committed to helping businesses avoid the same mistakes she had made when she started her business. In her words, “learning might cost you, making avoidable mistakes will cost you more”
Like some of the women on the list, she is passionate about helping female entrepreneurs “start and scale their startups through tailored marketing and strategy sessions”.
Besides providing inspirational and insightful contents on startup and entrepreneurship, Ezim also has comprehensive courses on her website.
She also does business reviews on her Instagram page such that business owners select a topic, and then she goes on to discuss it for one hour. To her, what matters most is asking the right questions.
Ezim educates her followers on creating products and services that attract and retain paying customers. Isn’t that something that should interest you as a business owner?
Akin Alabi
He founded the first indigenous betting company in Nigeria, Nairabet; a member of the Federal House of Representatives, so that makes him a politician; and he is the author of the business and marketing book, Small Business, Big Money (one of the books on our marketing books list).
With his wealth of experience, Oloye Akin Alabi is indeed an expert in all things business (and politics, to an extent).
His tweets and other social media posts are always straightforward, frank and void of sugarcoating. Take it or leave it type of content.
Also, he has a podcast, The AskAkinAlabi show, which is dedicated to answering as many questions as possible about business and politics.
He started Nairabet because he noticed there was a hungry market for sports betting in the country. He utilises every opportunity to emphasise the importance of having a hungry market before starting any business.
You can join his over 269k Twitter followers or the 208k on Instagram.
Ogbeni Dipo
Dipo Awojide, widely known as Ogbeni Dipo, is a senior lecturer in strategy at Nottingham Business School. He is a career, human resources and personal development coach.
His startup, BTDT Hub, is a human capital development startup dedicated to linking business owners to the right talents through staff recruitment and training.
In 2019, Dipo became the first Nigerian to be named in the Top 20 LinkedIn Voices of the year. Clearly, unlike others here, he is also quite influential on LinkedIn.
While Dipo talks business and entrepreneurship sometimes, you need to link up with him for human resources. That’s something every company is going to need at some point.
Aside from this, Dipo’s contents on personal development will also prove crucial to an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, everyone needs personal development.
He has 500+ connections on LinkedIn, over 48k followers on IG and 800k+ followers on Twitter.
Tricia Biz
Popularly known as Tricia Biz, Tricia Ikponmwonba is a “marketing and launch expert”. Considering how daunting launching a new product can be most times, it’s beneficial to have someone like Tricia willing to help.
She is also a self-acclaimed “business fixer”, so you know whom to call if you need something fixed in your business.
Etisalat Nigeria, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Nigerian Breweries, Nokia, Multichoice, British American Tobacco, Mastercard, Emirates, The Bridge Clinic, Japan Tobacco International, D’light, Wrigleys and Coca-Cola all make up the list brands she has worked within the space of 10 years. What a CV!
She has varieties of qualification and membership of professional bodies that help stand out.
Tricia has helped tonnes of small businesses and has been featured in The Guardian Newspaper.
See what she said – “If you’re mostly up late at night, twiddling your toes in old socks, and worrying over your business, you need to STAHP! Call “TriciaBiz – The Business Fixer”, and she’ll fix you up”
Brings back memories of “Better Call Saul” (as seen in the Breaking Bad series).
She has a massive presence on Instagram with over 209k followers.
Ola Brown
She is the founder of the first of its kind company in West Africa, Flying Doctors Nigeria. The company is dedicated to providing air ambulance services to companies and individuals.
She has her dues, and it makes sense that she looks up to Aliko Dangote.
Dr Ola talks about economics, policymaking, investment, healthcare, corporate governance and, of course, gender issues mostly on Twitter and LinkedIn.
She is an inspiration to many, predominantly female entrepreneurs, and there is a lot to learn from her.
Orekunrin, as she is also called, has featured on CNBC, Arise and CNN. And her goal to breach the gap between healthcare and finance.
Conclusion
Their niches and industries may differ, and some are even more experienced than others. But what they all have in common is helping entrepreneurs.
Sometimes, all you need as an entrepreneur is just that extra help from an external force. And you can get it by connecting with these MSME experts on social media.
Follow them and learn from their contents. And when you feel like you need specific help from them, do not hesitate to reach out. Cheers!
