However, he decided to get down and build something new and we went to look for it. TechMoran caught up with him last year and his new venture was doing well. Today we want to revist what he told us and why he launched Jayosbie.com I have always had this passion for fashion. I retailed T-shirts as an undergrad. I worked as Business Development Manager at Ruff’n’Tumble, Nigeria’s foremost children fashion retailer with over 12 stores nationwide and was CEO of 1500naira.com where 80% of the items we sold were fashion. What have been your biggest challenges since you started? We are trying to gain visibilty and become a known brand. It seems like it will take a lot of work but we’re upfor it. Who is on your team and what’s their experiences in business or startups? Odera Okonkwo is a co-founder in Jay Osbie and he’s our CTO. He’s an experienced web developer and has worked on numerous enterprise and government projects. Fatai is our order management whiz. He has a lot of experience managing data and he’s super efficient. He ensures all our customers are happy. I am a serial entrepreneur and I love fashion. Is Nigeria ready for e-commerce? Over the Black Friday sales period in Nigeria, over 50,000 items we’re bought online. It’s unprecedented. It’s a fairly new market, adoption is growing steadily and I think e-commerce is the future of trade in Nigeria. Are there few or more Internet success stories in your city? What can be done to see more youths innovating? Jumia, Konga, Jobberman are all huge companies that didn’t even exist a couple of years ago. These companies serve as motivation a lot of young entrepreneurs. We have many young and hungry entrepreneurs in Lagos however, they usually lack funding and business mentoring that would grow them to the level they need to be. 440ng and Tony Elumelu Foundation are a few of the companies trying to stimulate the ecosystem. We need more 6.Where do you see your men’s online shop in two years? We will work with designers to create innovative designs and work with mega online retailers on distribution. We intend to be selling an average of 190 items daily at the end of 2016 and generate $2m in gross revenue
We are in the 440ng accelerator program. They invested in Jay Osbie and have taken some equity in return. Who is your local competition? How unique are you from them? I would say David Wej. They are a men’s fashion brand but they also retail some women’s fashion items. They sell a lot of formal wear and suits while we are target the casual wear and traditional attire market. We are also very bold and daring with our designs.
