Okra built a real product, solving a real problem.
You won’t understand… if you don’t know what Open Banking is, but I’ll do my best to make you understand.
This will not be one of my tirades around startups shutting down after raising money, amidst controversy and recklessness.
Real recognizes real, and as someone who has known, followed,d and used Okra’s APIs since 2019, I understand.
Okra came into the scene in 2019. The goal – build a network of APIs, connecting banks, credit institutions, Identity management bureaus, etc.
Making it possible for Fintech startups and creditors to build on them. They made it possible for your ID to be verified, your credit history tracked, your BVN , NIN, verified.
They did this for years.
They were funded. But they backed up that funding with real work. Unfortunately, as much as the niche holds a lot of promise, it doesn’t move as much revenue as Fintech itself.
They sold gold diggers to gold miners. But there’s a stark difference in profit margins between the two.
Also, see that business? It’s rough. With very little innovation going on in that space, you’ll need a strong team and funding to lay the groundwork.
Let me give you a peek…
You will connect with banks, you will have countless meetings with their IT teams, requesting data, collaborating, helping them build out endpoints that can connect with yours.
You will face reluctance and hesitation. You will negotiate, you will leverage on all manner of connections just to link up with the men and women at the top of these institutions so they can pass the order to their IT to cooperate with you.
It’s crazy work.
What about regulation battles? How much you will have to explain with and without evidence to these banks, institutions and even CBN how you use the data, assuring them it’s safe.
You might even part with money here and there to “get access”.
It is dirty and tasking.
When they pivoted to cloud hosting by setting up NEBULA, a lot of people argued it was a mistake, I agree.
But I imagined a Business and team that was completely stressed out and burnt out, and were looking for a way out.
But even that way out was a desperate mistake. Dem no dey use 10 kobo enter the business of cloud hosting.
MTN is building a data center in Africa, and they have a budget of $120m . Even that is looking small.
Building cloud infrastructure is expensive.
Their intentions were noble. At a time when Nigerian businesses working with AWS were finding it difficult to get dollars to pay for their services, these guys created Nebula to provide efficient cloud hosting like AWS and charge in Naira.
But what happened??
Next thing, AWS came to Nigeria and opened a payment option in Naira for Nigerians. Even offering a 20% discount to Nigerian businesses.
Effectively shutting these guys down. Crazy stuff.
The story of Okra isn’t about failed or reckless founders. I mean, at the very top of a good-business era, they had Bamboo, Branch, AIICO insurance as clients.
These are startups who were young then, but onboarded users successfully because Okra made it possible.
Their developers were among the first building real connectivity between financial institutions from scratch.
One of the co-founders – Fara Ashiru Jituboh, worked at Canva, BMW and even JP Morgan. All engineering roles. The woman gallant.
As she’s leaving the shadow of Okra, she already has another job at a UK startup. A technical role.
But it is what it is.
Things are going to get better for the next generation of Startups like Okra. Yes, with the new policies around Open Banking, which now mandates banks and institutions to share their data with people like Okra.
Meaning, startups won’t have to face the problems Okra did.
But will I say it’s too late for Okra? Naah.
I’d prefer to say that Okra failed and grovelled so others could fly.
Like I said before, real recognizes real. I know their history. I have seen their effort. I have worked with them and I can testify to the quality of their service.
Please don’t be in a hurry to dismiss them as just another fraud scheme.
Written by Ebube Maduike
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