“Finding the best way forward for the Nigerian Healthcare sector” — A Helium Health webinar I attended and things I learned.
“The best time to build your relationships and network is before you need it. The best time to keep that relationship strong is always” — Dr Ola Brown.
I attended a 30 minute webinar hosted by Helium Health on June 12th, 8AM EST. The guest speaker was Dr. Ola Brown; Founder of Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment group. It’s the first ever Nigerian webinar I attended and hoped to get an understanding of how individuals in the Business area of the Healthcare sector in Nigeria reason.
Dr. Ola Brown started by discussing an important concept of business and that is creating a scalable product or service. I decided to pay more attention, because I heard a similar statement by Adegoke Olubisi at the Harvard African Business 2020 conference in February. I remember thinking to myself, what does he mean by this? I wrote it down, when it came up again during the webinar I knew writing it down was not enough.
“When you’re thinking about Scaling your business, I’d like to encourage you to think more widely about expanding, enhancing or extending the business” — Dr. Ola Brown
Ding! Ding! Ding! I finally understood. A thorough explanation with examples and an illustration about this term was all I needed. A follow-up question arose about capital after the illustration above.
“How can an individual who is running a small enterprise Hospital in Nigeria get funding? Where do these people start? There was a slight pause and deep sigh before her response. She made it clear that funding is a major question she continues to get at every enterprenial forum. I’ll also say her answers turned on all the light bulbs in my head.
She addressed the question in the lens of a small business owner and a potential investor. I learned that as a small business owner in Nigeria, there’s the feeling that money will solve every problem but it is simply not the case. In developing markets, investors tend to be cautious about investing and it’s important that individuals think of these things before putting together a business model. A business can be adequately financed but the market size or consumer class might be tiny causing a loss in income/investor(s).
“What the Banker looks for is Cash flow” — Banks in Nigeria want to see an audited account of your business. The bank wants to know if the business has made profit for the past 3-years at least before issuing a loan. Unfortunately, many businesses do not have that consistency of cashflow and end up not getting the loan.
“Relationships” — While we do much digital banking in Nigeria, technology has limited relationships with our bankers. Many people do not understand their banks, know their account office or branch managers. Dr. Ola stated that “ the best time to build your network is before you need it”. Business owners are advised not to try to form a relationship when the loan is needed. People are more likely to loan if banks know and trust you.
“Equity business” — Businesses need to be financially stable and there needs to be a form of trust. I learned that because there’s no collateral for the equity, investors usually ask around about an individual’s character before investing. This ties into building relationships before needing them.
“Size of your market” — Business owners should be able to determine if the issue is finance or the market/product. In the lens of Healthcare, I learned that the market is small in Nigeria and majority simply can not afford the exact cost of healthcare.
To end this, I thought of another gem she dropped: “Your biggest competition in the Healthcare business in Nigeria is poverty” — Dr Ola Brown
