GITEX NIGERIA: Experts Urge Startups to Build for Global Markets, Not Just Funding

Nigerian startups seeking to compete globally must focus first on solving real customer problems, building scalable products and continuously improving their offerings before pursuing venture capital, experts said.

Speaking during a panel session at GITEX Nigeria 2026 in Lagos, the experts discussed how Nigerian startups can move beyond high-growth ventures to build sustainable businesses and compete in global markets.

Michael Nwoseh, head of Business and Digital Solutions at AllTalents in the United States, said one of the major challenges facing Nigerian startups was the tendency to seek funding before establishing that their products could attract customers.

According to him, entrepreneurs should first demonstrate that their businesses are meeting genuine commercial needs.

He further emphasised that a startup demonstrating demand from more customers would have stronger evidence that its product could attract a larger market.

Urging founders to abandon the pursuit of perfection at the early stages of their businesses, Nwoseh explained that startups needed to build, launch and continually improve their products.

He cited the growth of AllTalents as an example, saying the company started as a small team of about three people and grew to more than 500 employees across the United States, Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana and Mexico.

The journey demonstrated the importance of starting small while maintaining a global outlook.

Nnena Irebisi-Okole, lead, Public Sector Growth, Policy and Advocacy at Amazon Web Services (AWS), West Africa, said access to technology had fundamentally changed what it meant for a startup to scale.

Irebisi-Okole explained that cloud infrastructure allowed businesses to deploy computing resources rapidly without the traditional barriers associated with procuring and maintaining physical servers.

According to her, global competitiveness requires startups to combine a strong product with speed, agility, innovation and access to the right talent.

She pointed to the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence as an example of why startups must continually adopt emerging technologies to remain competitive.

Irebisi-Okole also urged Nigerian startups to take advantage of talent beyond their immediate environment, including professionals in other countries, to meet customer demands and support international expansion.

Again, Oswald Guobadia, managing partner at DigitA, cited the policy environment, arguing that Nigeria's challenge was not necessarily a shortage of policies but weak implementation.

In his words, successive governments had introduced initiatives aimed at improving the business environment, but many had not been fully implemented.

Guobadia linked the policy environment to soil in which businesses are planted, arguing that even strong entrepreneurial ideas would struggle to produce results in an unfavourable environment.

He called for reforms that would make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to access government procurement opportunities and receive payments promptly for work delivered.

According to him, improving the payment cycle alone could significantly transform Nigeria's SME ecosystem by addressing cash-flow pressures that constrain growing businesses.

Collectively, the panellists said stronger collaboration among multinational corporations, startups, policymakers and ecosystem stakeholders would also be critical to accelerating startup growth, digital trade and talent exports between Nigeria and global markets.