Joshua Igba is the founder of InstaDrop, an interstate courier service collaborating with B2B companies, e-commerce, marketplace and storefront providers, people that have merchants on their platform.
They help them integrate interstate courier into their platform. So they collaborate with platforms like Bumper, storefront providers that help businesses to have websites.
Also, Joshua and his team work with top logistics aggregators for B2C interstate courier outsourcing. So their mission is to be a reliable local alternative to foreign courier service in Nigeria.
Before you read, check out part one of this interview
What African countries would you like to visit this year and why?
Two African countries are always in the spotlight for rapid development. And that’s Rwanda and Kenya. The third one is Ghana. The moment any brand or country starts taking their international PR or national PR seriously, that means that they’ve hacked something that they want the world to know. So Rwanda, Kenya, they seem to have unlocked some treasures.
The reason is for the countries to be taking their international PR seriously. It means that they have unlocked many opportunities that they believe the world should know about. And as such, one should take interest in trying to visit those countries to see how one can be a part of whatever the government wants you to come and benefit.
The same way the moment Dubai figured their path to industrialization, they were just taking their PR seriously, and everybody wanted to visit Dubai.
What’s the most underrated Nigerian food?
The most underrated food in Nigeria, I think, is garri and corn.
Presently, garri is a luxury in Nigeria
It’s still underrated and all the tech founders in Africa or Nigeria, garri made them by having ideas on how to get out of your situation. You’ll be having some dangerous ideas to be giving you ginger. So it’s a food that is much more than a food.
What has been the most humbling moment in your journey as an entrepreneur?
The most humbling moment for me is going from zero to 10 bikes. And from 10 bikes to starting all over. 2022 was a humbling moment for me, from zero to 10 bikes, and then one day took everything out of the road and said, look, we have to shut down and rethink. It was really, really a very humbling moment for me because I felt that this logistic thing was not for me.
Then there was a partnership we got then with DHL. And then I look and say, okay, why are we having this partnership now when everything has shut down? And I said, okay, you know what? Let me now take this tech thing seriously. Let me build it myself so that I wouldn’t need to be looking for someone who will give me money to pay a developer that might disappoint.
I was doing nothing, just wake up, eat, code day and night for 18 months straight. It was a very humbling moment because everything seemed to be moving by my side and I was just in one place for 18 months building. My family was very worried and they kept asking what are you doing?
We realized that the technology we needed was not one app or two apps. We had to build 16 apps in 18 months to do what we wanted to do. That’s why when I’m saying 40 million, I know what I’m saying. Technology-wise, we have the capacity. The only thing that can now limit us is that our office space cannot contain all the goods. Let’s get a bigger space than here. But technology-wise, we’ve conquered.
So those were the humbling moments for me, 18 months of stagnation, staying in one place to build, while every other thing seemed to be moving left and right. You know, you wake up every day and it looks like, are you a failure or have you failed? You can’t define whether it’s a failure or you can’t. So it was really a very difficult time for me.
What’s one thing you would like people to know about you?
I’m someone who is very disciplined with money. I don’t spend money anyhow. When I see in the news, how a startup wasted $10 million and shut down. I always ask myself, I don’t understand. Like you raised $3.2 million to start. Not like you started and raised. You raised $3.2 million first to start, then you wasted $6.4 million to continue. That’s a total of $10 million and then you shut down.
Maybe they built a great product product for the wrong market
You can’t pivot, I don’t get. One special thing about me is I’m very disciplined with resources. I know how to manage resources to get things done. I can have a lot of resources and you don’t even know that I have a lot of resources because I’m focused more on the results than the appearance. I’m focused more on the results.
I’m someone that knows how to manage resources very well. I know how to make 10 out of one. So that is a very good quality that I know that is taking me places because if you know how we’ve got into even where we are without funding, I mean, you cannot imagine the level of resource optimization that we’ve had to do just to keep going. And we are still planning that even if we don’t raise money we just keep going at this pace, live and direct.
So that is only because of those special abilities, money management skills, resource management skills that I have. If not, we would have been underwater.
Where can we learn more about Joshua Igba, founder of InstaDrop?
Watch the interview here.
