Emmanuel Azubuike: How Can Small Businesses Thrive in Nigeria?

“I place with akawo (day to day contribution), but I need cash to feed my family, so the savings don’t develop,” Yiteovie, a self-taught fisherwoman, acknowledged in Moniepoint’s 2025 Informal Financial system Picture. Yiteovie is a mother who stopped her formal training in Senior Secondary College Two. Fancy many folk across the riverine communities of Bayelsa, she turned to fishing as a technique of survival and a technique to admire her younger of us.

But within the event of an unexpected crisis, how long can Yiteovie and her family count on the little savings she can predicament apart from her day to day hustle?

Simplest just a few month, essentially essentially based on the report by Moniepoint Africa, which reveals that 42 per cent of Nigeria’s casual firms would dwell on for steady one month without profits. The report estimated that bigger than 50 per cent of Nigerian firms fail interior their first year, and by the fifth year, 95 per cent terminate operations.

This signifies that Yiteovie, and hundreds of alternative cramped enterprises, from the younger e-commerce founder in Lagos to the rage vogue designer in Aba, operate below fixed uncertainty with a excessive likelihood of failure.

But why does Nigeria private such an alarmingly excessive price of enterprise failure?

Several causes private been identified: insecurity, miserable infrastructure and inadequate market research are on the total cited as predominant causes. While the affect of these factors can no longer be overstated, the characteristic of buyer acquisition and retention is on the total neglected.

Shina Memud, convener of MarTech Africa, one of Nigeria’s most sharp marketing gatherings that brings collectively over 1,000 mavens to focus on marketing challenges, believes that vibrant the plan to compose, have interaction, and withhold customers is a in point of fact extraordinary survival skill for every enterprise.

“Reading the Moniepoint report, what you may maybe well maybe maybe maybe’t encourage but demand is: how can of us like Yiteovie develop their firms? What applied sciences, platforms, or tools can they leverage to succeed in extra customers in relate that they aren’t pushed out of enterprise by a single unexpected circumstance?” Memud acknowledged.

Memud, who’s additionally the founder of Yournotify, a growth-and-automation marketing platform, explained that the rising price of enterprise failures and the quantity of in another case promising cramped firms that combat attributable to diminutive marketing records impressed him to delivery the MarTech Africa summit.

All the plan thru its final two editions, hundreds of mavens private gathered to study from top African marketing leaders in regards to the core requirements for enterprise growth. At MarTech Africa 2, held earlier this year, alternate veterans equivalent to Maurice Igugu (Chief Advertising and marketing and marketing Officer, Sterling Financial institution), Idemudia Dima-Okojie (Advertising and marketing and marketing Director, Mastercard), and Linda Obi (Founder/CEO, Afrihealth) shared sector-particular insights from their years of trip.

“For the 2026 edition, we’ll point of curiosity on how firms can compose customers, have interaction them meaningfully thru personalised verbal replace, and withhold these customers as staunch advocates. That’s why the third edition, slated for February 28, 2026, is themed ‘Inform Loop: Redefining Buyer Acquisition, Engagement, and Retention.’” Memud acknowledged.

In step with Ingressive Capital, African startups allocate between 20 to 40 per cent of their running budgets to marketing and buyer acquisition, a burden that has pushed many cramped firms out of operation. The compare now may maybe well maybe maybe be whether there are programs to lower these excessive prices while quiet reaching the upright customers.

While exploring more price-effective buyer-acquisition programs, MarTech Africa 3.0 additionally plans to prove firms the plan to withhold the customers they’ve already bought. This emphasis on retention is considerable, as research indicates that a 5 per cent form bigger in buyer retention rates can lead to a earnings boost of 25 to 95 per cent.

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Featured Image by Hauwa Abdullahi Suleiman for Pexels.