'There’s vast growth potential in women’s entrepreneurship in Nigeria' – Gabriel Nwoye, Founder, MultisScholar

Gabriel Nwoye launched the Multischolar platform to provide information to students and members of the academic community in Nigeria.

Could you tell us about your company?

I started Multischolar in 2019 to provide a complete package of academic calendar information, reviews, educational news, interviews and other educational-related editorials.

Since inception, we have become known for the top 1,000,000 charts, educational updates and editorial content.

The top 1000000 chart is a countdown of the world's finest in the blogging industry spanning different categories including Best schools, Next Rated Schools, School fees and educational scholarships.

Which industry do you focus on?

I service mostly the education niche industry of blogging for the simple reason that I wanted students all over the world to easily gather information about any educational institution or their prospective schools online, without visiting the school.

Providing students with useful updates put me in contact with many students themselves and that’s been quite rewarding as it, in turn, provides us with even more information and perspective.

Is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home trend affecting your operations?

No, not directly. I started this platform at home and that’s how I’ve continued. All my writers work from home and I’ve never even met most of them – we communicate digitally.

The hiccup in our operations happened when schools got shut down as a result of the lockdown all over the world. There was less need for information and my readership and revenue took a hit.

But that was only temporary. Things have since picked up and I don’t foresee any further interruption to our process.

What is Multischolar’s growth strategy for 2022?

We are working to widen our blogging niche. I want to go into finance, gaming, technology and fashion. A new niche will mean new advertisers, leading to more revenue.

In the past, I only accepted ads having to do with education, but we’re going to change that as we form new partnerships. Exchange of skill and expertise is critical in the service industry and we want to build on that, as we’ve learned a lot since we got started.

As we get more traction, we also will be opening our platform to guest posts. In the third quarter of this year, I’ll be contracting new writers who will bring more information and better content for our audience.

What are the long-term ambitions you’re aiming for, as an organization?

Nice question. At the moment we have agents in Nigerian universities that provide us with intelligence for our platform. Our long-term goal is to have the same in universities abroad as well.

I have tried to achieve this in the past without success because of the financial burden it brought, but I think I’m positioned to try again this year.

I want to reach as many students as possible, bring educational updates to their smartphones.

What government policies can be implemented for companies to thrive in Nigeria?

I’ve got two policies that always come to mind when this issue comes up, and they are simple – tax breaks for SMEs and startups and more effort put in women’s entrepreneurship.

Nigerian women, even with the limited tools at their disposal, have proved to be incredibly resourceful and intelligent in business. With
With the right encouragement from the government, there’s major potential there for growth.

Furthermore, farmers and agriculturists should particularly be given immense tax cuts. Agriculture and food production are the future, but many startups here are frustrated by wild tax policies that stifle growth, smothering any progress at its infancy.

What are the opportunities for Agribusiness and Agritech in Africa in 2022?

I reiterate that in this sector the opportunities are vast, especially in direct food production such as farming vegetables, onions, cucumber and the like. The supply chain that takes the farmer in the field to the market and then finally to the consumer is rife with hurdles and stress, however.

In the end, no one wants to do such hard labor with no returns or revenue insight but if handled right, there’s financial freedom and job creation at the end of it.

Another opportunity is Agro-consultancy. There are few in this business and it’s a growth market, guiding people on how to start their agribusiness. This knowledge is extremely useful and often overlooked, but wielding it could be a win-win for everyone, the consultant, the startup and the economy.