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hi my name is tosinfanirodada and this is jobberman [Applause] [Music] my name is tosinfanirodada i am the director of programs and coordination at the legal state employment trust fund [Music] the legal state employment trust fund is a government agency with a mandate to create jobs we believe that supporting msmes will help us create jobs now how do we do this we do this through three pillars the first is entrepreneurship where we provide access to affordable financing to micro small and medium businesses the second is our employability program where we train and place people in jobs and i know that jobberman is one of our partners the third is our innovation program where we support the tech ecosystem we do this through our program called lagos innovates we've been around since 2016. in terms of numbers since we started we have supported over 11 000 businesses with access to financing totaling over seven billion naira in terms of employability we have trained almost 6 000 people and placed 50 of them in jobs and with our innovation program we have supported over 120 startups since we started the lagos innovates program like i said earlier our theory of change is if we support msmas so micro small and medium businesses if we provide them with access to financing they can expand and hire more people we truly believe that msmes are the engine of growth of any emerging economy they're the engine of growth and the engine of development so what am i trying to say what i'm saying is we believe that supporting msmes will help us create jobs and reduce unemployment in lagos and nigeria that ties into our mandate so in a nutshell our role is that we're successfully supporting these msmes that are in turn creating the jobs of today and the jobs of the future in nigeria we had two things that were playing against us in 2020 one was the kobe 19 pandemic the second was the drop in oil prices due to the drop in global demand of oil now these two things adversely affected our entrepreneurs first is employment a lot of entrepreneurs had to let their staff go because they couldn't afford their staff anymore the second is fundraising and this is particularly for startups a lot of startups that were in the middle of fundraising saw their plans and activities halted because investors were not sure what was happening and you know had to hold on to their cash as well and we also saw a we saw very resilient entrepreneurs as well entrepreneurs have to think about distribution and logistics so entrepreneurs they have never thought of e-commerce for instance entrepreneurs that have never thought of delivering their products directly to the customers had to think of innovative ways to do this i think there are more opportunities now i think people i think people see that it's okay for you to finish school complete your university and decide that you want to do your own thing or start your own business and then if you look at different sectors that maybe in the past were not seen as well i mean maybe i shouldn't say sing but maybe in the past we're not recognized as a career path so for instance fashion beauty we're seeing so many successful entrepreneurs come out of the fashion industry the beauty industry the catering industry and so i think young people now know that you know it's okay to wake up and follow my passion you know it's okay to do something that i am interested in um it's okay if i don't want to do a nine-to-five and this is the business i want to do and the support is there i always say that it's information it's all about the information do you have the right information are you in the right network that gives you access to that information and the legal state employment trust fund for instance we have a program called micro enterprise startup where we give we support entrepreneurs who have no business but have some sort of training and they have a certificate to show that they have been trained in that particular field and we support them it's a small amount we support them with 250 000 error a loan of 250 000 there to start that business and it could be anything it could be fashion it could be beauty it could be cooking you know whatever it is that you want to do as long as you've been trained in that field but then beyond even you know micro businesses with our lagos innovate program which is our program for startups with this program we we support early very early stage businesses so very early stage tech enabled startups and we support them with access to infrastructure we have a co-working space program it's called the workspace voucher program and with that program if you apply you qualify you get approved um we give you a voucher and that means you can go to any of our partner co-working spaces work out of the places and the lsctf pays now it really depends on the co-working space you decide to go to so we have about i think we have about 26 partners to date um spread across lagos and if you decide don't tell you where to go we give you a universal voucher so if you wake up one day and you want to go to one workstat one um co-working space in vi you can if the next month you want to go to another one in java you can if you want to now invest that you can do that as well and at the end of every month we will pay the co-working spaces directly now what that does is that takes care of your infrastructure needs because these co-working spaces come with power they come with security um they come with space and then they also come with like meeting rooms you have like an address that you can use for your business cards etc etc so that's one way another way is access to talent that we do for for the startups as well um if you decide that you would like to learn a tech skill and you cannot afford it we have a program called the talent development program it's in partnership with honeywell group and with that program it's a student loan program we pay up front you do your training after the training once you get a job then you start to pay us back we also have a mentorship program for young businesses for young entrepreneurs it's called the idea hub program so as long as you have an idea we pair you with a renowned mentor so like a business leader in the ecosystem and they help you get from ideation to mvp and then hopefully the relationship continues until when you have you've achieved product market fit and then you have a scalable product so those are all the things that lagos innovates and well ls etf through its lagos innovations program and other programs are doing for young entrepreneurs i would say infrastructure is one infrastructure it's it's major it's actually the main one i think and under infrastructure i would say power i would say roads because all these things add up at the end of the day if we had if we had consistent power for instance maybe something that should take just 30 minutes to produce um wouldn't be taking us five hours or maybe a week depending on how strong your generator is you know how much power it has and how often you're getting electricity wherever you are so i think infrastructure is one and the second i would say funding we have a lot of small businesses a lot of micro small and medium businesses that need access to financing and like i said before and it's something for us to recognize msmes are the engine of growth of any economy they provide the most jobs even in nigeria today msmes provide 84 of our jobs that is a huge number that tells us that we should be supporting msmes and not just you know lsetf everybody should be supporting msn means big corporates should be supporting msmes um commercial banks should be doing more and i know the cbn has a bunch of programs to provide affordable financing for these msmes but those are like that's another big challenge that i know of um talent is another challenge um a lot of entrepreneurs complain that they don't have access to they don't have good talent and there's limited talent and i always tell people that it is a talent market you know as much as people say that um there are no jobs yes okay maybe not enough but you know i i believe that if you have the right talent and the right skills um you might be able to find something quicker so entrepreneurs complain about finding the right people to join their companies to join their teams and then the last one i would say is we don't really have a we don't have a mentoring culture we don't have a mentoring culture and i think it's something that we need to adopt um if you look at other ecosystems and other economies there's a lot of mentorship that goes on there's a lot of giving back you know there's a lot of reinvesting into their ecosystems into their market and not even just reinvesting with financing there's also reinvesting with time um accessing these people that have been successful in the field they are trying to grow in having access to them so that they can teach you or help you through through your challenges so i don't think there's a formula to be a successful entrepreneur i think you have to have the right attitude and you must be determined [Music] i think you have to also know that you have to be okay with failing because 9 out of ten times you will fail um but it's not just about failing and giving up it's about failing and understanding why you failed and having the courage to start over i think you have to also be open to change because change will come a good example is 2020 with covet 19. um say for instance you've always said i would never have a website for instance or i would never like go into delivery of my my products and then it happened and then the lockdown you know so you have to be flexible and you have to be ready to move you have to listen to your customers you have to be very aware of what your customers are saying what they're thinking how they're feeling you have to be constantly in touch with your customers and you have to just listen to them you know spend some time with them understand why they like your product understand what they would like to see be done better understand your competition as well understand why how your product is different from your competitors understand the value that your product is providing that your competitors hopefully are not providing you also want to do um an extensive market research before you even go into the business you have to ensure that there's a market for this for this business you have to identify this market that you're going into and ensure that you know you've done all your all your homework i would say [Music] [Applause] you