The Essential of Government-focused Tech Startups Hub created by SOLA FANAWOPO
My biggest let down at the just concluded DEMO Africa 2015 is the absence of government-focused technology start-ups. Despite huge government’s involvement in the sponsorship and organisation of DEMO Africa, I am surprised that no government-friendly startup surfaced among the 30 technology companies that pitched at the DEMO Africa in Lagos, Nigeria.
Co-hosted by DEMO Africa, Nigeria’s Ministry of Communications Technology and NITDA in collaboration with LIONS@FRICA partnership and VC4Africa, DEMO Africa had 30 startups on parade.
Interestingly, eight of the 30 startups are finance-related while others include education, transport and logistics, retail, communication and media and entertainment. However, the reality is that we need more talented entrepreneurs working hard to solve government-related problems instead of just creating iPhone apps or another new game.
Government all over the world is a huge market and so it is potentially lucrative for entrepreneurs and meaningful as there are deeply important and thorny problems that need solving.
However, I think there are a few things unique to a government-focused start-up accelerator in the entrepreneur and end-users end (government) that are different than normal incubators that we have in the country today.
Good enough, government is already supporting some start-up accelerators in the country but there is urgent need to provide the following support for the hubs.
Access to capital: This can be difficult for most government-focused startups. Most venture capitalists have little knowledge of government and avoid it at all costs. Government is a different beast with different sales cycles, different issues plus many venture capitalists [VCs] have a strong libertarian bent, which makes them have a gut instinct to avoid government.
To address this problem, I would expect government to establish GovTech fund managed by professionals. This fund must be accessible to only government-focused tech start-ups. It can be confusing to understand all these places and rules and would be great to have an accelerator programme to help government to navigate.
Access to beta customers: To succeed in government, you need some good beta customers. In government, you are only as good as your past performance. Very few government agencies want to be the first to try something out; they want to know other agencies are already using it. This is a huge hurdle for lots of start-ups. If the accelerator can help build a core of government agencies that are willing to test new technology, that is a huge asset that helps the company get real-world experience and learn what is working.
Access to integrators and partner companies: Lots of government purchasing are done through system integrators and larger software companies .These vendors are often looking for interesting new technology to integrate into their product and services – the incubator should foster these relationships and help new start-ups integrate with larger product and service stacks.
Access to problems: The hardest part for a new start-up is to truly find the real problem you are solving for the customer. In government, many problems seem simply from outside but are way more complicated when you actually work in government (from legal, security and simply not being a priority). It would be great if the incubator could both help bubble up key problems that government agencies want solved as well as help further vet out ideas that entrepreneurs have.
Access to contract vehicles: A huge issue for many government-focused startups is getting on the relevant contract vehicles for purchasing. A start-up incubator would both help new start-ups get on the existing vehicles but probably even more importantly establish relationship with resellers to find easy way for these start-ups to sell through at the beginning
Access to data: Many civic startups are built on open data. Sometimes that data can be hard to get – whether the main agency you need to cooperate does not or maybe 10 cities cooperate but you really need 50 more. If the incubator could help facilitate access to the data, whether it is simply extra pressure and connections to building structured databases of similar data across cities that would be a huge help
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