Welcome 2016–my 3 personal challenges for 2016

My key word for 2016 is “Discipline” — I believe all of life is about discipline. Whether it be your private life or business…staying disciplined will bring you great results. I’m going to need a lot of discipline to achieve my challenges for 2016! Here are my 3 personal challenges

1. Run 2 Half Marathons: The first will be in April and I’m currently about 5Kgs heavier than I would like, time to get back to working out and hitting the pavement with my running group. I think the second will be in October.
2. Actively write a blog: The last time I actively kept a blog was in 2005 I think. I locked it up for good, but I think its time to be back and share my random musings on life, business, sports, and politics. I’ll be blogging here on Medium. Note that on politics it would be mostly US politics for now until Nigerian politics start having some sort of philosophy behind it — till then I can’t distinguish between the parties and politicians.
3. Launch an Angel Investing Vehicle: My life time goal is to help change our beautiful continent by being an early stage investor in entrepreneurs! I strongly believe that entrepreneurship will be the major driver for development and growth. There are many issues to address, and my focus will be on playing an active role in building the ecosystem for early stage venture capital in Nigeria and Africa more broadly. It starts with angel investing — we need more angels investing in great teams with brilliant ideas that are market ready. So far I’ve invested in four companies and exited one in 2015. I’m now working with a friend to launch an angel investing vehicle so we can invest in more companies with more money behind us. I’m very excited about the opportunity and hope we are able to get it off the ground. This vehicle will operate lean and not be a full time activity thus it will take a very different approach from most of what we have seen already in the Nigerian ecosystem. More to come on that…

On the work front I have one big challenge and that is get Paga to cash flow positive in 2016! That will be no easy feat, but I am confident in our team and our plans to get there!

I’m very excited about my year! I wish you the very best in 2016!!

Tayo

p.s. The companies I am still invested in are:

• Reelfruit — Aiming to be the leading fruit processing company in Nigeria
• ChopUp — Building world class mobile games right here in Nigeria
• and of course Paga — Making life possible for Nigerians by building the #1 way to pay and get paid! #JustPagait in 2016!!