Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe invented and patented a robotic system which the United States Government acquired assignee rights. He holds two doctoral and four master’s degrees including a PhD in engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, USA. He earned an undergraduate degree from Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria, where he graduated as his class best student. While in Analog Devices Corp, he co-designed an accelerometer for the iPhone. 

A recipient of IGI Global “Book of the Year” award, a TED Fellow, IBM Global Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Prof. Ekekwe has held professorships in Carnegie Mellon University and Babcock University, and served in the United States National Science Foundation Committee. Since 2009,  the founder of Tekedia Capital, and Chairman of Fasmicro – Intel Corp’s only Africa certified and authorized programmable microprocessor partner-has been writing in the Harvard Business Review. 

He was recognized by The Guardian as one of 60 Nigerians making “Nigerian Lives Matter” on Nigeria’s 60th Independence Day.

Lead Faculty

Tekedia Institute offers growth-innovation programs which include non-credit Tekedia Mini-MBA to professionals, students, governments and companies, across markets and industrial sectors. For more, https://school.tekedia.com/

This video teaches a simple but uncomfortable lesson: most times, it is execution that decides. Walk into a board meeting, and if the CEO has great numbers with revenue up, margins improving, market share expanding, you will meet an orator, as Board members are hearing what they seek. They see a CEO who speaks with confidence. He communicates fluently. His strategy sounds elegant. The vision becomes poetic. Good numbers have a way of improving diction. Before everyone is a rock star!

But you can travel to England and learn the best English in the world, but if revenue is down, profits are declining, and market share is slipping, that eloquence disappears. You begin to stammer before them, and they will interrupt you mindlessly. Because in business, the most powerful language is not grammar or storytelling. It is results. When no one sees that, confusion sets in because you are no longer communicating. They expected something based on the roadmap and you are sharing totally uncorrelated expectations.

That is what this video shows. Once the goal is on the scoreboard, everything changes. The team is winning. Number 9 has scored. Momentum shifts. Suddenly, everyone looks brilliant. Confidence rises. Energy follows outcome. Before that moment, the intensity was raw, inefficient, and unsettled. Results brought order!

Of course, we do not encourage excesses or unsporting behavior. But this reflects the age we live in, a high-octane, hyper-competitive world, where outcomes settle many debates. Execution silences noise. Results end arguments. And as a team, results can unite everyone because when a company does well, everyone working in that company becomes legendary. If you work in Nvidia, send out your resume to 10 companies; I promise you that you will get close to 9 offers! Why? Nvidia rocks and every staff therein is a star!

Everything is captured in this African wisdom: Victory has relations; vanquish is an orphan. In business, as in life, results do not just speak, they decide relationships.

If you study Nigeria’s business history closely, you will notice a pattern: roughly every decade, the economy undergoes a structural redesign driven by a new operating system. These redesigns do not announce themselves loudly, but when they arrive, they reorder winners, redraw value chains, and retire old playbooks.

In the 1990s, the new generation banks emerged with technology as their weapon of choice. They deployed VSAT to link branches, collapsed distance, and made banking location-agnostic. Overnight, proximity lost its power, and legacy banks were forced to either retool or quietly fade. Then came the 2000s, when GSM arrived. Voice telephony did more than connect calls; it rewired commerce, accelerated coordination, expanded markets, and lifted national productivity. A new layer of economic energy was released.

The 2010s deepened that transformation. Telcos moved Nigeria from voice to data, from calls to mobile internet. Phones stopped being communication devices and became economic terminals, Yes, mini banks, mini schools, mini offices, and marketplaces in our pockets. The center of gravity of economic life shifted to the palm of the hand. And then, quietly, a new era began.

Today, we are in the decade of application utility, a localized Cambrian moment. Young people are stacking digital tools, recombining APIs, and fixing frictions across payments, logistics, commerce, healthcare, education, and beyond. The market is being redesigned from the bottom up. This is not yet consolidation; it is exploration. And the game has only just begun.

But here is the inflection ahead: because of the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025, the 2030s will likely become Nigeria’s Capital Market Decade. ISA 2025 is one of the most consequential pieces of business legislation Nigeria has enacted in a quarter century. It does not merely tweak rules; it expands the imagination of what can exist in the market. New asset classes will emerge. New instruments will be engineered. New wealth will be constructed. 

Put it in perspective. South Africa’s stock market is valued at over $1 trillion. Nigeria’s market struggles below $70 billion, not because Nigeria lacks ambition or talent, but because our asset universe is shallow and under-expressed. ISA 2025 changes that equation. It opens pathways for derivatives, commodities, fractional assets, digital instruments, and structured products to thrive. When assets deepen, capital compounds. And when capital compounds, nations redesign their futures.

Good People, expect massive economic acceleration in the 2030s in Nigeria. In that decade, Nigeria will move from a society of money into one of capital, and whenever that happens, great things happen. Simply, capital market, one of the most important inventions of humans, will shape the 2030s of Nigeria. You'll see new species of assets and those will redesign the markets and the economy https://lnkd.in/efrgYhsS

Good People, if you truly believe you have the best products and services, then silence is not humility; it is neglect. Not telling people about them is not modesty; it is unfairness. I carry a simple business philosophy: when you have something that improves human welfare, you have a moral obligation to let the world know. Value hidden is value denied.
 
In Igbo wisdom, good things do not sell themselves unless they are shown. If you do not speak for your product, you have already voted against it. When I tell you about our products, do not see it as noise; see it as social good. Why should people be denied access to the best simply because the producer chose to be quiet? Lol. 
 
Many people misunderstand marketing and sales. They think selling is begging. It is not. Selling is education. It is helping people make better choices. I often say: if your product is truly superior, then not promoting it is an injustice to the market.
 
That is why I ask leaders to reframe sales in their minds. Invite me to speak with your marketing team. I have studied how to overcome sales inertia, that invisible force that keeps customers stationary even when value is right in front of them. Like in physics, motion does not happen without energy. Sales teams fail not because products are weak, but because motivation is misdirected.
 
Why deny the world the best products if you believe you have them? When we accelerate people’s confidence to market boldly, we unlock growth. Advertising is not deception when the product is excellent; it is public service. Do not be apologetic. Be responsible. Inform customers that better options exist.
 
In Igbo land, I learned this early. As a young boy in Oriendu Market, Ovim, I would shout, “bia z?? ji nnenne m!”; buy my grandmother’s yam. That was not arrogance; it was fairness. It would have been wrong to deny customers the chance to buy the best yam in the market!!!
 
Change your attitude to sales, and you will change your business. See selling as a call to duty, a higher-purpose assignment to improve lives by making people aware of the best products.
 
But this message comes with a condition: I hope you truly have the best products!
 
(At Tekedia Mini-MBA, we have improved thousands of businesses across Africa with a business education that delivers a motion of growth & success. Next edition begins on Feb 9)

Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe invented and patented a robotic system which the United States Government acquired assignee rights. Dr Ekekwe holds two doctoral and four master’s degrees including a PhD in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, USA. He earned an undergraduate degree from FUT Owerri where he graduated as his class best student. While in Analog Devices Corp, he co-designed an accelerometer for the iPhone. A recipient of IGI Global “Book of the Year” award, a TED Fellow, IBM Global Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Prof. Ekekwe has held professorships in Carnegie Mellon University and Babcock University, and served in the United States National Science Foundation Committee.

The South African press called him “a doctor of innovation” for helping organizations on the mechanics of business innovation, strategy, and growth. Since 2009, the Chairman of Fasmicro Group which controls many startups and entities has been writing in the Harvard Business Review. He was recognized by The Guardian as one of 60 Nigerians Making “Nigerian Lives Matter” on Nigeria’s 60th Independence Day.

To connect, email tekedia@fasmicro.com.

Professor, Entrepreneur, Investor

Olaide Olawuwo

José Mourinho is back at Benfica. His resume reads like a map of footballing royalty: Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and beyond. Despite the inevitable ups and downs of a long career, the world refuses to stop believing in him. Why? Because he has the ultimate "ring" in the game, a Champions League trophy, first won with FC Porto, that cemented his status at the pinnacle of the sport.

As of late 2025, Mourinho has returned to Lisbon on a two-year deal, proving that when the world seems "tired" of a veteran, a new call inevitably comes. There is a profound business lesson here: High-performers with proven records are perpetually recycled. We see it in the C-suite every day, one CEO exits a role only to be snapped up by another firm, while the "new blood" waits in the wings.

Ancient African wisdom captures this perfectly: it takes the killing of a leopard to be called a "killer of leopards." Once you have achieved that feat, you are addressed in the plural, “unu abiala” (you people have come), because your reputation is now larger than your physical self. You are no longer just a person; you are your record.

I remember my primary school teacher, Mr. Chigbu, using this lure of "legacy" to push us toward secondary school. He would tease us with stories of Okonkwo and Amalinze the Cat from Things Fall Apart, stopping just as the drama peaked: "If you want the rest of the story, you must get into secondary school."

The legend of Amalinze "The Cat" was built on a record of never letting his back touch the ground. When a young Okonkwo finally threw him, that single, massive victory established a legend that lasted a lifetime. 

The Lesson: Records build careers. Even when the shine begins to fade, decision-makers will always default to the person with a history of winning. If you want career longevity, put some undeniable records on your resume.  Yes, win a "Champions League" in your own field https://lnkd.in/eWDnErUC

A quiet revelation is emerging: Waymo’s robotaxis may drive themselves on U.S. roads, but many of their most critical decisions are still made by human operators sitting thousands of miles away in the Philippines. Waymo, after all, is owned by Google’s parent company. Autonomy, it seems, is layered.
This reminds me of an experience many of us had during industrial training in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. You would leave Port Harcourt in a new vehicle, driven by a polished professional. Everything felt regulated, certified, and safe. Then, somewhere around Ogoni on the way to Ikot Abasi, the road ended, and the sea began. 

To cross it, you boarded a small speedboat manned by a driver who might not even be allowed through the gates of the oil company, often visibly drinking. Once the boat took off, all power and influence shifted. The man at the helm was a human “fish”, someone who could survive what you could not in the sea. Ironically, most people on board had swimming certificates, yet none could swim well enough to matter. In that moment, safety protocols dissolved, replaced by an uncomfortable trust in informal expertise. Yes, the roads are great for professional drivers but on the sea, anything could go!

There is an Igbo saying: a bird that flies off the ground only to perch on an anthill is still very much on the ground. Waymo’s autonomy fits this wisdom. If its most critical decisions are still made by human operators in the Philippines, then the real question is no longer just about Waymo’s engineering. It is about who those humans are, how they are trained, and how much judgment we are delegating to people we never see. In the age of AI, technology may scale but accountability remains stubbornly human https://lnkd.in/e8qfr3PY

He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds. Yes, he attended the Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge of the era as Pharoah’s house had the best thinkers, astrologers and educators. He learned administration, governance, communication, strategy, and the mechanics of empire. Moses is a case study of consequential leadership. 

Providence placed him inside the very system he would later confront, not to assimilate him, but to equip him. Leadership, it turns out, is often prepared in places that look contradictory to destiny.

Simply, Moses’ origin story itself is layered with irony and intent. Pharaoh’s daughter found him as a baby, hidden in a basket among the reeds of the Nile, moved by compassion, she drew him from the water and named him Moses. What looked like abandonment became adoption; what appeared like displacement became positioning. In modern terms, Moses was sent to a “faraway branch” of a bank where many might have expected him to fade quietly.

Instead, that distance became an accelerator. He learned how power works, how institutions think, and how complex systems are governed. When the moment came to lead, Moses did not confront Pharaoh as a novice; he spoke the language of the palace because he had been trained there.

Yet all he learned in Pharaoh’s house was not enough. Another layer was added as Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness, a period of preparation, humility, and transformation before leading the Israelites. It was there that he was called at the burning bush to deliver his people.

This pattern repeats itself beyond scripture. I saw this firsthand during my NYSC year, when I was posted to Northern Nigeria. At the time, I did not want to go. I saw no opportunity in it. Yet that year fundamentally reshaped how I understand Nigeria, its people, its diversity, its tensions, and its possibilities. The perspective gained from that “faraway posting” continues to compound. Like Moses in Pharaoh’s house, what felt like being sent away became exposure to knowledge and context that no classroom could have provided. Moses needed Egypt to lead Israel. I needed NYSC in Northern Nigeria to better understand Nigeria. 

In today’s context, the preparation of Moses might look like sending you to Harvard for an MBA, only for you to return to Nigeria and be assigned to run a small bank in my Ovim village rather than in Abuja or Lagos. It may feel misplaced, even unfair. Yet it is often in that quiet, overlooked setting, far from the spotlight, that you truly learn the business. And then, one day, the call comes from Lagos, not because you waited at the center, but because you mastered leadership at the margins.

And the lesson: what has living in that “Pharoah’s house taught you”? Happy Sunday https://lnkd.in/e4mxb_cP

Comment: “Sir, comment on this statement that Nigeria is going to leapfrog in the AI era.”
My Response: That belief is comforting, but it is largely an illusion. Nations do not leapfrog into epochs; they build into them. And the defining input of the AI era is not talent, ambition, or even code. It is energy. AI is an energy-hungry system, and the countries that will dominate the Acceleration Society which include America, China, and a few others are those that can produce, optimize, and deploy massive, reliable, and cheap energy at scale. Nigeria is not there, unfortunately. 

(Please, I am not against any person, and this is not a political statement. I am just a village guy doing my thing on my lane.)

As I have argued in my works, societies move from the invention era to the innovation era, and then into the acceleration era. Each transition demands more energy than the previous one. Nigeria has not yet built the energy systems required for the invention society, talk less of the innovation society that produces the foundation utilities for AI. Without energy, AI remains a slide deck, nothing more.

So, when someone tells you that Nigeria will participate productively in AI, at the upstream, value-creating layer, you must ask a simple question: with what power? Servers do not run on optimism. Largely, energy will define national competitiveness in the coming decade, and today, Nigeria is structurally outside that arena.

There is another, less discussed constraint: AI economics. In traditional software (SaaS), scale is merciful. As customers increase, marginal cost declines. The curve bends downward, approaching zero within a finite space. My Further Math teacher in secondary school, Mr Ukene, called that an asymptotic relationship. That is why software companies love scale. AI is different.

AI has persistent inference costs. Every additional user consumes compute. As you scale, costs can rise sharply, sometimes faster than revenues. The marginal cost curve does not collapse the way SaaS does. Reaching an optimal cost point requires enormous capital, infrastructure, and patience. Yes, an inflection point exists but getting there is expensive and unforgiving.
This is where Nigeria and indeed sub-Saharan Africa face a structural mismatch.

Our dominant playbook across our country is not “scale at all costs.” It is reach profitability early, protect cash flows, and pay dividends. That mindset works in many industries, but it collides with AI’s economics. I do not see many publicly listed African companies willing or able to absorb years of elevated AI inference costs in pursuit of distant scale advantages.

This does not mean Africa will not use AI. We will. We already do. But using AI is not the same as producing AI at the frontier. And pretending otherwise may feel good, but it does not change the physics of progress https://lnkd.in/ewfQBVZN

If you studied Social Studies in junior secondary school, you probably memorized the textbook advantages of partnerships and team management. One line my teacher, Mr. Mbah, emphasized was: “joint hands in making management decisions.” We recited it faithfully, preparing for exams, without truly grasping what it meant in practice.

By senior secondary school, the Economics subject deepened that lesson through the concepts of division of labour and the factors of production. Expertise matters, even the entrepreneur, the so-called “risk taker,” cannot achieve much without labour, coordination, and shared effort. Enterprise is not a solo act; it is the deliberate construction of a working team. 

The same principle holds everywhere: when a company, a family, a society, or a nation functions as one team, it outperforms the sum of its individual talents. 

Usain Bolt ran the fastest 100 meters ever recorded: 9.58 seconds. Yet four Jamaicans, running together in the 4×100 meter relay, completed the race in 36.84 seconds. On average, each covered 100 meters at about 9.21 seconds. Simply by running together, they collectively outperformed the best individual record.

The message is simple and enduring: collaborate, partner, and advance together https://lnkd.in/eRnp5cEP

If you chart the average number of jobs created monthly in the United States since 2021, a clear downward arc emerges, from the exuberant highs of nearly 600,000 jobs per month to figures now hovering below 100,000. Yet unemployment remains relatively low. This is not necessarily because the economy is booming, but partly because immigration has slowed. Fewer new entrants into the labor force are masking a deeper transformation underway in the U.S. economy, a structural redesign of how work is created, allocated, and performed.

This leads to a more personal and pressing question: what is your Plan B? What is your alternative path in a world where there may simply be fewer traditional jobs? Many assume this shift will not affect them. But evidence from the past 12–18 months suggests something more fundamental: the long-standing connection between earning a good degree and being offered opportunity has weakened, if not broken. And this is not any country specific problem; it is global. Yes, there is a clear correlation between the West’s immigrant antagonism and jobs, as many in those places feel that the future is fading for them.

Why is this happening? Many forces are at play, but technology, especially AI, sits at the center. Recently, it took me just 23 minutes to build and deploy a functional website (afrit .org), from idea to live deployment, using modern AI tools and cPanel. I am not particularly gifted in design; more skilled people could do far better. Yet the point remains: what once required teams, budgets, and time now requires minutes and judgment.

Still, many underestimate what this truly means. AI is often framed as a “technology” issue, when in reality it is becoming a work reallocation issue. As its capabilities compound, the conversation will shift. In a few years, headlines will focus less on what AI enables people to build and more on what it has displaced in the labor market. The excitement around technical possibility will give way to anxiety about livelihoods, as a growing number of people confront a more basic question: how to pay the bills in an AI-shaped economy.

A startup in Lagos recently deployed AI for customer support and account reconciliation, and a leading financial institution subsequently reduced those operational units by over 80%. The entry-level roles that once served as gateways into careers are increasingly being absorbed by software. The result is not just automation, it is dislocation, especially for young professionals whose career mobility depended on those early roles.

The future of work is not a distant conversation. It is already here. The real question is no longer whether jobs will change, but whether individuals have thought deeply enough about how they will remain relevant when they do. https://lnkd.in/etJ--bQy

Truly proud to commend the TradeGrid team, Africa’s fastest-growing downstream oil trader, for delivering one of the region’s standout growth performances: 10x year-on-year growth, alongside strong profitability.

This achievement reflects disciplined execution, deep industry insight, and technology purpose-built for African energy markets. The results speak clearly, not only in Nigeria, but also with a strong showing in Kenya.

This is scaling, not just growth: durable, compounding progress built on fundamentals. Well done, team. Let us win 2026. 

Hello, Market: here, we welcome another strong IPO candidate for Africa, joining our breakout Ghana-based portfolio biotech company, Revna Biosciences, which has scaled precision medicine across the continent.

At Tekedia Capital, we celebrate our founders who are executing the mission, building critical capabilities that advance the wealth of nations and the prosperity of our communities. Big salute to Tekedia Capital builders, find more markets and win.
 
Ndubuisi Ekekwe, PhD
Member of Board, TradeGrid, USA & Africa
Member of Board, Revna Biosciences, USA & Africa
Chairman, Tekedia Capital

Bitcoin is having a very difficult new year. And unlike a company, it has no balance sheet to lean on, no income statement to reassure the market, and no earnings call to slow the bleeding. When companies struggle, they can publish results, explain strategy, cut costs, or point to future cash flows. Bitcoin cannot do any of that.

Its only defense mechanism is belief. That dependency on collective faith is its weakest link. 

Let me be clear: fiat currencies have serious issues. But those issues are anchored in real systems like balance of payments, trade flows, tax revenues, productivity, and economic output. Governments can be inefficient or reckless, but currencies are tied to economies that produce goods, services, and value.

Bitcoin is different. It is a floating construct with no life vest. When belief weakens, it does not adjust, it sinks. If confidence disappears, there is nothing underneath to keep it afloat.

So, yes, good luck to the hodlers. In Bitcoin, faith is not just important, it is everything. I get you...it will rise again. It does indeed and I will celebrate it here.

Startup Founders: As Nigeria passes through a difficult fundraising season, what many describe as funding paralysis, I want you to remember a simple but enduring truth: nations rarely fail. Economies bend, currencies weaken, systems stall, but societies recover. History is remarkably consistent on this point. So, that your growth fund is not coming does not mean you have to give up. Go back to the drawing board and update your business model to see if you can modulate on that scaling to preserve cash.

For me, there are two men I often study in moments like this: Franklin Templeton, arguably the greatest stock picker of the twentieth century, and Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire. Both built enduring empires at moments when their countries appeared broken. While others saw ruin, they saw an unbounded future, and they won.

As I write, I am investing big in Nigeria. I expect to have about 100 NEW people in a new business in Nigeria by the end of 2026.

Franklin Templeton founded his investment firm in 1947, at the wreckage of World War II. Europe was in ashes, confidence was low, and capital was scarce. Yet he trusted humanity. He bought what others dismissed as “useless” stocks, betting not on balance sheets alone but on the human instinct to rebuild.

Carlos Slim did something similar decades later. At one of the lowest points in Mexican history, when the peso collapsed and markets were in disarray, he bought aggressively. His father had taught him a powerful lesson: countries do not die; they reset. Slim believed that when stability returned, value would follow.

We have seen this pattern repeat. Uber was founded during the Great Recession. Airbnb was also born in that same crisis. Had both been conceived during a time of abundance, they likely would have failed. Yes, too much comfort dulls imagination. Scarcity, on the other hand, sharpens thinking.

This challenging funding moment will pass. Like cryolite hidden inside periwinkle, beauty often emerges only after pressure. Unless the shell is cracked, the gem remains unseen. Do not lose confidence. Abundance is still ahead. Yes, funding will return but we must survive for the moment when it does.

The task is productive exploration. Think deeply. Build deliberately. Nigeria still has vast “diamond fields” waiting to be mined and the best playbook is to understand our long gestation period and then retool business models to accommodate that reality. Drop the Silicon Valley playbook and build an African model, accounting for the realities we have on ground on funding.

Good People, the question is now: Who can thrive in a “funding recession”? Yes, The Nigerian equivalents of Uber and Airbnb which rose out of the miry clay of great recession. #build https://lnkd.in/euYmRFHU

Artificial Intelligence is poised to disrupt SaaS (software) companies with the same ferocity that e-commerce leveled against brick-and-mortar retail. Market shifts are traditionally driven by two levers: the optimization of marginal costs and the hyper-personalization of services. AI achieves both at an unprecedented scale.

The victors in this new era will be "full-stack" AI companies, those that own the entire value chain. As foundational models like OpenAI and Gemini begin to offer traditional software layers, as simple, integrated plugins, the "software" itself ceases to be a moat. Over the next five years, the true differentiators will be regulatory licenses and end-to-end operational control.

To survive this wave of disintermediation, you must pivot from being a service provider to a licensed operator. Own the mission, not just the code. Simply, we are entering a period of painful descent for traditional middleware. When AI can facilitate direct connections between companies and customers, the need for brokers and intermediaries evaporates. Why engage a media production partner or a middleman when a foundational model can execute those tasks instantly via plugins sold marginally to clients? Many legacy business models are not just changing, they are expiring.

In my previous work for the Harvard Business Review, I coined the term 'ICT Utilities' to describe the dominance of companies like Google and Meta. Much like a city’s electricity or water provider, these entities have become the non-negotiable infrastructure of our online existence. Today, that evolution is accelerating; we are moving beyond mere ICT infrastructure into the era of 'AI Utilities.

Good People, the emergence of vertical-specific AI utilities via products like OpenAI Health, OpenAI Insurance, Gemini Coding, and Claude Legal is loading. When these utilities become the engines of industry, traditional software moats will dry up. The 'SaaS Empires' of yesterday are being replaced. https://lnkd.in/efCarpDz

Most in the business world talk of first-mover advantage; a company’s capacity to assume better competitive advantages as a result of simply being the first company to introduce a new product within a specific sector or category. First-mover advantage offers temporary monopoly – the blue ocean – since as a pioneer, you are simply alone in that category at the early stage.

But note this: the greatest companies in the world are known for one thing: great products. Interestingly, all great products are known by customers. That typically comes because they are well scaled. Extrapolate, you’re talking of first-scaler advantage, a leverageable compounding competitive advantage which comes with economies of scale as a result of being the first company to achieve scale in that category and improve marginal cost, offering products at highest value and best optimized cost.

If you have a first-mover advantage and fail to scale, you will lose the competitive positioning to another company which comes and scales first. So, first-mover advantage is temporary because sustainable and durable monopoly requires enduring scale in product categories. If you cannot deliver that scale, forget your first-mover advantage.

While first-mover advantage is treasured (a clear sign of innovation), becoming a great company requires first-scaler advantage. In our class note in Tekedia Mini-MBA, I provided many cases on how Apple pursues a business model of first-scaler over first-mover advantage.

Before the iPhone, there was Blackberry. Before the iPod, there was the Walkman. Before the Apple Watch, there was Pebble. The list goes on. Largely, Apple does not pioneer many categories but it has an enviable way of coming later through superior product engineering to scale really fast and take over.

In this 2026, do not just be in the habit of looking for new categories to pioneer. Consider if you can massively scale a known promising category! 
Yes, Usain Bolt does not usually have great kickoffs, but most times, he is always the guy who takes the medals. He has a great ability to scale-first on speed during the race, outperforming those who started first.

Good People, Tekedia Mini-MBA Live begins today and my lecture notes are updated. Co-learners, it is time for a new academic festival. Let's scale abundance through knowledge. 7pm WAT!

Tekedia Capital is pleased to announce that one of our portfolio companies, Veritus, has raised $10.1 million. Veritus is building AI agents for loan origination, servicing, and collections in the United States, reimagining how lenders manage the entire lifecycle of credit. 

This agentic domain is one we understand deeply.  Our earlier investment in Corgi, the world’s first AI-insurance and AI-reinsurance company operating with actual insurance licenses, validated a core thesis: AI creates outsized value in regulated industries when it is used to invent new business models!

We have seen the same pattern repeat with Eloquent AI, another portfolio U.S. company, which has applied this playbook to banking, bringing order, compliance, and productivity to complex financial workflows.

Today, however, belongs to Veritus. Congratulations to the Veritus team on this milestone.

TEKEDIA MINI-MBA BEGINS
In a small village of ideas,
 where questions matter more than answers,
 Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 begins
 not as a class,
 but as a journey into the soul of business.

Here, we do not memorize success;
 we decode it.
 We study firms the way engineers study bridges:
 load, stress, failure, resilience.
 Why companies exist.
 Why some scale.
 Why most do not.

In this school,
 knowledge is a factor of production.
 Capital is more than money;
 it is capability, patiently accumulated.
 The Smiling Curve smiles only at those
 who climb with intent at the edges.

From Lagos to New Delhi,
 from Tokyo to Silicon Valley,
 we trace invisible threads:
 technology, markets, people, institutions,
 and learn how innovation moves
 from invention
 to diffusion
 to prosperity.

This is mechanics of business
 We learn how power laws shape markets,
 why platforms eat pipelines,
 why Africa must build, not borrow, its future.

Week by week for 12 weeks,
 ideas compound.
 Learners become builders.
 Executors become architects.
 And careers, once linear, 
 discover optionality.

Tekedia Mini-MBA
 is not about where you are,
 but where you are prepared to go.
 A quiet forge,
 where scholars emerge with impact.

Welcome to Tekedia Institute
Where equations of markets are solved.
And where innovators, builders, professionals
 learn the music of business.

Greetings from Tekedia Institute. We are pleased to share that the next edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA will commence on Monday, February 9, 2026.

If you have already registered for this edition, you should have received your login instructions via email; the instructions are also available here https://lnkd.in/eua6XpQm

If you plan to join us and have not yet registered, you can still register here https://lnkd.in/eruEcgCa

This is going to be the best edition yet.

Tekedia Mini-MBA >> educating on the mechanics of business and careers.

On behalf of Tekedia Institute, I am delighted to welcome the remarkable cohort of young professionals and students who are joining the 19th edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA through the generous endowment of Owotuga Foundation. This scholarship honours the life and legacy of Late Most Supreme Apostle Omodayo Owotuga, who passed to glory more than a decade ago, yet whose impact continues to compound through lives transformed by access to knowledge.

Since 2021, the Owotuga Foundation has partnered with Tekedia Institute to endow full scholarships that have enabled more than 500 Fellows to participate in our programs. This act of benevolence is not charity in the narrow sense; it is strategic generosity structured to deepen human capital and accelerate opportunities for young people.
 
As the Foundation’s trustees have noted, the scholarship exists to preserve and advance the values of service, excellence, and empowerment that defined Late Apostle Omodayo Owotuga’s life and ministry.

To our new Fellows, welcome to Tekedia Institute. As we thank the Owotuga Foundation for this enduring partnership, we also charge you, our Fellows, to turn this opportunity into impact, by advancing your communities. 

Welcome to the #BestSchool and on Monday, we will begin to solve the equations of markets and economies.

The world has frictions in many ways and forms, including delays, inefficiencies, gaps, and unmet needs. And because those frictions exist, companies must exist. Across human history, no institution has been more effective at fixing market frictions than the COMPANY. When friction disappears, business disappears. Opportunity is born from resistance within those frictions.

The World of Frictions. The World of Companies.

Every company, at its core, is built on three elements: people, processes, and tools. From the interaction of these three, products and services emerge, designed specifically to reduce frictions for customers. When a firm succeeds, it is because it has aligned these elements better than others to solve a real problem (the friction).

So, the real question is not whether to build companies, but “how do you build better companies?”

At Tekedia Institute, we see frictions not as obstacles but as invitations to participate in the market system. You do not run away from market frictions; you study them, quantify them, and convert them into scalable opportunities. A world without friction would be a world without enterprises!
 
To help to build better companies, we have Tekedia Mini-MBA to help people master how to start, build, and scale companies. We teach the mechanics of markets, the physics of value creation, and the mathematics of growth.

On Monday, the 19th edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA begins.  Join us here https://lnkd.in/eruEcgCa

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