We Grew By 384% In 36 Months — The Story of A Little Lagos Agency
At Age 3, Our Baby Is Ready To Run The Marathon!
One of my favourite quotes of all time is from British-American poet, Thom Gunn;
“At worst, one is in motion; and at best,
reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
one is always nearer by not keeping still.”
- Thom Gunn
Three years is a long time and so also very short.
A 3 year old child really wouldn’t know much or be responsible for anything beyond ingesting and excreting food. However, the fact that a child has survived 36 months in this wild world is a big deal, especially if that child successfully crawled, walked, ran and is now attempting to compete in a marathon!
Enough of the metaphors.
It’s exactly 3 years today since ATG wrote this article, effectively announcing the official launch of Info Digital Africa Limited, a hybrid (sort of) creative digital agency born from a desire to do digital communications, and what they call “digital marketing”, differently in Nigeria.
The Birth of IDA
You see, ID Africa was dreamed up by a former entertainment journalist and celebrity publicist, who founded one of Nigeria’s fastest growing digital publishing platforms (NET), and forward-thinking PR agency BHM; who was in love with technology and had an early appreciation for the power of social media and content marketing.
Thus, this new agency was founded on the principle of social PR: that the era of conversations has given absolute power to the consumer and thus only marketing communicators who understand and speak the language can break through the clutter, and benefit from the amazing opportunities that social communities provide.
The dream was that of a creative digital agency that will use smart thinking, compelling content, and technology to help brands, governments, and organizations connect with those they care about.
The agency started with 4 members of the then ‘Digital Department’ of BHM, a team I had only joined just 12 months before.
How We Grew By 384% In 36 Months!
Running a business in Nigeria is hard. It’s even tougher running a digital / marketing communications business whose revenue depends on what a client decides to spend, and add the unstable FX rates and several other factors one can never really control.
Looking through our books in the past week, it’s almost unbelievable that a small team like ours managed to grow by over 300% in less than 3 years! Revenue generated had increased by 342% by the end of Year 2, plus an additional 42% growth was recorded by end of Year 3.
Now, where did all that money go?
Well, good talent doesn’t come cheap. A third of the revenue went to salaries, while ⅔ was for running the office, overheads and third party cost of doing our clients’ business — media buying, project management, freelancers and our vendors.
For a privately funded startup, this level of expenditure may sound crazy, but beyond our mistakes and naivety in financial management, I think we have truly invested well in our team’s skill set, corporate capabilities, brand health and goodwill, such that the company is poised to grow profitability this year by over 50%, all things being equal. God help us.
Leading and Growing With IDA
I joined BHM in February of 2014. Still not very sure why the CEO hired me. This was my first job in marketing communications, although in my head, I had a fairly good resume: I was a writer (sometimes), long time poet (sometimes), retired rapper (don’t ask), and had a very good understanding of social media.
But I was still untested in proper brand communication and PR. Somehow, I found myself embedded in the digital media department of BHM — already the coolest PR firm around, as a copywriter/digital strategist/social media manager, etc., working with 2 brilliant designers / web developers.
Fast forward, and 2014 went by like a breeze. I worked like a mad man — long days, late nights, weekends, and so did Prince and Yinka my colleagues. Somehow, someway we managed to survive that year. We must have impressed management enough to make them think up the crazy idea of converting our scanty little department into a full blown digital agency. And so began the ID Africa experiment.
It was a bit scary and exciting at the same time for me, that I, a Biochemistry graduate with no formal training in technology, design or even communications, who had spent 6 years in a commercial bank branch, chasing new customers and processing cash as a teller, would be heading a new digital agency as Chief Operating Officer.
The mandate was to lead a team of designers, developers, marketers, social media managers and writers (we were planning to recruit at the time) and to go after the big brands. Nothing had prepared me for this type of responsibility, but I embraced the challenge all the same not for bravery or confidence, but mostly because one had no choice.
Since that February day in 2015 when the announcement was made, ID Africa has grown from a team of 3 inexperienced young men, zero clients, shared office space, and some promise to a profit-making business, multinational clients and 8 of the most creative minds you can find in Lagos. Yes, we still share an office space with big brother BHM and sometimes find ourselves a bit lost when challenged with some wild and crazy briefs, but we are more confident now than ever and are quite excited about the future.
The People That Built IDA
In the 36 months of existence, we’ve indeed done some remarkable work, mostly unnoticed by the public, and we’ve learnt a lot along the way too. We’ve also made mistakes, messed a few things up and also missed a couple of opportunities. But the fact that we are growing and improving is surely worthy of celebration.
Shout out to Prince Ehima who has been there since our BHM Digital days, single-handedly building most of our wordpress sites and doing most of the early design work.
Peace to Dare ‘Cykik’ Okesanjo, Binyelum ‘Bibi’ Ewulluh, Damola Ibiyemi, Olasubomi ‘Archie’ Archibong, Abiola Bonuola for all the great work, late nights and crazy pressure endured. Plus Kelechi Nnorom, Ose Agenmonmen and our Finance / TMM team, Oyinda Benjamin-Black, Enahoro Oziegbe, Enaholo Akhidenor and Oladotun Akinnubi.
Blessings to ATG, for the opportunity and for constantly pushing us to be better.
Also worthy of mention are brilliant creatives, ex-teammates who are an important part of our story: Yinka Olayokun, Yemi Falade, Oyinda Bamgbola, Mary Lawrence, Sharon Akinjeji, Timilehin Bello, Pamilerin Adegoke, Friday Osifo, Aaron Ikhalueme, Mayowa Isime-Esene, Bode Opaleye, Gideon Banks, Fikayo Ajayi and all the freelancers who have contributed to our story in one way, shape or form.
Can’t name all, but everyone is truly appreciated.
Nigerian Twitter Map: Our Gift To The Country
Because our creative brains are always grinding and fingers always itching, we really don’t know how to sit still for too long. So, to celebrate Independence Day last year 2017, the team came up with a pretty cool concept to map Nigerian Twitter, and categorize popular Topics, conversations and key influencers on an easy-to-access platform that and and everyone can contribute to.
We’ve not done much to promote The Nigerian Twitter Map yet (our bad), but we’ll appreciate you spending a minute or 2 on it and contributing to making it better by suggesting Topics and Voices we can add to it. Also, holler at me if you think we can work together to improve and make it better: oluwafemi@idafrica.ng
Into The Future. With Swag.
Towards the end of 2017, we collaborated a lot with BHM to execute some key projects and also win some very powerful new clients. Seeing how successful these collaborations were, it was resolved that the two agencies really are more powerful together, rather than as competing firms, which was the initial strategic approach.
Going forward, ID Africa will be spending more time building platforms and creating products that will serve the next billion users and those global brands that want to connect with them in Nigeria, across Africa, in the U.K and the US. We’re betting big on consumers — especially the 98 million plus Nigerians with some form of internet connection, and we believe that product thinking is the way to capture and continually engage these digital audiences.
To do this successfully, we’ll need to provide more world class trainings for our creative talent, recruit seasoned designers and engineers, and content marketers that speak the language of the consumer — who now has a mobile-only mindset, an instinct for ubiquitous computing, a growing demand and insatiable appetite for localized content.
The future for us is truly exciting, although sometimes scary. And even though it’s misty and the long winding road uncertain, we are confident that this our 3 year old baby — smart, determined and constantly learning — will stay strong on both feet, running a good race in this marathon journey.
