OoTheNigerian

Drop the "John" :)

I bought 2.

I understand this is a semi experiment and will not expect the warranty or certainty that an Apple will give. This is to support the possibility of making an alternative become viable.

Question for Eric, is there a way to ensure charging works with USB? Please don't make us carry yet another cable.

Thanks.

I'm surprised folks on Hackernews are always critical of V1s.

In 18 month, apps will have APIs for "agentic browsing" ™OoTheNigerian ;)

And you will not need to give anything control over your browser. I you will merely connect your app to OpenAI or any other client.

It was a good analysis but definitely longer than it should have been to communicate the came thing.

A glaring omissions is overlooking the origin of the term "woke" in the context it is being used today.

It was around 2010 as a rallying call for black folk to be aware of being taking for a fool. Then the Occupy Protests and Black Lives Matter came next and as usual it was hijacked by more savvy operators.

"5,000 startups from nearly every state in the US"

I am curious to know which States in the US still do not have any companies in YC.

Nice read. It's important to note

1.The 2020 protesters did not begin vandalizing property, but government infiltrated the protests by burning cars and maiming people.

2. The Obidient movement encompassed multiple sub movements of which a part of the #EndSARS was one of them. A vast majority of Peter Obi's supporters were not #EndSARS activists.

3. Elections in Nigeria are fraught with treacherous behavior so everyone suspects everything. It's important to be very careful with your communication. There is a lot of desperation in the land and so if in a position of information leverage, the responsible thing is to handle the privilege with care and transparency.

Were Nigerians (allegedly) the only ones making fraudulent applications? Why is it only Nigeria you could use as an example?

Perpetuating nasty cliché tropes lead to stereotyping. Perhaps, that's your intention or not, but I just need to inform you and your ilk, that anytime a Nigerian is unfairly discriminated against off or online, you contributed to it.

OP and respondents can you update your question and the answers to include mention the scale of the business in terms of traffic, customer served, revenue.

Hi Benoît & Avi,

As part of my advisory business, I've seen a few companies tackling this in Africa. My biggest question has been, isn't this a "feature" than can be deployed by the existing Payroll companies?

These days we have a lot of Credit As A Service companies. Why can't a Payroll service connect to them and provide this service as an add on.

To summarize my question: can your innovation get distribution before the Payroll services get (this) innovation?

Or wouldn't you inadvertently have to encroach into that space eventually?

Or do you see yourself extending towards the credit side of things?

All the best!

I think limiting the word count would help. Say 250 words.

The format is ok, sometimes it seems a lot of unnecessary details are added. This encourages skimming through thereby making important aspects vulnerable to skipping.

Again, with the reality that there will be more startups launching, limiting the word count will be helpful and make people read more launches.

Ha!

I was already typing this before your comment articulated it excellently.

Dang, I am assuming how people see comments is randomised? So the part 2 of the comment (those that did not make it will all have an equal chance to be seen).

Assuming it is not asking for too much customisation, these summary threads can go down much slower than the usual one person Launch HN.

Perhaps say something positive too? People have worked hours on end, built stuff and presented it "hacker peers" and this the best and only comment you could come up with?

For someone that has done a couple of Show HNs [1][2] I would assume you know better.

People plan for their submissions and look forward to reading the comments. You can and should do better.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10799830 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9840990

To be honest, we don't know where this is going. We all want a peaceful outcome.

The next elections are in 2023 so there is no near resolution by the ballot.

There is over 50% unemployment, mega inflation, currency devaluation etc and yet a consistent clampdown on anything deemed progressive by the government.

The truth is, if anything happens to the peace of Nigeria and if only 5%, of its occupants get displaced (10million people) the world will feel it's impact in a very negative way.

Unfortunately, thanks to COVID, Brexit et al, no one is paying attention so the government assumes it has it has a freehand.

Unfortunately for them, our population is very young, quite adept at adapting, innovative etc. So I do not see us backing down. Despite the worst of policies, there has been unprecedented growth in our tech startup scene (YC can testify)

So for now, we watch.

For specific context: a tweet that was deemed threatening and inciteful to a segment of the country - the south east (where I'm from), was sent from the President's account.

After sustained uproar and outrage, Twitter deleted the Tweet.

Blocking Twitter is the response.

---

For background context: This government is very unpopular. Twitter has been the medium where the atrocities of the government has been publicized. Last year there was a very popular protest #ENDSARS (campaigning against police brutalization and killings) to which Jack Dorsey made a donation.

Earlier this year, Twitter opened their West African office in Ghana. It was seen as a massive snub and embarrassment to Nigeria. So the government has had a hurt ego brewing for a while.

PS: The great irony is that this government used the influence of social media to get into power. So this is them throwing down the ladder after using it.

AMA.

Personally, I believe Mighty is basically a new type of browser. What Chrome OS is supposed to be.

Of course the business model limits the number of people that would try it however, perhaps the target market would be businesses interested in controlling the browsing of their employees. For security and other purposes.

All the best Suhail and congratulations on your launch.

Great Job Noah and Dick!

This is brilliant and looks well executed. It is definitely well positioned to replace the wish list, review list, registry etc.

How do you avoid the distraction that comes with solving a problem that can pull you in too many directions? This can easily become a Pinterest, Affiliate shops, Price monitoring, coupon code sharing etc.

What are your plans to stay focused while listening to your users?

I signed up and sent you guys an email too!

PS: You may want to make referral links vs text (we pay per text message in many countries). A link will let up put it on our WhatsApp status etc.

It has been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.

For me, racism is about the intent. Sometime, those are words, but most times they aren't about words.

So it depends.

When it comes to economic growth, Nigeria is so far behind policy wise. Sadly, there is nothing I can offer you around policies that can or should be replicated.

On the individual level, I have seen people transform the lives of their families by learning to code.

This is one https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-went-from-programmin...

Painting a house that is getting rotten is easier than doing a proper renovation.

These are feel good measure, done to tap themselves on their backs and make it seem like work has been done. But no one is fooled.

Not at all.

Without media coverage, it is hard for even myself to know of black founders in US tech.

Did you know the founder of the very popular Calendly was black? He lives in Atlanta and is Nigerian but I only got to know of him recently.

I just wanted to list a few names of people "I KNOW" that are doing spectacular things.

I hope more people make more lists of Black founders. We cannot have enough of them.

Hi, author here.

I live in Lagos, Nigeria but visit Silicon Valley frequently and follow the situation closely.

Being near but far, has given me unique perspectives on these type of issues.

I sent my report to 22 US media companies (the ones covered, NYTimes, WaPo, CNN, Guardian, Wired etc) and was essentially blackballed. Thankfully we can self-publish.

I am here in the comments and happy to answer any questions you may have.

Ammon,

You are Tinder/Ashley Madison stating you want to tackle Facebook and become a social network overnight by making all profiles made in private public.

And your tone deaf response is to keep repeating "WE ARE NOT PUTTING DETAILS JUST YOUR NAME".

Well, what should people that have been married for 15 years do?

While this is so disappointing is that you could have easily executed this by making it opt it. Possibly with a new name.

Email everyone and say we are starting byte.com - LinkedIn for Engineers. A load of people would have signed up and you take it from there.

But you wanted to take the lazy way out and think about today only.

Be smart and retreat.

Feedback.

1. I like the idea and like people have said, it would be good to go beyond the YC "echo chamber".

2. It is important to have some fairly establish (boring) players but there are good reasons why. Longevity amongst others. See:(https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=23244624)

3. It would be a good idea to have an open source option in each category.

It's more of a comment on your previous response than a question.

1. Older companies tend to have wider footprint of real world use in various contexts thereby having a wider "body of work" for objective analysis and review.

2. There is switching cost when you get the 'thank you from the incredible journey" email or blogpost. So it is important to have companies that are self-sufficient and aren't at the risk of being acquired and shutdown which new companies are much more prone to.

PS: It is acknowledged that new companies most likely have fresher takes on old problems but you should also cater for their negatives enumerated above.

There is a shorter period to prepare for a YC interview than to get into the program after passing the YC interview.

Once you get into YC, you can take your time and it is easier to make a case at the embassy.

First of all, the US visa spaces are fully booked. The next open interview slots are somewhere in April so instead of founders trying to prepare for their YC interview, they are spending an enormous amount of time trying to get an earlier slot for a US visa interview.

After managing to get a slot it is another many days of preparing and hoping not to be rejected.

It costs at least $200 per interview in a country where the minimum wage is hoping to be increased to $80/month later this year.

All this is happening as their contemporaries from US and Europe only have to book a flight in 5 mins and return back to preparing for their YC interview and building their startup.

The world is flat indeed!

FWIW, not one of over >30 people interviewed and rejected from Nigeria stayed back in the US illegally. That includes myself and my co founder who were the first Nigeria based founders to get an interview in 2014.

After all, there is a business to be built back home.

Great first steps.

Any plans to have one in a "no visa required" location for people from other parts?

The struggle and stress attending YC interviews puts on Nigerian founders is - to put it mildly, very unfair.

Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya are 2 countries with visa on arrival for everyone and a great air network.[1]

[1] https://www.passportindex.org/byWelcomingRank.php

Hackernews refuses to disappoint.

I bet the comments would have be less sceptical if it was about an 11 year old Nigerian cyber fraudster.

Sorry lads, positive stuff comes out from my country from time to time. Just don't get too upset when it makes Hackernews.

Personally, I'd like to see comments on how such a young and extraordinary talent from a very humble background (even by Nigerian standards) can develop to become a much more rounded artist.

I'm not interested in prejudiced minds questioning the legitimacy of my young and talented compatriot.

Using Brave browser is how I tackle this.. With it you can selectively disable Javascript, ads, etc on any or all sites you visit.