YOUNG NIGERIAN CEO OF THE MONTH JANUARY 2012:

Starting from this year 2012, YoungCEO Magazine will be celebrating emerging Nigerian entrepreneurs from all over the country and abroad every month in a blog tagged "YOUNG NIGERIAN CEO OF THE MONTH" across our platforms. This maiden edition presents some of the Nigerian most promising and brightest young entrepreneurs of this generation. Presenting Mayowa Anibaba, Mcneil Afegbah and Ayodeji Agboola, Co-Founders of FLYMYADS an online advertising platform born out of passion to help Nigerian businesses achieve more in this age and time where internet is now the central of the world business opportunities. Below is the interview, please read, share and be inspired.

Question: Tell us about FlyMyAds?

Answer:  FlyMyAds is an online advertisement network through which businesses and/or entrepreneurs can advertise their goods, products, services and/or events.

Q: What Inspired this idea?

A:  Early 2011 we deployed an online polling service which we called asktheweber. After about four weeks developing the application from ground up it felt good to finally put it online. In order to get traffic, we then decided we needed to launch a full scale ads campaign to market the site using existing ads networks (adwords, facebook ads and the likes) but we faced one bottle neck after the other, ranging from the need of foreign exchange, and the fact that some of this services just won't accept payment from us simply because we were in Nigeria. Hence the idea was born, we felt there should be a way for the everyday Nigerian business to get online adverts with ease and at affordable prices and that's why we built FlyMyAds.

Being young entrepreneurs ourselves, we see the difficult terrain in which the young or budding entrepreneur has to operate. One of our aims is to be a part of the solution by encouraging more and more people to "think outside the box" and become their own bosses. The more entrepreneurs we have, the less the unemployment situation and the better for the economy. And since doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark, FlyMyAds shines the light on your product or service for the whole world to see. It is our wish that more people become self sufficient and FlyMyAds is one tool they will find very useful! Doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark: only you know what you are doing, no one else does. Stop winking in the dark, Start advertising online. Visit www.flymyads.com today.

Q:   The three of you are partners, let's meet you one by one and your role in the company.

A: Okay, here is Mayowa Anibaba, Mcneil Afegbah and I'm Ayodeji Agboola. Mayowa is the Lead Developer, responsible for all the php coding, McNeil is responsible administration and I'm responsible for all the public relations and Marketing.

Q:   How did you guys meet.

A: Well, Mayowa is my cousin so I guess you can say we met a long time ago (smiles). And McNeil is my very good friend of like ten years now! All three of us met for the first time in October 2010, when we decided to build the Asktheweber project. An online polling application at asktheweber.com. A few months after completing that project, we decided to build FlyMyAds.

Q:   How does FlyMyAds help your Clients/Customers?

A: Aaah, good question. Anybody who is serious about doing business has to start thinking of having some form of online presence, simply because we are now in the Information Age. FlyMyAds exposes our customers' products or services to such a large crowd as they cannot achieve by any other means. Imagine about ten thousand people seeing your adverts 2 to 3 times in a day! A good percentage of those people will be interested in what you are selling and a good percentage of these you will convert to your customers!

Q:   What are your competitive advantages? 

A: Let me go straight to the point. Local content! Ease of Payment! With FlyMyAds, it has become a lot easier for the typical local entrepreneur to advertise online, and for payment, lack of a credit card is no barrier. FlyMyAds delivers local content ads to local websites, we offer higher return on investment(R.O.I) for advertisers and greater ads revenue for publishers.

Q:   What are your expectations for the year 2012.

A:  Hmmm, our expectations are high indeed. Come December 2012, we expect to have become a household name. You think online adverts, you think FlyMyAds. Also, we currently serve about 1.5 million ads per month. Come December 2012, we expect to have added another zero to that figure, or two for that matter. Smiles

Q: How do you guys hope FlyMyAds will contribute to the success of Nigerian businesses and Entrepreneurs?

A:  FlyMyAds takes the business owner and the entrepreneur from where they are to a whole new level of product/service exposure. It is also very much needed at this time considering the level of unemployment in the country. We have built a system that every entrepreneur can leverage on. There is no longer any excuse to not advertise online!

Q:  What are the advantages and disadvantages of this partnership Ah, its advantages all the way.

A: We happen to individually have some skill sets that are so curiously synchronized that we ourselves do not fail to notice and be thankful for them. And in the diversity lies the strength because we are able to thrash ideas from all view points and the agree on what's best.

Q:  Where do you see FlyMyAds in 5 years?

A: In Ghana, Kenya, Cameron, a true Giant of Africa powering ads and empowering African entrepreneurs and of course becoming the household name in these places.

Q: What is the Philosophy behind your company?

A:  Being young entrepreneurs ourselves, we see the difficult terrain in which the young or budding entrepreneur has to operate. One of our aims is to be a part of the solution by encouraging more and more people to "think outside the box" and become their own bosses. The more entrepreneurs we have, the less the unemployment situation and the better for the economy. And since doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark, FlyMyAds shines the light on your product or service for the whole world to see. It is our wish that more people become self sufficient and FlyMyAds is one tool they will find very useful! Doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark: only you know what you are doing, no one else does. Stop winking in the dark, Start advertising online. Visit www.flymyads.com today


Thank you guys for your time.