NPR: The Powerlessness Of Nigeria's Tech Startups

This post first appeared on NPR.

Chris Oyeniyi runs a small tech startup in Lagos, Nigeria. It's a smartphone app called KariGO that he says is "like Uber but for trucks." Businesses or factories can use it to hire big semitrucks to move their products around the country. He started it in 2016 and now has 11 office staff members, and he owns a few dozen trucks.

But unlike Uber, which operates 24/7, Oyeniyi says the app is limited to normal business hours. He wants to keep it open around the clock but faces what has so far been an insurmountable obstacle. It's not a staff shortages, government regulations or software glitches.

"One thing will not allow us to do that," he says. "Electricity."

Oyeniyi says he pays about $800 every month to keep the lights and computers on in his small office. The reason for the high cost? Power from the government-run electrical grid is cheap but goes out so often — multiple times a day, every day — that he is forced to rely on a loud, fume-belching, diesel-sucking generator. It's too expensive to fuel and maintain beyond the bare minimum number of hours.

To keep reading, click here.