The Inspiration

My passion for small businesses was ignited when, during my 15-year banking career, I was opportuned to work with SMEs as "Retail Banking" and "Commercial Banking" customers. It got to a head when I was asked to head the SME Desk of my bank, providing advice to entrepreneurs who wanted to access equity investment capital under Nigeria's Small and Medium Industries Equity Investment Scheme (SMIEIS).

During that assignment, as I reviewed a lot of proposals and discussed with a lot of enterpreneurs, it became very clear to me that the needs of small businesses go far beyond finance. But some of them don't realize that.

My stint at the Lagos Business School MBA program about the same time also opened my eyes to how countries like Taiwan, Korea, Israel and even Botswana have gone about developing their small business sector. I also noted how the American economy has benefited from government initiatives like the Small Business Administration (SBA) and private initiatives such as Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, StartupJounal.com, etc.

I decided in 2003 to start building Africa's equivalent of Inc.com. That is how SMEclub was birthed - as an online business commnunity for African businesses to interact, share ideas, access quality information and business tools to enhance their competitiveness.

Get Involved

I invite you to partner with us by sharing your ideas and knowledge with the community: submit your articles, participate in our forum discussions, publish your events, market your products and services in our free classifieds section, participate in our surveys and polls. Its all FREE and you can earn points for just about anything you do on our website.

Once again, welcome to the SMEclub community and please help us build the community by telling you friends about us.

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