@king_namo wrote:
A few years ago, there was a story about Kuluya.com receiving a valuation of $2 million. At that time I argued that the valuation didn't make any sense, considering the quality of games they were deploying. If my memory still serves me, I remember @lordbanks also sharing the same views, he posted a comment on facebook or somewhere.
Being an ardent gamer myself (on multiple platforms including android), I gave advice on a blog post somewhere that Kuluya needed to focus and develop one great Africa themed game, instead of dishing out tons of half baked games. For those who never visited the site, Kuluya developed quite a number of flash based (Africa themed) games, including a briefly popular oga at the top. I played at least 80% of the games and none of them had enough matter to make anyone want to play again. Any true gamer knows a game with a poor replay value won't go far.
Jason sees my comment, responds rudely, then does a full blown rant on his blog about how he raised money for iroko.. blah blah ... just the usual classic 'i know it all' Jason monologue. Digest his resposne here http://www.jason.com.ng/post/49767305610/have-some-fucking-respect-for-nollywood
I make it a duty to monitor and track startups for no apparent reason, may be it is because of a sincere love of the startup communicty.
I find it weird that in just around 2 years of this valuation kuluya cannot even keep its domain up.. I know startups fail.. a good buy message on the index page would have been tolerable or maybe a page redirect or something. 404 not found is just downright shameful especially after such valuations. I think Jason owes us a blogpost on kuluya.
To cut the long story short, I am seeing this same trend in a lot of startups now. Unrealistic startups with unrealistic strategies in unrealistic markets. My opinion is that the start-up scene in Nigeria is off to a faulty start and this may backfire. Currently Nigeria ranks as one the worst places for investors so founders need to be extra careful, especially the media babies who have built a nice reputation for themselves. I hope to share some of my opinions on this in another post.
kind regards.
PS> I have never met Jason
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