Betting On Lucrative Learnings

Besides running a sports betting platform, Nigerian serial entrepreneur Akin Alabi has turned everyday experiences and learnings into profitable how-to guides online.

- Peace Hyde

Don’t tell Akin Alabi there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. He just might tell you off.

At 41, he has built multiple businesses and has the time for more.

Alabi is the founder of NairaBET, Nigeria’s first an leading sports betting platform, a company he started in 2009 after he identified what he calls “a starving crowd”.

By that, he means a customer base willing and able to pay for services enough for him to make a sizeable profit.

Besides NairaBET, Alabi owns a small football club, has a book-writing business, is into digital marketing, business coaching and seminars, and is also contesting for a seat in parliament in the 2019 Nigerian elections.

The entrepreneur-investor likes to spend his days identifying specific gaps in the market and providing solutions to address them.

Over the years, he has identified many ‘starving crowds’. He found the first one just after completing a diploma in business administration in 2001. At the time, there was a growing desire for Nigerian youth to travel abroad, especially to Canada, in search of greener pastures.

According to data from the Canadian immigration service, as many as 27,625 immigrants from Nigeria were residing in Canada by 2011.

Alabi tried his luck too.

In 2001, after his visa got rejected, he decided to collate his experiences navigating the complicated visa application process and sell that knowledge online to first-time applicants.

“I started downloading information tutorials and videos about the Canadian application process. I put all the information together and said ‘some people will be interested in this so let me put it out there for sale’. So in January 2003, I launched my first business, which was selling information products, and the first was this Canadian visa package,” says Alabi.