7 Steps to Start a Software Company in Nigeria

In this post, I will show you how to start a software company in Nigeria. A software is a instructions, data or programs made to perform a particular task. As the economy is driven toward technology, the demand for software becomes high.

Therefore, presents business opportunities for local businessmen and women to invest in the industry. Almost every sector; education and banking, and commerce, and health, even small and medium enterprises SMEs are relying on software services and software products to operate efficiently and effectively.

Software services and software products all over the world, have a larger market value and have made provision for millions of job opportunities for people who are tech-savvy.

Even at this rate, this market potential is not yet exploited fully in Nigeria hence, the largely underdeveloped software industry in the country.

That out of the way, there is so much index for growth, should aspiring entrepreneurs start a software company in Nigeria in order to take advantage of the fast-growing software industry globally.

What Software Company Does:

What software companies do is to create, and sell, and repair, as well as, maintain software used for instructing, entertaining, studying, analyzing, as well as accomplish a number of different tasks.

Software companies make their gains through commercial activities such as contract services and a charge per transactions, and license fees, and product sales and subscriptions, and repairing system errors, etc.

This simply means that to start a software company in Nigeria, one can actually make a great income, as well as, provides jobs, and technological innovations, including contributing to the growth of the country’s economy.

How to Start a Software Company in Nigeria – A Step By Step Guide:

1. Choose Your Own Niche

You have to choose the type of software company, that you intended to begin as your first step, should you want to own software business.

What you have to do lies in your options of either launching a product or you launch a service software business. Make no decision, until you are sure of having enough experience in your niche.

Know that software industry is one of the most competitive industries, so, make your own service or your produce a good one so that you can have an edge both in the global market and domestic market.

Very important, you have to look at the size of market potential for your software business, and once you do that, you are likely to observe, as well as, study your consumers’ needs.

2. Company Registration; Safeguarding Of Your Patents, And Copyrights, And Trademarks

What is the legal structure of your software business? Get this right first, before you talk about registering your software business name in Nigeria with Corporate Affairs Commission.

What are these legal business structures? They are partnerships, and/or corporations, and/or sole proprietorship, etc.

Anyone you choose will determine your tax fee and filing for your software business. Your lawyer can assist you in selecting an option such that will suit your business the most.

The next step should be to make sure that you safeguard your products or services, and your trademarks and your patents.

Read More: How to register a company in Nigeria

3. Get Capital For Your Software Business

Starting business such as a software company usually takes some times and very importantly also is that, you must secure your financial resources.

There are many ways for instance, which you can get enough funding for your software business, and these include, Commercial banks, or you can secure funds from the investments of some interested persons, who you know, as your reliable way of getting capital for your business.

You can also get grants, plus personal savings, or you can get venture capital funding. Accepting money from venture capital companies will attract equity from your company.

4. Get Every Essential Equipment in Place

For you to succeed in the daily operations of your software company, you have to make sure that you have all the necessary equipment for the operation.

And you must be also sure that these equipment are required devices, and applications, as well as, equipment mainly for software products and software service development.

Therefore, one of your software business budgets will be to buy equipment both for you and the members of your team.

You must have to make sure your team has computers, and servers, and data storage devices, and programming applications, including all the essentials they will need to have the job done.

5. Secure a Space for an Office

Next step will be to secure a space for an office, and when securing a place for an office, take into consideration the location of your office and also the size of your office.

And note that your location should be within and around a business district where there is enough traffic of persons etc.

Your business equipment, as well as the members of your staff, need a commensurable office space for the software business.

You can even hire an agent in the real estate to help make the process of securing an office space easier and perhaps, less time-consuming too.

And suppose, you do not get enough funds to rent an office, just start your business right from your own house, while your own teamwork remotely.

6. Hire A Team Of Personnel

You also need to hire a team of personnel that will work in your software company. No matter the scale of your software company or the size of your software company, it needs personnel who have the right kind of skills to contribute to the success of your software company.

Therefore, make sure that you employ the right kind of personnel, who you know have the necessary expertise especially in the area of programming, and computer security, and hardware engineering, and project management, and office assistance among others.

Also make sure that you offer your key staff incentives, for example, stock options.

7. Then get your Products and Services to the Market

Your software company will need the services of expertise of marketing professional or a professional company to help you in getting your products or your services to those who will need the products or the services, for example, in the area such as advertising your services and products on popular websites or on popular media platforms. What is marketing then?

Marketing is strategizing your means of creating awareness for your product and your services.  It is expert marketing consultants who usually receive feedback on every product or service from potential buyers.

And it is the inputs of these customers that normally help during the decision making in the company especially when it has to do with the product or service development phase. These buyers are the reservoir of information for your company products/services including your marketability.

Conclusion:

Software services and software products all over the world, have a larger market value and have made provision for millions of job opportunities for people who are tech-savvy.

The demand for companies that make software in Nigeria is true, on the rise, and  therefore, this has presented business opportunities for local businessmen and women to invest in the industry, because every sector like,  education and banking, and commerce, and health, even small and medium enterprises SMEs are relying on software services and software products to operate efficiently and effectively.

Having said that., there is so much index for growth, should aspiring entrepreneurs start a software company in Nigeria, and in this article, l have highlighted some possible steps to start a software company in Nigeria.

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