Growing up in a Nigerian community, I could not help but appreciate how kinship is handled — where people around you see helping as both a responsibility and a right owed to one another. I have benefited from this greatly, starting with parents who have invested practically everything to set me up in life for good. And we see others helping out as the scope of the support requires climbing other rungs to achieve certain desired results. This support has come in the form of introductions, referrals, monetary support, and the list goes on.
Honestly, I am immensely grateful for the help I have gotten over time. And probably this has made a prima donna out of me. Because as I started my entrepreneurial journey early in my career, I expected that kind of community to exist for entrepreneurs. The community where you get mentorship and professional guidance, financial investment for a return, sponsorship and patronage, etc. This is one of my fantasies in life.
The reality is that the support I seek is met with a cold and demanding culture of institutional funding. This is totally understandable. But the gap between potential and support is where I locate the idea of Investment Kinship. The concept is about a structured relationship through which individuals, institutions, and communities combine financial resources, knowledge, access, credibility, and practical assistance to help promising builders develop their capabilities and turn ideas into viable, responsible, and valuable enterprises.
This idea is not going to redefine the traditional investment approach, as it appears to offer a soft landing to how investing is done for the development and support of original ideas. Again, Investment Kinship is not setting out to reinvent the wheel in the aspect of venture capital, angel investing, and so on. I am introducing an investment model that I am building my cross-fertilization hub on. This is the hub’s value proposition.
But the gap between potential and support is where I locate the idea of Investment Kinship.
I consider this article an introduction to another branch of investment that I want the key players to look into. In other words, I am writing to the rungs about Investment Kinship. The rungs are the (budding) stakeholders of the economic support system. I mean the typical pre-seed investors, etc. Probably thinking about this concept aloud will help stress-test and safely test its relevance.
The Challenge
Access to funding can be very gruelling for some and, for most, a dream that cannot come true. A builder can have an idea worth pursuing, the conviction to pursue it, and the willingness to do the work, yet still lack the resources, relationships, and institutional support needed to make progress. Unfortunately, some of them give up on the idea altogether as they do not have the chance to put what they know to use.
Elsewhere, a person with access to capital, expertise, or influence may be willing to help out but lack a reliable way to identify where the assistance would make a difference.
None of these factors do any good in the building ecosystem. Both sides tend to lose by sending and receiving the wrong signals. This is a great threat to some people who have original ideas that they are passionate about, because they have been slammed with communication, clarity, mediocrity, evaluation, and value-creation problems; they have stopped thriving. To the extent that they do not see some investors as naysayers, but they see themselves as the problem, trying to work on their judgment when it is likely coming from a place of exploitative behaviour
If you have not saved up for decades to start your entrepreneurship, or you have access to generational wealth, you will not be able to set up a business, or you scale through sheer exertion, and probably chance encounter. Some who build from the trenches will have to content themselves with living out their nightmares.
An investor does have the right to carry out legitimate scrutiny. Investors may reasonably ask about customer demand, ownership, costs, execution, governance, and the likelihood of a return. Financial capital carries risk, and responsible investors must assess whether an opportunity justifies the resources committed to it.
The same applies to a founder too. For no reason on earth should a founder be subjected to unequal bargaining power, unclear expectations, or poorly designed support arrangements in a way that undermines the founder’s ability to build or shows a lack of respect for what he is building.
Investment Kinship is the proposed solution that creates balance between these two problems.
I have always wanted to build a cross-fertilization platform whose premise is Investment Kinship, allowing users to build whatever it is they are passionate about while filtering their work through a business creativity framework that would afford them the ability to make the right decisions. That way we have a division of labour. The investor’s job will be what it is to fund projects with agreement on ROIs. Other professionals, whether advisory, legal, and so on, will have their agreed-upon commissions for their services. And the founder operates on a legal agreement for transparency and accountability.
Some who build from the trenches will have to content themselves with living out their nightmares.
At the core of the platform is community. It is a support system based on relational principles.
My Motivation
I started early in business journalism, and I have been very close to the problems some of the entrepreneurs face. I think the story of somebody I will refer to as Max illustrates something powerful about the threats that exist in the support systems today.
The first time I encountered Max was when he was featured on a TV program for building a car single-handedly. It went viral, and a lot of people knew about him, celebrating such ingenuity on African soil. Later, I met with him in person and was surprised that nothing had changed about him; I interviewed him.
At first, I could not accept the fact that he was unable to leverage the publicity and exposure he had gotten to position himself in front of people who would truly appreciate his craft. When I asked what happened, he said that the publicity was just a facade — he had not received the actual support needed to finish his car project at the time.
Then I asked,
Who is supporting you now?
My girlfriend!
As I left him, I felt sorry for him because he experienced the sad reality of fragmented access to capital, infrastructure deficit, informal networks, and unresponsive market institutions. I shared with him a strategy on how to manage the constraints and leverage the exposure he has gotten, and how to be able to turn the support from his girlfriend into something tangible.
But then I ask the question…
How come there is no support system like his girlfriend for him? Because I can make the argument that his girlfriend supported him not because she understands the big picture of what he is doing, but because she could perceive the obsession and the conviction in doing what he has to do.
The last time I saw him. He had finished building the car. A magnificent project beautifully crafted, and it’s an elegant piece of art. I observed that he placed the stickers of a particular brand known for rewarding creativity. I did not ask him to confirm if they supported and invested in him. But the direction I see he was going with his work points to somebody who also has an understanding of how to seek help in the right place.
The market feasibility of what Max is doing might not at first look financially profitable to investors. Investors who apply Investment Kinship prioritize the drive, including his work ethic as a founder, above the financial gain. A promising idea may be dismissed before its underlying problem is properly understood. A founder may be criticised for weak communication without being helped to clarify the proposition. Another may receive funding without access to the expertise, relationships, or operating discipline needed to use it well.
More often than not, investors should prioritize signals more than they do clarions. This is evident in Max story. Something similar happened to me. I discussed with my mom that I needed time to set up my creative agency from home. At first, she agreed. I remembered when I made my first cent. o.18, I was so happy that I went to show her. I did not realize the event would end my probation. I could not defend myself; I had to honour her wish and started working for somebody. The ordeal with the employment changed my mother’s outlook about the work I do. She supported me with funds to get my laptop. She showed more understanding regarding certain decisions surrounding the workflow. In the same vein, instead of ending a potential before it kicks off, investors and founders alike will need to understand the importance of a momentum scale of ideas.
An effective support system should help them become more capable without making them less original. The task is to challenge weaknesses, refine execution, and preserve what makes the work distinctive.
Protecting Creative Potential
Talented people should not have their distinctive creative abilities suppressed simply because they need guidance, resources, or time to mature. An effective support system should help them become more capable without making them less original. The task is to challenge weaknesses, refine execution, and preserve what makes the work distinctive.
The benefits of this are endless. For a typical African entrepreneur who is close to the problems, knows the solutions required, and understands their viability. That is what I intend to achieve with my course. 500 STEAM’s ultimate goal is Investment Kinship, but in the meantime, it is using business creativity to inspire 500 African entrepreneurs, founders, creators, professionals, and investors to develop the awareness, frameworks, and practical habits needed to turn ideas into offerings that can work, earn trust, and sustain themselves.
500 STEAM is a community of like minds who will apply Investment Kinship to benefit themselves and the ecosystem. It is a task force set up to protect creative potential on African soil. These are the ones who know true progress happens when we stop punishing founders for lacking pedigree and start treating their potential as just as important. And the same applies to founders who know that building continues regardless of the cold balance sheets, but focus on ensuring that their brilliant minds are never again forced to abandon their creations in the trenches.