Meet Adeshina Adewumi, entrepreneur re-inventing online marketing
Adeshina Adewumi is the Chief Operating Officer for Proville.net; Africa’s pioneer online service market place that provides a platform for professionals and their prospects (businesses and individuals).
Proville.net was inspired out of the desire to bridge the gap between professionals and their customers through digital platforms. The Proville dream is to drive excellent service delivery while helping in creating jobs for the Nigerian youths and across Africa.
Proville.net a platform under Proville Business Solutions Limited was duly registered in 2016 though commenced business operations in 2017. The dream and sustenance of Proville.net has since commencement of operation leveraged on support from her visionaries.
The accountant-turned-COO of one of the fastest growing online service market place, tells Start-Up-Digest that the business has tremendous opportunity for growth within the short time of its operation, but adds that there are still more milestones to cover.
“Proville as a brand has shown remarkable achievements within one year. We have so far released our platform—Proville.net—and the turnout have really been remarkable. The truth is that every milestone covered gives room for new milestones. We are still at 1.0 and aspire to grow upwards, as growth never stops,” Adeshina says.
Proville.net has a good, strong and sustainable business model, which has kept us in business despite challenges in the country.
“Our platform allows subscribers the option to escrow your payment. By escrow, I mean we hold the funds in trust until the customer is satisfied with the job done and authorizes for funds to be released. We also allow for direct payment, which is very rare in the industry,” the young COO says.
“We are the first online service market place to launch out, with web and mobile (IOS and Android) on their respective stores, concurrently giving our users opportunity to work and collaborate on-the-go.
“We also provide real-time ratings and portfolios of our professionals and their prospects (businesses and individuals), so that they can have an index to base their choice of professionals when searching for professionals or prospects on our platform,” he explains.
Speaking on the business expansion plan, Adeshina says, “Our next phase would be to invest heavily in our professionals through our incubator hub, which should be kicking off within the next few months.”
“We also understand that one of the challenges professionals experience is having a space to work from. So, we will be opening up our space for co-working arrangement to our registered professionals with good access to internet facilities and well-fitted office equipment to facilitate remote working and access to the global work opportunities,” he further says.
Answering questions on the challenges facing the business, Adeshina says that poor infrastructure has remained the biggest issue confronting businesses generally in Nigeria. For us at Proville, piloting using clean energy is part of our strategic plan.
The business needs constant power supply, reliable internet and data services to drive online engagement and remote working according to him, noting that the business cost of production has been on the rise due to huge spending on power and internet.
“Our business model needs you to be online and active 24/7 in order to get projects done within agreed time frame, but with incessant disruption of power supply, we have to generate our own power— and this has continued to impact operational costs,” he admits.
He identifies multiple taxation as another challenge confronting the business.
Adeshina urges various tax agencies in Nigeria to work and streamline the country’s tax system while providing incentives for start-ups and other Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SMEs) operating in the country to increase their survival rate.
He commends the Federal Government for its VAIDS initiative, but stressed the need for more collaboration between businesses and tax agencies for increased rate compliance.
“Effective collaborations with the government at various levels
(Federal, state and local) can produce amazing results. Our business model is also in line with the current administration roadmap around the ease of doing business and reducing unemployment concerns in Nigeria.
The opportunity abounds for both professionals and businesses.”
On his advice to other entrepreneurs and start-ups, Adeshina says, “Commitment is the first word: You have to be committed to your drive. People would only celebrate what you celebrate. Consistency is second: Never give up on your way up. Capacity is the third C: Build capacity and skills and opportunity would find you out. Any idea or start-up would shine with this 3Cs. It’s just a matter of time.”
He also speaks about an upcoming event ‘Future of Work’ powered by Techpoint.ng, holding on the 29th of May 2018.
“The Proville team would be there live to sign-up new professionals and businesses ready to use our platform,” he adds.