The rise of Editi Effiong’s Anakle

Editi Effiong founded Anakle Limited in November 2010 after working as a country manager for XEQ Technology and project manager for Thompson & Grace Group.

Effiong’s vision was to create a leading digital agency in Nigeria, an investment company and incubator for technology businesses.

Anakle currently provides internet marketing for brands and agencies, web and product design services, as well as strategic communications.

Effiong was not like many young Nigerians who didn’t have the benefit of operating computers early. His mother provided a desktop computer at home at some point, from which he learnt design on MS Paint and Powerpoint. Effiong admitted that it was FrontPage (a Microsoft tool) that actually changed his life.

In an interview he had with Techcabal, he said he learnt how to build websites at age 18.

He explained that he had been longing to learn how to build a website until an incident occurred.

“One day, I was out with our gang of boys looking for girls when a friend came back from the cafe, late for our rendezvous at his home. His apologies included the words ‘Sorry, I was building my website, I forgot the time’. It was my lucky day. I had been wondering how websites were created, and here was a friend of mine who already knew how to do it. I asked which site he used, and he told us all. I left the boys to continue with the adventures, and went to the café,” he told Techcabal.

He subsequently learnt the use of WYSIWYG web builder and later had his personal website. He explained that he got his first client one week later, who paid N8, 000 for building a free website, but he spent the money buying Nike sneakers. However, this was the beginning of great things to come.

Four weeks after, the same client was ready to pay N12,500. This encouraged him to form a company with business cards and letter head. He then moved from being ‘I’  and ‘me’ to ‘we’ and ‘us’, which experts say is key for growth.

Thereafter, he started getting phone calls. One day, he got a call from Akwa Ibom and wanted to charge a client N75,000. However, he decided to raise it while he got there to N300, 000.

He later learnt PHP and then coding, both of which helped to transform his life.

Today, his firm has delivered services to FirstBank, Access Bank, Procter &Gamble, Coca-Cola, British Council, Interswitch, Airtel, UBA and Glo, among others

ODINAKA ANUDU