Sustainability
A startup of film and animation courses in Nigeria, developing mainly in the regions, will use its geographical location as its strong point. This business must compete primarily in regions far from Lagos, where these courses are not available or represented by a small market share in this area. Given that this industry is experiencing growth, it has enormous potential; therefore, with growth, more jobs will appear (Etuk, 2020; Chindma, 2021). In regions far from the capital, there is weak competition, and therefore this startup can reveal the creative potential of the region students, pay attention to the cultural values and traditions of the territory, offering large companies staff from outside the capital.
The competition in Lagos is relatively high, and therefore the geographical expansion of this company will not include this city shortly. Most of the current schools operate in Lagos, while there are no such opportunities in the regions (MX Film Academy, n.d.; Ai Multimedia Academy, n.d, Top 11 Nigerian Film Schools, 2022). The startup will support competition with similar schools by holding various events and festivals that attract large film companies and other entertainment industry representatives to cooperate. In fact, through these events, the company will also cooperate with other schools, organizing the exchange of cultural experience, but the main goal is to provide jobs for graduates. Online presence is driven by content produced through courses that can be monetized (Ram et al., 2019). The influx of many students will contribute to the corresponding volumes of content produced. The market share will be delegated due to the atmosphere of the approach and the uniqueness of the content. It is crucial, as the selected geographic locations may have various infrastructure problems (Babatunde, 2018). Access to the Internet will reduce the potential risks associated with income from operating activities.
Acceptability
For clients, a logistics route is possible that excludes visiting the office, through which representatives will visit everyone and collect payment. Moreover, the creative process of classes will ultimately depend on the recruited group of students. As a result, this approach will be closer to customers’ focus on their needs, given their difficult financial situation due to the economic situation in the regions (Estell et al., 2019). Since the first selected region will be a pilot project, the reference to other regions will be evaluated by online activity. Conducting online courses by this startup is not considered due to the values underlying the project: uniqueness, emphasized originality, emphasis on the traditions and creativity of students. The online segment in this situation serves as an audience for monetizing the footage, as a marketing platform, and as a feedback tool.
Cities with large populations and little competition have the advantage of very high costs for switching providers of similar services and no alternatives. At the same time, in regions, as a rule, the situation with the purchasing power of the target audience is worse (Akinbolati and Ajewole, 2020). The target audience, in this case, will be young people, who grasp trends, opportunities, and skills to control technology much faster (Barrow, Barrow, and Brown, 2018). The older generation acts as a payer as a parent or someone interested in obtaining a prestigious profession from 30 to 50 years old. The mass recruitment of groups should compensate for the profitability of the business; as a result, the price will be affordable for the population of the regions who do not need to move to the capital and pay the cost of more expensive courses. Therefore, the first discovery region should be demographically dominated by a younger population between 18 and 45 years of age.
Initially, entering the market is accompanied by a basic set of rates, which can subsequently be diversified for several reasons. First, the actual demand will show the profitability of specific courses. Secondly, content creation will require a specific team formed for various roles. Thirdly, the entertainment industry provides a vast space for further development in areas ranging from television to gaming (Tsai and Chen, 2021). Animation and scriptwriting are pretty closely related to making games, which are also gaining popularity among young people. With the expansion of the geographical area, courses will be diversified based on the project operating activities.
Feasibility
Deployment in the most suitable region will require high initial costs, as equipment should be leased on partnership terms, if possible, in order to develop a promising industry for the state. In this case, it is possible to receive any grants from the authorities and cooperate with film companies and streaming services to create a creative cinematic environment in the regions. Skills at the first stage will be required to work with clients, to create a unique atmosphere of an individual approach: personal meetings with each potential participant. These skills are sufficient to realize the value of reputation; however, financial activity will be required to grow and support the company’s resources in the early stages.
Crowdfunding in the situation of the developing economy of Nigeria will be pretty problematic and challenging in the implementation of the award of the project participants. Classical market relations must be established with clients, while support must be sought at higher levels: public or private. The state may be interested in additional jobs, raising the GDP, and exporting films, games, and animation; film companies may be interested in unique content, fresh footage, and regional flavor for new ideas (Olugbemi-Gabriel, 2020; Husseini and Sunday, 2019). Collaborations with colleges, universities, and streaming services can be established after the festivals organized by the company are held, as well as when there is enough content that, with the help of film companies, will be placed on these services.
Rationale
Development implies success in financial terms; therefore, the emphasis can be placed on the creative resources of students: video content that can be monetized and used for marketing purposes. Such content can reveal the tourism, creative and cultural potential of the region, which is essential from the point of view of the geographical approach. The reasons for justifying the choice of geographical location as the primary development strategy are as follows. Firstly, Lagos is overflowing with various schools and courses; they exceed the number of several dozen, while in the regions, such courses are almost absent (Top 11 Nigerian Film Schools, 2022). Secondly, Nigeria is a relatively densely populated country with a large amount of territory around the capital, making it possible to develop, bypassing competitors significantly. Finally, the state is interested in supporting projects that help increase GDP in the most promising areas, including the entertainment industry. Therefore, by bringing opportunities to the regions, a startup can win grants, subsidies, and other government benefits from the authorities, which can help improve the company’s financial performance.
Reference List
Ai Multimedia Academy (n.d.) Web.
Akinbolati, A., and Ajewole, M. O. (2020) ‘Investigation of path loss and modeling for digital terrestrial television over Nigeria’, Heliyon, 6(6), pp. 1-14. Web.
Babatunde, S. A. (2018) ‘Government spending on infrastructure and economic growth in Nigeria’, Economic Research, 31(1), 997-1014. Web.
Barrow, C., Barrow, P. and Brown R. (2018) The Business Plan Workshop: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating and Developing a successful Business. 10th eds. London: Kogan Page.
Chindma, A. (2021). Nigeria – Country Commercial Guide. Web.
Estell, J. K., et al. (2019) ‘Client interaction tools: supporting student professionalism on client-based capstone design projects’, The International Journal of Engineering Education, 35(6), pp. 1953-1968. Web.
Etuk, E. H. (2020) ‘Cluster analysis of Nigerian real GDP’, Ianna Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2(1), pp. 119-132. Web.
Husseini, S. H., and Sunday, O. A. (2019) ‘From Nigeria Film Industry to Nollywood: Land-Marking the Growth of the New Wave Cinema’ in Nollywood in Global Perspective (pp. 25-43). London: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Web.
MX Film Academy (n.d.) Web.
Olugbemi-Gabriel, O. (2020) ‘History, Policy and Cultural Beliefs in Nigerian Video-Films: The Yoruba Film as Praxis’, Islamic University Multidisciplinary Journal, 7(1), pp. 97-103. Web.
Ram, J., et al. (2019) ‘Live streaming video e-commerce: examining the operational strategies’, Younger Generation, 1, pp. 2-12. Web.
Top 11 Nigerian Film Schools (2022) Web.
Tsai, P. H., and Chen, C. J. (2021) ‘Entertainment in retailing: Challenges and opportunities in the TV game console industry’, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 60, pp. 102-105. Web.