The resilience of an entrepreneur is quite fascinating and to see young Nigerian minds walking up that path is a thing worthy of note.
Connect Nigeria spoke with Sadiq Okocha, the creative mind behind Traffix.com.ng, the web app that helps you avoid nasty traffic, and this is what he had to say about his passion.
CN: Tell us about both your professional and educational background
SO: I schooled in Nigeria until I was 14 at the American International School. From there I attended a boarding school called Phillips Exeter Academy. At university level, I studied Petroleum Engineering and I received my Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas at Austin. Immediately after graduating, I returned home to serve my country through the NYSC program. After passing out, I worked for the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria as an Analyst for 9 months before deciding to get a masters in Engineering Management, which I am currently pursuing.
CN: What is the story behind Traffix? When did you start out?
SO: It was while working at AMCON that I came up with the idea for Traffix. I suffered just too many hours in traffic. What should’ve been a 10-minute commute home would consistently take me 1.5 to 2 hours. During my nights and weekends, I would draw up sketches of how I wanted the service to function. I launched the application in July of 2013 and I haven’t looked back since.
CN: How does the Traffix.com.ng work?
SO: Users can subscribe to local governments within the Lagos area to stay up to date on the traffic in those areas. We’ve also developed a state-of-the art algorithm that can read traffic related tweets and classify the traffic rating according to the semantics. A few months ago we added a bi-daily newsletter, where commuters can receive a “snapshot” of the entire Lagos traffic situation before work and on their way back home.
CN: How do you engage your users?
SO: Currently, we are more of a reactive application than proactive. What this means is that users set their preference and receive alerts from select local governments. We also encourage users to provide updates, but we’ve found that the 90-10 rule applies here, which means that 90% of our content is provided by 10% of our users. Therefore, we’re currently exploring new methods of engaging the other 90 percent.
CN: What makes the experience using Traffix.com.ng unique?
SO: We believe in simplicity. There are several Twitter accounts in Lagos that tweet traffic updates all day long. What we’re doing is making sense of these tweets for you and tuning out all the other nonsense that is irrelevant to you. We also believe in creating beautiful things and I think this is evident when you visit our website.
CN: So far, how would your clients/customers describe the services you give?
SO: Convenient. We want to get inside the minds of our customers so we can anticipate our users’ needs before they even know what they want.
CN: Was there any challenge worthy of note that tried disrupting your start-up?
SO: There are others aiming to provide a similar service, but it was us who disrupted the likes of Gidi_Traffic. Since our launch, rumour has it that they are coming for us. I’m not worried. I enjoy competition.
CN: Why should Nigerians download and use the Traffix app?
S.O: Currently we have what is called a “web app”, which means that it’s optimized for mobile viewing, although its not currently available in the app stores. We are still developing our app for Android and iOS and carefully listening to suggestions of our users.
CN: Does Traffix make use of social media like Twitter in its delivery of services to inquirers?
S.O: Traffix is heavily dependent on tweets for our traffic updates. Without Twitter we wouldn’t exist. We aim to further integrate Twitter into our service.
CN: Are there any new features to expect on Traffix?
S.O: We are building an android application while simultaneously working on a graphical model for predicting traffic based on: day of the week, time of day, and historical trends. This is to provide users our “best guess” for when there are no traffic updates for a given area.
CN: What are the three things you can never do without?
S.O: My iPhone, comfortable shoes, water bottle.
CN: What is your long term goal for Traffix?
S.O: We’re definitely scaling up and monetizing our service through a variety of avenues. We’ve also been in talks with several investors based in Nigeria and in Europe and we’re carefully considering our options at the moment.
After we conquer Nigeria, we will be carrying our momentum elsewhere. Ultimately, we see Traffix.com.ng as not just as a traffic solution, but as a technology company that is unafraid to tackle Africa’s biggest challenges. Traffix will be synonymous with quality.
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This article was first published on 14th September 2014 and updated on January 30th, 2017 at 1:32 pm
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The resilience of an entrepreneur is quite fascinating and to see young Nigerian minds walking up that path is a thing worthy of note. Connect Nigeria spoke with Sadiq Okocha, the creative mind behind Traffix.com.ng, the web app that helps you avoid nasty traffic, and this is what he had to say about his passion.
CN: Tell us about both your professional and educational background
SO: I schooled in Nigeria until I was 14 at the American International School. From there I attended a boarding school called Phillips Exeter Academy. At university level, I studied Petroleum Engineering and I received my Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas at Austin. Immediately after graduating, I returned home to serve my country through the NYSC program. After passing out, I worked for the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria as an Analyst for 9 months before deciding to get a masters in Engineering Management, which I am currently pursuing.
CN: What is the story behind Traffix? When did you start out?
SO: It was while working at AMCON that I came up with the idea for Traffix. I suffered just too many hours in traffic. What should’ve been a 10-minute commute home would consistently take me 1.5 to 2 hours. During my nights and weekends, I would draw up sketches of how I wanted the service to function. I launched the application in July of 2013 and I haven’t looked back since.
CN: How does the Traffix.com.ng work?
SO: Users can subscribe to local governments within the Lagos area to stay up to date on the traffic in those areas. We’ve also developed a state-of-the art algorithm that can read traffic related tweets and classify the traffic rating according to the semantics. A few months ago we added a bi-daily newsletter, where commuters can receive a “snapshot” of the entire Lagos traffic situation before work and on their way back home.
CN: How do you engage your users?
SO: Currently, we are more of a reactive application than proactive. What this means is that users set their preference and receive alerts from select local governments. We also encourage users to provide updates, but we’ve found that the 90-10 rule applies here, which means that 90% of our content is provided by 10% of our users. Therefore, we’re currently exploring new methods of engaging the other 90 percent.
CN: What makes the experience using Traffix.com.ng unique?
SO: We believe in simplicity. There are several Twitter accounts in Lagos that tweet traffic updates all day long. What we’re doing is making sense of these tweets for you and tuning out all the other nonsense that is irrelevant to you. We also believe in creating beautiful things and I think this is evident when you visit our website.
CN: So far, how would your clients/customers describe the services you give?
SO: Convenient. We want to get inside the minds of our customers so we can anticipate our users’ needs before they even know what they want.
CN: Was there any challenge worthy of note that tried disrupting your start-up?
SO: There are others aiming to provide a similar service, but it was us who disrupted the likes of Gidi_Traffic. Since our launch, rumour has it that they are coming for us. I’m not worried. I enjoy competition.
CN: Why should Nigerians download and use the Traffix app?
S.O: Currently we have what is called a “web app”, which means that it’s optimized for mobile viewing, although its not currently available in the app stores. We are still developing our app for Android and iOS and carefully listening to suggestions of our users.
CN: Does Traffix make use of social media like Twitter in its delivery of services to inquirers?
S.O: Traffix is heavily dependent on tweets for our traffic updates. Without Twitter we wouldn’t exist. We aim to further integrate Twitter into our service.
CN: Are there any new features to expect on Traffix?
S.O: We are building an android application while simultaneously working on a graphical model for predicting traffic based on: day of the week, time of day, and historical trends. This is to provide users our “best guess” for when there are no traffic updates for a given area.
CN: What are the three things you can never do without?
S.O: My iPhone, comfortable shoes, water bottle.
CN: What is your long term goal for Traffix?
S.O: We’re definitely scaling up and monetizing our service through a variety of avenues. We’ve also been in talks with several investors based in Nigeria and in Europe and we’re carefully considering our options at the moment.
After we conquer Nigeria, we will be carrying our momentum elsewhere. Ultimately, we see Traffix.com.ng as not just as a traffic solution, but as a technology company that is unafraid to tackle Africa’s biggest challenges. Traffix will be synonymous with quality.
