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You Can Digitally Supercharge Yourself as an Entrepreneur: Here’s How
By Stephen Newton, Managing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ad Dynamo by Aleph
There is no doubt that Africa is an entrepreneurial continent. As far back as 2017, an African Development Bank report found that the continent had the highest rates of entrepreneurship among working-age adults in the world at 22%. Despite the devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, things have hardly slowed down in recent years. A report from McKinsey, for example, found that the number of African tech startups tripled between 2020 and 2021.
Stephen Newton, Managing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ad Dynamo by Aleph
Nigeria and Ghana’s West African economic powerhouses are no exception to that economic fervour. World Bank data shows that 97,988 new businesses were registered in Nigeria in 2020, and in Ghana (with a population about a sixth as big as Nigeria’s) 18000 new businesses were forecast to be started in 2022.
Those businesses will, of course, be crucial to the region’s ongoing economic growth. But if you’re one of the entrepreneurs behind those businesses, you’ll know that success is far from guaranteed. That makes it critical that you do everything possible to ensure your business is primed for growth. And one of the most effective ways of doing so is to embrace digital marketing and that you get it right from day one.
Digital is still growing in importance, for everyone
That’s especially true when you consider how rapidly internet and smartphone penetration has grown in the region in recent years. Research suggests that there are more than 155 million internet users in Nigeria, representing 55.4% of the population and just under 17 million users in Ghana, representing 53% of the population. And as more and more undersea cables land on the continent, making internet access more affordable and ubiquitous, those numbers will keep growing.
The same is true of smartphones. According to Statista, smartphone penetration in Nigeria grew 10% between 2019 and 2022, hitting just over 37%, and is set to grow another 10% by 2027. While it’s difficult to find equivalent numbers for Ghana, it’s worth noting that nearly 100% of internet users there have a smartphone.
In other words, a sizable portion of any Nigerian or Ghanaian business’s customers are already online and an even more considerable portion will be in the very near future. So in order to reach them, that business has to be online too.
Of course, many early-stage entrepreneurs, in particular, either need help figuring out where to start with digital marketing or feel like they can’t afford it. Those barriers do not, however, have to be challenging to overcome.
As Gaston Taratuta, Founder and CEO of Aleph Group, Inc points out, you can build up digital marketing expertise relatively quickly.
“To become an expert in digital marketing, you have to be curious and certify yourself on digital platforms for free,” he says. “Learn things like Google Adwords; learn to do marketing on different social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. This can be achieved in more or less six months, and you can then put what you have learned into practice.”
As he further points out, building this expertise is already key to thriving as an entrepreneur and will be even more important in the near future.
Additionally, digital marketing is one of the most effective ways for any business to build awareness and engagement with both existing and potential customers. It’s also more targeted, meaning you can get a greater return on investment.
Using the right partner
As important as it is for entrepreneurs to understand the effectiveness of digital marketing and at least have a basic grasp of how to use them, it’s also important to remember that they don’t have to do it alone.
The right media buying partner will help ensure that they’re on the right platforms and are reaching their intended customer bases. They’ll also understand that a business doesn’t always have a major marketing budget and will get it started advertising with relatively small amounts, keeping costs to a predefined frame. Many partners that Aleph is working with additionally offer ‘trial’ budgets at lower minimum costs to allow new advertisers to give it a go and see if they gain value from it. Remember, if they see the same potential in a business as an entrepreneur, they’ll want to grow with it.
No reason to wait
Ultimately, it should be clear that African entrepreneurs can supercharge their growth journeys by embracing digital marketing. Moreover, they can get to grips with it relatively quickly and can affordably get help in maximising their digital marketing efforts.
Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.
The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.
The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.
The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.
Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.
“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.
“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.
The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.
In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.
“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.
During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.
Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.
“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.
Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.
Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.
Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.
The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.
Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.
“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.
She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.
Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.
Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.
WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled its Q4 2025 Network Performance Reports, showcasing nationwide quality boosts fueled by over $1 billion in industry investments and sharper regulatory focus.
NCC
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, hailed the Ookla-backed data as proof of NCC’s drive for transparent, evidence-driven oversight of Nigeria’s digital growth.
The reports track real-user experiences across cities, villages, highways, and nascent 5G areas, revealing faster median download speeds in both urban and rural spots versus Q3 2025.
Video streaming quality gaps between city and countryside have shrunk, thanks to a beefed-up 4G network—yet 5G rollout lags, upload speeds falter, and coverage holes linger in spots.
Maida said NCC is leaning on operators to fix these via spectrum tweaks, infrastructure drives, and stricter service rules, with 2025’s 2,850 new sites already paying off in broader reach and capacity.
Operators pledge even bigger spends in 2026 to keep the momentum, aiming for top-tier connectivity and economic inclusion for all Nigerians.
“We’ll turn these insights into real gains in service and access,” Maida affirmed, calling for sustained industry teamwork.
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