Africa’s Next 7 – DBD Africa

Ready to Scale Your Startup?

APPLY NOW to become one of Africa’s Next 7.

Whether you’re about to go from idea to launch or you’re now ready to scale, the Africa’s Next 7 program will give your business a tailored brand framework that will set up its foundation. For Life.

About Africa’s Next 7

Growing and scaling a startup in a crowded market-place is one of the hardest parts of the building journey. The more insight you have about what your true competitive advantage is, the better positioned you will be to attract and retain your target audience.

If you're an entrepreneur looking for a tailored playbook on how to stand out from your competitors to help you scale faster, we invite you to join and benefit from this FREE program.

At DBD Africa, we are on a mission to provide startups equal access to QUALITY branding information and the AFRICA’S NEXT 7 program is an initiative that supports our commitment.

AFRICA’S NEXT 7 aims to help 7 founders & teams gain insight to tested and trusted branding strategies leveraged by successfully established organisations on a yearly basis.

This program will give your startup:

i. CLARITY: Great communication begins with clarity - the strategy session in this program is guaranteed to help your team achieve this.

ii. SPEED: With clarity of purpose and vision, comes speed. After the strategy session, your team will help the team move faster all round and can help leaders make better growth-focused decisions.

iii. ALIGNMENT: Want to have all departments of the business aligned? This program is the perfect solution.

The application for this program will be on for 3 weeks and will close on the 9th of December, 2022.

What Your Startup Will Gain From This Program

Lay The Foundation with a Seasoned Branding Expert

You and your team will get access to a session with a dynamic team of brand builders led by seasoned brand strategist – Onyeka Nwobu with projects from household names such as GTBank, Nampak Bevcan & First Bank of Nigeria under her belt.
Ready-To-Use Brand Framework

Save your team from the arduous task of always having to start from scratch with a tailored framework that will set up the foundation for your brand building efforts – for life.
Game-Changing Team Alignment

Never have to worry about getting ALL departments on the same page, ever again. Get your team the clarity and alignment they need to move with speed and efficiency.

See What Startup Founders We Have Worked With Have To Say

The strategy session with DBD AFRICA completely exceeded our expectations. We particularly liked that the team not only took the time to understand our business but also our needs and the experience felt customized & uniquely tailored to us. As a startup, you need to work with consulting agencies that inspire confidence and get your team to open up and DBD does that excellently.

We built the business from scratch solely off of the brand and chose to focus on personal stories and community. This now makes it 10x easier to develop high value products because everyone involved knows that they are a part of something bigger than themselves. The strategy is REAL.

The strategy session with DBD AFRICA was truly insightful and helped us think deeply about the value we are providing to customers by helping us hone our customer needs, competition and how to bring our brand to life. Before DBD AFRICA, we had an idea of the result, after working closely with the team, we started understanding how to get to our destination.

Akan NelsonCo-founder and CEO, Evolve Credit

Ifeoma Billion NwobuCo-founder, FRUGIRLS

DBD AFRICA helped us hone our customer needs, competition, and how to bring our brand to life. Before DBD AFRICA, we had an idea of the result, after working closely with the team, we started understanding how to get to our destination.

Emeka Mba-Kalu Co-founder, Sendstack

Assess and Audit

This program will kick off with a 30-minute audit session in which we will audit your startup’s existing brand before our deep dive.
Discover

Next, we will dig deep and build out a framework that the brand can leverage for future branding efforts through a 3-hour Strategy session.
Outline

The tailored strategy session will be followed up by a simple framework document that can be leveraged to supercharge brand strategy & marketing efforts.
Feedback

At DBD Africa, we place very high value on feedback as that helps us know how effective our frameworks are and how best to improve them. This is why we’d love to create a video review of the session by a representative in team leadership.

Is Africa’s Next 7 Program Right For Me?

WHO THIS PROGRAM IS FOR
You and your team have an impact-led story and you are building beyond profit to make real change.
Your startup’s solution is solving a problem for Africa.
Your startup’s solution is powered by technology.
You are ready to make the time to examine all things strategy, business development, brand-building and creative.
You’re ready to invest the time to create or align a team that works like a well-oiled machine.
You and your team really NEED strategic guidance to scale.

WHO THIS PROGRAM IS NOT FOR
You are building solely for profit.
Your startup’s solution is not targeted at solving a problem for Africa.
Your startup’s solution is NOT powered by technology.
You are too busy to invest your time in things like strategy, business development, brand-building and creative.
You do not value expert advice from someone who’s been there.
You believe your startup is already on the right track as far as brand-building is concerned.

NOTE: This program is NOT solely created for female-led startups only however, startups with women in their leadership teams will be given preference.

Meet The Facilitator

Hi, I’m Onyeka Nwobu, founder and director of strategy at DBD Africa.

7 years ago, I set out in the world of branding in which I worked across verticals including Finance, FMCG, Technology, Venture Capital, E-commerce and Logistics amongst others.

During this time, I collaborated directly with executives and business leaders at top organisations both locally and internationally which gave me insight I leveraged to build my first business - a resale platform that garnered recognition across continents.

While working with these established organisations, I observed that new-to-market players had little to no insight on the brand building strategies leveraged by top leaders.

Even bigger than the lack of insight is the lack of access to QUALITY branding information which has made top-level branding almost unattainable to new industry contenders.

This is why we are launching AFRICA’S NEXT 7 - a program designed for startups looking to scale through the power of strategic branding.

In this program, we will host 7 promising players in the African startup space to 7 power strategy sessions where we will share insights leveraged by industry leaders to help them lay a solid foundation for their brand building efforts.

Are you building a startup that can scale globally?

Apply to become one of Africa’s Next 7.

FAQs

WHEN WILL THE PROGRAM START?

This program is scheduled to run from 16th – 27th of January 2023. Each startup will have the opportunity to select their preferred date for their tailored strategy session.

WILL I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY SESSION?

No. Each session hosted by DBD Africa will be facilitated at no charge.

WHAT WILL MY TEAM & I BENEFIT FROM THE STRATEGY SESSION?

After this session, a brand framework will be hared with you and your team. This can be leveraged for subsequent brand building & marketing efforts.

IS THIS PROGRAM LIMITED TO STARTUPS BASED IN LAGOS OR NIGERIA?

No. This program is open to all startups solving a problem for Africa.

ARE THE SESSIONS PHYSICAL ONLY?

While we do encourage physical strategy sessions, Africa’s Next 7 strategy sessions will also be held virtually.

HOW LONG WILL MY STARTUP’S SESSION LAST?

Each startup will have the opportunity to select a preferred date and specific timeframe in which DBD Africa will facilitate an audit and then an in-depth strategy session.

After this, you and your team will receive a tailored brand framework within 7 days of your session.

CAN MY TEAM WORK WITH DBD AFRICA AFTER THIS PROGRAM?

Yes. DBD Africa is open to client partnerships. Kindly note that you will be charged a consultancy fee (dependent on the scope of work) for this.

HOW OLD DOES MY STARTUP HAVE TO BE TO APPLY?

This program is ideal for startups that are about to go from idea to launch or have been in existence for 1 – 3 years.

However, startups with more advanced business life spans who are looking to increase their brand equity or rebrand completely are also welcome to join the program.