I recently attended a virtual bootcamp programme by Cerespark Labs in partnership with Techparley Africa where a Silicon Valley startup investor, Greg Fox, was invited to speak. During his presentation, he shared something simple but powerful: images of where great companies began.
Hewlett-Packard’s first garage in Palo Alto in 1939, Apple’s early beginnings in the 1970s, and stories like KFC’s long journey through rejection before success.
The message was clear: big outcomes often begin in very small, uncertain places. What stood out to me, however, was not just the stories, but a question he posed afterward.
He listed five factors often associated with startup success:
ideas, team and execution, business model, funding, and timing.
Then he asked: which one matters most?
Before he revealed his answer, I had already settled on mine. Timing.
Why I Chose Timing
Ideas are important, but they are not scarce. Almost anyone can have an idea.
Teams matter, but many startups begin with one person. Execution can grow over time.
Business models evolve. Early-stage startups rarely get them right from the start.
Funding usually comes last. Most startups don’t begin with capital; they earn it or attract it later.
But timing is different. Timing is the gatekeeper. If the environment is not ready, everything else struggles to survive, no matter how good the idea or how committed the founder is.
Timing is not about being early.
It’s about the world being ready to pull the solution.
When the World Isn’t Ready
There are many examples of good ideas that failed simply because they arrived too soon.
Airbnb and Uber could not have existed meaningfully without smartphones, GPS, internet access, and digital payments. The ideas alone were not enough. The infrastructure and user behavior had to mature first.
Closer to home, in Nigeria, there have been startups that attempted to build open banking solutions before regulation, awareness, and institutional backing existed. Some of them shut down, not because the problem wasn’t real, but because the ecosystem was not ready to support the solution.
Only recently has open banking begun to receive official recognition and backing. Those early builders weren’t necessarily wrong, they were just early.
Early, in many cases, feels exactly like being wrong.
When Timing Aligns
During the talk, Greg later shared a ranking that matched my intuition:
timing first, then team and execution, followed by idea, business model, and finally funding.
That alignment made me reflect on my own experience building.
Certain products simply could not exist a few years ago. Artificial intelligence, for example, has reached a point where it is cheaper, more accessible, and more practical to use in everyday problem-solving.
Combined with widespread internet access, search behavior, digital payments, and increasing pressure in areas like education and productivity, new kinds of solutions have become possible. This doesn’t mean the work is easy. It only means the ground is fertile.
Timing does not guarantee success, but poor timing almost guarantees struggle.
More Than Just Timing
Greg also emphasized that strong startups fall in love with the problem, not their first solution. They anchor themselves to problems that are urgent, specific, and persistent.
They have a compelling value proposition, a deep founder-market fit, and a disciplined approach to growth. They build teams and cultures that can adapt, and they develop resilience and grit because the journey is never short.
These points matter. But none of them can fully compensate for a world that is not ready.
A Note to Myself
The lesson I’m taking away is simple, but not easy to apply.
Pay attention to readiness. Not hype. Not noise. Not trends alone. Readiness!
Readiness lives at the intersection of technology, regulation, user behavior, and urgency. When those align, even imperfect ideas can survive and evolve. When they don’t, even brilliant ones can disappear quietly.
This is not a guarantee of success. It’s a reminder to be patient, observant, and honest about the environment I’m building in.
Some ideas die because they are bad, others die because they arrive too early. The work is learning to tell the difference.
Date Written: January 17th 2026
Mohammad-Jamiu Balogun, a first class graduate of Telecommunications Engineering from Bayero University, Kano, is the founder of MonoEd Africa, a startup building AI-powered academic infrastructure for African universities, starting with SIWES and final year projects.
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