How did the Nigerian billionaires build their fortunes, and what did they say about scaling a business?

The Nigerian billionaires in these interviews credit a mix of hard work, discipline, and relationships. One founder said the foundation of his success was hard work, discipline, and deferring gratification and consumption, and he said that without hard work he couldn't make progress. Another said the way to build wealth in Nigeria is to make other people money, since sustainable wealth comes from helping others. A real estate developer pointed to his name and integrity as his first opportunity to make money, and to perception as central to whether buyers trust a business. A private equity investor credited refusing to take no for an answer as the key to success.

On scaling, the founder who built two billion-dollar companies said the key is systems: when you want to scale, you need to make things automatic, so the business keeps growing if nothing breaks. He also said a billion-dollar company is really a group of people who came together to build one business. The oil and gas and cement billionaire Aliko Dangote described scaling through backward integration, producing goods the company used to import, and he said that in sales you must treat the customer as a king.