@David, can we start petitions for these cases? Get justice for Friday Emeh and get that NoreBase company to pay compensation to Sidebar for intellectual theft...
Hello David. Thanks for another great effort. I enjoy reading your investigative stories and I'm thrilled by the incredible way you apply yourself to get to the bottom of any matter you cover. But not everyone is thrilled. And I'm not talking about the government and people who are the villains in your stories. No, I'm talking about non-involved people like me who read you.
Your journalistic style was the subject of debate in a WhatsApp group of professionals in the communications industry. People were unhappy about the fact that you don't give the villains in your story a chance to state their own side before you publish, you don't make any effort to interview them and hear from them. People expressed the view that you seem to have a made-up mind based on what those you consider victims in your story have said and you arrange the facts and circumstances in such a way that they give credence to the victim's position.
I know you have written before that you're not a conventional journalist. That's fine. Your readers and admirers don't want you to become one in our brown-envelope-infested system. But there are time-honoured traditions of journalism that readers would expect writers - whether they consider themselves conventional journalist or not - who conduct investigations into real issues to respect. For example, hearing from all sides and ensuring that all parties enjoy the right to fair hearing. There is also the tradition of laying the facts bare without your own biases or sensational twist getting into the story, and leaving the audience to come to their own conclusions based on the facts you've presented without embellishments.
I think you need to pay attention to these concerns, so as to keep on your side a lot of the serious minds who still read you. It will be sad to have this class of readers go because they feel your platform is no different from gossip blogs like....
That is why he is not conventional, so if the villain feels his or reputation has been brought to disrepute he or she can head to the court for justice, he is avoiding the banana peel that has consumed most of the conventional journalist.
I hear you and the defence you've put up on David's behalf. I don't know if he agrees or not. But I'll like to know from you or him if it's too much to ask that he at least makes the effort to hear from the other side before publishing. If they don't volunteer anything or don't even bother to pick his calls or reply to his emails, he can report that as part of the story. That will make for a more balanced, fair and objective reporting.
I have no doubt that David's incredible talent WILL ALWAYS command an audience. But I'm sure that even he will become concerned if his audience eventually takes on the shape and appearance of the audience of our gossip blogs, which are given to sensationalism.
David is not running a gossip blog (I hope I'm not assuming wrongly on his behalf). David is investigating and reporting on serious and dangerous issues, which could put him in harm's way. His reportage is attracting serious minds, some of whom have become fans. But now some of the serious minds are saying, 'Wait a minute, why is he not interviewing the other side and giving them a chance to state their own side? Why does he draw conclusions based on a single side and drive his story from that angle?'
I think David should heed these concerns. He needs these serious minds on his side.
Aniekan, Aniekan...your submission is not bad, but with this kind country and the people wey inside am. I don't see that happening. Can you tell me of any journalistic investigation like this in Nigeria that presented equal and balanced reporting with the villain presenting their story? I doubt it. The best you see is to put up a defensive and blatant denial. How many thieves willingly confess to their crime? Now, I feel David opens a new path or opportunity for the professional WhatsApp group you are in for someone or the group to present to the public the missing balance/side from David's. That way the serious minds you talked about will have balanced views. While he's the Yang, let someone be the Yin for YinYang ☯️
I hear you and note the point you've made, and must thank you for your comment. Well, now that the big masquerade (David) himself has responded, choosing to do so through a masterstroke of a piece on BusinessDay, further discussion on this matter will have to follow on the back of the BusinessDay article. See link below:
These are two separate stories designed to bias the readers mind. The first one to create a false oppressor/oppressed narrative about “little” competition between startups.
Do you have an vile agenda against Norebase and Iyin. These are startups and decks are public for all to see. Similar startups will go to YC in the same cohort, funded by the same investors.
At some point many ideas will conflate and be outright copied. Execution can’t be copied though, it’s not literature. The work is what you’re paid for, not a fiction(“plagiarized” or not) on PowerPoint.
“Zuckerberg created an account on MySpace to before, while building Facebook”, if he didn’t his product/research team did and vice versa. Lead with that story and let’s see if it gets so much emotions lol.
An investor should tell you if they have conflict of interest or may not tell you when you send them your pitch if they have invested in the same.(they don’t have to).
It’s a marathon of multiple executions, stop the sensationalism and just stick with the facts. If anything sidebrief is supposed to be happy another group validated their idea as viable and worthy of $1m investment.
I would have been so glad if the emotions can turn to funding for sidebrief sha. Like put a gofundme or something at the end for everyone with pitchforks to pitch in for team sidebrief. A healthy competition is good for everyone and the customer wins every time.
That said, work on your ideas and stop bitching about a pitch deck that has been copied.
Your hard work will be stolen from you in broad daylight, nobody will come to your aid but just write comments such as this you wrote and you won’t be able to do anything about it. Can I get an “Amen”? Rubbish.
So disheartening. Wolves in sheepskin. Karma will meet with Y'all one after the other. Can you imagine the effrontery? Bold thieves. Not sure Natwarlal did up to these
What intellectual property? The SideBrief deck that was uploaded says: "Our Solution We have built the Stripe Atlas + Carta for Africa." So I guess by their own assertion, this is not an original Idea.
What is important is execution and implementation. Integrating a service such as this into 54 countries is a huge undertaking. I encourage SideBrief to enter the race, so that we can have two companies to provide this service not just one. In the US, LegalZoom, RocketLawyer, Stripe Atlas, Carta, and others are all working to cover the market. And Africa is 3x the size of the US, and can handle more than one player.
This false notion of competition reflects a zero sum game mentality. The real competition is against non-consumption. Getting more companies to use digital platforms, and getting more governments to adopt digital is the real challenge!
The nature of venture capital is that funds see many instances of the same idea, and they cannot be held hostage by the first company to send them a deck. This is why VCs do not sign NDAs for the most part, because they see thousands of decks each year and reserve the right to invest in the company that has the best chance of success. The only solution is for entrepreneurs to out execute. The idea stage is just a tiny fraction of the life of a startup.
Yo. I agree with everything here except you are not taking into account that a future Africa partner is executing on the same idea. So are encouraging folks to setup funds only to pick you out good ideas and run to execute on it?
Before coming to that conclusion, I think it is also important to point out that the founder Tola represented the office of the president of Nigeria to help ratify the African Free Trade Agreement, and he's a lawyer. If anyone is qualified to launch a Pan-African integration company, I believe he is.
This is not the case of grabbing a good idea and running with it. Tola has invested a substantial portion of his career on Pan-African integration. This is the private sector implementation of that vision.
I applaud every startup that pursues the common goal of Pan-African integration. When we are able to access the full scale of the continent we will realize that we are more powerful than we think.
I'm cheering for both Norebase and SideBrief to be honest. And the first to get to Senegal will get the praise from me. Too many startups are focusing on just a handful of countries. If you're not solving my problem here in the country I live in, you're becoming less and less interesting to me as a startup. We need more continental solutions!
Your points are valid, however, the issue isn't about options or competition. It's about intellectual property theft. Can the timing of Norebase's registration be explained? The story already makes one suspect IP theft. It's not made up by David. The onus is on the accused to explain.
You're debating at cross purposes.three points stick out.one, regardless of legalzoom what not,sidebrief digested the idea, adopted it ,drew a plan and submitted.two,norebase obviously iterated his work .all they had to do was incorporate him and get him to work on it for a percentage.three,a VC is a funder and processes execution, not an idea innovator and competitor of ideas they receive. Otherwise an employee at a VC firm can also last claim to a idea that is still in discussion and execute.
I think the point here is the “pitch deck” the idea is certainly not novel, but if you look objectively at both decks, it’s an outright copy and paste, and that’s just disgusting.
Typical Nigerian ways, dishonest and religious with a touch of fancy English. The leaders of a country are a reflection of its people - dishonest, wicked and religious is exactly how I will describe the average Nigerian. E go reach 500 years before Nigeria go fit advance small
Wow, so this is what you guys do right repackage other people ideas. "An African future" Whose African future really,
Nigerian investors very wicked, its either they tell you you have to invest X amount of money in the startup, or the steal the idea and tell you it wont sell, or don't answer you at all.
But this is wickedness at the highest level, do you know hard it is to have the right idea?
Stop trying to play that Steve Jobs Shit, Go and think and execute your fresh idea not stolen idea.
Wow! This is all shades of bad.... how can? Dude literally took everything, like stole someone else's sweat without a second thought or a care in the world! So short of word to describe how I feel about this, very upsetting to say the very least.
Also want justice for Friday Emeh, and hope a human rights group would take up this case to see that this young man gets what's rightfully his. Thieves in high places all over, and no respect or decency shown to the next human.
If the story about Norebase and Sidebrief is true, then, from a legal standpoint, Norebase has done no legal wrong. At best, it has committed a moral wrong. Why? You can steal a business idea insofar as the idea is not protected by any form of intellectual property: copyright, trademark, patent and industrial design.
Yes, the written form of the idea is copyrighted, but not the idea in it. It can be stolen. We can all write a story about a set of twins one of whom was lost to the civil war, without violating Adichie's right to Half of A Yellow Sun.
This is why you make people sign a thick NDA before sharing business ideas with them. That way, they can neither exploit nor disclose it without you getting involved or getting into legal trouble.
Another legal barrier is that of jurisdiction - assuming there is an IP, it's vested in sidebrief which is prolly a Nigerian business while Norebase, the purported thief, is a UK business.
This is quite typical with Nigerians, we prefer outright theft to collaboration.
I've had friends attend hackathons to be told their idea/product isn't interesting only for the organizers to assemble a team to build same from scratch.
I remembered sending a proposal for building WhatsApp chat banking to 19 Nigerian banks in 2018, as usual none responded but 70% of them built same before the end of the year. Was heart breaking and i was naive, spoke to my mentors mentors and they pointed out that i fumbled, I wasn't lucky enough to have paper trails and acknowledgment copies.
See andelaflutterwaveflutterwave’s closing speech... it just captures all. We got stealing’s to do; you can go about thinking it while we worry ourselves with thieving it.
Most of these people are criminals in suits.. A man killed someone and you are asking the killer to explain why he murdered after seeing lots of evidence that proves the murder.
The problem is that is always difficult to believe or honored some of these articles because most of the people involved are seen as our role models. As for me, I trust nobody because I have almost seen it all.
I worked in a hotel for a good 5+ yrs as an IT Support (which gives me access to our server and confidential email by my boss because I was good in what I do)and I saw many things going on in Nigeria that are hard to believe from public servants, government officials, sponsoring of IP theft, etc. I just have to resign because is just too overwhelming and terrible.
@David, can we start petitions for these cases? Get justice for Friday Emeh and get that NoreBase company to pay compensation to Sidebar for intellectual theft...
It might be very difficult to see anything meaningful from both cases
Hello David. Thanks for another great effort. I enjoy reading your investigative stories and I'm thrilled by the incredible way you apply yourself to get to the bottom of any matter you cover. But not everyone is thrilled. And I'm not talking about the government and people who are the villains in your stories. No, I'm talking about non-involved people like me who read you.
Your journalistic style was the subject of debate in a WhatsApp group of professionals in the communications industry. People were unhappy about the fact that you don't give the villains in your story a chance to state their own side before you publish, you don't make any effort to interview them and hear from them. People expressed the view that you seem to have a made-up mind based on what those you consider victims in your story have said and you arrange the facts and circumstances in such a way that they give credence to the victim's position.
I know you have written before that you're not a conventional journalist. That's fine. Your readers and admirers don't want you to become one in our brown-envelope-infested system. But there are time-honoured traditions of journalism that readers would expect writers - whether they consider themselves conventional journalist or not - who conduct investigations into real issues to respect. For example, hearing from all sides and ensuring that all parties enjoy the right to fair hearing. There is also the tradition of laying the facts bare without your own biases or sensational twist getting into the story, and leaving the audience to come to their own conclusions based on the facts you've presented without embellishments.
I think you need to pay attention to these concerns, so as to keep on your side a lot of the serious minds who still read you. It will be sad to have this class of readers go because they feel your platform is no different from gossip blogs like....
That is why he is not conventional, so if the villain feels his or reputation has been brought to disrepute he or she can head to the court for justice, he is avoiding the banana peel that has consumed most of the conventional journalist.
I hear you and the defence you've put up on David's behalf. I don't know if he agrees or not. But I'll like to know from you or him if it's too much to ask that he at least makes the effort to hear from the other side before publishing. If they don't volunteer anything or don't even bother to pick his calls or reply to his emails, he can report that as part of the story. That will make for a more balanced, fair and objective reporting.
I have no doubt that David's incredible talent WILL ALWAYS command an audience. But I'm sure that even he will become concerned if his audience eventually takes on the shape and appearance of the audience of our gossip blogs, which are given to sensationalism.
David is not running a gossip blog (I hope I'm not assuming wrongly on his behalf). David is investigating and reporting on serious and dangerous issues, which could put him in harm's way. His reportage is attracting serious minds, some of whom have become fans. But now some of the serious minds are saying, 'Wait a minute, why is he not interviewing the other side and giving them a chance to state their own side? Why does he draw conclusions based on a single side and drive his story from that angle?'
I think David should heed these concerns. He needs these serious minds on his side.
Aniekan, Aniekan...your submission is not bad, but with this kind country and the people wey inside am. I don't see that happening. Can you tell me of any journalistic investigation like this in Nigeria that presented equal and balanced reporting with the villain presenting their story? I doubt it. The best you see is to put up a defensive and blatant denial. How many thieves willingly confess to their crime? Now, I feel David opens a new path or opportunity for the professional WhatsApp group you are in for someone or the group to present to the public the missing balance/side from David's. That way the serious minds you talked about will have balanced views. While he's the Yang, let someone be the Yin for YinYang ☯️
I hear you and note the point you've made, and must thank you for your comment. Well, now that the big masquerade (David) himself has responded, choosing to do so through a masterstroke of a piece on BusinessDay, further discussion on this matter will have to follow on the back of the BusinessDay article. See link below:
https://businessday.ng/columnist/article/what-more-do-we-need-to-hear-from-the-snake/
These are two separate stories designed to bias the readers mind. The first one to create a false oppressor/oppressed narrative about “little” competition between startups.
Do you have an vile agenda against Norebase and Iyin. These are startups and decks are public for all to see. Similar startups will go to YC in the same cohort, funded by the same investors.
At some point many ideas will conflate and be outright copied. Execution can’t be copied though, it’s not literature. The work is what you’re paid for, not a fiction(“plagiarized” or not) on PowerPoint.
“Zuckerberg created an account on MySpace to before, while building Facebook”, if he didn’t his product/research team did and vice versa. Lead with that story and let’s see if it gets so much emotions lol.
An investor should tell you if they have conflict of interest or may not tell you when you send them your pitch if they have invested in the same.(they don’t have to).
It’s a marathon of multiple executions, stop the sensationalism and just stick with the facts. If anything sidebrief is supposed to be happy another group validated their idea as viable and worthy of $1m investment.
I would have been so glad if the emotions can turn to funding for sidebrief sha. Like put a gofundme or something at the end for everyone with pitchforks to pitch in for team sidebrief. A healthy competition is good for everyone and the customer wins every time.
That said, work on your ideas and stop bitching about a pitch deck that has been copied.
May the best team win.
The name "double o seven" says it all. Another intellectual theft from from James Bond franchise.
Your hard work will be stolen from you in broad daylight, nobody will come to your aid but just write comments such as this you wrote and you won’t be able to do anything about it. Can I get an “Amen”? Rubbish.
This is a stupid and myopic view. It would have been better if you had read with your senses and kust kept shut
Your comment is as bad as the intellectual property theft in question. What a take!! Y’all are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Now, no one is saying they should no copy. You can clearly see that they bullied this guy, the ethical thing to do is to do business with him.
With all due respect man, you're dumb asf. You should have just kept quiet
Future Africa indeed.
So disheartening. Wolves in sheepskin. Karma will meet with Y'all one after the other. Can you imagine the effrontery? Bold thieves. Not sure Natwarlal did up to these
What intellectual property? The SideBrief deck that was uploaded says: "Our Solution We have built the Stripe Atlas + Carta for Africa." So I guess by their own assertion, this is not an original Idea.
What is important is execution and implementation. Integrating a service such as this into 54 countries is a huge undertaking. I encourage SideBrief to enter the race, so that we can have two companies to provide this service not just one. In the US, LegalZoom, RocketLawyer, Stripe Atlas, Carta, and others are all working to cover the market. And Africa is 3x the size of the US, and can handle more than one player.
This false notion of competition reflects a zero sum game mentality. The real competition is against non-consumption. Getting more companies to use digital platforms, and getting more governments to adopt digital is the real challenge!
The nature of venture capital is that funds see many instances of the same idea, and they cannot be held hostage by the first company to send them a deck. This is why VCs do not sign NDAs for the most part, because they see thousands of decks each year and reserve the right to invest in the company that has the best chance of success. The only solution is for entrepreneurs to out execute. The idea stage is just a tiny fraction of the life of a startup.
Yo. I agree with everything here except you are not taking into account that a future Africa partner is executing on the same idea. So are encouraging folks to setup funds only to pick you out good ideas and run to execute on it?
Let’s not encourage this fraud please
Before coming to that conclusion, I think it is also important to point out that the founder Tola represented the office of the president of Nigeria to help ratify the African Free Trade Agreement, and he's a lawyer. If anyone is qualified to launch a Pan-African integration company, I believe he is.
This is not the case of grabbing a good idea and running with it. Tola has invested a substantial portion of his career on Pan-African integration. This is the private sector implementation of that vision.
I applaud every startup that pursues the common goal of Pan-African integration. When we are able to access the full scale of the continent we will realize that we are more powerful than we think.
I'm cheering for both Norebase and SideBrief to be honest. And the first to get to Senegal will get the praise from me. Too many startups are focusing on just a handful of countries. If you're not solving my problem here in the country I live in, you're becoming less and less interesting to me as a startup. We need more continental solutions!
Thanks
Dude. Let it be known to everyone reading this comment that a good diction does not equate intelligence nor morals which you've proven here.
We're not fools
Off key, man. Off key!!! You really don't have a clue or you are deliberately not having a clue.
Who is setting the key? Are we all to sing the same tune?
Your points are valid, however, the issue isn't about options or competition. It's about intellectual property theft. Can the timing of Norebase's registration be explained? The story already makes one suspect IP theft. It's not made up by David. The onus is on the accused to explain.
You're debating at cross purposes.three points stick out.one, regardless of legalzoom what not,sidebrief digested the idea, adopted it ,drew a plan and submitted.two,norebase obviously iterated his work .all they had to do was incorporate him and get him to work on it for a percentage.three,a VC is a funder and processes execution, not an idea innovator and competitor of ideas they receive. Otherwise an employee at a VC firm can also last claim to a idea that is still in discussion and execute.
You deserve one isi ewu!
Mann!! You're so dumb. Like, your brain is so rotten that I can perceive the decay smell from where I am currently. Tueh!
I think the point here is the “pitch deck” the idea is certainly not novel, but if you look objectively at both decks, it’s an outright copy and paste, and that’s just disgusting.
Typical Nigerian ways, dishonest and religious with a touch of fancy English. The leaders of a country are a reflection of its people - dishonest, wicked and religious is exactly how I will describe the average Nigerian. E go reach 500 years before Nigeria go fit advance small
Man, the fact that they were lazy enough to not even change most of the content writing is ridiculous and very bold
That's to show the lack of regard and the effontery they possess to blatantly steal, thinking no one would catch them.
Today's the day. I'm sure with this, more people would come out and expose them all.
Wow, so this is what you guys do right repackage other people ideas. "An African future" Whose African future really,
Nigerian investors very wicked, its either they tell you you have to invest X amount of money in the startup, or the steal the idea and tell you it wont sell, or don't answer you at all.
But this is wickedness at the highest level, do you know hard it is to have the right idea?
Stop trying to play that Steve Jobs Shit, Go and think and execute your fresh idea not stolen idea.
Wow! This is all shades of bad.... how can? Dude literally took everything, like stole someone else's sweat without a second thought or a care in the world! So short of word to describe how I feel about this, very upsetting to say the very least.
Also want justice for Friday Emeh, and hope a human rights group would take up this case to see that this young man gets what's rightfully his. Thieves in high places all over, and no respect or decency shown to the next human.
If the story about Norebase and Sidebrief is true, then, from a legal standpoint, Norebase has done no legal wrong. At best, it has committed a moral wrong. Why? You can steal a business idea insofar as the idea is not protected by any form of intellectual property: copyright, trademark, patent and industrial design.
Yes, the written form of the idea is copyrighted, but not the idea in it. It can be stolen. We can all write a story about a set of twins one of whom was lost to the civil war, without violating Adichie's right to Half of A Yellow Sun.
This is why you make people sign a thick NDA before sharing business ideas with them. That way, they can neither exploit nor disclose it without you getting involved or getting into legal trouble.
Another legal barrier is that of jurisdiction - assuming there is an IP, it's vested in sidebrief which is prolly a Nigerian business while Norebase, the purported thief, is a UK business.
This is quite typical with Nigerians, we prefer outright theft to collaboration.
I've had friends attend hackathons to be told their idea/product isn't interesting only for the organizers to assemble a team to build same from scratch.
I remembered sending a proposal for building WhatsApp chat banking to 19 Nigerian banks in 2018, as usual none responded but 70% of them built same before the end of the year. Was heart breaking and i was naive, spoke to my mentors mentors and they pointed out that i fumbled, I wasn't lucky enough to have paper trails and acknowledgment copies.
They funded a company without original pitch, but a company that Stole from another,
The reason theu refused to call them for defence.
So it's all scam to favour their colleague.
They sent him a copy of the pitch and he dubbed it.
Lord have Mercy, any man that want to steal my sweat will die hanging on a noose
See andelaflutterwaveflutterwave’s closing speech... it just captures all. We got stealing’s to do; you can go about thinking it while we worry ourselves with thieving it.
So disgusting thing of a professional …
Most of these people are criminals in suits.. A man killed someone and you are asking the killer to explain why he murdered after seeing lots of evidence that proves the murder.
The problem is that is always difficult to believe or honored some of these articles because most of the people involved are seen as our role models. As for me, I trust nobody because I have almost seen it all.
I worked in a hotel for a good 5+ yrs as an IT Support (which gives me access to our server and confidential email by my boss because I was good in what I do)and I saw many things going on in Nigeria that are hard to believe from public servants, government officials, sponsoring of IP theft, etc. I just have to resign because is just too overwhelming and terrible.
What is so awesome abt this article is all the information that back it up. Very detailed. I sincerely hope Friday umeh gets his Justice
@David should I be worried cause I sent out a mail to Flutterwave and its founders both on LinkedIn and Gmail regarding my Startup.