Today, I am featuring an email interview I recently had with Temi Kolawole, co-founder of Antigravity Inc., a web design company founded in 2004 that offers solutions in all of the major programming languages (PHP, .NET, Ruby on Rails & JSP), search engine optimization (SEO) as well as web 2.0 design standards.

SN: Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?

Temi: I graduated from Babcock University, Nigeria with a B.Sc in Computer Engineering in 2004. I’m an extremely driven person. I’m a son of two professors. I love God and music. I’m a geek, but many of my school friends didn’t think I was till recently and found it hard to believe I was the one building all these websites. I’m a regular “omo boy”. After graduation, I basically just set my mind on mastering this internet thing, and learning as much as I could. I believe anyone can become a guru if he/she puts his/her mind to it.

I do coding, graphic design, flash animation, SEO, and basically every aspect of web design to a pretty good standard. The internet has become like a sixth sense for me…I’ve watched it grow and evolve and I can analyze any website’s technology at first glance.

SN: What is the name of your blog/start-up/company?

Temi: My Company is called Antigravity Inc. found at www.antigravityinc.com

SN: Please tell us about your blog/start-up/company?

Temi: Antigravity is a full range internet company that provides all aspects of web design & internet marketing and will soon start its own web hosting service. We offer client solutions to individuals and small businesses, and also have our own ‘baby’ startups/projects. I’m the co-founder of Antigravity Inc. with my partner Bode Ojo and I currently work as Chief Technology Officer for the company.

SN: What is unique about your blog/startup/company?

Temi: What is unique about Antigravity is how we combine client website solutions, with our own projects and startups. We cherish our client relationships, and will keep building our client base. We also keep putting out more of our own projects, which can also be useful to our existing clients.

SN: How many people are currently using your website services (e.g. feed readers, visitors)?

Temi: Our biggest service, Sturvs, currently has 2000+ daily visitors, 400+ feed readers, 5000+ Facebook application users, 3000+ Facebook fans and group members. These all add to Sturvs’ marketing power. Our main Antigravity website gets a lot of traffic too, mostly on our portfolio.

SN: What kind of marketing and/or advertising strategy do you use for your website?

Temi: Our largest tool is Facebook. We have been able to tap into this network and basically put our marketing on autopilot right now. Apart from Facebook though, we do very good SEO – Search Engine Optimization - on our websites and get a lot of search traffic.

SN: What are the main web technologies/tools you use to monitor the performance of your website?

Temi: We use Google Analytics and Alexa. Our Alexa rank has been on the rise this year and seems to be climbing.

SN: What is the monetizing/revenue model for your website?

Temi: We just started our own advertising platform, but we also use Google Adsense.

SN: Which websites are the main competitors in your market segment/sector?

Temi: Hmm…I don’t really see any direct competition as we’ve created a unique set of services that span several sectors. We work very hard to stay unique.

SN: What challenges do you currently face as a web entrepreneur?

Temi: The challenges I face personally have to do with balancing client work with my own startups/projects. I have loads of ideas in my head that sometimes make me wish I could just lock myself up for a while and create. I keep saying I’ll withdraw from doing client websites but I learn something new each time, so maybe that’s my practice field, to prepare me for bigger projects.

SN: What do you think of new startups and innovation coming out of Nigeria today?

Temi: I think we are improving. There are some underutilized startups and some overblown ones. We at Antigravity plan for Sturvs to be a well-organized startup that will become successful not out of fluke, but by our careful planning and strategy.

I would definitely want to see much more creativity among our web entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to naming websites. Seeing the word “Naija” or “9ja” in any new startup already kills my interest in it even before I check it out, because there are already too many sites with those words in the name.

As a keen follower of the international web 2.0 scene, I think we can do better with creativity and originality of ideas. I also feel we should step out of that open source safety net and venture out into creating applications with our own code, or modifying existing open source code to achieve unique applications.

SN: What new Nigerian startups, in your opinion, should be watched?

Temi: I think Truspot has a lot of potentials, with the right strategy. The Nigerian music industry is experiencing a boom right now and our music is spreading around the world like never before. Some startups need to tap into this and Truspot is the closest to it.

SN: Do you have any thoughts on our Universities and their curriculum in terms of promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation amongst students?

Temi: I recently discussed this topic with the Vice Chancellor of the university I attended (Babcock University). I think we need to shift more from a theoretical culture of teaching to a practical culture. We need to integrate more case-studies and real life scenarios into daily lecture room teaching.

This will bring Nigerian students closer to the reality of ideas and innovation and give them more confidence to try to achieve them. Right now our students have a weak connection between what they learn in class, and the real world and only a few of them end up breaking through the barriers of Nigeria’s norm.

SN: What do you think the Government (both Federal and State) should do to improve the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Nigeria?

Temi: Since Facebook became popular in Nigeria last year, and people have started to hear valuation numbers in billions of dollars (a website owned by someone their age), I think many Nigerian youth have been inspired to come up with their own ideas.

I think the government should provide some forms of incentives, funding or benefits for small businesses. Some examples of these could be incubator programs, subsidized facilities, contests and awards for young entrepreneurs as well as programs to help these entrepreneurs get more business.

SN: Do you have any advice for people who want to launch new startups?

Temi: The most important thing is to be unique. Think of something that hasn’t been done. The Nigerian market is still far from saturated and there are still so many vacuums to be filled.

SN: Do you have any business advisor/mentor?

Temi: As for advisor, that would be my partner Mr. Kamal Abiodun, who I own another startup with called, TodaysNigerians.com, but for mentor, I don’t think I ever had a mentor. I have people I look up to but no direct mentor.

If you would like an interview with StartupsNigeria, please visit the Interviews page.