By Juliet Umeh

Most employees in Nigeria are known to be scared of venturing into self employment or entrepreneurships for a number of reasons which include lack of business expertise, lack of funding, lack of right structure and the fear of leaving the known to the unknown.

However, in a bid to change these orientations and make employees or those who are about to retire become employers of labour, a Lagos-based start-up, has launched an application, BipEdge to help them.

Founder of the company, Mr. Timothy Ikhide, said BipEdge is an app that is designed to support the employees who want to successfully transition from paid to self employment.

He said: “The statistics we did a while ago said that three out every five employees in Nigeria, especially in Lagos are interested in moving from paid employment to self employment but ultimately retirement makes people leave their jobs at the end of the day.

“So three out of every five employees are interested in making this transition but the case is that they do not make this transition and for many reasons which include lack of business expertise to lack of funding, lack of right structure, the fear of leaving the paid employment.

“All these put together are the things we looked at and we came up with a solution that is called BipEdge.    BipEdge  means Business Preparation Edge. It means that the app will give you the edge-based on your being prepared even before you go into the business.

“So BipEdge is designed to give the right support structure to employees who are said either by reason of retirement or resignation wants to go into a private business.

  “With BipEdge, you get that hand-holding you need to make a smooth, successful transition into self employment, a road map that makes planning your transition easier; access to saving specifically for your business start-up, training, direction, guidance and tools you need to make that successful transition among others.”

He explained that the application can be downloaded in the Google play store. A potential client can create a profile in less than five minutes and get verified.

Also, the company’s Co-Founder, Mr. Ubong Ibanga, said the BipEdge is giving Nigerians an option to actively consider self employment.

He noted that the platform  caters for people who are in employmen