Apple Inc. Buys Nigerian Born Chinedu Echeruo’s Hopstop.com For $1 Billion

Apple has acquired Chinedu Echeruo’s HopStop.com, The Wall Street Journal’s publication, AllThingsDigital reports. Founded in 2005, HopStop.com makes mobile applications for both iOS and Android that covers over 300 cities and that helps people get directions or find nearby subway stations and bus stops. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed as at the time of this publication.

Chinedu Echeruo, formerly an analyst at investment banks and hedge funds founded HopStop in 2005. Echeruo is now Chairman of the Board for HopStop.

HopStop has oft been compared to Israel’s Waze which was recently acquired by Google for $1 billion. The move is seen as Apple’s plan to bolster its map offering especially given Google’s recent acquisition of Waze.

A serial entrepreneur, Chinedu Echeruo grew up in Eastern Nigeria and attended Kings College, Lagos. He attended Syracuse University and the Harvard Business School in the United States and founded HopStop.com after working for several years in the Mergers & Acquisitions and Leveraged Finance groups of J.P Morgan Chase where he was involved in a broad range of M&A, Financing and Private Equity transactions.
 He also worked at AM Investment Partners, a $500 million volatility-driven convertible bond arbitrage hedge fund.

Young CEO’s Business Summit To Hold In Ghana, Open For Participation!

The Young CEO’S Business Summit is designed for pioneering CEOs, venture Capitalists, and established emerging Global Business Leaders who aspire to conduct their businesses in tandem with global best practices.

These CEOs focus more on creating value for all of their stakeholders and then fulfill deeper purpose of their organization which is giving back to society and making it better than they met it, if you are a CEO under 45 and want your business and services to be seen and heard, if you value the power of networking and look forward to connecting with vibrant business community, investment partners, venture capitalists then you must make attending YCBS African Convention Accra 2015 a priority.

Working Endless Hours Does Not Make You a Hero (Infographic)

In the U.S., people tend to brag about working long hours. Clocking countless hours at the office is worn as a badge of honor, brandied about at the water cooler to garner respect.
Turns out, working endless hours may be nothing more than a waste of time.
Germany is among the countries with the shortest workweeks, with employees averaging 35 hours a week at the office, but it also tops out as the most productive nation in the world, according to the infographic embedded below, generated by cloud-based software company PGi.
The marginal benefit of each hour worked on a country’s gross domestic product declines pretty steadily as the number of hours increase, according to the infographic.
How many hours are you working a week? Could you be spending your time more wisely? How many hours are your employees working per week? Do they need to be working that many hours?
Check out the infographic below for additional data on global productivity and some tips on how to maximize your efficiency.

Non-Disclosures Can Protect Your business Idea, or Destroy It ...learn how

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Professional investors and advisors, on the other hand, usually refuse to sign these agreements today due to the risk of litigation and administrative workload, and will walk away. How can you make this a win-win opportunity?
First of all, I will admit that there is some risk involved with talking to any potential investors, even with an agreement, just as there is risk in all the elements of your plan, product and market opportunity. Yet I can assure you that people who are paranoid, or want to avoid all risks, won’t be happy as entrepreneurs, so it’s all about balancing the risk-reward scale.
Related: Your Ideas Have No Value
Thus, based on my experience as an entrepreneur as well as a startup investor, there are indeed situations where a non-disclosure is highly recommended, and others where the potential good far outweighs the risk. Here are the key considerations from my perspective:

10 Inspiring Quotes from Women Tech Leaders

Men have long dominated the technology industry, but the growing number of women entrepreneurs and business leaders can't be ignored. The most notable recent example is Marissa Mayer, Google's first female engineer who was appointed president and CEO of Yahoo Inc.
Here's a look at other women who may not be as well known as Mayer but are making their mark in the tech industry, as well as their inspiring words for other business owners:

Staying ahead of competitors

Sometimes when you come up with a creative new solution to a nagging problem, competitors quickly follow your lead and eat up your market share. That's what happened after Leah Busque founded TaskRabbit in 2008, an online marketplace where users post a task they need completed and it is assigned to the “TaskRabbit” who makes the lowest bid.
A former software engineer at IBM, Busque keeps her company agile by making frequent product changes, seeking out expert advisors and nurturing company culture. Since May 2011, TaskRabbit has tripled its net revenue and the number of tasks posted per month. It has also increased its user base sevenfold, while its staff has grown from seven a year ago to nearly 50 today.
Busque expects more marketplace expansion in 2012, as she works to fulfill her vision to "revolutionize the world's labor force."

Being an entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Most successful business owners will tell you they could not have accomplished their goals without help--from a mentor, colleague, even mom and dad. For many, their ability to evaluate, internalize and act on the counsel they received was instrumental in getting their companies off the ground.
In an effort to tap some of this wisdom, we called on business gurus to tell us the very best piece of advice they've received. From hiring to philanthropy and more, their responses were as varied as the companies they run.

Results for: establishing an advisory board

• Building my advisory board: drafting my dream team
  Find yourself hearing about advisory boards, but unsure you need one? Uncover the what, why, when and how behind advisory boards in this crash course.

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  Planning for Long-Term Advisory Needs
  Steps to successfully transitioning from the Futurpreneur Canada mentoring partnership to long-term advisory support.

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  Accelerating the success of smart businesses
  Finding the right mentor can be critical in accelerating your business from launch to future success.
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  Boards produce huge benefits for entrepreneurs
  Experienced advisors with complementary skills are vital elements of an effective board.