Startup Stories, Founder's Focus

Bridging African Talent with the World: How Yolre is Revolutionizing Art and Culture

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What inspired you to start Yolre Limited?

My name is Ade Olusola Kunmi and I’ve always been inspired by the concept of being my own boss. Since secondary school, I have always been interested in business. My first business was selling perfume shortly after graduating from secondary school in 2006. Since then, I’ve started multiple businesses. This includes food packaging and water production. In 2015, after completing my National Youth Service in Nigeria, I established my first company in Nigeria, Rocace Foods Limited.

Yolre, on the other hand, grew out of my love for arts and culture. So Yolre was inspired by my enthusiasm for business and the arts. It was, however, registered as a corporation when I moved to the United Kingdom.

What problem does your startup solve, and how are you addressing it?

our primary goal is advancing the arts, yolre was established to be a catalyst for change in the creative industry. we recognize unique challenges faced in the arts and culture sectors, we sought to create a platform that not only supports the creative industry but also drives its growth and sustainability.

My company serves as a bridge between African artists and the rest of the globe. We showcase artist works from Nigeria and Africa to the rest of the world through online exhibitions. We also assist real estate developers, homeowners, and businesses in locating the appropriate artworks for the interior decorating of their houses. We also specialize in cultural entertainment and providing cultural entertainment for occasions in Nigeria and the diaspora.

What strategies have helped you attract and retain customers since launching?

One of the techniques I’ve used to attract clients is to promote my business through advertising and content creation. As a startup, the company often rely on Google and social media advertising.

Content creation also plays an important role. Others came through recommendations. So they contacted us, and we were able to retain them as customers by demonstrating a thorough understanding of what we do and an understanding of what they want. Clients feel safer when they know the person they’re dealing with is well-knowledgeable in the industry. Confidence is also important, and these are the personal characteristics that have helped us keep clients. And when it comes to our services, we make sure that our clients are satisfied throughout the process of our dealings, which has helped us to retain them.

What sets your business apart from competitors?

I believe my interest in the arts plays a significant role. Because, aside from making a profit which is one of our goals, I love what I do and am very passionate about it. So it’s a good thing I enjoy business, so why not turn my passion into a business? So my passion for what I do drives me to go above and beyond to delight my customers. Also, my knowledge of arts and culture has been beneficial. I can readily tell and suggest what type of artwork is required for a customer after they tell me their tale or background; I know exactly what type of art piece is required, as well as what the piece should represent and say. This is one of the factors that distinguishes my company from my competition.

How did you fund your startup in the early stages?

I supported my startup with my own finances. Yolre is still in its early stages. And, as the majority of our business is providing services/consultation, our clients offer the budget for what they require, which we then use to do their tasks. As we continue to achieve new milestones, we will undoubtedly seek external money from investors, but for the time being, I feel we are good.

My belief is that as much as we want to progress, we should not rush into something we are not prepared for. I don’t care how long the journey takes; doing things right is far more important to me than doing things quickly.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?

Some of the problems we faced included competing with larger organizations in the industry. I also believe that competition is beneficial, as it forces us to look inward to see how we can do something unique that will set us apart from our competitors. And as we laid out our swot analysis, we realized that our size as a smaller company is not a weakness, but rather a strength. So our strength lies in being a smaller company and a startup; we are very ambitious to the point where we want to impress our clients by ensuring that we do and exceed what the larger companies do because we need our customers to trust us.
Larger corporations may not be as specific and thorough to the ultimate customer of the product. But we can ensure that client happiness is a priority for us, from the moment our customers place an order until it is delivered. We ensure that they have a wonderful customer service experience. We have a lot to prove as a start-up, therefore we go above and above, which has also been our strength.

Can you share a key achievement or milestone you’re particularly proud of?

One of my key achievements is being recognized by the UK government as a leader in the field of arts and culture. This recommendation has enabled me to settle and establish my company in the United Kingdom. So the time it took me in terms of personal development when emigrating to the UK has been significantly less than most.
In just a few years, I’ve been able to launch three businesses in the UK and release music projects for two of my artists through my record label, and the songs have gone viral on social media. I have an online school and we are working for a commencement date of January 2025.

Where do you see your business in the next five years?

In the next five years, I believe we will be a significant participant in the arts, cultural, and entertainment sectors. I am particularly concerned with ensuring that the products we promote and sell are authentically African. The same goes for the artwork, music, and every other thing we do. In the next five years, we hope to have established a thriving learning community through our academy, where African history will be researched and our story shared in our own unique way.

What tools, software, or technology have been essential to your success?

I believe that having a basic understanding of design and how to use social media is important. These are basic abilities that everyone requires, and as simple as they are, they are also critical to any business. Also, my training in business communications at the Hertfordshire Business School has helped a lot.
I am also very talented in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premier Pro. I also have an excellent understanding of website design, which allows me to complete numerous tasks quickly at the start of my business. We also make use of Canva,  because Canva offers pre-designed templates which is faster to use and can be edited to one’s liking. These tools have been essential to our marketing.

Worth Reading: Joseph Mambwe: The Entrepreneur Who Built a $2.5 Million Fitness App All with Zero Employees

 If you could give one piece of advice to your past self when you first started, what would it be?

That will be to continue learning. I discovered that whatever I learned was crucial to my development. As a child, my father would frequently push me to read newspapers, even though I had no idea what I was reading. However, he did say one thing that I remember: pick up any book you find around you and read it, even if it was only a few lines of pages. As a result, I am constantly eager to master new skills.
Everything I’ve learned over the years has served me well in some manner. I have opinions and points of view on a wide range of things, so when I meet someone and they are talking about anything specific, I always have something to say. So, my advice is to keep learning and broadening your knowledge; don’t be closed-minded.

Have you experienced failure in business, and if so, what did you learn from it?

Yes, I have. I founded my first business directly out of secondary school. I was 16 years old at the time, and I sold perfumes on credit to my friends, who happened to be my first clients. Only one paid, and the rest never paid until today. So that was the first business disaster I documented. I was unable to continue because I had not recouped my initial funds. I’ve had other failed enterprises, but I’m constantly learning as I move forward. Those failures taught me what to do and what not to do in business.

What books, podcasts, or resources would you recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs?

The majority of the books I read were in paperback and were quite helpful to me. The books I will recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs are Think Big by Donald Trump, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, The 50th Law by 50 Cent, and 48 Laws of Power by Robert B. Greene, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Other novels I enjoyed were audiobooks, which are available on Spotify. The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, and Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by 50 Cent. I rarely listen to podcasts, with the exception of Jordan Peterson, whom I greatly adore and respect. I also listen to many motivational lectures on Spotify.

Jordan Peterson podcast.
The Way of the Superior Man (ebook)

What advice would you give to someone just starting their entrepreneurial journey?

I usually give advice based on my personal experience, and I will say this to anyone who is just starting out. Simply do it. There is no use in planning and waiting until everything is perfect; simply start and you will sort it out along the way.

As a startup, you shouldn’t focus too much on writing a business plan since you might be setting yourself up to fail. A business plan provides the business owner the appearance that it must be strictly followed for a business to be successful, and with that mindset, the business owner will be resistant to change when necessary.
However, I believe that as a startup, you must be adaptable. You must be able to adapt your strategy and apply new tricks and methods that were not initially planned. Simply know what you want to do and who you want to target, and leave room for flexibility on how you plan to achieve it. I believe that business plans are best suited for larger organizations that already have a working structure in place.
Another thing I’d like to mention is that anybody coming out of secondary school should start a business and fail. The early years of 16 to 25 are ideal for experimentation. Experiment with a variety of business ideas or skills, learn from your failures. Even if you fail, You will learn. Do not worry too much about whether it will be successful or not; instead, utilize it as a learning experience in understanding business. The experience will be useful at some point in your entrepreneurial journey.

What do you think about Olusola’s Story? Share your thoughts in the comment below.

Women In Tech, Startup Stories

How Affiong Williams Founded ReelFruit: A Story of Innovation and Persistence

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For many, the journey into entrepreneurship starts with a side project that gradually grows into something bigger. But some bold individuals dive in headfirst, committing everything from the outset. Affiong Williams is one such individual. Over the past decade, the fruit-selling business she founded has flourished and expanded internationally.

Her BackStory

Affiong Williams was born on March 9, 1986. She initially aimed to become a medical doctor, earning a degree in Physiology and Psychology. However, by the time she graduated, her interests had shifted. Eager to explore new opportunities, she pursued a postgraduate diploma in Business Administration from Wits Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2006.

Williams’ first job at Endeavour South Africa, an organization supporting SMEs in developing markets, introduced her to the world of entrepreneurship. After four years of working with and admiring entrepreneurs, she was ready to leap herself.

The Start of ReelFruit

Determined to enter the agribusiness sector, Williams initially planned to produce fruit juice to reduce post-harvest losses for farmers. Realizing the high cost of setting up a juice factory, she pivoted to dried fruits—a more affordable and power-independent option that aligned with Nigeria’s infrastructure challenges.

Living in South Africa, where dried fruits were popular, she saw an untapped market in Nigeria. “I figured I could be the first to bring it to Nigeria and make it big. If I had done more research, I might have shelved the idea, but I was convinced Nigerians were open to new tastes. I believed all I needed was to create awareness and demand,” she recalled.

In 2012, she returned to Nigeria, bolstered by a ₦10 million UN grant she had been shortlisted for. However, shortly after her arrival, she learned she had not received the grant. Despite this setback, Williams persisted, determined to prove her idea’s worth.

Overcoming Challenges

Williams began by selling dried fruits she had brought from South Africa, using the feedback to refine her product. Initial sales were encouraging, leading her to produce more from her apartment. Demand soon outstripped her small-scale production capabilities.

Worth Reading: How I Started Keexs, The First Innovative And Social Footwear Brand in Africa – Babajide Ipaye

Securing her first angel investor, she invested in an office space, a small van, and additional staff. For the next five years, ReelFruit relied on third-party producers in Ghana while gradually building its own processing capacity.

Innovative Fundraising

Raising large funds for a new business in Nigeria proved challenging. Investors were sceptical about the dried fruit market’s potential. Williams adopted a strategy of raising small amounts to achieve specific milestones, gradually building investors’ trust.

“Investors found it easier to believe we could double sales, hire more people, or launch new products than achieve massive expansion,” Williams explained. This approach paid off, culminating in a successful Series A funding round nine years later.

“We spent the first five years proving our product wasn’t a flash in the pan. Given the challenges of raising funds in Nigeria, it took time, but I’m delighted with the outcome,” she said.

Today, ReelFruit offers a range of dried fruit and nut snacks through various channels, including over 700 stores, airlines, schools, hotels, and exports via Amazon. The company employs over 80 people across three regional offices in Nigeria and has trained 50 rural women to grow export-grade mangoes.

Future Plans and Recognitions

In September 2021, ReelFruit secured $3 million in Series A funding to expand its production capacity fivefold. The company aims to diversify its customer base, focusing on large manufacturers and export markets.

“For the next decade, we’re focusing on processing more inputs for large manufacturers and exporting. These segments will drive our growth,” Williams said.

Williams’ entrepreneurial journey has garnered numerous accolades. She has spoken at forums on agribusiness, investment, and trade, including the Inaugural Intra-African Trade Fair in Cairo (2018) and the AFDB Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg (2019). She won the Village Capital Agriculture Accelerator in Kenya (2020) and the prestigious Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award (2022).

An avid runner, Williams has completed over 15 marathons, raising funds for charity. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs? “Seek knowledge.”

Lessons Learned from Affiong Williams’ Journey

  1. Embrace Change and Be Open to New Paths: Williams initially planned to be a doctor but was open to exploring business, leading her to find her true passion.
  2. Turn Setbacks into Opportunities: When the grant she relied on fell through, Williams didn’t give up. Instead, she found other ways to get her business off the ground.
  3. Start Small and Build Gradually: Williams’ strategy of raising small amounts of capital to meet specific milestones allowed her to prove her business concept and gain investor trust over time.
  4. Persistence Pays Off: It took Williams nine years to secure Series A funding. Her story is a testament to the power of persistence and long-term vision.
  5. Adapt to Your Environment: By choosing dried fruits over juice, Williams adapted her business model to fit Nigeria’s infrastructure challenges, ensuring sustainability from the start.
  6. Empower Others Along the Way: Williams’ commitment to training rural women and creating jobs highlights the importance of giving back and building a supportive community around your business.

Affiong Williams’ story is one of resilience, innovation, and relentless pursuit of a vision—transforming a simple idea into a thriving international brand.

Failure Story

Rise and Fall of Myspace: A Pioneering Social Media Platform

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Myspace, a pioneering social media platform, allowed users to create personalized pages, and blogs, share content, and connect with others. Born in 2003, it became a hub for music lovers, offering legal music streaming through contracts with record labels. Myspace’s success was built on the ashes of Friendster, with eUniverse employees crafting it in just 10 days.

Acquisition and Peak Era:

Acquired by News Corporation (Fox) in 2005 for $580M, Myspace quickly became a revenue giant. By 2007, it had a valuation of $12B, boasting $800M in revenue and 22M users. Myspace’s unique selling points were its no-cost content generation, self-propagating user acquisition, and endless advertising potential.

Facebook vs. Myspace:

In 2007, Myspace held an 80% market share, with Facebook trailing far behind. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg offered to sell Facebook to Myspace for $75M, but Myspace declined. However, by 2008, Facebook surpassed Myspace in users, signaling a turning point.

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Reasons for Myspace’s Decline:

  1. Excessive Advertising: Myspace flooded the platform with ads, even entering a $900 million advertising deal with Google. Ad-heavy UI and intrusive ad strategies alienated users.
  2. Feature Overload: Myspace’s attempt to encompass numerous features (books, forums, movies, etc.) led to a cluttered and confusing platform. It aimed to be Spotify, Netflix, and LinkedIn simultaneously, spreading itself thin.
  3. Poor Website Design and UI/UX: Customizable but chaotic, Myspace pages lacked a standardized look. The user interface suffered from sensory overload, contributing to a subpar user experience.
  4. Technological Challenges: Originally built on Adobe ColdFusion, Myspace struggled to scale. Its move to a new platform resulted in a buggy product, undermining user trust.
  5. Offshoring Development: Myspace opted for in-house feature development instead of opening up to external developers like Facebook did. This decision drained resources and hindered user engagement.
  6. Bad Reputation: Cases of inappropriate content exposure, cyberbullying, and harassment tarnished Myspace’s image. The absence of effective regulations exacerbated these issues.
  7. Prioritizing Website Over Core Service: Losing sight of its core service (socialization), Myspace focused on adding website features without understanding user needs, leading to a disjointed platform.
  8. Founders Leaving: As News Corporation imposed corporate guidelines, Myspace’s founders, disillusioned by the decline, left. The shift from a startup mindset to corporate decision-making impacted Myspace’s agility.

Aftermath and Lessons Learned:

Myspace’s rapid decline saw it lose $40M in unique visitors monthly. In 2011, it was sold to a media group and Justin Timberlake for $35M. Subsequent sales and transfers occurred, but Myspace lost its cultural relevance.

💡 Key Lessons:

  1. Not All Acquisitions Are Beneficial: Million-dollar acquisitions don’t guarantee success. Myspace’s core monetization strategy contributed to its downfall.
  2. Success Takes Time: Startups don’t need to fail fast; they can succeed slowly. Persistence often outpaces speed in startup battles.
  3. Learning and Unlearning: Successful startups require unlearning popular media myths about building them. Continuous learning and adaptation are crucial.
  4. Problem Prioritization: Solve critical problems first; iterate and solve others in later versions. Don’t try to solve all problems simultaneously.
  5. Software’s Finite Lifespan: Software doesn’t last forever; expect upgrades, feature deprecation, and maintenance issues.
  6. Avoid Feature Bloat: Unless a feature directly impacts business outcomes, consider it unnecessary. Start simple and iterate.
  7. Consistency Wins: Startups are built through consistent, “boring” actions over extended periods. Simplicity and consistency are keys to success in the startup world.

Myspace’s story serves as a cautionary tale for social media platforms, emphasizing the importance of user experience, adaptability, and understanding core business objectives.

Failure Story

The Rise and Fall of Friendster: A Social Networking Startup

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Background:

Friendster, founded by Jonathan Abrams in 2003, was an early social networking site with a unique blend of social interaction, gaming, and events. With a peak user base of 115 million, it dominated Asian markets like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

How Friendster Worked:

Friendster aimed to facilitate social interactions, gaming, and content sharing. It embraced Asian languages early on and even ventured into the payment platform space with “Friendster Wallet.” The company introduced offline cybercafes and free wifi infrastructure, showcasing innovation beyond its core features.

Worth Reading: Pebble (Formerly T2): The Rise and Fall of a Twitter Challenger

Business Model:

Advertisements were Friendster’s primary revenue source, along with selling access to APIs for developers. The in-app purchase model using Friendster Wallet added another stream. It was a pioneer in creating an open, non-proprietary platform with an open revenue model for developers.

Rise of Friendster:

Launching in 2003, Friendster quickly reached 3 million users, facing early competition from Facebook, Yahoo!, and Microsoft 360. Despite a $30 million offer from Google, Friendster pressed on, gaining backing from renowned venture firms. By 2008, it had over 115 million registered users.

What Happened:

In 2011, Friendster pivoted to a social gaming site, discontinuing its social network accounts. The move aimed to complement Facebook rather than compete. However, due to user experience issues, CEO changes, and a delayed fix for loading speed, users migrated to Myspace and, ultimately, Facebook. Friendster officially shut down in June 2018.

Lessons Learned:

  1. Timing Matters: Friendster faced challenges despite being an early mover. It’s not about being the first but learning from predecessors and avoiding their mistakes.
  2. Venture Capital Pitfalls: Raising funds can be detrimental if not managed properly. Too many board members can limit flexibility and prioritize growth over everything else.
  3. Customer-Centric Growth: Pursuing growth at any cost, especially at the expense of current customers, can lead to failure. Friendster failed to capitalize on its early success.

Key Takeaway:

Friendster’s downfall teaches us that success is not guaranteed by being a pioneer; it requires continuous adaptation, customer focus, and strategic decisions that prioritize long-term sustainability over rapid growth.

Failure Story

Transtura’s Journey: Learning and Growing from Failure

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Hey founders! Today, let’s chat about Transtura, a ride-hailing startup that had its ups, downs, and lots of lessons for all of us.

Vincent Adeoba, who went from PwC Nigeria to leading Transtura, dreamed of fixing transportation in Lagos. Exciting, right? But, reality hit hard.

Transtura faced unexpected challenges with rules from NURTW, LASTMA, and the Lagos State Ministry. Dealing with them was tougher than expected. The real shocker? NURTW took a big chunk of the money ( over 20% of our daily revenue ), causing constant problems like bus impoundments and attacks on drivers.

Worth Reading: Worth Reading: How Convoy’s Ambitious Journey Hit the Brakes

Vincent rightly points out that for Nigeria to prosper, leaders need to support young people trying to make a difference.

Nigerian leaders need to understand that Nigeria cannot become a prosperous country by making it impossible for young people who want to contribute to succeed.

Transtura faced tough times, but the story isn’t about blame. It’s about embracing failure and learning from it. Vincent admits, “Those who said we’d fail were right, but I’m glad we gave it a shot.”

Those who said we’d fail were right, but I’m glad we gave it a shot.

After Transtura, Vincent bounced back. He applied for roles in the U.S. and landed a spot at PwC New York.

In this new year, remember Transtura’s journey. Learn from failures, turn them into stepping stones, and keep growing. Failure isn’t the end; it’s just one chapter in every founder’s story.

Startup Stories

How Ivan Built Photopea Into $1M+ per Year Revenue with Zero Employees.

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Ivan is the genius behind Photopea, a FREE Photoshop-like image editor. His project gets.

  • 13M monthly visits
  • 1.5M monthly user hours
  • $100K monthly ad revenue
  • He’s solo handled 500K daily users and scaled to $1M+ revenue
Ivan_Photopea

Here is the Full Story

Born in a small village in Western Ukraine, Ivan‘s journey began with a move to the Czech Republic in 2001. An ordinary 11-year-old boy, he discovered his passion when his eager fingers first touched a computer keyboard, unveiling the captivating world of computer graphics. By 14, he had already crafted his first website, and an insatiable hunger for coding was ignited.

But it was in 2009, during his tenure as a computer science undergrad, that the seeds of Photopea were sown. A fascination with online games led to countless creative endeavors, marking the beginning of his passionate journey into programming. At 20, Ivan delved into the realm of JavaScript and began crafting Flash games that not only fulfilled his passion but also netted him a modest income. Those early banner ads brought in a monthly pocket change of $100 to $400.

However, Ivan’s relentless ambition was anything but ordinary. At one point, he juggled a staggering 20 different ideas, all simmering simultaneously on his entrepreneurial stovetop. Yet, it was his intimate relationship with Adobe Photoshop that illuminated his path to success.

As he traversed the complex landscapes of Photoshop, two significant roadblocks emerged.

Firstly, Photoshop’s costly subscription model rendered it inaccessible to many, locking it behind a hefty $20/month paywall. Secondly, its substantial computing demands made it unwieldy for users with less powerful machines, and its features weren’t readily available on web browsers.

Ivan, ever the visionary, recognized these shortcomings as golden opportunities. In 2012, his brainchild, Photopea, was born. Initially, he offered a simple tool allowing users to open Photoshop files directly in a web browser, providing them with the ability to download individual layers. It was an impressive start, but it was just the beginning.

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Year by year, Ivan continued to pour his heart and soul into Photopea, adding features like layer creation, deletion, and saving. His mission was clear: he wanted his creation to be immediately useful to others, while he nurtured it into a full-fledged image editor. The metamorphosis was slow but undeniably cool.

Photopea

From 2012 to 2016, there was no grand plan for monetization. Graduating brought him a meager $29K, but Ivan’s commitment to Photopea never wavered. He pressed on through post-graduation studies, keeping the flickering flame of his creation alive.

In 2017, as his friends pursued high-paying jobs, Ivan made an unconventional choice. Instead of joining the rat race, he dived headfirst into Photopea, turning it into his full-time endeavor. His pursuit was not money; it was the sheer enjoyment of the craft. There were no business plans, no market validation, just the raw passion to follow his heart.

Marketing Photopea became a hurdle, especially for a one-person operation. Ivan tried reaching out to YouTubers, Reddit, and Hacker News, but self-promotion flags and financial demands thwarted his efforts.

Despite these obstacles, Ivan was a one-man army who solved over 400 user issues, created open-source libraries, and meticulously crafted Photopea into a fully-fledged image editor.

Ivan’s commitment extended to customer support, a labor of love that drove 80% of his users to join GitHub solely to request new features. Lacking a marketing degree and financial backing, he innovated by publishing blog posts with every new feature addition, nurturing a passionate user base.

Gradually, Photopea’s reputation soared. The same YouTubers who had once turned a blind eye now churned out tutorials, attracting thousands of viewers. In October 2018, Photopea hit an all-time high with 1.5 million visits, and Ivan seized the moment to embark on his first Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA). The post went viral, accumulating over 50K upvotes and 2.2K comments.

Photopea_Growth

Over the next nine months, Photopea’s traffic doubled to 3 million visits, leading to yet another successful AMA. And in 2021, Ivan made his mark on Hacker News with another viral AMA.

Photopea, a web-based marvel entirely built using Javascript, operated on a shoestring budget of $50 for hosting and $16 for the domain, amounting to just around $700 a year to maintain a multi-million-dollar venture. With zero paid marketing, Ivan and Photopea found their success through the community-driven word-of-mouth phenomenon, exemplifying a timeless principle: craft a better and free alternative to an expensive product, and users will inevitably flock to your doorstep.

Ivan Kutskir, the quiet maverick from a Ukrainian village, redefined the power of passion and perseverance, emerging as the world’s most underrated indie-hacker, with Photopea as his magnum opus, lighting up the lives of millions of creative souls around the globe. A true no-brainer offer, and a revelation to all who dare to dream. 🤯

Startup Stories

From Intuition to Innovation: How Oghoghozino is Building Aggital Works for the Digital Age.

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Tell us a bit about you

My name is Oghoghozino Otefia, I’m the founder of Aggital Works, a leading digital agency based in Lagos, Nigeria.

What motivated you to get started with Aggital Works?

 Oh well, starting Aggital was a clear leading from God, as it all started with an intuition which was basically the need to transform businesses, organizations, and humanity in general to thrive in the digital age. As we know, the digital age is coming and businesses, organizations, or even individuals who do not stay abreast with the move of the digital age will eventually become redundant.

I remember sometime in 2008, I had an Oceanic bank account now Eco bank, and whilst I go there to make a deposit or withdrawal, I see about 15 “teller guys” who take the withdrawal/deposit slip to process them. But now, on average, we have 5 “teller guys” in our banks. What exactly happened? The digital age did happen, and software replaced 5 persons. The digital age has come and anyone; businesses, organizations, and individuals who do not embrace the digital age either gets replaced or becomes redundant.

Hence the need to help humanity thrive in the digital age. Now, what motivated me to get started after this intuition came was the bigger picture, I saw which also forms part of my call in life.

Oghoghozino Otefia

What specific problem are you solving with your startup and how are you solving it?

Aggital Works is solving problems related to digital presence, marketing, technology adaptation, branding, and business growth. All our products and services are designed to help businesses thrive and gain a competitive advantage in the digital age.

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Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

Honestly, the rich quality of our delivery. We never compromise on our standard of delivery, regardless of the kind of project. These have made our clients return thereby enabling great referrals.

Describe what makes your business unique.

Our uniqueness is attributed to our core values which are; Creative Innovation, Intelligent Design, and Timely Project Delivery. Every single project must answer to our core. Have we creatively innovated this client’s idea? Is the project design intelligent enough to compete globally? Is the delivery timely? We make sure all our projects fulfill these cores and that’s what has made us unique.

Oghoghozino Otefia

How did you fund your startup?
I say all the time that money is fuel. Funding can bootstrap your business a great deal. While starting Aggital, I clearly followed God’s leading and He made provisions when due. I applied for a CBN YEDP loan, which I was approved for 7 million Naira, but I eventually didn’t take the loan after the whole loan process because God told me He never instructed me to take the loan, so basically it has been savings and God’s provision that funds the business.


What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources for you?

For books, nah, I don’t read books like everyone else does. What I do is research thoroughly. When I discover I need enlightenment in a particular area, be it personal growth, business, or leadership, I research the subject or topic thoroughly and read various resources by great industry masters or key players in that subject. I have not read a book completely ever.

But I probably have read the concept or idea talked about in that book during my research.

What were the biggest challenges you faced and the obstacles you overcame?

Biggest challenge? I cannot think of one, as every single day, challenges come and my duty is to overcome those challenges, I practically see challenges as a growth path, so I have built ferocity and grit for challenges, so I’m halfway solving a challenge before I realize that was actually a challenge.

What is your greatest business achievement to date?

One I’d like to share is the acquisition of our own office space which has taken out the rent challenge for now, till we look to expand. More so, the fact that I can travel and the business will operate optimally is a great achievement as well.

Where would you like your startup to be in five years?

In the next 5 years, one of our goals is to have a physical presence in the western part of the world. Also, to have served a minimum of 100,000 businesses with our new digital product “Ushoppen – A digital storefront that equips you with the necessary tools to flawlessly grow and manage your business. Simplifying store creation, management, and expansion. With Ushoppen, you have the luxury of selling your products not only online but offline as well.

Hence, bridging the gap between the digital and physical retail worlds”

What software or technology has made the biggest difference to your business?

I’d say Microsoft and Google, as these giants have played and constantly play significant roles in our business.

What one thing do you wish someone had told you when you started on your business journey?

Very tricky question, but if I were told the “business world” isn’t a family affair, no friends, no family, no one has your interest at heart, all are competing to become industry leaders and are ready to kill some other businesses to achieve that goal, I’d probably have taken more grounds and moved way farther than where we currently at.

If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do?

Get funding at every level, and hire the best of the best from inception as opposed to hiring friends and family due to poor financing.


Have you had any failed business?

Yes, a number of businesses have failed; Gospofy, Uwoeki, Instahandler, etc. These are some of my businesses that barely survived a year.

What are some sources for learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?

A great source of learning is finding a mentor in your industry who has walked the path you’re trying to thread. I tell you, in business, it is better to learn from other people’s experience than to learn from your own experience. It saves you time and money.


Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Very candid advice from me to you:
One, serve in the same industry you look to have your business first before you launch out as that will help you understand the nitty-gritty of that industry as well as learn the possible ways to mitigate any supposed risks you might face.

Two, money is fuel, yeah, it’s what it is, get money as much as you can, you will need it.

Three; Never forget a quote from Oghoghozino Otefia – Work is not a curse; work has been instituted before the fall of man. God didn’t curse us to work because our first parent sinned against Him, No. Work has been done even before the fall.

Therefore, I beseech you, to please make “work” a lifestyle. When you have to get something done, get it done! You need to understand a concept or an idea or whatever and do the work required to understand that concept or idea. Never forget that Work is not a curse, work has been instituted before the fall of man.

One business app and one personal app you can’t do without?

Google!!!!


Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

Not at the moment. When we have openings, we share on our social media pages which is @aggital on all social media platforms, while I’m @oghoghozino_ on  Instagram.

Startup Stories

From Coding Enthusiast to Digital Marketing Dynamo: Damola Oyekunle’s Inspiring Journey

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Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I am Damola Oyekunle, a digital marketing consultant and the Founder of Dptrax, a Digital Marketing agency.

Fantastic. What motivated you to go into digital marketing?

It’s an interesting story. I studied computer engineering because I love computers and games, and I ended up falling in love with coding. I started learning how to build applications, websites, and the like. After building my first website, I realized that was just the first part of the equation. The second part was learning how to promote this newly acquired skill. In my research, I found that there are various ways to acquire clients. I opted for inbound marketing, which includes social media marketing, search engine optimization, and the like.

I started with SEO and grew curious about other marketing avenues. I learned about conversion rate optimization, paid ads, etc., and just kept going. My first job was search engine optimization-related, and my next role was at Jobberman, where I was also involved in search engine optimization before being promoted to Head of Digital Marketing. That’s how I landed in digital marketing.

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This is absolutely incredible.

Yes 😄. Not everyone can excel in tech, and not everyone can excel in digital marketing. Pick something, focus on it, and give it your best. If it doesn’t work, choose something else.

What challenges did you face while learning new skills, and how did you navigate them?

To be honest, I personally did not face any challenges when it came to learning, largely due to my mindset. I approach things from a logical perspective.

I started this journey in university. The closest thing to a challenge was limited internet access, as I wasn’t born with a silver spoon. In school at Unilag, there was a place called the Botanical Garden where they sold internet access very cheaply. Most people didn’t use up their time, so my friends and I would collect unused time from the ground and use it. This was fueled by a hunger for knowledge (and we also needed the data to download games 😄).

Another challenge was optimizing my learning process while balancing school commitments, especially since digital marketing is a broad field. I took a course called “Learning How to Learn” on Coursera, which helped me understand how to learn more effectively. I invested every spare change I had in courses and tools, often borrowing money from my sister to pay for them.

In terms of entrepreneurship, hiring and managing burnout or mental strain are challenges. Building systems and processes can help with hiring, while a strong social circle can help manage the emotional toll.

This is incredible. Do you have any advice for aspiring or existing entrepreneurs?

The first important thing is to have money in your bank account 😄. Financial stress can lead to poor decision-making. Keep a 9-5 job and start small. Prepare for failures and understand that marketing is crucial for your business.

I usually recommend having at least six months’ salary in your bank account before quitting your job to focus on entrepreneurship. While there are outliers who can succeed quickly, it’s generally a good idea to have a safety net.

This is absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing your story with Founder Story

Startup Stories

How Colin Started A Bed Sheet Business Making $600K In The First 8 Months

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Meet Colin McIntosh, the brains behind Sheets & Giggles, a bedding brand that’s more than just a clever pun. Launched in May 2018, Sheets & Giggles made a splash on Indiegogo with its unique product: lyocell bed sheets made from eucalyptus trees. These eco-friendly sheets offer a softer, more breathable, and moisture-wicking alternative to cotton, while also using significantly less water in production.

Within just six months of its inception, Sheets & Giggles raked in over 6,000 orders and nearly half a million dollars in revenue. The brand’s journey was marked by success, including winning first place at Denver Startup Week 2018. Targeting a predominantly female audience, mostly in their 20s and 30s, Sheets & Giggles has become a notable contender in the bedding industry.

Origins and Vision:

Colin’s entrepreneurial journey began after a stint at a tech startup that ended abruptly in 2017. This experience served as a catalyst, inspiring him to start his own venture. Armed with a strong network, insights from Techstars, and a passion for marketing and distributing physical products, he decided to embark on the entrepreneurial path. Crowdfunding seemed like the perfect launchpad, given his limited initial capital.

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Colin established specific criteria for his new business, including a focus on a large, fragmented market with minimal brand loyalty. He ultimately chose to venture into bedding, with the domain name “SheetsGiggles.com” sealing the deal. The business model was designed first, with the product tailored to fit seamlessly.

Validating the Idea:

To validate the concept, Colin ran Facebook ads to a landing page, targeting crowdfunding lookalike audiences. This campaign resulted in an impressive 46% conversion rate, accumulating over 11,000 emails from potential buyers in just eight weeks. With this validation in hand, Sheets & Giggles launched on Indiegogo, attracting nearly 500 customers and $45,000 in day-one funding.

Designing, Prototyping, and Manufacturing:

Despite lacking textile experience, Colin hired consultants to help design, develop, and test the lyocell sheets. The criteria included sustainability, softness, durability, and social consciousness. The manufacturer was sourced in India, and multiple production runs were undertaken to ensure product perfection. The brand also placed great emphasis on a premium unboxing experience, making it stand out in the direct-to-consumer market.

The Launch Process:

The business was founded in October 2017, with the first few months dedicated to building a brand identity, website, and product designs. A marketing agency was onboarded to assist with the crowdfunding campaign, which was successfully launched on May 1, 2018, with a surge of $45,000 in funding on the first day.

Customer Attraction and Retention:

Sheets & Giggles’ success has been fueled by proactive social media engagement, strong SEO strategies, and humorous email marketing. Purple Friday, a clever marketing ploy, drove significant sales. Exceptional customer service, a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and a robust review system have also contributed to the brand’s growth.

Current Status and Future Prospects:

Sheets & Giggles operates profitably, with a projected $600,000 in revenue for 2018. The brand aims to expand its product line, including new sizes, colors, and non-bedding items. International expansion into the UK, Australia, Canada, and the EU is on the horizon.

Colin envisions rapid growth in the coming years, with plans to enter new sales channels while maintaining a strong online presence. He remains committed to building a well-known brand before delving into physical retail, following a strategic approach to market penetration.

Lessons for Aspiring Entrepreneurs:

Colin emphasizes the importance of validating your business model before building a product. He advocates running initial marketing campaigns to gather leads and investor interest, rather than rushing into product development. He also stresses the significance of an action-oriented approach and the value of responding to customer inquiries promptly.

In conclusion, Colin McIntosh’s journey with Sheets & Giggles exemplifies the power of creativity, sustainable practices, and humor in building a thriving brand. With a strong focus on customer engagement and a strategic approach to growth, Sheets & Giggles continues to make waves in the world of bedding.

Startup Stories

Bootstrapping to 2m+ Users With Zero Employees – The story of Rootd

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In a world perpetually on the move, where stress lurks around every corner, Ania Wysocka‘s story began with a panic attack that shattered the illusion of invincibility. As a final-year university student, she had believed that anxiety and panic were battles fought by others in quieter corners of existence. But that illusion was violently dismantled by her own panic attack – a jolt of terror that left her shaken and disoriented. It was at that moment, far from home and unable to afford professional help, that Ania’s world shifted irrevocably.

As she fumbled through the darkness of her experience, her instinct was to reach for her smartphone – the modern beacon of solutions – to find an app that could guide her through the storm within. But to her surprise, there was none. The void of digital support deepened her feelings of isolation, making her realize the chasm between the prevalence of mental health struggles and the dearth of accessible resources.

Undeterred by her own ordeal, Ania embarked on a journey that would eventually lead her to craft a transformative solution for millions. Rootd, the app she envisioned, was to become a lifeline for those facing the overwhelming grip of anxiety and panic attacks.

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From Darkness to Design: Ania’s journey wasn’t just about solving a problem; it was about combining her creative talents with the power of technology to deliver hope. She immersed herself in the world of graphic design, pouring her emotions onto paper and translating them into illustrations that would eventually become Rootd’s beloved mascot, Ron. Ron, the embodiment of empathy, would accompany users on their quest for healing, providing solace during their darkest moments.

Challenges: The Crucible of Transformation: Building Rootd was no smooth ride. Ania faced challenges that tested her resolve, questioned her decisions, and often left her questioning her path. Yet, she turned each challenge into a stepping stone, unearthing her indomitable spirit. With minimal resources and a bootstrapped approach, she navigated the complexities of app development and user engagement, making every penny and hour count.

Lessons Forged in Struggle: Ania’s journey was marked by lessons as vivid as the illustrations in her app. The power of solving personal pain points reverberated in every feature of Rootd. The courage to embrace her strengths and leverage her artistic acumen proved that passion could be translated into technology. Her knack for turning every challenge into an opportunity taught her that resilience and determination could overcome the most formidable obstacles.

A Beacon of Light for 2 Million: Rootd’s launch marked the beginning of a movement, an affirmation that Ania’s journey mirrored the struggles of millions worldwide. Rootd became more than an app; it became a sanctuary, a safe space for those wrestling with their inner demons. Ania’s relentless commitment to the Rootd community, her hands-on approach to user reviews, and her unyielding dedication created a network of warriors united against anxiety’s grip.

A Vision for Tomorrow: As Rootd continues to reach more corners of the globe, Ania’s vision grows even grander. With a future focused on inclusivity, accessibility, and global impact, she aims to reach the hands and hearts of 10 million users. Ania’s journey has evolved from a personal struggle into an inspiring saga of empathy, triumph, and healing – a journey that has illuminated the path for countless others seeking solace.

Ania’s story is a testament to the power of one individual’s resilience, compassion, and innovation. Rootd isn’t just an app; it’s a beacon of hope, a reminder that from the depths of personal pain can emerge the seeds of transformative change. Ania Wysocka’s legacy will forever be etched in the hearts of those whose lives she touched, and in the annals of entrepreneurship, as a visionary who turned her own pain into a lifeline for millions.

Startup Focus

Bingtellar Launches Revolutionary Instant Crypto-to-Fiat Conversion Service

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Lagos, Nigeria – August 21, 2023 – Nigerian blockchain payments startup, Bingtellar, proudly announces the debut of its groundbreaking instant crypto-to-fiat conversion service. This cutting-edge solution empowers individuals and businesses to seamlessly engage in cryptocurrency transactions, effortlessly buying and selling digital assets while receiving payments in their local currencies.

Since its inception in 2021, Bingtellar has pioneered real-time crypto-to-fiat conversions, ensuring users have access to immediate liquidity in their preferred local currency. Leveraging a robust payment infrastructure, Bingtellar has bridged the gap between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies, transforming complex transactions into streamlined processes that can be completed in less than three minutes.

Founder and visionary behind Bingtellar, Joshua Tebepina, explains the driving force behind this innovation: “With the increasing prominence of cryptocurrencies, the demand for flexible transactions like paying for goods and services or funding bank accounts from crypto wallets has surged. Our goal was to eliminate the time-consuming delays associated with such transactions. Conventional payment systems often take 24-72 hours to remit funds from a crypto wallet to a fiat account, which can be quite inconvenient for instant transfers.”

A significant factor contributing to this inefficiency is the involvement of third-party intermediaries. Some platforms necessitate users to first convert their cryptocurrency to fiat in a designated wallet on the cryptocurrency platform before transferring funds to a bank account.

Tebepina adds, “Bingtellar addresses these challenges by offering a seamless platform that enables transactions within three minutes without third-party involvement. We recognized the need for a hassle-free, rapid solution, and we’re proud to deliver on that promise.”

Driven by user demand and guided by a vision of innovation, Bingtellar has already successfully processed over US$300,000 in transactions, signaling a promising trajectory for growth. The startup is actively raising a pre-seed round to further enhance its capabilities and expand its reach.

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Tebepina reflects on Bingtellar’s journey, “Our growth has exceeded expectations, and the feedback from users has been nothing short of remarkable. What started as a personal endeavor to address challenges faced by friends using P2P exchanges has now evolved into a game-changing solution. We are excited to witness the impact we’re making.”

Currently accessible exclusively in Nigeria, Bingtellar has ambitious plans for expansion across other African countries in the near future. Tebepina shares, “We’re actively testing our beta payment payouts in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Our unwavering commitment to top-tier user experience and customer service is driving our meticulous approach to expansion.”

For more information about Bingtellar and its revolutionary crypto-to-fiat conversion service, please visit www.bingtellar.com.

Startup Stories

Joseph Mambwe: The Entrepreneur Who Built a $2.5 Million Fitness App All with Zero Employees

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GymStreak

Joseph Mambwe is the sole founder of GymStreak, a fitness app that uses high-end animation and augmented reality to enhance exercise understanding and track user progress. Born in Zambia, raised in Botswana, and later moving to the UK, Joseph’s diverse experiences and passion for learning from a young age contributed to his unique perspective and determination as an entrepreneur.

While studying Engineering at the University of Cambridge, Joseph’s passion for fitness and UI design led him to envision the GymStreak app. He identified the importance of consistency in fitness journeys and aimed to create a user-friendly platform that encouraged sustained commitment.

Building GymStreak required implementing a 3D engine to animate exercises, which demanded significant effort. Despite the challenges, Joseph’s determination to be future-ready with augmented reality technology and 3D animation showcased his foresight and commitment to innovation.

Despite having no employees, Joseph achieved remarkable success, generating $2.5 million in revenue last year. He relied on a team of skilled freelancers for marketing and customer support, allowing him to maintain control over the company’s growth. The app’s bootstrapped nature grants Joseph the flexibility to control the pace of growth, allowing him to balance business expansion with personal life goals.

GymStreak’s growth primarily stems from highly effective paid marketing campaigns on Facebook and TikTok, boasting an impressive return on ad spend. The app’s unique features and compelling creative content contributed to its success. Although faced with challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and plateaued growth, Joseph’s determination and ability to adapt drove continuous improvement and eventual success.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and gyms closed worldwide, GymStreak faced a significant challenge. However, Joseph quickly adapted the app to include home workout options, demonstrating his agility and ability to respond to changing circumstances.

Despite impressive growth, Joseph recognized the importance of product optimization to enhance user experience. He spent six months rebuilding the app to improve key conversion points and increase revenue tenfold.

Joseph’s leadership style prioritizes empowering his team of contractors with autonomy. By allowing them to make independent decisions, he fosters a culture of trust, creativity, and individual ownership within the company.

The strength of GymStreak’s business model lies in its ability to recoup ad spend almost immediately, enabling rapid and profitable scaling. However, like many consumer SaaS products, GymStreak encounters retention challenges, emphasizing the importance of enhancing customer retention and renewals.

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Looking to the future, Joseph foresees untapped potential in the market, particularly through an affiliate system for mobile apps that facilitates partnerships and revenue-sharing, potentially bolstering user acquisition and retention strategies. With a focus on maximizing customer retention and renewals, Joseph aims to grow GymStreak to an impressive $15-$20 million in annual recurring revenue in the coming years.

Joseph Mambwe’s entrepreneurial journey with GymStreak exemplifies the power of dedication, creativity, and resourcefulness in building a successful app business with a strong emphasis on user experience and growth.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Joseph’s story:

  • Joseph Mambwe is a visionary entrepreneur who saw the potential of using high-end animation and augmented reality to create a more engaging and effective fitness app.
  • GymStreak’s success is due in part to Joseph’s determination and ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
  • The app’s bootstrapped nature has allowed Joseph to maintain control over the company’s growth and focus on user experience.
  • Joseph is focused on future growth and is looking to expand into new markets.

What do you think about Joseph’s Story? Share your thought in the comment below.

Startup Stories

Beyond Borders: How Zipline is Bringing Instant Delivery to Everyone, Everywhere

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Zipline was founded in 2014 with the mission of creating the first logistics system that serves all humans equally. The San Francisco-based startup designs manufactures, and operates the world’s largest instant logistics and delivery system, which is used by businesses, governments, and consumers.
The company’s innovative approach to delivery is transforming the way goods move, from powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network to providing on-demand home delivery for e-commerce. Zipline uses autonomous, electric drones to provide a teleportation service that delivers what you need when you need it.

zipline_delivery

The technology is complex, but the idea is simple – to provide equitable access to essential goods and decarbonize delivery by transitioning to clean, electric, instant logistics.
Zipline’s drones can fly to hard-to-reach areas, quickly and efficiently delivering medical supplies, vaccines, and other essential goods to healthcare workers and patients in need. The company operates on three continents (North America, Africa, and Asia) and in seven countries – Rwanda, Ghana, the United States, Nigeria, Japan, Kenya, and Côte D’Ivoire.

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Since its inception, Zipline has made more than 540,000 deliveries to real customers and currently completes one every 90 seconds. The company has flown 40 million autonomous commercial miles and delivered almost 5 million products, including more than 8 million vaccine doses.
Zipline has two delivery platforms – a long-range system, Platform 1, and its next-generation home delivery system, Platform 2. Behind each delivery is a complex network of airspace deconfliction tools, inventory management, fulfilment software, warehousing, performance management, cold chain storage, and more. The instant logistics system is a trusted partner for businesses, governments, and consumers and currently supports the medical, health, and retail sectors, delivering blood, vaccines, COVID supplies, prescriptions, e-commerce items, products that support human and animal health, and food.

zipline_delivery

Zipline’s innovative technology has received international recognition and numerous awards. The company has received significant funding from various investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Temasek Holdings.
Zipline’s partnerships are extensive, and the company works with Walmart, Pfizer, Toyota Tsusho, Sweetgreen, NGOs, and large health systems and national governments around the world.
Overall, Zipline’s innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize the delivery of essential goods and improve access to healthcare in areas where traditional transportation methods are limited or unavailable. The company continues to grow and expand its operations to more locations around the world, helping to make a positive impact on the lives of people in need.

Startup Stories

The Journey of an Innovator: How Solomon Udukhokai Is Building His Own Tech Empire

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Solomon_Udukhokai
Who are you and what are you working on?

I’m an interesting person, I’m a young inspirational Nigerian that has a passion for change and impact. I’m that person who wants to inspire the next generation to be great, I want to leave the world better than I found the world.

My name is Solomon Ogege Udukhokai, I’m from Edo State Nigeria. I’m a hardware Engineer, I’m the MD/CEO at AXAO Technology. At AXAO we create basic active lifestyle solutions. The goal is to be able to create hardware that is powered by software basically. We are forward-thinking, we are innovative, and we look at creating an ecosystem of everything that we have created so that we can keep our consumers at a close loop where they constantly refer to different products for solutions.

Solomon_Udukhokai
Incredible. How did you get started with AXAO technology?

As a child, I’ve been an innovator. I built things right from childhood, I’ve built insane things as a child. I wanted to study Aeronautic Engineer at some point. But due to the way the country is, I proceeded to study computer science where I started understanding computers and how things work. I left school and I started working and went further to do business development. Interestingly AXAO started seven years ago. I love watches and I started creating watches seven years ago for Corporate Organizations. I started creating industrial designs. I learnt what it takes to design a product seven years ago. I nurtured it from that period to 2021 when we started full-time.

It looks like you had it all figured out at a young age, was there a point where you got confused as to what you want to become in the future?

I’d say I was never confused as to what I wanted to do in the future. But confusion came when I was working as a salesperson because it was frustrating but I knew that was not what I wanted to do at that time. I knew what I wanted to do; I knew I wanted to create products. You need to submit to authority and train yourself before you’re fully baked enough to start on your own. It’s usually a process where you work for some organizations and then you develop yourself to be independent.

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What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who have to work first to make ends meet and submit to the authority before pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams?

From my personal ideologies and philosophies. I’d only propagate what I believe. You might have the features of an entrepreneur but you might not understand the processes of becoming an entrepreneur. Your work will help you build connections and relationships that you can leverage. You are not going to sell your services or your products in a ghost town, you’re going to sell to your relatives and people in your close quarters. So, you really do need that relationship and the best place to create a relationship is through your workplace. You’d eventually appreciate the time you’ve spent in your 9-5 job.

It felt like pain when I was working but I realized that I have been trained to be a fine individual in terms of me putting forward documents or me putting forward research materials and all of that. Working for coming entrepreneurs is really you building yourself.

Excellent. How were you able to fund your startup? Were you bootstrapping or is there an investment somewhere that is helping?

Basically, we are bootstrapping. We did the first round of investment in 2022 and that helped us to get off the ground basically. You need people who believe in you, you need to be able to sell your story and sell yourself in a way where people that have the resources help you to get a head start. Hardware is very hard but there are people who believe in us. If you miss one thing, it means you’ve missed it by thousands. The great thing about hardware is that it comes out to become a product. That means you can sell the product and you can slowly build.

Incredible, what are the challenges you’re facing in AXAO Technology?

The first challenge is being an African and a Nigerian. There are shipping barriers; we work with a diverse set of people. Design and material specification is done in Milan and we manufacture in China. We had to communicate our vision to these people for them to understand what we are actually doing. We have an engineering team here in Nigeria and software is built locally. I have the most amazing team but it took time to communicate and for us to have the team dynamics that would help them discharge their duties expressly. No matter how tough something is just give it time. I believe in the process and I believe in growing organically. Penetrating the local market is also another challenge but we’ve been doing it. We didn’t get there overnight.

This is amazing and I wish you the best of luck. Are bigger brands a major competitor to you?

it’s interesting to understand that the market is actually big enough and it’s massive. If you don’t see them as competitors then they are not one but if you see them as an inspiration then they are an inspiration. I am creating a Niche and they are not a competition. We produce our products and you will get the same quality of what you will get from big brands. They are an inspiration and not a competition.

Great. If you are not an entrepreneur what will you be doing?

I will be an Entrepreneur with another expression. I am a salesperson and I love technology.

Fantastic. Any advice for other entrepreneurs who want to do what you’re doing?

The road with the least resistance often sends you to the poorest results. Think of hard and complex tasks. Don’t look for an easy route, study well and be the best at what you do. Dig well and you will find amazing answers. High resistance, high reward.

Startup Stories

From a Small Ethiopian Village to the Global Fashion Industry: Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu’s Impactful Journey with soleRebels

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Bethlehem_Tilahun_Alemu

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu was born in 1980 in the Zenabwork area of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Growing up, Bethlehem’s parents instilled in her a strong sense of social justice and a desire to make a difference in her community.

Bethlehem_Tilahun_Alemu

She was particularly inspired by her mother’s traditional weaving techniques, which she saw as having the potential to create high-quality, fashionable footwear.
However, as she grew older, Bethlehem faced significant challenges. She struggled to find employment opportunities that aligned with her passion for social justice, and she saw firsthand the negative impact that poverty and lack of opportunity were having on her community.
Despite these challenges, Bethlehem remained determined to create positive change. In 2005, she founded soleRebels, a footwear brand that utilized traditional Ethiopian weaving techniques to create stylish and eco-friendly shoes. However, Bethlehem faced many obstacles in growing her business. She lacked funding, had limited access to global markets, and had to navigate the complexities of global supply chains.

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Despite these challenges, Bethlehem remained committed to her vision. She persevered, and with her hard work and determination, she was able to grow soleRebels into a successful global brand with stores and customers around the world.
Along the way, Bethlehem also founded the Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu Foundation to support education, healthcare, and other initiatives in Ethiopia. She has worked tirelessly to promote social justice and economic empowerment in her country and beyond.

Bethlehem_Tilahun_Alemu
Lessons From Her Story

Bethlehem’s story is a testament to the power of innovation, creativity, and a deep commitment to social justice. Her journey demonstrates the importance of perseverance, resilience, and a willingness to take risks in pursuit of a larger vision. Despite the challenges she faced, Bethlehem never lost sight of her goal of creating positive change in her community and the world.
Her story inspires others to believe in themselves and their abilities to make a difference in the world. Through her work, Bethlehem has shown that by following your passions, staying committed to your goals, and working hard, you can achieve incredible things and make a positive impact in the world.

Startup Stories

How Onyeka Akumah Built a Successful Tech Startup: The Story of Treepz

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What inspired you to start Treepz and what challenges did you face in the beginning?

What inspired me to start Treepz was that in 2009 I already decided that there were three sectors that I wanted to find means of using technology to have a positive impact. One of them was Agriculture, getting people to eat on a daily basis. The second was Real Estate, so that people will be able to stay in a house and the third one is Transportation because I want people to move better.

I already had these sectors in mind and I wanted to focus on their strength, technology and marketing. I had done something in the Agriculture space In 2016 with Farmcrowdy,I had done something in the real estate space in 2018 with RentSmallSmall.com and I was looking at something to do in the transportation space. In January 2019 we explored the use of public transportation just to know what it looks like. People had to use public transportation in Lagos and they had to do it without technology and I felt like it was an opportunity to bring some sanity into the transportation business. There are about 9 million people that use the bus in Lagos daily and I felt like it was so much opportunity to not ignore the technology in that sector.

I worked with my team, put together a plan and after 8-9 months we launched Treepz. Initially it was called PlentyWaka. We raised money from a crowdfunding portal to buy buses, it was a major challenge. Though it did well in the first 6 months and we were able to move about 100,000 people who started paying attention to what we were doing. But Covid hit us hard and those buses were grounded because there were no activities during lock-down which led to debts. That was one of the major challenges we faced. The second one was financing the business. Initially we were doing things on our own and by ourselves; we then got to that road block where Covid hit us hard, that was also a challenge. There was also a challenge of bringing something new to the market. No one before Treepz had used technology or mobile app to get people to move from one bus stop to the other in Nigeria and West Africa.

Something that I’ve always loved doing while we are breaking new grounds  and trying to do new things  and showing people that we can provide solutions to problems they didn’t even know existed and then get addicted to using our solutions really showed that there’s  actually a major  lead for that problem. Those were the early challenges we had to face while building Treepz but we’ve grown from there and glory be to God where it is now. We have about 3 million tickets sold over the last 3 years and expanding.

Treepz
This is amazing. What are those factors that contributed to the success of Treepz?

A couple of things have helped us to continue to grow and push forward. One is the experience of the team. My background helped me to build other people businesses and my own businesses. That helped significantly in knowing what to do and avoiding some things even if I cannot avoid everything. I was an early team member in Wakanow in 2010, I was one of the first employees in Jumia in 2012 when it was called Sabunta and Kasuwa, I have built and sold two of my startups before, I’ve helped people to launch their businesses  and I’ve worked in the corporate space with Deloitte, British Council and GTBank, I think the experience counted for me. My Co-founders have similar experiences. They’ve lead successful teams, they’ve build businesses and they are entrepreneurs as well. The other team members contribute and perform their magic as well.

The second thing is that we learnt from our mistakes. We’ve made many mistakes but we never repeat those mistakes. We learn very quickly and we are able to find better ways of doing things.

Three is that we take risk early so that it allows us to identify what we can scale. You can get everything right and just find yourself in the wrong time.

Excellent. It has shown that you’ve had a lot of experience and it has cumulated into the successes that you have today. Are there lessons that you’ve learnt about entrepreneurship and how are those lessons influenced your business decisions today?

I was introduced to the act of creating values at an early stage. My mum made me do this when I was 12years old, raising day old chicks into full grown chickens and selling them at Christmas to get money that you’ll use to buy whatever gifts that you’ll want to get for Christmas. At 15 I had set up a business centre in Ajah area of Lagos in 2000. I’ve always found means of using my skills to create value. There was a time I had to pay for my studies from websites I designed. That background helped in kick starting my entrepreneurship journey.  Looking ahead into doing proper business,  I had to learn the act of setting up a business and creating value, getting valued customers, getting feedback early, improving on the products, recruiting smart team members and delegating.

One key strength is that I have a background in software engineering and I’ve been able to understand technology and its implementation. I also learn how to market and sell technology. I focus on my strength and people focus on theirs to make whatever we are doing a success. These are some of the things that have helped.

How did you build a strong team and what are the qualities that you looked out for in your employees?

I call it relationship capital. I meet so many people, I’ve recruited so many people and I’ve spoken to so many people. In the process of doing this I focus on those that have similar core values and those I can work with, I also identify those that can work as co-founders with me in setting up businesses. I might find a co-founder five years before the idea and I’ll create a relationship where we can make things together in the future.

When it comes to recruiting team members, if you can get it right with the first set of people you’ll most likely get it right with the rest from there with strong core values and processes in place. In setting up my businesses, one of my early recruits is the HR Manager to set the tone for culture and people management processes. I try to set up the kind of culture we want in the organization, our core values and then we start recruiting people from there. I also focus on core value, you can have a perfect CV but if you have the wrong attitude you’ll not fit into our system.

Worth Reading: How I Started Trueflutter: An App That Help People Meet The Love of Their Life
This is incredible. Apart from skills, the right attitude also matters. What marketing strategy did you use and how did you measure their effectiveness?

When starting a new business you just want to get your first set of customers. My first set of business marketing tools are the networking on LinkedIn and the use of email newsletters. I try to sell my products to my networks first and I see if they’ll embrace it. I use email marketing to communicate ideas and I see how people will respond to that.

We always profile our customers, we have an identity of what they’ll look like and we target people that will fit that personnel, fit into it in the future or had passed through it in the past. We always target our audience. Our business has evolved to a place where we are smarter at how we do our marketing, we now know who our target audience should be at this stage of the business. You see a lot more of us around because you may just be part of our target market.

Fantastic. What role did innovation play in the development of your business and how do you play ahead of your competition?

The application of technology always brings about innovation to businesses because it makes it smarter, more structured and it helps to form decisions especially in the system where there was no technology. From an innovative perspective, finding means of applying technology to a sector that has no technology always makes one stand out. There’s nothing I’ve done that doesn’t have an application of technology. Technology helped us to generate funds from the public. Technology is always regarded as innovative.

We respect those that like to compete against us but what we’ve noticed over time is we create what every other person wants to imitate. We are ahead of the curve and we always think of what the next thing will be. We pay attention to what competition does but  we don’t really have new things to learn so we rather focus on the opportunities ahead and create them. It starts with us and every other person comes along.

We always want to create values and we always want to make our customers happier. That pushes us to constantly innovating on things. Our attention is creating values for customers may be this makes us ahead of the rest.

Incredible. How did you raise capital and what advice do you have for entrepreneurs that are seeking investment?

Raising capital always starts from relationships, the first set of capital I’ve raised was capital from people within my network. Funds can be raised through an accelerator, through an investors or though customers. Just make sure that you keep sharing updates and your investors get constant results about your progress.

My advice to new entrepreneurs is that you should first put in your own money and that’s the biggest risk you can take. You can then start building traction and use the network you have to get new capital. You can get into accelerator programs if you can. Let investors see your progress.

During the course of your entrepreneurship journey, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you’ve made and how did you learn from them?

One mistake was when I raised money for my first start up and I decided to immediately move into a new business model. That was a very big mistake we have learned from. Today we raise money and we stay focused on what made us raise that money and make our customers happier. The second thing is just employing people for their CVs. Have people with passion on your team, have people that are driven, put people on the team based on passion and vision, people that are teachable and hungry to learn.

Another thing that I learnt is identifying the jurisdiction of the market that you’re in and something that fits your model. This will help you get your timing and environment right. Doing the right business at the wrong time will make a business fail also doing the wrong business at the right time will still make it fail, so just get the perfect timing and get it right.

This is amazing. How did you know that Treepz will not fail from the beginning?

People were already using their mobile apps to book for flight tickets and hotel tickets but not buses before we launched in 2019. I already knew that people were getting comfortable with commuting with mobile apps. There are some customers that will have the Uber apps on their phones but won’t use it because its expensive. In deciding that  it  was a right time for this, it was coming from  a place where  the technology  around booking  for your commute not new but using  that to get a bus where you will share your ride with other  people that booked on the same bus, that was new.

We spent about three months educating people on what the value was after launching in September 2019. Once one person use our service, we noticed they referred to friends and family. Word got out! It took us three months to get people to know our model and another 3 months to reach a point where we had more demand than supply to meet our customer’s need.  

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who wants to build a successful business as well?

One is getting a great network of people. Relationship capital cannot be underestimated. People focus more on financial capital, I focus more on relationship capital. You’d employ yourself when you’re building your start up; you’d employ what you were when you were working with other people. Be deliberate about your start up and be deliberate on how you help other people build their startups or businesses as well because karma is real. Be deliberate about the network you’re building around you. Give first so that people can give back to you. Always keep track of your growth from day one.

All business ideas don’t become a success, many times they become a lesson and how you can do better with the next business idea.  Get people to mentor you and don’t take all the advice, use advice to sample your business and let your gut feeling tell you what to do.  Don’t go on the journey alone, have a team around you.

Startup Focus

Startup Name: Kyshi

Posted on by FS admin
Startup_Focus_Kyshi 
Introducing "Startup Focus" - a segment highlighting groundbreaking startups across various industries. Join us as we discover the latest innovations and disruptors shaping our world for the better.

Kyshi is a fintech company founded by Ayo Akindele that provides a platform for Africans to transact money across borders.

It all started in 2011 when Ayo conceived the idea of Kyshi, It was difficult for him and his community to receive and send funds from Nigeria to the UK. Ayo, being a firm believer of “if you don’t like it, fix it” – created Kyshi.

Startup_Focus_Kyshi
𝗪𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐃𝐎

An app that provides a formal, simple and secure platform for Africans to transact across borders.
Kyshi marketplace runs a peer-to-peer system that lets you create or accept an offer at a convenient rate. We are on a mission to unlock more countries while demystifying money transfers one currency at a time, connecting you to Africa.

Nicknamed the neo-bank for Africans, Kyshi was founded in 2020 by Ayo Akindele. The payment startup fees are flexible depending on a host of factors, but it’s not more than 3%. Kyshi also charges zero setup and maintenance fees.

Worth Reading: How We Are Building Babymigo: Nigeria’s Largest Pregnancy and Parenting Community

We want to provide a formal, safe and efficient way for Africans to exchange currencies across borders. With us, you can determine how far your money can go at the click of a button ~ Ayo Akindele

Kyshi (pronounced kee-shee) comes from Kishi, the Nigerian and Ghanaian slang
for “money”.

Startup Stories

How Tobi Is Building CDcare: A Startup That Helps Africans Easily Pay in Bits For Their Needs in a Way That Suits Their Lifestyle.

Posted on by FS admin
Founder_of_CDcare
Who are you and what are you working on?

My name is Tobi Odukoya, I am a graduate of Chemical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife. I am working on CDcare. I am working on CDcare because my family faced a lot of problem while I was growing up because we could not afford to buy basic gadgets like blenders, televisions, generators….. We struggled owning all of these items and that was because my parents could not afford to pay one big payment. The problem we are solving for Africans now with CDcare is that we know they can’t afford to pay one big payment because Africans earn money in bits either daily, weekly or monthly.With CDcare we make it convenient for Africans to easily own gadgets, appliances and cars…. Using smart installments that aligns with culture and beliefs.

Founder_of_CDcare
This is incredible. You said you read Chemical Engineering. I am wondering, how did you find your way into entrepreneurship?

Background basically and that’s because my father despite being a civil servant, he was also an entrepreneur. He did business while I was growing up. I had that blood in me. I was a brilliant student back then in OAU and it got to a point where I had to ask myself if I wanted to be the best candidate for the job or if I want to employ the best candidate for the job. I choose to employ the best candidate for the job. I started looking for problems around me as a student and I realized that people had computer repair problems and the major computer repair problem was that when virus gets into their computers they usually have to lose all of their files. So I got home during strike and I goggled how to fix computers without people losing their files. That was the idea moment for me, I went back to school, started a computer repair business and I made money. I trained more than 200 students to become computer technicians as a student in OAU. 

That was where the entrepreneurial journey started from. I did a lot of businesses as a student. Computer repairs brought us to Lagos. We launched Computer Doctor where we fix and sell computers. We’ve sold to Flutterwave, Piggyvest, Cowrywise, Paystack…… we fix computers for them earlier in the days. That’s how the entrepreneurial journey started.

Worth Reading: How This Entrepreneur is Building the Future with BingTellar: A Crypto Utility Startup

What specific problem are you solving with CDcare?

My family couldn’t afford to get household items because we had to pay one big payment. My mother had to save for 10months before I could get my first laptop in the university, that was a big problem. And I realized that most of my classmates had the same problem and I decided to solve the problem. Because I wanted to solve that problem, I started Own-a-Laptop-Scheme which later failed. 

We realized it didn’t work because people didn’t want to pay interest. What we learnt from that business is that Nigerians will rather save to buy and never borrow to buy. We started different installment models; we were selling on Jumia and Konga. We decided to do CDcare in a way that aligns with African culture. You’ll use CDcare to save towards owning items but we will ship the item to you before full payment at 50%. If youre using CDcare to save for an item for a year, we will ship your item to you at 6months and we will not charge you any interest. That is how we launched CDcare. Basically, we are building CDcare to help Africans to easily pay in bits for their needs in a way that suit their lifestyle.

This is amazing. I love this model but at the same time have you experienced people who abscond with the item after paying for just 6months?

I’ve experimented the installment models and I see that the fundamental problem with credit in Nigeria is people feeling cheated. Most people don’t pay back loan companies because they believe that the interest is too much and they don’t have to pay. One of the things we enjoy at CDcare is that people believe that we are not charging for any form of interest, they feel like it is morally right for them to pay us. Fundamentally, CDcare model encourages people to pay. We have never had a default problem where people will not pay our money. 

We understand that people lose their jobs and livelihood for little or no reason, that is why we put measures in place where we tell our customers that if you’re not able to pay for the item that has been delivered to you, return it back to us, we will help you sell it, take our own balance and give the remaining money to you. When you’re stable and you’re able to buy come back to CDcare and we will get the item delivered to you again. This is just to ensure that people feel comfortable.

Amazing. How do you fund CDcare?

CDcare was bootstrapped earlier but right now we are in Techstars Accelerator which has helped us to have a bit of funding. Fundamentally, CDcare is a business that has been making profit from day one. Before we launched CDcare the unit economics was very important to us and up till today we are profitable at CDcare. 

Thankfully, we are able to double our growth, we are able to have great partnerships and hopefully raise investment to help us get the CDcare out to more Nigerians and Africans so that we can help people to own things that they ordinarily will not be able to own. Building CDcare is hard but when we hear testimonials, all we just do is jump up, double on what we are doing so that we can touch the lives of more Africans.

Where do you see CDcare in the next five years?

In the next five years CDcare will be a Pan-African company. We will be in many Africa countries helping Africans to own appliances and gadgets. In the nearest future Africans will be able to pay in installment for homes and for anything they’ll own. 

We are building a system that will make it easy for any working African to own anything without worries.

This is amazing and I can’t wait for CDcare to keep growing. How do you get relieved of the pressure that comes with running CDcare?

The fact is, ever since we started running CDcare I’ve not gone on a holiday and that is because the work is a lot. Thankfully we love what we are doing; we have lots of fun at work. Every member of CDcare team knows that you can come to work even when you’re stressed because you’ll always have a reason to laugh. We make work fun at CDcare. 

We have fun while we are working, we just look for a way to do serious work and make it look like we are playing.

The truth of the matter is my co-founder and I are not the ones building CDcare. We might have envisioned it and started it. People that are doing the work are smart Africans like you. They’re the ones responding to emails and orders, my co-founder and I are just overseeing while working hard. These smart employees are the ones doing the job.

Fantastic. What are the resources that you read or listen to that has helped you?

I don’t really read books because there are lots of things to do. I listen to podcasts and watch videos a lot. I read a lot from people that are in the industry. I follow people that do savings, credit or e-commerce. I listen to the founder of Konga, the CEO of Carbon and the Piggyvest founders. Carbon covers the loan industry, Piggyvest covers the saving industry, Konga and Jumia covers e-commerce. I follow a lot of them and I listen to them. I just check things that will help me understand the industry better. I have consumed almost all articles that is online that has to do with my industry, technology and everything that concerns what I am doing.

What advice do you have for some entrepreneurs who are trying to weather the storm?

Truth of the matter is if you cannot die there, go and get a job. Forget about being your own boss. Entrepreneurship and business is tough. You can do it and it can be done only if you’re willing to give it what it takes. Entrepreneurship is good and it pays in the long run but you have to work extra hard, it is not a very easy journey.

Startup Stories

How Richard is Building Bekkah Ai; A Startup That Helps Automate the lives of Africans Using Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Posted on by FS admin
Founder_of_BekkahAi
What motivated you to get started with Bekkah Artificial Intelligence?

In 2021, after successfully planning and launching one of the most successful campaigns in Nigeria that glamorized Agriculture and raised over 3 billion Naira for the AgriTech/ Agriculture Real Estate company I worked for and the companies that benefited from the spill over of the campaign, I quit my day job to focus on my mental health (A lot of things come with success, I might share some in the cause of this interview). Looking back now I feel I am not made to take breaks off things that gives me joy (working on almost impossible things), I didn’t spend up to a month at home before I started Bekkah AI from scratch with less than dollar to my name. In that one month of being at home my therapist asked that I stayed away from strenuous mental activities that will lead to a relapse (I was clinically depressed, diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder and I was suicidal), but I realized I was feeling unfulfilled and sinking more into depression, I stayed off my Prescriptions and started building Bekkah from scratch with this main goals, to honor my Grandma (Rebecca, the business was named after her by the way), and to build a Company that will Align Africa for the future that is coming with Artificial Intelligence. I wanted to do something with my mind before I lost it to those mental struggle. So we can say my Major inspiration was to continually bless humanity with these beautiful mind God has blessed me with.

richard_afolabi_founder_of_bekkahai
What specific problem are you solving with your startup and how are you solving it?

When we started Bekkah we had a goal to build one of the biggest Tech Company out of Africa, we wanted to help Automate the lives of Africans by utilizing Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in the safest way possible, we also wanted to create a database for African Histories, Culture and Languages, to help save endangered ethnic groups in Africa, these was to also help them learn about the modern world in their native tongues and have the ability to utilize modern tech to build local solutions for their Communities. These are mega projects that even companies with bigger capital base are struggling with, so how was someone with zero capital base going to achieve this great feats? We started off by rendering services to create cash flow for the company, then with the Cash flow, we created a great team, we attracted bigger partners and now we have generated revenue of over 100 thousand dollars in less than two years. We have built a paying game app called CYSTADS which will be launched in a few months which will be the first phase in building the Database for African Cultures, history and languages.

Describe what makes your business unique?

When majority of African Tech companies are looking at Fintech, we are looking at something different and unique, we are moving wild on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Big Data and Edtech. We do not just want to be another Fintech company, we have sophisticated Fintech apps we can launch but we want to tread path where a few or no one is treading. It is always difficult at first but once we gather the right momentum things will fall in line.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

I feel what has helped us so far is consistency and delivery velocity. We have a team of over 40 developers who can help any business achieve their tech goals. We also recognize that no matter how much we spend on marketing nothing is as important as word of mouth so we ensured that we retain our clients by rendering quality service, in turn they refer us to other businesses and individuals, but we compensate them with up to 20% commission. Profits made from business are plunged back into our Company for expansion.

Worth Reading: My Journey Into Entrepreneurship and How I’m building Beezop – Charles Dairo

How did you fund your startup?

Like I previously stated I had almost nothing when I started out, apart from an Idea, brains and the drive we had zero capital, but Elon Musk was an inspiration in the sense that he explained the idea of fixing cash flow starting in the easiest way possible. Armed with that information and my five year background in the Technology industry we started rendering tech services, which we still do till now, we were able to gather the right team, and soon attracted partners that believed in our dreams as much as we did and we started scaling. We are still in our very early stage for where we are going. In our really early stage, we are in search of the right funding Partners for our next phase. We estimate that by next year we will stop the service part of the company, we will only be maintaining and updating what we have built.

What were the biggest challenges you faced and the obstacles you overcame?

Finance is one of the biggest challenges all Entrepreneurs face, but I have a saying “An Idea is as good as its ability to raise the funds to execute it”. If you have an idea and you do not have a way to raise funds for it then the idea is not concrete enough. We were able to sort our financial issues by rendering Tech Services. By doing this we have generated a revenue of over a 100 thousand dollar in less than 2 years.

What is your greatest business achievement to date?

Hmmmm, I will just say getting Bekkah off the ground, there are some come back from debt story and heart breaking stories but I will stick to getting her off the ground with zero capital. When something else beats that in my mind I will definitely update y’all (Lol).

Awesome. Where would you like your startup to be in five years?

In the next five years we want to have accomplished at least 30% of our founding goals, we want to have partnered with a lot of tech giants, we want to have trained about 2500 techies for free (Yeah we have an academy that trains people for free on digital skills, we do this in partnership with an American Tech Company) and employ the best trainees, we also want to be a profit making Tech Company by then, I am not a materialistic person but by then I want to see Bekkah Employees living their best lives, getting access to the luxury they deserve and have earned. 

What one thing do you wish someone had told you when you started on your business journey?

I wish someone had said these is all the money you need to excel (Lol). Well, wishes aren’t horses, but one thing I wish I was told “No matter how persistent a problem seems, in the long run it will sort out itself”.

Have you had any failed business?

I have not had any failed businesses yet, but some strategies we applied to raise capital for Bekkah failed and landed us in serious debt, well it was not a total loss we raised awareness for the business, but the debt humbled me, I almost gave up on Bekkah, I was burnt terribly, and I was scared of even trying after, thank God for my Mother. She literally drew me out of the debt and shame that came with it. As an Entrepreneur if you have not failed and lost money, you are probably on a path of being too careful to be successful. One of the major factors in building an Entrepreneur’s character is debt management, you aren’t really ready for wealth when you have not managed Debt and the shames, pain, embarrassment and heartaches that comes with it.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources for you?

If I start writing books that have influenced me we might not finish this interview now but I will mention some, All of Yuval Noah Harari’s collection, Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck (Now you know why I am almost always unbothered), Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Napoleon Hill’s Think and grow Rich, George Clason’s Richest Man in Babylon, Robert Green’s 48 laws of power and Art of Seduction, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad, I could keep going on and on but I guess reading just these books mentioned so far you could have the right shift in your mentality to create even better beautiful things than even the writers and I.

I listen more to Joe Rogan’s Podcasts and I watch YouTubers who help me learn more about people I want to be like. I have a motto that drives me which is ‘we live and we learn’. Also like Father would also say “we only die the moment we stop learning”.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Nike it! Yeah like the Swoosh said “Just do it!”, now that was the simplest form to put it. These is the thing, all the ideas in your head are brilliant, till you  say it out then people will tell you how dumb it sounds, all you can’t achieve but once you have the courage to say it to people more than a thousand times, you have broken the barrier of communication, hence you are ready to go. This is what saying it to people more than a thousand times does to your idea, it helps you fine tune it. Their disgust, arguments, disbelief, questions, advice and so on are the furnace the idea needs for refinement. That’s how I do my thing, didn’t learn this from no one, it was from deep thoughts, after realizing everything around us as humans are just refined ideas from humans like us. Now don’t just sit on that refined idea, start and you will be marveled at how things will make more sense as you go. It is easier now to start a business, with internet connectivity you can own an office space online and reach people. Almost everything you need to excel initially are free.

One business app and one personal app you can’t do without?
Business App is Linkedin
Personal app is Whatsapp
Startup Stories

How Steph is Building PageChap: A Tool That Helps You Collate All Your Documents in One Place

Posted on by FS admin
How_Steph_Built_PageChap
Who are you and what exactly are you working on?

My name is Stephanie Osaji, I’m a product manager and founder of PageChap.

I started my career in the banking industry and I used to be a writer at Ventures AFRICA. I studied English Language from Obafemi Awolowo University. The banking industry geared my passion for being a product manager and building PAGECHAP.

I interface with customers and I know what a good product should look like, I know what people want to see and what they don’t want to see. I sort of peered into their world and their problems and that was when I realized that I want to be a product manager to be honest. I started to transition; I started to work into becoming a product manager. I currently work as an associate product manager in CLAFIYA, it’s a health tech company. CLAFIYA provides health care services for people in Nigeria using USSD. I’ve always had PageChap in mind; I’ve always known that I was going to build a solution for content creators and creatives in general.

Building_Pagechap
That was awesome. What motivated you to build PageChap?

My friend’s issue motivated me to build PageChap. There was a day I was waiting for him after work because he was trying to transfer some of his documents and it took a lot of time. It came to mind that there should be a solution where you can collate all your documents in one place so as to avoid lost documents. And I wanted to build a product that I could use and a product that was very unique to me. 

There’s no better person to build a product order than a person in  the same industry

Incredible. What problem are you exactly solving with PageChap?

It helps when you’re trying to put your work in one place. It helps when you’re trying to engage with your audience. It is one thing to push out some of your content, it is also another thing to keep a community or keep communication with your targeted audience. With PageChap you can communicate with your audience via several platforms. I just want every creative to see a part of them whenever they see PageChap.

How are you able to build PageChap? Did you do it yourself? Did you contract some people or do you have a technical co-founder?

I didn’t build it myself, I’m a product manager and I don’t write codes. I have a team and a co-founder. The team is made up of a backend engineer, a Frontend engineer, the social media person and a graphics designer. I handle most of the marketing stuff, so it is really a small team.

What is your business model for PageChap? How are you making money?

Right now we are not making money, we are bootstrapping. Our product is still a free product; it’s not going to be free forever. It’s just a lot of passion fueling whatever we are doing; everyone is just trying to make something out of it. There’s no money anywhere and we’ve not even gone public.

Worth Reading: How Goodness Kayode Is Revolutionizing Omnichannel Communication for African Businesses with Sendchamp

This is great. Where do you see this startup in the next five years?

PageChap is my baby and no mother gives up on a child. In five years, I want African curators to be able to access the global world. They should be able to showcase their work, engage their audience and also get paid for their skills, right there on PageChap. I want you to be able to see yourself in the brand; I also want to compete with a bigger and international audience.

 I love that. Have you had any failed businesses or start-ups before?

This is my first attempt at starting a business. It’s okay to get it right the first time. There’s no failure story from me, I have to get it the first time.

I was wondering, how are you able to get users for PageChap?

People say that a good product speaks for itself. My product is good enough and it sells. Though we still need to put in a lot of work. Most of our customer base is through running sponsored ads on social media and a lot of referrals and word of mouth. 

Our communities refer a lot of creators to us and that has helped to build the brand and increase our numbers. Marketing is a lot of strategizing and figuring out what works for us.

I love that. While you’re building PageChap what is the craziest thing that has happened to you from building your startup?

The hardest part of being a founder is the fact that I have to act like I know it all while in the true sense of it, I don’t know a damn thing. It’s crazy. As a founder, you have to be confident and know things. The hardest part is that I have to act like I know what I am doing because I am ‘supposedly’ the leader when half the time, i am equally trying to figure it out.

Interesting. What are the resources that get you motivated?

I’m grateful for the gift of people. It’s one thing to read books and listen to many motivational speakers as much as possible but sometimes you need a bit of human touch, you need someone that has worked through that path. My community is the biggest motivation for me, I’m surrounded by friends that I go back to and ask questions, and we sit down together and brainstorm. I tell my friends my problems, they might not give me solutions but we talk through them together. My community is my biggest motivation.

Incredible. Any advice for entrepreneurs who are also trying to weather the storm?

Take it daily and you’ll figure it out. It’s hard and tough especially when it’s not yielding the type of result you want but keeps showing up one day after the next and one day, the hindrances will not be there anymore.

Where can we learn more about you?
Website
Twitter

Startup Stories

How This Entrepreneur is Building the Future with BingTellar: A Crypto Utility Startup

Posted on by FS admin
bingtellar
Hello, who are you and what are you working on?

My name is Joshua Tebepina and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Bingtellar.  I’m from Bayelsa state, born in Lagos state and I’m the 4th of 6.

I studied Medical laboratory science and then computer science & informatics at the University where I started my software engineering journey. Crazy days indeed, I remember how I used to risk and miss exams for coding hackathons & tech gatherings and all of those was because I was obsessed with building, I wanted to do something that will impact lives and allow me the freedom to be creative, and that lead me to build lots of products and co-founding few startups.  

Bingtellar

Today, what I’m building is the future of finance and payments on the blockchain for users and businesses in Africa. At bingtellar, we are building the bridge and required rails for crypto, which would help connect Africans seamlessly to the digital economy. 

In short words, Bingtellar is an all-in-one place for your crypto needs. On our platform, you can exchange crypto, and gift cards and also use crypto for everyday consumption like sending money within and out of Africa, paying bills and shopping.

What motivated you to get started with your startup?

I’ve been building solutions for web3 businesses for years, but experiencing a problem first-hand made me really go in to fix it. 

So yeah, Bingtellar was started from a personal experience, a friend of mine was in the UK and wanted to send money to his sick mom in Nigeria but couldn’t find an affordable way to do it and it was an emergency so he reached out to me and I figured crypto could help save the day, so he sent me some money equivalent to naira in crypto and while I was trying to convert it to cash on a popular P2P crypto exchange I got scammed, after spending much time appealing nothing happened and so I had to do the cash settlement myself because it was an emergency. Right there I knew there was a problem and the problems were:

 (1). Cross-border payments and money transfers are expensive, slow and broken.

(2). The ability to move between fiat and crypto is far too complicated and also the P2P way of exchanging crypto is risky, and not efficient.

I figured out things could be re-routed but really no one wants to shoulder the troubles. I like challenges so I picked it up as a side project and started building it, people loved it and we are here.

Worth Reading: BingPay: How We Bootstrapped Our Way to $30,000 Transaction Volume in Just 6 Months.
What specific problem are you solving with your startup and how is it unique?

The two key challenges users and businesses face when looking to onboard users into web3 and the crypto economy is access and utility. 

Today there is significant unrealised potential for crypto utility in the real world, today users think crypto can only be used as an investment vehicle right? But there’s more to crypto and we want to change this narrative by building easy-to-use crypto-powered products.

Our traditional currencies weren’t built to solve cross-border payments, the naira won’t work outside Nigeria; the cedi won’t work outside Ghana. It’s the same thing everywhere. Crypto is the only solution that really works right now and someone has to build a unified layer for this kind of transaction and that’s where we come in. Bingtellar is here to close the gap in order to drive real-world utility, whether that be in form of merchant payments, off-ramping to your bank account, remittance and many more untapped use cases. 

And that’s really what makes us unique, we are people obsessed and we always want to be at the centre of innovation and importantly simplify processes for users.

For example, most crypto platforms operate using the P2P model thereby leaving users to manage risk themselves but we don’t do that, Bingtellar mitigates all the risk involved in P2P transactions. Thus, offers users the opportunity to self-liquidate their digital assets (Crypto, gift cards) instantly to cash at the best rates possible.

How do you fund your startup?

Bingtellar is self-funded, we’ve been bootstrapping and we’ve never felt money has to be the key essential point, building for our users has always been our core focus but lately, we got to a place where we decided we needed to ramp up our processes and expand globally so we are currently raising a pre-seed round to support that. We are definitely open to having you and other amazing people join us.

Awesome. Where do you see your startup in the next 5 years?

Tough one, Honestly, I want a billion-dollar company. Our goal is to help millions of Africans tap into the global digital economy. We believe to unlock global payments and crypto’s true potential, Fiat-to-crypto or Crypto-to-fiat transactions should simply just work. In 4-5 years, Bingtellar will be the go-to platform for crypto that provides users with modern financial services backed by cryptocurrencies, whenever you mention crypto utility Bingtellar will be the first startup you think of.

Tough job yeah but we will get it done, most definitely.

bingtellar
Have you had failed business before?

Oh, yea I have. I’ve built so many products and businesses, I’ve done a thing in entertainment, I’ve done an e-commerce business, I’ve co-founded a digital tech solutions firm, and so many and they somehow succeeded or basically just failed. Crazy how I never gave up, even when I decided to quit and focus on a career job, Bingtellar came knocking, guess it’s safe to say it was meant to happen.

How do you get users or customers to your startups?

We’ve been getting users by word of mouth and from our extended network, and we’ve always been active in the local crypto communities. We’ve seen over 40% average monthly active users over the last months from those channels. 

We are really conscious about marketing, especially blitzscaling, you don’t want to onboard thousands of users and don’t satisfy them, so it’s better you grow at a reasonable rate and maintain it. Marketing is really more of experimentation till you get the one that works for you and it’s better when it’s organic, especially in the early days.

What’s the craziest story that happened from building your startup?

Maaaaaan, so much, can’t even pick. But really regulatory compliance has been one thing that’s always given me a headache. I have so many stories on that already, Imagine waking up with an insane product idea and then halfway coding it you remember you have some battles to fight. Almost every single person we told about what we were building at the start said we were crazy. But my answer is that if it can be done, we are the ones to do it.

What are some of the resources, books, podcasts or videos that you learn from?

One of my favourite books is “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel, then “The Hard Thing About Hard Things “ by Ben Horowitz, “The Startup Playbook by David S. Kidder” and “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson.

Those books really helped me understand why companies scaled and how, essential things to consider when building products, and also how to experiment quickly and still maintain growth as a company.

Any advice for other entrepreneurs trying to weather the storm?

Start with what you have, do not wait for the perfect time. You’ve got to be resilient, nothing happens easily, every day as an entrepreneur is honestly you deciding to jump from a moving train and then repeating it every single day, so you have to be ready for the great times, tough times and all times. Build with people you care about and vice versa, people you can share moments with, people who would always be there for you even when things get tough. Lastly, ignore the hype and focus on the actual work, everything you’ve ever wished for is at the other side of your fears, keep it going, and to the moon it is.

Startup Stories

How Goodness Kayode Is Revolutionizing Omnichannel Communication for African Businesses with Sendchamp

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Can you tell us about yourself?

My name is Goodness Kayode and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Sendchamp. I studied English Language at the university where I started my software engineering journey. I also built an agency called Sprinble Agency.

Today, what I am building is the future of omnichannel communication for businesses in Africa.

So what exactly is Sendchamp?

It’s pretty straightforward. I am a business person and I have customers that try to reach out to me maybe through Instagram, Facebook, SMS, or Twitter I have to switch between different platforms to be able to respond to customers apart from the hundred things that I have to do in a day; managing of employee, handling finances and things like that. So it becomes like a pain in the ass to manage these conversations from customers so basically Sendchamp has built a single platform that allows businesses to be able to manage these communication channels in one place and also manage business tools that they use for managing their businesses.

Fantastic, there are few messaging platforms as well, so what is unique about Sendchamp and how is it different from every other multichannel platform?

So, we are playing the infrastructure game. We’ve built messaging channel infrastructure for these businesses that are accessible by APIs. Basically, what we are trying to do is to ensure communication services are accessible over APIs and over a simple dashboard for businesses. One thing that makes us different is that we’ve gone further by providing no-code tools for non-technical business people. People that do not have a developer experience, people that cannot write JavaScript. We’ve been able to build tools that allow them to be able to onboard their customers, to be able to market to their customers and to be able to support their customers across the channels. 

In the market today, a lot of players in our space are focused on enterprise businesses. You have to be an established business before you can make use of their solution. What we were able to do is build a product that allows SMEs too to be able to make use of the platform with little or no development knowledge.

Perfect, so in other words, you’ve democratized that system of “I don’t need much money before I can be able to build my platform and I can build my audience even as small as my business is right?”

Correct, we are democratizing it.

This is insane, great work!. So what exactly motivated you to start Sendchamp?

Sendchamp Started as a result of difficult situations that I’ve been in as a developer and also as a business owner. At my agency, we built solutions for venture-backed start-ups, enterprises and industries and we realized that the products we built required one or two messaging channels. Every single time we get to that point we have to review like four providers, we have to review them based on regulations, delivery, pricing and payment options. In Africa, we have so many SMS providers and this business wants to make use of Whatsapp, emails, USSD. We encountered this situation several times and it got us thinking that how can we solve it and how can we make it easy for businesses to be able to say that they need a particular platform that can give them all these channels that their customers want to reach them through. That’s where the idea of Sendchamp came from.

Worth Reading: Revolutionizing Driver Education in Africa: The Story of DriveMe – Damilola Odunlade
This is a game changer; if I can send bulk SMS, Emails and WhatsApp messages. What you’re doing is massive to be honest. I am wondering, how are you able to fund the startup?

We are a ventured backed startup. We raised about $100k in 2021, we also walked into some accelerators to get some money there.

That’s great. Since launched, what’s the success story like? In terms of revenue generation and user base.

Right now for Sendchamp, we’ve been able to get over 2,000 business signups spread across SMBs and startups. We’ve been able to process over 20m+ messages and we are still expanding and still building. We’ve also been able to serve different customers across different countries in the world.

Perfect, would you want to give an insight of where you want to see your start up in the next five years?

Honestly, I want a billion-dollar company. Our goal is to help businesses to be able to tap into Africa’s digital economy. Our goal is to ensure that traditional digital businesses are able to extract or reap the fruit of the digital economy today. So we are providing them with tools to handle their communication and make their business operations smoother.

That’s good and I wish you success in your start up. Would you say that this is your first attempt at starting a business? Basically, just share with us your failure story.

As an engineer, you start different projects. Some that die on your laptop, some that don’t die, and some that go live but you don’t have customer;, some that go live but you have one to five customers. I think the difference between other startups that I’ve done and Sendchamp is that I’m sharing the story of Sendchamp everywhere I go. I realized that it is not my families that will make use of my products nor will they make it a billion-dollar company. It is customers and we are solving a problem for businesses and it is very important that people know the problem that we are solving. Yes, I’ve had failed businesses. I’ve done car wash business before; I was one of the founding members of one Adtech placement company too. I’ve seen a couple of things. I have also played in the FinTech space.

This is great. Would you want to share some insights to what keeps you pumped up and what keeps you motivated? Resources that you learn from or some podcasts that you listen to that keeps you going.

I will say I’m lucky to have some friends that are doing well in their space and I have friends that don’t want to be poor, that is the most important motivation. I talk about my stuff when I’m with them and I get insights. I learn a lot from them too. I try to understand my space well. I equip myself with contents that revolve around my space and I also try to learn from people that have done it before. I hardly read books but I listen to podcasts. Most times I actually work with articles.

Excellent. How do you get users for your startup?

I’ll start with the general principles. I’ll always mention that execution is key when it comes to marketing.  People know the basic strategy but how do you tailor it down to your own business. You want to understand the customers you’re looking for, you want to understand the channels; you want to understand your model well so that you’ll know that they are all in sync.

You want to look for channels that are very effective, you want to understand if your business is a B2B or a B2C product and understanding those that can get you to your customers or people that will make sure that the deal gets closed. There are very obvious and article friendly strategies like social media, running ads, sponsor programs and things like that, depending on your business.

There are strategies that you can use. We are a B2B business, we reach out to businesses, and we have other channels like our developer community which is over 1,500. We try to grow our community and get involved. Recently, we’ve partnered with like developers communities just to make sure that developers see us more and how we are useful for their startups and products. Marketing is more of experimentation till you get the one that works for you.

Awesome. Would you give advice to other entrepreneurs like you or younger one that are trying to weather the storm as well? What advice do you have for them?

To be honest, have money. You need to have money. A start up does not die because they’re not building the future, startup dies because of money. It will be a learning experience if you start without money.

There are actually some accelerators you can join. It’s always great when it comes from the point of “You’re building this and you also have the resources to be able to push it” because the journey is stressful. People find it easy to criticize founders but they don’t know that there are lots of decisions that we have to make and trying to decide on what works best for the business, for partners and team members.

We are trying to manage everything and make sure that you’re not being selfish at the same time. It’s a rollercoaster. The stories are always very sweet if you’re in for the right things. You just have to make it work.

Startup Stories

My Journey Into Entrepreneurship and How I’m building Beezop – Charles Dairo

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Tell us about yourself, please.

My name is Charles Kehinde Dairo. I have over a decade of experience comprising tech entrepreneurship, design and product management. I have always had an interest in computers. When I was young, my dad bought a computer for my siblings and I, and that sparked my interest in the field. When it was time to choose a course of study in university, I naturally chose Computer Science.

This is awesome; I love the fact that you have an inkling of technology even before you got into the higher institution. So, fast-forward to today, what exactly are you working on now?

Sure. For the past eleven years, I have been running a web development agency called CKDigital. I started this business immediately after I finished school, designing websites for friends, family members and anyone who was interested. More recently, I’ve been focusing on building products.

I am currently working with my co-founders to develop a software called Beezop. It is an interactive training manual that helps businesses document their processes and easily share them with their teams. This helps them to systemize their business, train faster, and run their business more efficiently.

With Beezop, business owners and managers don’t have to repeat themselves so much; it generally helps them to run their businesses better. That’s what I’m focused on right now.

That sounds very interesting. Can you tell us more about who Beezop is meant for and what exactly it does?

Beezop is B2B software primarily for businesses, organizations or teams. The idea behind Beezop is that when you’re running a business or managing a team, there are certain tasks and processes that you repeat as a routine.

The software helps document these processes and make them easy to digest so that when you need to train someone new, they can easily follow the steps and understand how to do the task.

This makes it easy for teams to delegate responsibilities, and for companies to upskill their employees.

That’s quite interesting. There must have been a reason for Beezop. What exactly is the back story?

While I was running my web development agency, I was looking for a way to systemize the business and make sure that as I added more people to my team, it wasn’t increasing my workload. I was struggling with how to document processes and make sure that my team was following them.

A business consultant friend of mine, Marieanne, had been solving this problem for her clients. She came up with the idea to build software that solved the problem at scale. We decided to work on it together, and that’s how Beezop started.

Alright, one would have thought you had it all rosy because you started from CK Digital, you moved to this. So, have you had any failed business before?

Yes, I’ve had a couple of ventures that didn’t work out as planned. A few years ago, I joined a team that was working on a platform for educational funding, similar to GoFundMe. However, the business model wasn’t solid and it didn’t work out.

I also attempted to start a chain of private barbershops called Haircot. The first outlet wasn’t profitable enough, so I decided to shut it down.

Worth Reading: From Emotional Heartbreak to Business Breakthrough: How I Started Footwox – Omotiafe Otuogbai
Can you tell us about some of the challenges you faced building Beezop or throughout your entrepreneurial journey and how you navigated those challenges?

There were a number of challenges I faced. One of the biggest was validating that I was solving a real problem. I’ve had ideas in the past where I was excited about the solution, but didn’t realize that there weren’t enough people who had that problem to make it a viable business.

Another challenge was funding. I haven’t raised money for any of my ventures and sometimes that lack of resources made it difficult to move forward with certain ideas. 

Additionally, I’ve learned to look at things objectively and make the difficult decision to shut down ventures that aren’t working, rather than trying to push through.

Great. Tell us your thoughts on whether an entrepreneur should bootstrap or seek funding immediately.

It depends on the specific circumstances of the business. If the entrepreneur is able to build the business on their own or with a co-founder, then bootstrapping may be a viable option. However, if the business requires a significant amount of resources to get off the ground, then seeking funding may be necessary.

It’s also important to consider the potential for generating revenue and the overall goals of the business.

While bootstrapping can be difficult, it can also lead to a more sustainable business in the long run.

Thank you very much Charles. How has the progress of your current product been?

The progress has been positive. We are focused on solving a specific problem and are committed to doing so. We are pleased with the number of people who have subscribed to our product and the businesses that are currently using it. However, it’s been a long process, as we had to take some time to do additional engineering work before we reached our current state. We are focused on continuing to improve the product and getting more people to know about it.

Awesome, in 5 years where do you hope to be?

Our goal is to continue building a business that we are proud of and that is helping people run their businesses more smoothly.

We aim to have a sense of accomplishment in solving the problems we set out to solve and to expand our reach beyond Nigeria to other parts of the world.

Additionally, we hope to see increased revenue for the company.

Excellent. So, what are the learning resources that are keeping you motivated? Where do you learn from? What are some of the podcasts you listen to and the books that you read? Can you share some of them with us?

Some of my favourite podcasts include Startups for the Rest of Us, The Rework Podcast, Lenny’s Podcast, and The Entreleadership Podcast. In terms of books, I recently read How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen, The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, and Obviously Awesome by April Dunford.

What is the advice you have for upcoming entrepreneurs that are already doing this tech business and trying to weather their way to success?

My advice to upcoming entrepreneurs in tech is to understand that building a successful business takes a lot of effort, consistency, and perseverance. Don’t expect it to be easy, but also don’t think it’s always going to be hard.

Different businesses face different levels of challenges, and sometimes problems can become opportunities for growth and learning.

No matter where you are in the world, building a company is tough. You can have a lot of money and still fail, or you can have no money and still succeed.

What’s important is to remember that anything worth doing is usually hard, and to be prepared for the challenges that come with entrepreneurship.

Startup Stories

Revolutionizing Driver Education in Africa: The Story of DriveMe – Damilola Odunlade

Posted on by FS admin
Damilola_Odunlade_DriveMe
What motivated you to get started with DriveMe?

While I worked in a logistics company, I discovered the biggest challenge we had at the time was drivers’ issues, from finding a qualified driver to testing them and then managing them. At home, I also faced a similar problem when I had to hire a driver for my family. These experiences shaped the idea and gave the inspiration to birth DriveMe.

Damilola_Odunlade_DriveMe
What specific problem are you solving with your startup and how are you solving it?

At DriveMe, we are solving the problem of low access to quality driver education in the transport industry and access to verified and professional drivers in Africa.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

In attracting customers, we have been fortunate to have many customers who are evangelists of DriveMe and have consistently referred our company to their friends and family. To retain customers, we are consciously creating an outstanding customer experience and rewards for loyalty.

Customer retention is always a top priority for us at DriveMe because we understand for every customer that remains satisfied, we are sure to get many referrals from them.

Describe what makes your business unique.

At DriveMe, we are operating in a space that is the engine of the logistics and mobility industry. Vehicles currently will not move themselves and the need for drivers continues to soar. We are the No. 1 company offering digitizing driver education as well as building the largest database of professional drivers on the continent.

How did you fund your startup?

The company was bootstrapped until 2022 when were comfortable enough to raise some venture capital.

Worth Reading: How I Created Riby After 8 Failed Startups – Abolore Salami

Have you had any failed business?

Oh, yea I have. My first company was a computer hardware distribution company. Long story short, it failed.

What is your greatest business achievement to date?

I will say being able to lead a company that is responsible for the livelihood of several people is a great achievement. I really do not take the privilege for granted.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources for you?

One of my favourite books is “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, I also listen to a lot of podcasts, but I have 2 favourites, Akimbo by Seth Godin and How I built this by Guy Raz.

Where would you like your startup to be in five years?

We are working smart to ensure we can utilize the technology we have built to scale across several African cities. In the next 5 years, we would be present in 3 countries and be doing millions of $ in revenue annually.

What software or technology has made the biggest difference to your business?

We built a platform that aggregates driving schools in different cities/countries. This has made a huge difference in our business and has shaped our direction over the next few years.

What one thing do you wish someone had told you when you started on your business journey?

I wish I saw enough failure stories from entrepreneurs, it would have braced me for the challenges I experienced trying to operate a growing business like ours. Entrepreneurs need to tell their failure stories better.

What are some sources for learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?

There are several available resources online to learn from, but I think every entrepreneur should read the book called ‘The Personal MBA” by Josh Kaufman and read “The Bezos Letters” by Stephen Anderson.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

Yes, Startups like ours are always looking for great hires. Visit here

Startup Stories

How I Started Trueflutter: An App That Help People Meet The Love of Their Life

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Hi Dare, what’s your background, and what are you currently working on?

My name is Dare Olatoye. I am the CEO and Co Founder of TrueFlutter. TrueFlutter is a match making app and we launched this about two years ago. We first started with the MVP three years ago just to test the market, and we launched the new app about year ago. And here we are now. TrueFlutter is the number one dating app in Nigeria. In regards the number and in regards so many matrixes.

We’ve had nine (9) weddings at TrueFlutter and still counting. I’d say TrueFlutter is a dating app for serious minded people looking for genuine and committed relationships.

What problem are you exactly solving with Trueflutter?

We are solving the problem of Singleness, Loneliness, Depression. If you can solve the question of singleness, you can eliminate those other things when someone is not single. There are millions of people that are single. I’m sure everyone has at least five people that are single that are looking for genuine relationships. You can tell from people that are using the app whether engaged or married. It’s a problem that needs attention.

What are some of the challenges you faced while building Trueflutter?

Well, It was a new job for me when I started , I just thought that we will just build something and the app will keep running for the rest of its life and we don’t have to do maintenance.

But building the app made me knew that I need to get the best hands on deck. When we started the major issue was getting the right people to build what we actually wanted and it took a lot of time to get the right team to work with us.

Right now we have the best team ever but it took us a while before we could get this people.  Some people tend to dump some certain products because its giving them a lot of stress  especially when you have customer feedback with a lot of complains.

I learnt something from Elon Musk when he launched PayPal, he had so many complains, he told his team to gather all the complains and just fix it. So that was the mind set I had when I started because there were so many complaints then and we are still fixing. Being able to weather the storm and being able to build something that is very impressive takes a lot of time and patience. You have to have a thick skin as an entrepreneur because at a point in time there will be a lot of things you have to fix and you have to be very objective about it. You also have to be pragmatic while fixing your products and you have to be very timely as well.

How do you feel receiving a lot of success stories from people who are using your app?

It’s a good feeling. It’s a good feeling in the sense that we actually set up the platform for that purpose. We set up the platform with the goal to be the best dating platform in Africa and also with the goal to connect as many people as possible. So, yeah I felt really good when I heard of the story and I’m expecting more stories, it is a way of building the company and also a way of adding value to humanity while you are rendering the service.

How are you able to get these success stories. Do you track users conversations?

We can’t track people’s conversation because that’s very unethical. What they do is that they tell us themselves if they’re engaged or married. So they basically share their stories with us.

One of the problems with dating startups is actually verifying people who have registered. So, how have you been able to solve that?

We have few things on our platforms that solve that problem to some extent.

We have Security features. Since we launched our dating app we’ve deactivated over 1,000 subscribers for different reasons. Like some being married, or people looking for just hookups and all of that. So we’ve been able to deactivate so many. But going forward, we are launching a security feature in the next few weeks, and it is the same security feature that banks use to verify certain users and subscribers.

We want to make sure that the data are safeguarded and our subscribers are safeguarded. We have the voice and video call functionality which is free. So what I always tell people is that when you’re on the app always calls the person on the app just to verify the persons face to know if the person is actually who they say they are.

Was Trueflutter your first attempt at starting a business?

I won’t say it was my first attempt at starting a business. I was in the oil and gas sector for like some years. So, I’d say it was my company and I did that for couple of years. I learnt how to trade and got to know the dynamics of the downstream sector. I did very well in that industry. I’d say that was my first time of venturing into the entrepreneurial space before I started TrueFlutter.

Why then did you leave the Oil and Gas sector. Did your business fail?

Not at all. I stopped the downstream sector as a result of starting TrueFlutter and I knew that it would have been very difficult to divide my attention into like two different businesses that was why I focused on one. People know me that when they offer other jobs to me, I decline those kinds of jobs because I don’t like being distracted from what I’m doing in my company. So, my oil and gas business didn’t fail, I just put a stop to it because I started this, and everything was just me reflecting on myself, reflecting on life, reflecting on the gifts I felt I had and never utilized those gifts and that was why I moved into something I felt that I have a lot of passion for and I knew that come sun, come rain I’d still be doing what I’m doing now.

When you first started Trueflutter, did you nursed any fear of failure?

I think a lot of people will say that I am stubborn and some will say that I am driven. People have different takes on me as a person. I could be stubborn and I could be driven, I don’t believe in failure.

That reflects on who I am as a person. When I started TrueFlutter I could be at the radio station at 2am in the morning just trying to promote my platform. You know that most of these love stories on radio stations are always at night, around 12am or 1am in the morning.

That is when most of the listeners listen to love stories. I was always that kind of guy that would drive to the radio station because of the love of TrueFlutter and the love of just trying to connect people. I didn’t have any fear In failure even some of my friends told me that I was crazy, they were asking questions like, are you sure?, will this thing work?. And me as a person I knew something that there was a problem and I needed to create a solution and I knew TrueFlutter was the solution.

I knew that it would take a lot of efforts to make sure to put myself out there and for people to know my company. I never thought for one second that TrueFlutter would fail because there’s a problem and I am here creating a solution and every successful entrepreneur knows that they’re creating a solution to a problem and they know that as long as there’s demand for that thing, there will always be supply.

Read Also: How I Started Aorthar, A Design Agency – Damola of Aorthar

What advice do you have for Entrepreneurs out there who are getting started?

The number one advice is; Stay grounded as a founder, you know where you’re  going to as a founder of a company. Be very strategic about how you grow your company.

There’s something called Bootstrapping, make sure your business is self sustaining without external factors. It’s very important because I’ve seen it these days when a lot of people loose their head when they feel like they’ve gotten to a certain level and they just start misbehaving. So, Know where you’re going to. You’re raising a baby, you know the funds you need to invest in that baby, you know when you need to just hold back a bit because you know when your baby is growing, you know what you want your baby to accomplish.

Your company is your baby, know what you need to invest in. Make sure you pamper your baby and make it grow the way you want it to grow. It takes a lot of efforts and sacrifice, it takes a lot of you being grounded and being an entrepreneur.

Refer us to some of your Learning Resources Like Books, Videos or Podcast.

There’s  a book called the Extra Ordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani, Vishen is the founder of Mindvalley, that is a great book you need to read as an entrepreneur.

My Mentors are founders and people that are older than me in the space.

Learn from people that are older than you in the space, it doesn’t have to be reading books it could also be learning from people who have like 30years or 40years experience in the industry you’re in. let them show you the way and tell you the things not to do. Sometimes I don’t read books, sometimes I just read articles that older people sent to me, articles on different stories of startups and anything related to my space and helping the growth of my company. Last week I watched the interview of the owner of BetterHalf. BetterHalf is a dating app based in India and when I watched that interview I learned a lot about what we could do as a company to be able to even be better than BetterHalf. Those guys are doing a phenomenal job , it’s a fantastic dating app and I learnt just by watching the podcast. Some people don’t like reading, some people like listening. For those that like listening you can listen to Podcast, you can just go to YouTube and learn from founders that are already existing in the space.

What are your plans for TrueFlutter in this new year?

TrueFlutter is definitely going to be apart with other dating apps  because what we are building is really solid because we put Africa into consideration when it comes to optimizing the algorithm and machinery, and being able to give it better match as an app.

trueflutter

So there are lot of things we are doing now as a company and we are launching in few weeks . TrueFlutter will definitely be a household name and we are very optimistic about the numbers. So we know we are going to grow like 3X the number we have now and we are definitely going to be a household name and that is what we are striving to be as a company this year.

We want to be in different parts of Africa and also grow as a company. Most importantly we want to connect as many people as possible.