Murder Your Fears

Two months ago, I was in Osun State to bury my grandmother from the mother side. She was a wonderful woman. Clearly, a decent entrepreneur with wit and discipline.

My experience living with her as a young lad in elementary school give me the basic foundation that become the building block of how I construct and see the world.

So today I try to figure out the impact of  grandmother and wish most shape my life purpose.

It is a message that will probably nudge everyone of us to take action. Perhaps someone will get struck to act on his dreams.

Early 2000, I was living with my grandmother. She was a farmer, petty trader and she sells Fufu. I and my siblings alike hawk for her everyday the sun shines except Sundays.

Every weekend we visit her farm to dug up Cassavas during harvest time or plant in its season. It was on this farm I learned an important approach to success.

On the farm, there were these three stones we seat pots for cooking with firewood. The first thing I observed about these stones is that they never fall pots if they’re in relative heights and size. The pot will not tilt sideways nor turn upside-down.

With these, even at my young age, I realized that a tree can’t make a forest. Everyone needs the help of others. In fact, one must work with people of like minds, dreams and vision before anything good can work out.

Also, I compare the stones at home with the ones in the farm, and I discovered that the six stones were each on their own weighty, strong and firm. They’re not feeble. They are quite a resistance against any invasion. They could withstand whatever weight the pot carries. Hence, you don’t only need the support of friends but friends of equal strength or more. Ones whom feet hold ground, and firm with their purpose in life.

One other thing that amazes me is that I remember fearing that differ sizes of pots may break my law of stability for three stones. So I do ask my Grandma whether the smaller pots will not turn over. But every time I asked her, she returned with the same reply:

“Place it first.”

Then I’ll place the pot on the burning flames.

Damn! It works.

That’s the way it works often times. Only in few cases, it does require a small pebble or stone to hold the pot firm.

In most cases, however, it beats my expectations and works perfectly good without extra inputs. There I learn there’s nothing that cannot work good unless we decided not to give it a shot.

In every facets of my life, I endeavor to place it first as my Grandma commanded. I give a push, no matter what slim chance I may seemed to have and often it just smart up with no or little add up.

I advice you too to “place it first”. No matter what size or shape you hold, place your pot first.

Not trying is not winning. No input is no output. Not giving your shots is loosing it all. It may merely requires a pebble to fix the rest. Do it anyway so you won’t have a book of regrets later.

Go be the best you can be. Remember no one is better than you.

If you see yourself a poet, submit your poems for possible inclusion in journals. No matter how whack you think you’re, place it first. Join the swarms of poetry contests around. You might become the next poet laureate.

As an entrepreneur, endeavor to do the same. Submit your proposal to that office. Make the sales call. Pitch that client you have been having doubt about since January.

Start your business today. Don't wait for any big idea. Work with the ones you already have in your charge.

Read More

12 Ways To Write Better

We are all writers now.

Whether you write blog posts, emails, tweets, text messages, or Facebook status, you are no less a writer. No matter what medium you  choose to express your thoughts, you’re a writer, and here are a few tips to help you write effectively:

#1. Be Conscious of Your Casual Wrings.

If you are serious about writing better. Then you must treat your most common forms of writing seriously. Before hitting the post/send button, always check for content, punctuation, misspellings, and ask yourself at least these four questions George Orwell recommend, in Politics and the English Language, for scrupulous writers:

• What am I trying to say?
• What word will express it?
• What image or idioms will make it clearer?
• Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

Being more deliberate with your common forms of casual writing will automatically make you become more deliberate in other mediums.

Expand your vocabulary to ensure a more precise writing. There’s no need to use a 12 inches word when 2 inches will suffice, but having them in your writer’s kit will allow you to use the most appropriate one for the job. Because sometimes you need an ax, sometimes you need a chisel. So pick a word a day and use it at least 21 times in your conversations with others for that day. The useful words will stick, and your vocabulary will expand. Just remember words are your tools, and you need the best of them.

#3. Write Daily.

Do you remember Lamarck’s law of use and disuse; it works perfectly with writing. Writing is a muscle: If you don’t use it, you lose it. And the more often you write, the more you get better at it.

Get me right.

I’m not saying writing is beans. Even sometimes I find it hard to write two paragraphs on dry days, but even then, writing daily is the only antidote I could from the expert. You can start out by free-writing a set word count per day — writing about anything every day. I recommend you should start a blog to keep to the track.

#4. Punctuation. is. Pace.

Make sure your mechanical accuracy is accurate. Don’t use comma where full stop would be more appropriate to keep your pace. To add variety, velocity, and cadence to your writing, play around with different punctuation: periods, commas, dashes, colons, semicolons. Note that short sentence evokes tension. While Longer run-on sentences help establish a frantic, hurried rhythm — a feeling that the pace is picking up as the words tumble onto the page.

#5. Vanity is Useless: Avoid Redundancy.

Omit needless words, sentence, or paragraph.

Many blog posts (mine inclusive), books, emails, and memos are littered with redundancy from solipsist digressions to unnecessary intros and avoidable asides and drivel. Ditch the nonsense and state your points.

Whenever you’re in doubt, scrap your first two paragraphs and see whether your writing improves.

#6. Don’t Waste the Readers’ Time.

Keep it short and simple (Kiss). It’s not only an acronym; it exactly how good writing works. Don’t be selfish to force a reader to read for 10 minutes something you could have conveyed in 60 seconds. If you want to earn your reader’s trust, don’t waste her time, and she’ll come back for more.

#7. Use Active Voice.

Active voice makes your writing more vigorous and concise. The active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the verb. While in the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by the verb. The passive voices also entail longer sentences, and sometimes, undisclosed subjects which can make the sentence appeared awkward and vague and even confusing.
Examples of Passive and Active Voiced Sentences

No one responded to my sales ad. (active)
My sales ad was not responded to by anyone. (passive)
The wedding planner is making all the reservations. (active)
All the reservations will be made by the wedding planner. (passive)
Susan will bake two dozen cupcakes for the bake sale. (active)
For the bake sale, two dozen cookies will be baked by Susan. (passive)

#8. Rewriting is the Essence of Writing.

I’ll not say much on this, but read this piece of advice by Cottrell, S.,in his book, The Study Skill Handbook, 2nd Edition:

‘Most experienced writers rewrite their work over and over, refining their thoughts, finding a better way of saying something, making a long-winded section a bit briefer, or adding more details to develop an idea.’ (Cottrell 2003: 146)

Just ensure that for every one hour of writing you did, spend three hours for editing, beautifying, and rearranging your work into something more concise and active voiced.

#9. Narrative Urgency.

Each sentence is important, and it must serve a new development in the tidbit transition: Your first sentence must propel the reader to read the second . The second sentence must also inform your reader the next is important. And so forth and so on to the very last.

Let your composition be coherent: moving with a gradual pace from the general to the specific. Meanwhile, you must mindful not to lose touch with your readers. If a sentence is not moving the narrative forward — simply omit it. Because it’ll kill the narrative velocity that keeps the reader on.

If your narration begins in a relaxed voice, don’t start rushing it in the middle. If you start with urgency, don’t halt in between to explain for too long — it’ll kill the reader’s urge.

#10. Adverb too Many Adverbs.

The overuse of words ending with -ly shows a writer as unprofessional. A man in a story isn’t incredibly huge — he’s agile; the sky isn’t very blue — it’s azure. Find the right words to avoid using adverbs as crutches.

#11. Know the Rules; Then Break them.

Read books on grammatical usages. Learn the nuances of grammar rules, so you know how to break them properly. I recommend two books for you to understand the guidelines of good writing: Elements of Style by William Strunk and On Writing by Stephen King.

#12. Read More on Writing.

Get recommend books, updates, posts from writings blogs and writing coaches to improve your writing. No matter your level of competency, there’s still room for improvement.

If you learn from this post, kindly click on the share buttons to help other writers learn from it.

Read More

10 Things I Learned in My First Year in Business

On August 4, 2016 I bought my first domain for a customer. The first time I am working on a project outside my own. That day marks the birth of my web design business – FutureX Media.

Yesterday, we account for our one year in business, and we are happy to have landed a huge six figures revenues over the course of 365 days.

Within the year, we have worked with about thirty customers and registered over 24 domain name and built and rebuild websites. 

For all these 12 months here are the top ten things I learned.

#1. Know Something before you start

Sincerely, not until now that I appreciate the things I have learn before I started. So questions like what are domains? Why hosting? Where to host have steady answers in my brain.

Most importantly, even before I choose this path I have been devoting my time into learning how to sell, market products, convince people about it and the rest of the marketing tactics.

It then makes it easier for me to get started, train my team and send in sales. All the readings finally tell on the way I motivate my team.

I also clearly understand that I recent book I read by Ramit Sheti was one of the thing that inspires me to take action and it was a single line that says:

“you can make money doing anything”

#2. An Eye for Opportunities

One of the mantra we chew for months is to see men as men and tree as tree.

But forget it, we meet some customer with buying behavior similar to the symptoms of Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis - we could neither conclude whether they are tree or men.

Well, we have least of choice to control the aura. Nonetheless, I think we are more susceptible to seeing to opportunities others may find hard to see.

#3. Offer to Help

I know I never knew August 2016 will be the birth of what I finally named FutureX Media. I only offered to help. And then I saw the boundless opportunities and how much more people will need my help and ready to pay me for doing so.

The pastor at His Presence Apostolic Church International Ministry called my younger brother to come help him create a professional email, so I eavesdrop when my brother said he doesn’t have such technical knowledge and I decided to step in and help, not financial string attached.

I know of a web hosting services that provides that at a reasonable price of few dollars for the first year offer.

I articulated my points, and he buys in. He then introduced me to a church member who also want something of such for her orphanage home. That’s where the business kick-started.

#4. The World is not that harsh

If anything, this is one of my core message. I mostly echo this when I look forward to motivate my team to go marketing. The world is not that harsh, go ahead and make the sales call.

Many people will probably say NO, but you will soon get use to it and realize how important those NO are for you to move forward.

We received a heck of NO. And we hope for more in the new year. The frank NO doesn’t make the world a hell for business to strive and thrive, it only teach us to create better values.

#5. You need a team

There is a common saying, if you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

There are limits to what you can attain alone. You surely need a team, no matter how weakly coordinated you find them to be. Sincerely, you can not market alone, code yourself, speak with all customers, monitor the trend, research products changes, determine design combinations and patterns. You will probably die soon than we thought.

Jokes apart. Your team is perhaps going to be your most important asset as start-up.

#6. Marketing is everything

If you cannot sell yourself. If you cannot connect with people, read thoughts and understand fear, don’t think of starting a business.

Don’t buy into the lies of remarkable products sell itself. Maybe they are right, but it just don’t work here. Remarkable products that nobody knows about is as good as dead.

Unless you seriously market yourself and your products, nobody gives a damn. Thank God I learned this early to welcome good marketers as Bamigbade Joshua on board.

During the business year he landed how about 10 customers, then I pay him his commission accordingly.

#7. It’s not about you

I am guilt too. I thought it’s all about me at first. I initially the business exists to feed my ego or clothes me with latest Versace and Gucci.

That was one of my dumbest thought because I learned the truth that the business is far from being about me, it exists to sell problems. For FutureX Media, it is solutions to digital problems and marketing.

It is more about the customers, the team and maybe a little bit about you.

#8. Appreciate your team always

Your team are made of humans that will develop fatigue, annoys you or even do something that will knock you out. But there are darling you need to have a great business life.

They are my strength and sometimes my weakness. We had moments that matters together - Harsh discussion, cold negotiations, hunger times, commission troubles, who gets what, when and how?

The best thing is you can do - always appreciate their efforts. Thank them for buying your dreams. Have your little ways of appreciating them. Offer help in trouble times.

#9. Relationship before leadership

This is by far most important. If there is no team, no business. If there is no great leadership, no team.

Leadership starts with relationship. Having robust and value laden relationships have greatly helped me in building the world best digital marketing and web development team in human history.

You doubt that? Try us out…

#10. Constantly learn along way

Keep learning what matters, brutally cut the abstract off. Go more practical and learn more in areas that dealt with your customers needs, demands and possible wants.

The curve of learning is always rising up to the right. Don’t expect your customers to demand the same products you served them two months ago. They just love to see new innovative touches. Those don’t come without further studying and digging deeper on your products.

#11. Customers first

How many times have you heard that cliches? Maybe a few thousand times. I think they are right, your customers are of great importance to the survivor of your business especially as a startup in the early days.

If you are not ready to mourn the death of your business, just chair the customers first. They are the breath that keeps your business alive.

#12. Gain later

I will be mostly disappointed, if you are like me expecting huge profits and returns from your first year in business.

Business is one of the game the wins come later. We rolled in a fair sum but the larger of it goes back into solidifying the business.

More importantly, first year means something like the bonanza or customer tasting year to me. So I expected just enough to foot the bills, give commissions, and keep the business going and that is what you should probably envisage too.

Anyways, your business case might just be different from ours. We are into web development and digital marketing for small and medium scales business, and this may join the reason for the low marginal profit.

Bonus: #13. Don’t place anybody on salary

I think that statement is clear and straightforward.

The reason you may ask is that you are probably going to face a lot of downtime months which paying salaries may become extremely hard and if any of the workers decided to leave at these moments, it may cause the end of business.

I have learned these before I ever call anyone on my board, so it has often been a first conversation about commission percent and formula rather than how much I am willing or he is ready to pay/take per month.

Commission means you get paid only when you could probably land a deal or work on a project. No project, no pay. No sales, no pay. Little stress from both sides.

Conclusion 

The above are my topmost lessons from my experience in the 365 days cycle of business. I look forward to learning more lessons in my second year.

Thanks to all those that believed in FutureX Media and considered working with us. We are deeply grateful.

We promise to always deliver the best that we could produces. Constantly learning and improving to meet your demands.

Read More

PHP for Beginers: Introduction

Yesterday my friend from Cray Visibility challenged me. He asked me why haven't started teaching what I know best on my blog?

"Oh! What I know best?" I froze my face to inspect what he meant by that.

"Yes, you only talk about entrepreneurship and blogging, you never dare to see whatever your readers love to code." Deji replied.

Well, that was the conservation. But I doubt it actually goes that way, it's all in my head after all.

Even at that, I pondered overnight about his points, so I decided to start teaching Programming on this blog without quitting entrepreneurship and blogging.

What do you think about that? Comment below.

Anyways let's get started with my first programming language, PHP. Wait a minute...

What is Programming?

Programming is given structured and detailed instructions on how a computer(s) should execute a task. It is primarily more about thinking in abstractions on how a system can concurrently, procedurally or instantaneously address a given task.

In a rather less verbose but technical words, I mean you program by given a computer instructions on what to do simultaneously side-by-side, and what to do one step at a time, then instantaneously - doing something at the instant or presence of something else.

These definitions may not meant what is specified in the Oxford dictionary of English, but for me, it has captured all I have learnt about programming.

Programming Vs Coding?

This is a strong battle we should handle but proceeding. Many newcomers mistake coding for programming.

Well enough, the two ideas are interwoven but there is a slight shift we need to iron out. First, coding is about practice the art of writing in computer languages like Python, Swift, PHP, Ruby or name it.

The gist behind coding is that you want to get better typing in syntax of these languages. You may actually not be doing anything worthwhile. It is just you struggling with your codes.

When it comes to the proper use of the word programming, it is just about solving problems. It is more about thinking in abstractions and coming up with solution on how large projects connects, which data should your database primary key, should you go Object Oriented or leave it Functional?

Those are the questions that demands critical responses. You can learn a programming language overnight and stay coding in the language, hence you become a coder but you may not have become a programmer yet.

PHP and The Web

If you want be a web developer that could probably work on 80% of the world websites, you must learn the number web-server lingo, PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor).

It is a language that started out as Rasmus Lerdorf  sever side scripting language to mange his websites in 1994. The language gradually grow to become prolific for web development that top websites as Facebook, WordPress and Wikipedia had no choice (or maybe that have :}) than to use it.

The first reason why you should consider picking PHP is that it is excellently simple for newcomer. And more importantly, it have a very robust documentation.

Apart from the web, PHP can also do other functions as Command line scripting and Desktop App Development through the GTK project.

Enough of the talks, let's get started with data.

What are the Tools You Need?

First, you need to download and install PHP interpreter, follow the instructions give here. 

Second, get a nice text editor with a great autocomplete feature. I prefer you use Sublime Text or VS Code.

You already have a working browser, you don't need to download any specific one. The one you are using to red this article will do.

Everything is Data

Yes, in PHP and every other programming language you will later come across in your programming career, the simple fundamental is that every is data.

So what does programming help you do?

You program to manipulate, structure, encrypt, allocate, store, and retrieve data. It all starts with the input which is the the address of this article URL that you input into your browser and then you gain full access to this article.

I may as well secure this data, by asking you for username and password before you could read this article or pop a subscription to my mailing list out. All are data, and the manipulation of these data is the need to instruct the computer on how to utilize them.

So what does data look like?

Well from the Text you are reading, to the Audio you buy on iTunes, and lots of funny cats video you watch on YouTube. You are simply interacting with data, loads and loads of them.

In PHP, however, we primarily have eight data types.

1. String
2. Integer
3. Float
4. Boolean
5. Array
6. Object
7. Null
8. Resource

Let's explain all these data type and in later parts of this tutorial we will explore how they connect together.

Strings are long texts. It is simple a combination of characters wrap with single or double quotes.

Example: "My name is Timmy Brain", 'Hello World, I write PHP code'

 So let put this into use, open your SublimeText or Visual Studio Code (from now on I will refer to them as text editor).

Create a new document with Ctrl + N and save it as hello-world with PHP as the extension name.

Example filename:   hello-world.php

To start a PHP scripting, you will need a simple opening and closing tags. You should be familiar with what tags look like especially if you are not new to HTML too.

But the tags in PHP is quite different from that of HTML. It goes like this:

<?php #the opening tag

?> #the closing tag

The # is called the comments sign. Anything after the # is not read by PHP interpreter just like in most other programming language like Python, Ruby and C.

To be continue...

Read More

5 Reasons Why You Should Be An Entrepreneur

Not everybody will definitely start a business, but we can all add the suffix of "preneur" to whatever good we found ourselves doing.

It's not all about you quitting school, learning programming, starting a blog or investing in Berkeley Hathaway. The common denominator among entrepreneurs and top doers is the the ability to process issues and manage risks, see opportunities and give it a home run.

Entrepreneur primarily push themselves out to the the world. Relentlessly pushing that singular objective even in face of thunders. Think of Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Patrick Bet David, and other successful names that move this era.

These people are similar in two instance. One, they are currently rich, famous and impacting lives. Second, they have stories of struggles and hustle behind them and even at that they choose to remain as entrepreneurs.

So why should you consider being part of the big family. You may end up liking the track...

1. Don't Die A Chicken

I recently heard a story about an eagle egg found by a farmer by the road side. The farmer take the egg and hatch it among his hen and the eagle grow to become much like the hen. The eagle fly mere as the hen can. One day, the hen saw an eagle flying above and comments to the "fellow hen" what's that flying in the sky. Then an hen respond, that's an eagle -- the king of the air. Father of all other bird, the magnificent and all powerful eagle.

 Don't bother yourself, you can never fly like him. So the little eagle accepted and grow up to die as an hen unaware of his identity. If you probably don't wish to die as the hen. You got to learn to fly.

Look within yourself to see your entrepreneurship strengths. Chances are that you are loaded with many unique products the world is yet to experience. Killing all these potentials means doing as an hen while you should rend your wings in the sky and fly as the eagle that you are.

2. Save lives

This is perhaps one of the cogent reasons I choose to be and remain an entrepreneur. Think of job creation, philanthropy, technological development, innovation, etc. they all have entrepreneurs as the pioneers.

The job entrepreneurs create, bring opportunity for someone to feed his entire family and even pay for the bills of his dying mother on the sick bed.

Think of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the impact they have had on global affairs and saving lives

3. Do What You Love

Statistics shows that most heart attacks occur on Monday morning. Maybe this has any to the fact that 52.3% of workers surveyed in US claimed they hate the job they're currently doing. 

Of course majority of the world end up doing what they actually never loved. Do you wish to join in or stand out? The only way to career freedom is the entrepreneurs' path. 

Even if you've got a job you love dearly today, what's the chance it's going to remain the same way with new a boss. Why not be your own boss, or be a member of a partnership where you are a constant factor not a mere variable.

4. Live Your Dream Life

If you are like me, you'll probably like a month holiday in London beaches. Or three weeks travels to fascinating cities while working and giving instructions from my cell phones and Slack Board.

It's much of the life I want. Maybe yours is a little bit different, but we all want some degree of freedom which I bet your 9 - 5 would not afford you such a luxurious life.

Think about it for a second, if the job you are currently doing could afford you all you want maybe you will have quit this article from the title. So I may not be able to express your life desires here but I believe your life deserve a better offer.

Remember your childhood dreams, how many of them have you forgone to take the stand that they are too childish just because they will cost you your job or ruin a four month salary.

Though a call to entrepreneurship doesn't imply it's a smooth road up the path, but with dedication, consistency and the right mentor-ship you'll probably just there sooner than you expected.

Life Long Learning

Co-founder and Chief Technology Adviser of Microsoft, Bill Gates is know to be an avid reader in areas that interest him such as transforming systems: how nations can intelligently develop, how to lead an organization, and how social change can fruitfully happen.

If you are a simple minded individual like me that desire a life long learning, being an entrepreneur will help you attain that with ease and necessity.

Read More

The World is Corrupt and The Role of Entrepreneur

Clearly the world is going quite out of what we know to be moral. New close-to-naked dressing styles, crazy hairdo, scary careers, and shocking life decisions in sexuality and life partners has somewhat become the norm and much of which bare least concern in the mind of the public.

Well, religious leaders never seized preaching and some states still seek to keep the so-called moral sanity. Anyways, it's up for each and everyone to make his stand about each of these decadence. My concern, however, is what is the role of an entrepreneur in this changing times.

Here is three roles for an entrepreneur to play.

Be the Moralist

Maybe you are the type that doesn't contour to the trend in the level of human morality of day, then be a moralist. Stand to bring back sanity.

Entrepreneur have large heart for risks. We simply have the hot blood to change the status quo. You can simply start a cause against the things you wish not to see in the world.

If you are bitter about the wave of the same-sex, start a campaign against it. You can go an extra mile of creating an innovative product that fix the gap.

Doing the later suggest huge research. You may probably find a denominator among the same-sex buddy that spore them into hanging out with their type. It might end up, it's a type of phobia the bunch of them have in building relationship with  the opposite sex.

Be the Moderator

If you really don't see a way to cut the canker-worm, why not moderate the affair. The innovative brains that created condoms for protection against STDs seem to me as moderators.

They are generally no condemning sex before marriage or sex outside wed lock. Their products merely served as moderating factors. The immorality may not reduce due to the availability of condom, but the product has greatly helped in curbing some incurable sexual transmitted diseases such as HIV.

If you see a glitch in the world that is beyond your control, you may choose being a moderator.

Be the Marketer

If you can't make it better, make it worse. Doing nothing is the evil. - Timmy Brain

Although this last point may seem counter-intuitive, I believe it's one of the frankest truth you can find around. You can't just sit around and do nothing.

Entrepreneur, to me, have a strong life to live. One where their actions and inactions matter and they are aware of it. (That's why I often attend my department stakeholders meeting with no political post in mind, and my presence is always felt).

If you are the type that love the growth of the immorality why not go ahead and tell the world your viewpoint matters. Marketing it is a smart idea.

In fact, creating product for such market proves to sell faster even at expensive prices. The bunch of hostel owners know their primary market are those engaging in sex outside marriage or a bit of the acclaimed travelers that promised to home.

If you truly believe in your stand and you see nothing wrong about a trend, stick to it. Debunk any society imposed barrier and follow your true self. That's the nature of an entrepreneur.

Read More

5 Life Lessons Entrepreneurs Should Learn From Taxi Drivers

We can probably gain life lessons from everything and everyone around us. Much as typical risk-takers, shakers and movers of the time, it’s far more important for us to always reflect on the things we found in our lives.

It’s on these I reflect on the life of typical Nigerian Taxi drivers and how very much similar their lives were to an entrepreneur’s. Without further ado, here are the five things that connects and we can all learn from.

1. Shun Destination

Have a mission. Entrepreneur like cab drivers should not have a destination of their own. We should rather be on a mission.

Destination gets us limited to figures and being number one, which is perhaps an unreasonable pursuits. For instance, if all you want is to be number one in your space, you should ask yourself in what sense?

Do you mean being number one firm with the largest employees or with the most innovative products? Or being number one company with the largest revenue? The pursuits of a destination is rather blind and selfish.

A cab driver will only set forth at dawn to fulfill the day mission, which is to safely transport others from one place to another. He never know where it'll all end, he simply enjoys the ride. That much is how life become more memorable to live.

If all you set for yourself as an entrepreneur is to attain a certain figure with many zeros in dollars, then it'll all be a hard road up the street. Let all that's moving you be about the work, the journey, and the fruit of it just right enough to do more else you'll be much stuck in and never have a cause to appreciate your life and things you already attained.

Think about it. What if you attain your set figures tomorrow, will you quit being on the high side of life. Will you stop being an entrepreneur or what?

If it's about a vision, then you could easily carry many other visionary that share the same values with you along. But when it's a destination you want, it's all about you and of course, no one should care.

2. Know your limited space

Every Cab you've probably board has the max occupation of seven passengers and when it's all about comfort and smooth ride it takes the max of four.

A Taxi drivers knows his math and will not stop to pick one more passenger when his cab is already filled.

Warren Buffet has a famous statement about knowing your circle of competence. Although Buffet is a close friend of Bill Gate, he never invests in Microsoft because he doesn't understand how the techy world runs.

As young entrepreneurs trying out. It's not a crime to try your hands at many of a craft, but whenever you decided on holding onto one or more don't overdo yourself. Be ready to admit your circle of competence as the most successful investor of all time also do.

It may be quite appealing for you to want to try many trade, but keeping it short and simple -- brevity -- is a good virtue. Don't rush around markets, remember you are doing all these not because of the money or other destination goods.

If you truly love the customers you want to serve, you'll probably stick with what you know best and can help them with.

3. It's all about them not You

Like the taxi driver you took to school, work or home, you're on a mission of helping others achieve their dreams through yours.

So primarily it's never about you. It's just about them. The people you call on-board, your passengers.

Your customers, investors, business partners, and workers are those you are have called on board and stuck into a car. That's why driving them to your destination is wrong.

Your success comes by they achieving their dreams through yours. As leaders and entrepreneurs we are to lead to the team to success and make as each member stay fulfilled.

4. Don't loose face when they dropped, it's never personal.

Okay, maybe the last time you board a car, you said you are going to the last bus stop. Well, it may be your destination for that day, what about the driver?

The replicate of that in business is when a team member you love so much drops a resignation letter on your table one early Monday morning. Or a friend that has shares in your business says he is backing out. You should expect that much, you do it for taxi drivers everyday.

The journey may be smooth now but what about the next two years or four or when a business whirlwind comes around. You'll loose many of your team members, but don't ever take it too hard on yourself. It's never personal.

5. When it all ends, what next?

Then the driver turns around, back to where he starts. The journey of an entrepreneur is never ending. That's why a static destinations are not what you should opt for.

It's always what next. Taking up new projects. Even while taking up new pursuits, remember the last is unfinished. That's why your goals should be too big for you and your team to attain.

Aim at the moon and don't expect to fall among stars. There's no falling. You simply start following when you quit. Once you are on the track, you are limitless.

What have you learned in this article. Please comment below to inspire others.

Read More

The Pain of Taking Giant Leap

I have now come to the agreement that the only thing that differentiates an entrepreneur from mere mortals is the ability to take risk coupled with the heart to manage the outcome of such quantum leaps.

By and large, I’m proud to be an entrepreneur. It’s never ever been a smooth journey even for a month. There’s always the rough side of everyday and every success that steps my way.
I can recount after gaining a first whooping sum of #25,000 (really mean something then) to design a church website, I lost my first Laptop while trying to register my business name.

To me, registering a business was all a giant leap because there wasn’t an overflowing resource to attain it, we are all banking on manna in the wilderness while sticking to the risk.
What we have in mind was we must register our business name even if it means dying of hunger (of course, it is not possible it will only force us to strive more).

On the 21st of June, 2017 I took another dose of courage. This time around it means borrowing from a friend with an agreement to return it in three weeks max. The sum I borrowed with all the coins in my account was what I used in purchasing the EliteBook I’m typing these thoughts into. Well, my previous laptop which was also bought out of the stone believe I can, and the consequential big deals of UMCA chapel website and others is still hale but I need to scale to mobile App development quick, but the little space and hard disk space plus even the processor speed cannot accommodate such luxury. So I took it and did it.

That’s it. It will always be about risking it, quitting school to face your entrepreneur pursuits and much more. Well, maybe that’s what it all take to model success. Mark Zukerburg, Bill Gates, Patrick Bet David, Brain Tracy and many other top rated entrepreneurs and thought leaders did exactly the same.

If then we can’t do more by taking higher risks why do we think we can be greater than they are.
Overnight, one of the big salesperson on my team and, of course, my vice president lost his dearly “one-and-only” university-given-to-him tablets all in the pursuit of dexterity in web programming. Tough, he now official own my former laptop—the portable damsel that lasts 7 hours on battery I bought in February.

We know we have deep our two legs in the risk world where no taking risks and fearing of failing is the greatest sins. You shoot it and loose honorably, and you do not and remain poor forever.
If you don’t have the heart to manage our world better quit dreaming and focuses on the grammar your lecturers speak. Know the book cover to back, or be ready for great slams and greater rejections. It’s just part of the game, and that’s the way we play the infinite game of business. There’s neither winner nor a loser. Just play.

Read More

Leadership in Business: The Start-Up CEO

The glue that holds business together is leadership. The prowess you carry as a leader truly matters on how you will be able to manage your team. Simon Sinek often hammer the need to reinforce your why and stand by your core values.

Well, a bunch of my entrepreneur friends complain about my whole perspective to team building. They conclude that entrepreneur should have enough before calling others to join the train. That it is only when you loose more by not hiring that you need a staff.

Good. They are right, if, perhaps, I am also looking forward to hiring staffs and wagers. For me, it is all about building a team, a very robust and trustworthy team, a family of great minds.

I think entrepreneurship at the startup level should be all about that. Find the right pegs for the right holes. Building a team of trusted partnerships that shares bulk of your vision with you.

First and foremost, waiting on getting overflowing meals is mythical and rather far from attainable at a beginner entrepreneur level. The thing is, the bunch of the production will be on your neck while you still hustle to get more jobs couple with the tendency of you still trying hard to learn cool stuffs that will help you scale.

The case might for you. But it's a fairly universal to me. For a coder and marketer like me, I have to stay atop marketing trends and get to learn new tricks to get my customers blog posts and videos in the golden triangle of Google. 

The most of tasking by far is learning new programming languages, libraries and computing logic. The fact that I am neither a computer science student nor an engineer or by any chance near physical sciences also accounting for my striving in pinning down these computing jargon.

To my point, a team at the level of no income even sounds best for history behind top executives in any company. The fact that they can dare to stay while anger makes breakfast and dinners say something about them understanding while the millions started rolling in.

Read More

How to Start A Blog That Works in Nigeria

It is everywhere and the dailies also help popularize the story. Nigerian female blogger, Linda Ikeji is rich. She makes millions from her dear blog.

Sure, it's appealing. It appears blogging is the long sought path to richness.

How do I start a Nigerian blog that will make huge sum like hers? That sounds like a question I always ask myself. Maybe you are also asking the same too.

The truth is: Linda is probably one of the early starters blogger in Nigeria. Remember the rule is: champion dominates and early birds catches their prey. Does that mean it's pointless starting a blog now?

Never. Linda is huge, no doubt. But she only dominates a tiny area of the web. The news and gossip section. There is still a lot more your blog can contribute to humanity. You must be ready to deep yourself into real uniqueness that attracts audience, I mean you being a purple cow.

If you want to stand out as a new blogger, you must focus on serving real value and not just starting a copy and paste business that hopes to make money someday. Here is exactly what you should know.

Real Bloggers Strive To Make Impact

Exactly.

Starting a blog requires some technicalities which I explained in this series. This post is a simple guide pointing out what should drive you towards owning a blog. 

Well, my point is: you are not starting a blog to chase traffic especially in Nigeria. Trust me, no one gives a damn. They won't come. Neither will they pay you.

After all what actually is the essence of your news blog when the gossips you promised as hotter and original on somewhere else like Linda Ikeji, YNAIJA or Olufamous's.

This shows why making real impact should be the strive in your content strategy. Pick a topic that is not too obvious and research enough that your post cannot be found anywhere else on the blogosphere. Then teach us what the world has echoed to you.

Dire To Be unique

I know uniqueness may seem like a lone path. After all, the big bloggers in Nigeria are all news carriers. But consider Bamidele and Abdullahi - these guys are remarkable in the writing, freelancing and blogging sphere.

Anything Can Work

There is nothing stopping you from being one of the highly sought Nigerian blogger in 2017. The simple truth is, anything can work as a topic for your blog. Just start with the right mindset of focusing on impacting lives.

Be open at first, test several areas your audience might respond to. Once you got the topic with the highest responses, stick to it. You probably will have to work on building email list and the others including great social media presence and SEO numbo jumbo. However, a successful blog with pay fro the stress of a thousand that fails.

Read More