1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:09,600 They're reading all those lies. I wish I could call out and do 2 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:21,120 that right lies. I was sleeping with my sister's 3 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:23,160 husband. And then I just say that one, 4 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:28,400 I'm like, walk up fast. This is not so my sister caught 5 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:32,640 me sleeping with her husband and then you know, I told her 6 00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:37,440 husband so I think what the. Hell. 7 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:41,480 Do reduce things more, right? It's fiction, right? 8 00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:44,040 I've said right to money. To me, it's fiction. 9 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:46,840 The worst one. The worst one are the AI 10 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:49,080 generator stories for me personally. 11 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:51,880 What do you tell if it's an AI generator story? 12 00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:48,400 Are you a professional or business owner teaching 13 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:52,400 investors or sharing big ideas what your presentations just 14 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:54,440 are? Not keeping up with your vision? 15 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,800 That's exactly why I use Gamma app are proud partners. 16 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:04,120 Gamma is an AI powered platform that helps you build beautiful 17 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:08,000 decks, documents and web pages in just minutes. 18 00:02:08,479 --> 00:02:12,200 No complicated formats in no design headaches, Just clean 19 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:15,560 modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly 20 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,040 and professionally. If you want to present like a 21 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:22,400 pro, Sign up today using the tools start link in the 22 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,760 description below and start creating smarter with camera 23 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:26,640 app. We're live. 24 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:29,720 Ladies and gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's 25 00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:32,840 podcast. And today I've got with me a 26 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,960 very, very special guest fighting out of somewhere in the 27 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:41,200 world. Make welcome James Nelson. 28 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:44,800 How are you, James? Yeah, this is the first way. 29 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:48,400 It's like Wow, but I don't think he'll be very special game. 30 00:02:48,680 --> 00:02:49,920 I mean, I don't think I'm special. 31 00:02:49,920 --> 00:02:51,440 OK. We went to if it's together so. 32 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:55,240 So you see that that, that, that that is the buyers brother. 33 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,760 That is the buyers brother. Like, okay, big shout out to our 34 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,560 mutual friend Damila or Killer, right? 35 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:05,400 The moment she told me, I mean, I have somebody, I have somebody 36 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:07,720 for you, right? And then she said, James, 37 00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:10,200 they'll say, I was like, wow, that sounds like that sounds 38 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:13,000 like a foreigner. And then she was like, no, he, 39 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:14,880 he went to, he went to OAU with us. 40 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,640 I'm like, OK, come on, give me his profile. 41 00:03:17,640 --> 00:03:20,320 Let me reach out to him. And then that is how this 42 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:22,560 happened. So shout out to you, Debbie, and 43 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:24,280 of course shout out to you yourself as well. 44 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:29,480 So I finished in 2015, right? But I guess we're like around Oh 45 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,440 wow, same time. So it means that you were in all 46 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:35,120 year round the same time. The lights of our Asha ke 47 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:43,360 fireboy tinker Akon I really. I was actually wow, he was. 48 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:45,760 I was. I remember, I remember meet say 49 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,040 I knew Fireboy, You know, I knew Fireboy from AO. 50 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:54,160 He used to, he used to blow my friend's guitar. 51 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:57,960 He used to move him his guitar once in a minute and he felt he 52 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:08,720 was like, I mean like stabbing. I mean, it's always incredible 53 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:12,280 to know that, you know, and I think anybody watching this was 54 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:16,880 just life is such a wholesome journey that you have to be 55 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:19,160 incredible with everybody. I mean, imagine I was like 56 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:22,920 typing up Fireboy and we're like really good friends. 57 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:29,520 I mean, as I say, I'm like, hey, I don't think he knows I exist 58 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:35,360 other than, you know, I went to play with family's guitar a lot. 59 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:36,240 And I will. Yeah. 60 00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:38,920 But that's, I mean, interesting times, to be honest. 61 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:43,760 And it's goes good to see that, you know, over time growth 62 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:46,920 happens. People are an incredible place. 63 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:49,600 Just you see that good happens and it's not a one day thing. 64 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:52,120 So the fact that you're not, you know, as a today, today, today 65 00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:54,520 is not happening means that, you know, it was a journey 66 00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:55,440 essentially. Yeah. 67 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:59,960 Yeah, exactly. You might not be, you might not 68 00:04:59,960 --> 00:05:02,480 be where you want to be, but you're not where you used to be. 69 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,920 And that's why I like to tell people I am not here. 70 00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:09,960 You're not where you used to be. Brother well Peanuts 800,000 71 00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:13,720 users for minutes and like we're trying to scale that off and 72 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:17,040 we're making so pretty much three points. 73 00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:20,200 It's a platform that helps writers and creators monetize 74 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,240 their work and also helps this new age consume more written 75 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:26,280 content. So people don't read as much. 76 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:28,800 People are not reading fiction. They're not reading novels, but 77 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,440 they're thinking more of they're reading all those lies. 78 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:36,720 I wish I could call out some food that right lies on my 79 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:41,240 engagement like that when I read I'm like Ted slide or Ted tweets 80 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:44,920 right. I'm really like this fiction or 81 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:47,880 that should be sent one that when you do notice cooking 82 00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:52,000 videos, they will like So I I was sleeping with my sister's 83 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:54,920 husband and then once I just say that one, I'm like walk up fast. 84 00:05:54,920 --> 00:06:00,320 This is not like like like so my sister calls me with the husband 85 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:04,320 putting salt and then, you know, I told the husband and now told 86 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:10,160 that I'm like, right. So I think that hell, people 87 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:13,240 reduce things more, right? It's fiction, right? 88 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:16,120 I said right to money. To me it's fiction. 89 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:17,760 And then. The worst one. 90 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:20,720 The worst one are the AI generator stories for me 91 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:23,280 personally. Well, how do you tell if he's an 92 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:24,920 AI generator Story? Let's go there. 93 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:27,240 How do? You tell bro, just touch it. 94 00:06:27,280 --> 00:06:29,920 I am AI myself. I'm the human AI. 95 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:32,880 Do not forget my name is Adimalai, Right? 96 00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:41,240 So but that you know, I thought. Everybody like, OK, so yeah, 97 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:45,360 because the reason why I said that, right is that most times, 98 00:06:45,640 --> 00:06:48,240 for instance, not the most fundamental things, you open a 99 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:51,200 website by anybody. I knew it's an AI website. 100 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:53,880 It was an item. It's just, it's just easy. 101 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:57,120 It's just easy to know. So it depends if it isn't 102 00:06:57,120 --> 00:06:59,480 writing, if it's in writing, right? 103 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:03,080 It's very easy to know, right? Because a lot of them don't 104 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:06,640 clear the long dashes, the Oxford commas, you get it. 105 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:09,520 You can see right through the bullshit, right, like, you know, 106 00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:13,080 this is AI and of course, if it is, you know, audio visual, 107 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:17,280 right, the voices, you know, I have, you know, used a lot of AI 108 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,680 tools. I have AI, you know, tool stacks 109 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:23,320 as my, you know, partners, right? 110 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:26,640 I have a few partners how probably like 20 of them, you 111 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:30,840 know, from gamma to webinar geek to, you know, I have a lot of 112 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:34,040 tech partners, you get it, that have paid, you know, 113 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,480 partnerships with us on this podcast. 114 00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:41,320 So it's very very easy. I think from experience can 115 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:44,280 easily decipher whether something is AI generated or I. 116 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:47,000 Mean and that's one incredible thing we've done on because we 117 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:49,240 think on storyboard because I think that in future that we 118 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:52,120 have premium to reading original content from people that 119 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:53,480 actually write look at the storyboard. 120 00:07:53,480 --> 00:07:55,680 We have different models that say you know so all the stories 121 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:57,920 that are disputed on the homepage algorithm like filters 122 00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:01,600 it out so then that all AI knows that this is an AI retail story 123 00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:04,080 save it out if you copy and paste things as well. 124 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:07,560 We want authentic writers to find their voice. 125 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:10,640 We want authentic stories to be read and told. 126 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:14,040 It's on Twitter, on trends, people reading tiny, tiny bits. 127 00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:18,520 I mean, if I write a story about my time in where you write and I 128 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:22,200 put it on a blog and I send it to everybody, well, everybody 129 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:24,320 walk up us. I'm telling you guys that 130 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:26,520 actually I knew Fireboy, what's our status? 131 00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:30,080 And I'm giving you guys I got to this day, right? 132 00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,280 So it's not like they don't want to read more, but it's just like 133 00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:36,520 bringing it to the format and the style that you read is what 134 00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:39,640 we've done at Storyboard. And the beautiful thing is we 135 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:44,000 just released about 50 books from African Classics. 136 00:08:44,039 --> 00:08:47,480 Ultima Manda's works on Storyboard now we have 137 00:08:47,480 --> 00:08:49,600 incredible line of coming and family. 138 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:51,800 I said the last book is also coming in the coming months. 139 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:53,760 I still have any conversation with my publishing house on 140 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:56,440 that. It's lots of business of more 141 00:08:56,440 --> 00:09:00,560 auto, yes, incredible stuff that bringing their stories to the 142 00:09:00,560 --> 00:09:03,000 format that people want to read it and you see that 143 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:06,120 fundamentally reading and publishing and writing. 144 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:09,480 So it hasn't changed, but now we are bringing it to the recent 145 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:11,360 generation how we consume things. 146 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:14,240 I can tell you read more stories, you've read more jets 147 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:16,520 from people's or some story, Instagram stories, You know all 148 00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:19,200 the stories where you know on Instagram, which is a tweet 149 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:21,000 anyway, they are flexible. Slide one. 150 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:22,440 Slide 2. Slide 3. 151 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:25,360 Slide 4. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 152 00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:28,440 That is a story. So if you continue like that, 153 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,760 you've actually read 8000 words. Alright, so the question is, can 154 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:36,760 we take this format right and make it an entire experience of 155 00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:41,880 reading So and then think about what Spotify has done for the 156 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,720 music industry, what's Netflix has done for the movies 157 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:46,880 industries. Now you there's an original 158 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:49,040 Netflix. Spotify for people, Spotify for 159 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:52,280 the podcast industry as well, brother, Spotify for the podcast 160 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:55,720 industry. Like just cashed out on Spotify 161 00:09:55,720 --> 00:10:00,120 check I think yesterday. So Spotify zero you also they 162 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:02,720 are good partners with us. Bro you're getting the Spotify 163 00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:07,360 dollars right now. Shout out to Spotify, but that 164 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:12,240 you know I'm that. We invest the money. 165 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:19,240 In it's a swap. Nobody has done anything for the 166 00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:23,080 writing industry to be right. Nobody has done anything for the 167 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,800 writing industry. And we think that we can we can 168 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:30,560 digitize that process and make that home where not everybody's 169 00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:33,560 going to get a publishing deal because I just the way not 170 00:10:33,560 --> 00:10:35,040 everybody gets into a record label. 171 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,320 When you sing an incredible song, you can put it on your 172 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,560 Spotify. You can, I mean, not everybody 173 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:44,080 will get even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube and 174 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:46,600 then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube movies. 175 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:49,600 That huge big deal right now. So it's the same. 176 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:51,600 We're not everybody's going to get a publishing deal. 177 00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:55,280 Not everybody's going to be discovered as well, but is this 178 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:58,240 platform where if you write an incredible story, it's there, 179 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:01,280 but it's you can engage audience and you can monetize from them. 180 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:03,480 They can't take you. You can look your stories. 181 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:05,400 The beautiful thing about storyboard is that you can't 182 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:10,880 screenshot it right? So it's it's super the next 183 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,640 platform for lots of Africans to with an African creators as 184 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:16,120 well. Amazing, amazing. 185 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:20,880 I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you, 186 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:22,840 right? So see back while I give you 187 00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:25,080 your flowers, I like to give people their flowers while 188 00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:27,280 they're alive, you know? So let's go. 189 00:11:27,520 --> 00:11:31,080 So guys, today's conversation is a master class and building from 190 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:34,160 nothing to something that people cannot ignore. 191 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:37,880 So meet James Nelson, product leader, web three builder, 192 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:43,040 founder of Story Pod, a platform that's killed to over 165,000 193 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:46,560 users without marketing, PR or paid growth. 194 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:50,680 From leading product at global organizations to assembling and 195 00:11:50,680 --> 00:11:54,680 managing cross functional teams, working purely on belief and 196 00:11:54,680 --> 00:11:57,440 vision. James represents a rare breeder 197 00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:00,840 operator, someone who does not just build products, who builds 198 00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:03,600 ecosystems. This episode, so it is about the 199 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,920 mindset, skill set and tool set at the highest level. 200 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:11,440 So how do you go from zero to 1? How do you lead without control? 201 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:13,640 How do you create demand without noise? 202 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:17,760 Let us get into it once again, the man, the myth and the 203 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,680 legend. James Dawson, you walk up to the 204 00:12:21,680 --> 00:12:25,800 podcast, so it's interesting, like the dynamics. 205 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:28,440 You're always welcome, brother. You're always welcome. 206 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:33,480 Just the mere fact that we shared that background of, let's 207 00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:35,640 say, great effect on the greatest effect. 208 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:38,800 Whoa. So I'd like for you to walk us 209 00:12:38,800 --> 00:12:42,240 through the journey from data analytics, right? 210 00:12:42,280 --> 00:12:45,320 And product grows into building store report. 211 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:47,440 Like what? What have been that those 212 00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:51,000 defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product 213 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:52,320 leader? OK, cool. 214 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:56,680 So walk us through your journey from data analytics and product 215 00:12:56,680 --> 00:12:58,520 rolls into building store report. 216 00:12:58,680 --> 00:13:00,840 Like what were the defining moments that shaped your 217 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:03,240 thinking as a product leader? Yes. 218 00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:08,440 I may not say product leader, I'll say it's important to have 219 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,840 so many capabilities and have a lot of experience. 220 00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:13,920 So whatever you're doing, you have to have as much experience. 221 00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:16,600 So I mean, I studied accounts and I have a business background 222 00:13:16,680 --> 00:13:19,320 which, you know, pretty much helps me know so many things 223 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:21,400 about running the business, right. 224 00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:24,040 And then you look at my experiences, you know, I started 225 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:28,080 from, I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics 226 00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:32,760 for about, then I work in Hellenic, Coca-Cola, we have 227 00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:35,640 some revenue, good management and then the strategy there, 228 00:13:35,640 --> 00:13:38,560 then AXA user experience pretty much done so many things. 229 00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:39,800 All right. Where? 230 00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:42,320 Where the me, the brother? You, you worked with Coca-Cola? 231 00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:43,560 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I used to be a 232 00:13:43,560 --> 00:13:47,280 Hellenic, Coca-Cola, Hellenic bottler, the bottling company. 233 00:13:47,360 --> 00:13:51,320 So it's like. Wow, interested, interested. 234 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:56,000 The last guy we had on the podcast was the the ex president 235 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:59,840 of Coca-Cola International. That was the last guest we had 236 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:02,120 on the podcast. What a coincidence. 237 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:05,120 So we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show. 238 00:14:05,560 --> 00:14:07,920 Interesting, interesting. Sorry to interrupt you about 239 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:08,960 that. That's very no, that's. 240 00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:14,760 Very FMCG is very caught truth in terms of like, I like the 241 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:19,520 fact that everything we do there is very data-driven and you 242 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,040 know, you want to tell X amount of cases, right? 243 00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:23,680 You are, you have so much insights. 244 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:26,760 What did we sell last year? What's the business plan this 245 00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:28,160 year? And what's the really estimate, 246 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:29,760 right? So if you can compare across 247 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:32,680 those 3 metrics right now, say what's happening, why are we 248 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:34,440 doing better? Is it, are we increasing 249 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:35,640 volumes? Are we selling more volumes? 250 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:37,800 Are we selling less volumes at the price? 251 00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:40,000 Are we, do we increase prices with discrete price? 252 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:42,960 Are we giving more discounts, you know, stuff like that. 253 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:45,960 And it's so data-driven. And that's one thing that I 254 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:50,360 liked about understanding how when a business is so 255 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:54,120 transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill 256 00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:55,680 down. And I think that's what a lot of 257 00:14:56,240 --> 00:14:59,280 tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy 258 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:02,080 data drivenness. So it's like, why did our 259 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:05,920 volumes go down? Was it downtime? 260 00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:08,480 You know, what are the effects if it's into one data source and 261 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:11,360 then it's it's two that just shows, you know, if you have all 262 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:14,920 those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so 263 00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:16,440 transparent for you to see the business. 264 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:19,960 Was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem? 265 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:22,600 Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, OK, if it 266 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:24,560 was a staffing problem, did we lose staff? 267 00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:26,680 Did we gain staff? Was an infrastructure problem. 268 00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:29,840 Partners was the downtown Business Report saying it helps 269 00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:32,640 you see the business, helps you actually know what to improve 270 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:34,080 and what to track. So I had that background 271 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:39,360 already, right, which has given me the discipline on how to know 272 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:42,080 what to track and how to run, how to just know. 273 00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:44,600 I mean, tech would say, oh, you're North Star metric, not 274 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:46,680 symmetric. Before all that was happening in 275 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:50,320 tech, they already had those things existing in the FMCG 276 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:53,080 industry, you know, where I also came from too, right? 277 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:57,960 So, yeah, my, my background has been more of discipline and also 278 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:00,760 learning to use so many tools and learning so many things, 279 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:04,440 right? And everybody should be a, or 280 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:06,760 every product manager. Everybody should be a product of 281 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:11,120 so many learnings, right? Like I mean, you mean you run 282 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:13,200 this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know 283 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:15,560 what break your phone is? You know what profit and loss 284 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:16,680 is? You understand revenue you. 285 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:18,240 Understand. Exactly, brother. 286 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:21,360 Exactly, brother. You know, like in my head, in my 287 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,960 head when you were talking, I was like this guy's applied his 288 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:27,520 cost account and his manager had accounted from the FMCG 289 00:16:27,520 --> 00:16:29,560 background. That was just what was in my 290 00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:37,840 head, brother. Yes, bro, even even even as as 291 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:40,000 you run your podcast, you're looking at the streams, you 292 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:41,360 know, at what point did they pick? 293 00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:42,920 Did they finish watching? Did they finish watching? 294 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,520 Like there's just so much analysis that goes into which is 295 00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,240 like, you know, it's not just similar with a nice voice and 296 00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:52,240 knows how to speak well. It's a demo with so many aspects 297 00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:56,040 of him that actually makes him run this podcast and runs it 298 00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:57,720 fundamentally well. Right. 299 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:01,440 So I think it's the same thing. I think it's important. 300 00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:03,440 Exactly. So I think that's the same thing 301 00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:07,119 that in terms of, you know, all the things that I've done to 302 00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:11,000 say, OK, when I said I was going to build this thing, because I 303 00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:13,720 always, the history of it is that I always used to write on 304 00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:16,119 my WhatsApp status about everybody. 305 00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:20,000 Like I read about my colleagues, you know, I can write about like 306 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,119 on my WhatsApp, I have to do this for who is sleeping married 307 00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:25,040 man, who they bought, who they bought phone for. 308 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:30,200 You know, everybody's like everybody's so good to like that 309 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:31,920 kind of gossip. It's like corporate gossip. 310 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:34,840 And like this is like the same like before. 311 00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:38,280 And then I used to use different things. 312 00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:41,160 I'm like, oh, Fumi and Chuma. I used to like I was students 313 00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:43,480 and everybody knew that they were like real life people in 314 00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:45,920 the office, like dummy and everybody when I'm like, guys 315 00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:48,600 come and you know, it was like just a bit of like stream 316 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:51,120 everything podcast and streamlining just like casual 317 00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:53,600 conversations. And he had so much engagements. 318 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:55,800 Some days I'll wake up to like 100 messages. 319 00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:57,120 Some days I was like, stop this thing. 320 00:17:57,120 --> 00:17:58,920 Be like James, you don't finish that thing we were talking about 321 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:00,400 yesterday. So what did you say? 322 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:03,800 Because he knew that they were like people that I was talking 323 00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:05,720 about. And then I'm like, OK, people 324 00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:09,400 like to engage more in this style, you know, so how do we 325 00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,120 commercialize this thing, right? And then pretty much teamed up, 326 00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:16,440 teamed up with a couple of people that have worked in my 327 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:19,560 career as well. But fundamentally, I always like 328 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:20,680 to. And that's how we've been 329 00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:24,280 growing story for this. If this, then what firstly is to 330 00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,240 say, OK, we, we have to build the app first, right? 331 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:30,560 The app now says it does. The basic thing once we do that 332 00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:34,000 is if we now have this platform that you can create story and 333 00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,400 share stories, what next? Then we need to be able to lock 334 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,640 stories, then we need to be able to pay for stories. 335 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:42,320 And then, you know, it's if this, then what, then what, then 336 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:44,480 what? So now it's like when we've done 337 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,880 all those instrument integration, next thing was how 338 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:51,720 can people across the world pay right for these things? 339 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:55,000 Do we want to integrate on an arithmetic progression, which 340 00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:58,040 will be slow or do you want to go geometrically, which is Web 341 00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:01,160 3, right? So pretty much made the entire 342 00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:04,280 app AUSEC type thing. We partnered with base, we got 343 00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,120 on the base founders Fellowship and we're able to now do 344 00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:09,600 payments on it. So it's everywhere you are. 345 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:11,160 You could pay for stuff with crypto. 346 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:14,280 So it's like, OK, but it's fundamentally if you backtrack, 347 00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:17,360 you have to build the first layer of this thing, then the 348 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:20,160 second layer, then this. I mean, when I mean every 349 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:23,360 founder says this, but in reality we're not, we're still 350 00:19:23,360 --> 00:19:26,040 less than 10% of where we are headed or like 10%. 351 00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:28,040 So we still have like 90% of the work to be done. 352 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:30,800 We want to add voice. We're expanding to comics. 353 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:35,480 You know, it's just like so many things, you know, storyboard 354 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:37,960 needs to do. We want to do a, you know, from 355 00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:40,560 Amazon, you can read directly on storyboard, those kind of 356 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,080 integration, right, where you can just say Amazon read this 357 00:19:45,120 --> 00:19:46,920 podcast to report. Yeah. 358 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:52,240 Do you intend to integrate with Kindle or like, because Kindle 359 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,160 is that aspect of Amazon that takes care of, you know, the 360 00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:57,840 books Is that is that what it is? 361 00:19:58,120 --> 00:20:01,200 And of course, I think your your your. 362 00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:05,320 Would I say your model is? A bit in line with what these 363 00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:08,360 guys do medium soft stock and poorer. 364 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:13,440 So is there is there any plan to have any fun of partnership or 365 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:14,760 collaboration with those of those I? 366 00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:17,400 Mean well, Yeah. The beautiful thing is we can 367 00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:20,000 all coexist, right? Those platforms do what they do 368 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:24,400 best in long form. We bring out story style, social 369 00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:27,560 media style, which we think the new age prefers to reading and 370 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:30,360 which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media 371 00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:32,480 style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just 372 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:35,720 has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores clustered in Lagos 373 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,360 and Abuja. So it means that if I write a 374 00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:41,520 book or someone writes a book and you're in Benway or you're 375 00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:45,360 in the North or you're in the East, it's be as hard as 376 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,720 important within a country, you know, you know, it will be very 377 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:55,920 hard until it gets super pirated before you can sit in or you can 378 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,400 see it in Chalawa, right? That's how bad it is. 379 00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:02,720 So, and it means that once bookstore is supposed to save 380 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:04,960 6,000,000 Nigerians, it's not practical. 381 00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:08,800 But this country has 150 smartphone users. 382 00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:10,960 So it's like we need to harness that bit. 383 00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:14,840 But then previously, the fear is if you do an ebook, people will 384 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,360 screenshot and they will share it across themselves. 385 00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:22,040 Unfortunately, I was reading an article on Bella Niger OK, you 386 00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:24,920 go feel the the Co founder of Okada books and I was talking 387 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,280 about the experience how took a mark was book was pirated right 388 00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,080 and then it was quite sad when you had the PDF. 389 00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:32,160 But you don't see the same thing. 390 00:21:32,360 --> 00:21:36,520 If my if don't just release the song today, right, it's going to 391 00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:39,560 be on the streaming platform and you won't see people, you know 392 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:43,040 trying to you can't record it out, you can't extract it out. 393 00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,560 I mean, if you go all that manner to take it out, then it 394 00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:49,040 means that you reliable and persecuted because it means that 395 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:52,200 you actually did a deliberate intention to actually So it 396 00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:54,240 doesn't happen again with music, right. 397 00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:56,960 It happens more with it used to before. 398 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,720 So we've solved all of that as what we it used. 399 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:04,800 To right, I remember I remember back in the day used to like I 400 00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:11,160 think music actually maybe yeah, bro, bro. 401 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,720 So that's weird. Yeah. 402 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,960 We know where we are headed such that when you write a book, you 403 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:23,080 know, it's profitable. You know, I don't need to know 404 00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,720 any publishing house. I can put my story. 405 00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:27,240 The story is good. I put it on story. 406 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:29,040 People discover. I just really discover. 407 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:31,240 Everybody goes viral now on Instagram. 408 00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:34,040 I saw, I was, I was watching this content creator. 409 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,920 She used to have like 100 views, 200 views. 410 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,680 All of a sudden she has 600,000 views on one video that she did, 411 00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,200 which was I think the one that was like saying that if you 412 00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,560 filter tomatoes, I laughed hard. That's like when you get 413 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:46,520 tomatoes. There's this hack that you use a 414 00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,640 whatever to like feel tight and then so like so that when you 415 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,040 are when you are boiling it, sorry, I'm talking about it when 416 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:54,800 you are boiling it, you know the water will not be there, right? 417 00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:56,480 Like filter the water first before you. 418 00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:59,200 And then she tries to feel tight and she discovered that when she 419 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,040 filtered the tomato and she said one more guy this in our shafts. 420 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,560 The only thing that was left was like, it was really time. 421 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,160 You should like it's better. I burn my gas that tree with 422 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,720 this tomato water. So I mean, as you went back with 423 00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,440 that content, just like 600,000, like it's an opportunity for I 424 00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:18,160 followed her and she's growing like she posts on that video. 425 00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,240 It has more views. So we want to do the same thing 426 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,120 for writers, right? So you don't have to like it's 427 00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,440 like creating a platform for democracy where the right 428 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:30,360 stories get seen by the right people and you become very big 429 00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:32,160 and who knows? Someone cannot approach you to 430 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,400 say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right? 431 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,480 We want to make this into a comic and we want to make this 432 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,880 an excise. So it's a hard work, but we know 433 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,880 that if we do this right now, it's crazy that platform for 434 00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:45,120 Africans. So mediums of that. 435 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,160 And like, so they don't pay Africans, they don't even pay 436 00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,000 Nigerians. We just started paying Nigerians 437 00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:51,880 shitty money like last year, even alone, alone would change 438 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:53,680 all the dynamics. Every day, like tomorrow you can 439 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,320 wake up and change how the how, how, how people get paid. 440 00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,560 It's like now it's like only you're only getting money from 441 00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:00,440 people that pay me. And it's like only verified 442 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,840 people can like, I mean, like, it's important that Africans 443 00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:06,480 take people by the horn and build their own platform, which 444 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,400 which is what we're doing. And unfortunately, people are 445 00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:11,800 not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that 446 00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,840 sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Meta? 447 00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,000 Can you hear me? Yes, I do. 448 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:20,240 You're talking. Yes I can. 449 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,160 You're talking about somebody who sells bags, you know, pay 450 00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,160 money to Meta. So probably you're talking about 451 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,000 the Meta verification? Yes, yes. 452 00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:29,760 Hold on. Can you give me can you pause 453 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:31,080 for a second? Sure, sure. 454 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,640 Yes, I need to take a call. Sure, we decide. 455 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:34,680 AI cut this side. Yeah, hold on. 456 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,200 Just give me a second. I need to take a call. 457 00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:39,800 Yeah, sure. Hello. 458 00:24:40,120 --> 00:24:43,200 Hey, I'm back. Yeah, Riverside. 459 00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,600 Yeah, you're back. This is on the fact that you're 460 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:48,880 using reverse and you're able to cut it. 461 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,400 So I'm like, OK, cool. Let me just someone's coming to 462 00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:53,240 my house and they have missed. They've missed their way. 463 00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:55,400 Yeah. I just said. 464 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,600 You know what the AI tools have to be working for? 465 00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:06,760 The body of your pain side is 400 and what now $438 for the 466 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:08,560 for the year. But that's crazy money. 467 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,760 That is. That is crazy money you like. 468 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,240 Because imagine having to hire an editor to cuts, cuts, cuts. 469 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:18,120 We do. We do. 470 00:25:18,120 --> 00:25:19,160 We do. Yeah. 471 00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:20,640 Is this horrible? Yes, now. 472 00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,440 Unfortunately, did what? Unfortunately I talk really fast 473 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,600 sadly. OK, OK, No, no, no, not a 474 00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:32,640 problem. Not a problem. 475 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,880 I've done over 170 episodes. I've been with the good, the bad 476 00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,240 and the ugly. Never, never a problem. 477 00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,840 So what did you say that's? Impressive. 478 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,320 We need to talk offline. OK about. 479 00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:47,320 OK about don't worries. Don't worries. 480 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,000 OK Riverside, we're back in. Amelia wanted to host a webinar, 481 00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,040 but the tool couldn't deliver zooming. 482 00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,320 Now she turned to Webinar Key, an expert solution for webinars. 483 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,960 With seamless setup and intuitive design, she delivered 484 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,760 the perfect webinar. Webinar Key host webinars like a 485 00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,840 boss. Now you've been a founder 486 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,360 myself. Being a founder, I can't 487 00:26:10,360 --> 00:26:13,360 resonate with you on so many things. 488 00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:18,240 But there is one thing I want to talk about here. 489 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:19,960 And of course, you've spoken about it already. 490 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,720 It's about hard work. Everybody likes hard work, 491 00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,160 right? But there's no substitute for 492 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,120 hard work when it comes to building something from the 493 00:26:29,120 --> 00:26:32,600 ground up. So what would you say are the 494 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:36,360 beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building 495 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:41,680 products, especially when you're bootstrapping building from zero 496 00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,200 to something? Well, there is. 497 00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,640 I think that I'll be honest with you because I've seen this 498 00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:53,520 happen too many times, right. I know for one that stamina is 499 00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,920 the most important thing. Yes, stamina is the most 500 00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,240 important thing. That idea, you know, in the 501 00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,200 words of I'm not that fantastic. I won't say something that they 502 00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:02,920 could, but I'm not that guy, right? 503 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,200 That, well, my favorite of all time is anyway. 504 00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,720 Yeah, I'm not that guy in the West, in the West of Winston 505 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,760 Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to 506 00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:14,640 failure without losing enthusiasm. 507 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,480 That has been my fundamentals as we started this business. 508 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,360 Look at the emails that I sent my my Co founders back in this 509 00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:23,680 when I'm like, you know, when I, when I, when I look at the 510 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,840 conversations that I've had over time, when I told my founders 511 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,120 that, you know, even if he feels like we're feeling and we're 512 00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:35,040 feeling, we're feeling like we need to pick up ourselves and 513 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,360 not lose that enthusiasm in what we're doing so we can keep on 514 00:27:38,360 --> 00:27:40,600 the struggle. And like, you know, we don't 515 00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:42,680 lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people 516 00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,200 have come we're trying to get a mobile developer to but it was 517 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:46,720 hard. People have come straight. 518 00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:48,680 I'm really overwhelming the work right now. 519 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,520 I need to go. Yeah. 520 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,680 So as I was saying, right. So it's important that we don't 521 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,760 lose enthusiasm, right? It's important that you know, 522 00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,160 because the truth is that they start up with a hypothesis, one 523 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,640 experiment. They will, people read this way 524 00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,640 if we do it, they might, they might not. 525 00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:08,640 If it's a hypothesis, an experiment, can we change it 526 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,400 really quickly as we're giving the service and the experience 527 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,320 is happening? Can we took it again? 528 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,760 Can we took it again? Can we took it again, right. 529 00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,280 Can we see what's not working? So it's a, it's like so many 530 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,040 things like you are jumping down. 531 00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:26,800 Isolation on isolation. Exactly So, but the idea, the 532 00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,000 most fundamental is that you don't lose that enthusiasm. 533 00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,360 There's so many times when we've come to the hard stop and we 534 00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:35,280 think that this is it. I just need to sleep and wake 535 00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:36,960 up. And then we're like action. 536 00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:39,840 Like I tell myself, like, I mean, we're not making so much 537 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:41,160 money. We've been we've been on for a 538 00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,120 while, right? Because I mean, for what we are 539 00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,480 doing, we need to be at scale before we, you know, for our ads 540 00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,560 when it starts coming in. And that's what happens with any 541 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,120 brand, right? If you're beginning your, your 542 00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,200 kids be at scale before it becomes popular and dense. 543 00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,720 What if I said, Hey, we want a partner content. 544 00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,920 Your $1 million is rolling in and then I'm like, or more, we 545 00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,880 think that, you know, it was overnight for you, right? 546 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,040 So in the same way but the idea to stay consistent not loose 547 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:08,480 then it. Bro 2 views. 548 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,280 Yeah, you are, exactly. So that idea, that thing that 549 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:18,280 keeps you on, right, that gives you that stamina and that 550 00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,040 enthusiasm is the most important thing. 551 00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,280 And that's why you should build what you love for sure. 552 00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:27,320 Because when, when the lights feel in the heads of Sharon, you 553 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,040 know, we just remember. Like, do you mean that like the 554 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:33,680 thing that I know I'll never casually write it on my status 555 00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:36,000 and I lost the report because I can just casually write to the I 556 00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,240 want to write write. So those things that made you 557 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,800 fall in love with that thing, even if it's 5 views, you're 558 00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,320 happy that you have a fulfillment that you shot an 559 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,320 incredible podcast. It was great. 560 00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,040 It was nice. Like it's not fundamentally that 561 00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,440 because if you think that you're going to make money within a 562 00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,240 certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it and you 563 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,080 never go to the end of it where you know you have to stay. 564 00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,800 And even if he has to meet like 500 episodes that you do. 565 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,040 So like, even if we know that we have to be on this without with 566 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:08,440 09 for like 5 years and we're going to get 5 million users now 567 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,400 5 million is that they will say everybody can run your ass on 568 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,320 this platform. It changes everything. 569 00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,360 You know, it's an endless ocean of like, you know, such that you 570 00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,000 know that MKBHD who is super successful in what he does. 571 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,920 Like he literally said, if Netflix wants to give me a deal, 572 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,240 no matter the price, you tell them bother. 573 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,080 Like he's like Netflix like don't bother. 574 00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,320 He's like no need. Like there's nothing more to do 575 00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,160 on Netflix that we are not doing here because like, like, like 576 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:37,160 you need to get to that point of success in whatever you do where 577 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,280 you can command that confidence in what you're doing. 578 00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,000 So and again, but you know that every such that you know that 579 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,240 every episode you turn out, you're going to make $1,000,000 580 00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,040 from it without even pushing it. You just need that. 581 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,800 Yeah, once I once I throw the VA, you know, that's where you 582 00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:53,720 want to get to, right? But you need to steal the 583 00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,200 episode. So it's the same as you. 584 00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:58,280 How? We have to say the. 585 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:05,120 Cost, you need that. I'm happy you're Nigerian. 586 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,520 I'm happy you're a Nigerian. I saw something, I can't 587 00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,840 remember where I saw it. I think on social media they 588 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:15,520 said something, say consistency pays off, but you go on mad 589 00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,840 first. Before you pay, you go. 590 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:23,000 On. Mad you go, you go on mad before 591 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:23,960 you. This is the same. 592 00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,000 Thing. You reminded me of that post. 593 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:31,800 It is what it is. It is what it is. 594 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,200 So I don't even fear. I mean, obviously everybody, 595 00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,960 we're trying to fundraise. Everybody needs money. 596 00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,120 Like, you know, I mean, imagine you had a podcast in each 597 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,080 country and we're flying to each country to shoot the podcast. 598 00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:43,440 Do you get what I mean? You just fly me down. 599 00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,040 That's what money can do. We have a fastest studio 600 00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,240 machine, like 60. That's what money can do. 601 00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,200 So everybody, because we have rich quality content like that, 602 00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,920 you have access to it. Like that's what money can do. 603 00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,800 So everybody's fundraising. I mean I would like to. 604 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,600 Speaking, Speaking of, Speaking of in studio podcasts, the next 605 00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,960 episode after you is actually an in studio podcast. 606 00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:07,600 So you are. You are literally manifesting it 607 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,320 brother. Yeah, it's such an incredible. 608 00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,600 I'm just going to hide the identity of the guest. 609 00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:17,840 Wow. That is, it's interesting. 610 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,320 I mean, it's interesting. I mean, so so for us, you, you 611 00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,160 see that for us, we know that, you know, even if we're going to 612 00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,440 discuss to get like 5 million, we know that the most important 613 00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,840 thing is to stay on course. I mean, look at Tim. 614 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,320 We spent three Bill and everybody knows Timmy. 615 00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,160 So I know every day I'm trying to unknow it every single day 616 00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,560 I'm like, I'm never going to buy anything from you guys. 617 00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:40,120 Let's be clear. I wasn't. 618 00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:44,360 The aggressive advertising. Every time I think I'm always 619 00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:46,280 like, I just go to it's irrelevant. 620 00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,040 Don't show it again, it's irrelevant. 621 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,560 I'm tired. I don't have money to buy. 622 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:53,040 It's when I'm not shopping, I'll have money. 623 00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,080 I'm being a startup. So stop showing me incredible 624 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,880 things that I know I'd love to buy. 625 00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,000 But I'm like, you get what I mean? 626 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,240 So I I mean this entry bill, right? 627 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,640 But everybody, one way or the other, I've done my mistake. 628 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,720 Bible. OK, where, where was I? 629 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:11,760 What was I talking about? I was talking about, you know, 630 00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,400 the ability to be stay excited, right and and push on. 631 00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,280 And I mean really much fundraising as well. 632 00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,720 But it depends on who believes in finding out that, you know, 633 00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,200 who believes in what you guys are doing and who thinks that if 634 00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:27,080 you guys stay consistent and they support you guys being 635 00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,840 consistent and they see certain things, certain traits that you 636 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,120 guys stay consistent that you can achieve that right? 637 00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,880 And essentially knowing that, sorry, I'm just my train of 638 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,040 thoughts because I'm like thinking of too many things. 639 00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:44,240 So is knowing that who supports that idea that if you guys are 640 00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:47,160 persistent in doing this, they'll achieve their setting 641 00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:48,920 goal. All right, because when you 642 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,560 start doing something, you know that you know this thing has 643 00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:53,640 potential. It has possibilities, right. 644 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,480 So yeah, that's kitten is starting out to stay excited. 645 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,760 And I mean consistency is good, but in your in ways of Adima 646 00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,160 that you romant. He could nearly run back and you 647 00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:11,000 don't like would I say a quick one like for those guys that are 648 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,600 watching out right now that are young founders, right, What you 649 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,639 have just said is highly underrated, brother, right T 650 00:34:17,639 --> 00:34:22,239 stancey is key and you know, people watch and I use myself as 651 00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:26,280 an example. The very first what I say Major 652 00:34:27,159 --> 00:34:31,000 brand partnership deal that I've got right was Better Help. 653 00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:35,960 And we know Better Help is the number one therapy brand in the 654 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,560 world, number one online therapy brand in the world. 655 00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:42,719 And I remember when when I first started out with podcasting, I 656 00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,960 used to admire the likes of Joe Rogan, you know, and you know, 657 00:34:46,199 --> 00:34:49,239 the top broadcasters in the world that are partners with 658 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,960 Better Help. And I'll go to the Better Help 659 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:57,120 website and see or you can get 10% off courtesy of Joe Rogan. 660 00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:58,800 Joe Rogan visitors and everything. 661 00:34:59,240 --> 00:35:03,400 But when I got my own deal, the e-mail that was sent to me, 662 00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,200 right? He read something along the 663 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,200 lines of we are scouting for creators to add to the 664 00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,360 partnership, right? And then we've been following 665 00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,840 your work for some time and we admire what you do. 666 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:19,120 And it, it gave me some perspective as to people watch 667 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,920 out for consistency, like big brands only want to work with 668 00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,080 creators or founders that are consistent, that have 669 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,040 demonstrated consistency. So it's very important for, for 670 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,000 young people out there, whatever it is that you're doing, stay 671 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,440 consistent, right? Keep pushing. 672 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,120 A lot of people quit before they had the opportunity to see 673 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,520 results. So I just put that out there. 674 00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,960 Coming back to story board, right, You actually launched 675 00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,640 this from the ground up, right? And you have this obsession with 676 00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,480 solving problems and of course that aligns with the product 677 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:58,760 thinking, but also you guys have been able to scale to 160, 5000 678 00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,000 plus users with no marketing that that I really caught my 679 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,240 attention. So how, how did you guys scale 680 00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:07,360 to, you know, that massive number of users with no 681 00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,000 marketing? Like what were the decisions 682 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,400 that drove that that growth process? 683 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,760 I like that same new marketing, but it's not really that. 684 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,880 But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect on growth, I'll, 685 00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,480 I'll say growth. So when there's a we, when 686 00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,960 there's a we, there's a we. Let's start from there. 687 00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,160 Amazing. You don't have money, you don't 688 00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:28,560 have money right. You can't manufacture cash, so 689 00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:30,320 you have to you have to get creative. 690 00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:36,000 If you can't afford chicken or fish in a soup, I need to make 691 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,040 soup. You can use botanist like 692 00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,520 mushrooms, right. So it's like how can we do this 693 00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:43,520 thing if we don't have money for this thing? 694 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,600 So these are incredible products and fun factory the. 695 00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:47,480 Fancy name is bootstrapping correct? 696 00:36:48,240 --> 00:36:50,560 You knows how amazing it is because you know all the product 697 00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:52,680 features, you know the impact, you know what's gonna happen. 698 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:54,480 You know how you can shipping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 699 00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,880 Right now only you knows that part. 700 00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:01,560 Neither does your user because this story, everybody would join 701 00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,280 and we're like, OK, cricket refresh, refresh. 702 00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,360 What's going on? I'm like, I see who writes in 703 00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:11,120 this lady who said on Instagram she's like, she wrote this story 704 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,920 and she was like, you can buy the you can see the completing 705 00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:15,520 part of the state for just 5000 naira. 706 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:18,920 I always say, Madam, take these things to people actually did a 707 00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:20,160 sense that, but I'm sure she's not ready. 708 00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,240 I've not seen it right. But you just be like, got this. 709 00:37:23,240 --> 00:37:25,920 That is this product that they can use that better off. 710 00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,480 But yeah, so that awareness is important. 711 00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,720 And a question now starts to be how can we get this awareness? 712 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:34,240 How can we put this out there? And you know that money's not on 713 00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:36,280 the table. So what's what can we do? 714 00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,360 One thing about the mind is that the mind will drive solution. 715 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,520 Like I don't let's say my mind drives solution. 716 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:43,880 Like if you tell me that this thing cannot be done, my mind 717 00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:47,280 starts to process how to disgrace you, how to say I've 718 00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,560 done it. If you say this is just to say 719 00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:56,400 it has to work. So away from that, let's look 720 00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,280 forward. So we pushed it out and we're 721 00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,800 pushing out the report, right? We're doing incredible work. 722 00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:03,160 We're pushing on our social media. 723 00:38:03,240 --> 00:38:05,080 You know, we're interrupting different conversations. 724 00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,640 So on tweet something you go on that it downloads the report. 725 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,840 You put a link to, to so many things. 726 00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:12,440 But again, playing to your strength. 727 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,520 We have a technical strength in storyboard. 728 00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:16,400 We don't have marketing in the money. 729 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:17,880 Everything you have seen is foreplay. 730 00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:19,760 If you don't have Money Marketing. 731 00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,040 Now again, we used a lot of our technical strength ensure that 732 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,400 we ship the SDKS to the stores. So you see those ads that when 733 00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,760 you when you're going through, you see a before you touch 734 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,640 anything, just install the install comes up right. 735 00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:36,960 So you put all the MMPS things to track such that in the event 736 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:41,600 that we decide to run an ad, we can maximize, even if it's 5000 737 00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:47,240 or Putin, we can get as high as $5000 from that, right? 738 00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,520 So even if the money is not there, it's not just tiny money 739 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:51,880 that we're putting in here and there. 740 00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:56,240 You know, how can we call a small creator and then to do 741 00:38:56,240 --> 00:38:58,640 something for us? But fundamentally you want your 742 00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,560 product to create that network effect where the product is 743 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:03,640 selling itself. There are some products that you 744 00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,440 use that you see that somebody just tells you about. 745 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,080 There's no ads. You figure it out like, you 746 00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:12,840 know, it's like it's too, I'm sure nobody you found Riverside. 747 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,840 Riverside not in an ad to say download this, but I know that 748 00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:17,200 if I'm dealing, I'll get Riverside. 749 00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,600 So that kind, yeah. By the way, Riverside are one of 750 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,440 our tech partners as well. By the way, Riverside are one of 751 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,000 our tech partners, but for every side of, you know, people sign 752 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,640 up to Riverside, we we get something. 753 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,520 So please sign up with our our referral, our affiliate link. 754 00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:35,560 Let me do a little bit of marketing. 755 00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:37,800 Oh, OK. Yeah, that's cool. 756 00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:39,240 I mean, we'll test it out for sure. 757 00:39:39,240 --> 00:39:42,040 I mean, we like to use so many tools until they tell us to pay. 758 00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,840 When they tell us to pay, that's where story for that I that's in 759 00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:46,000 story for. That's where we draw the line. 760 00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,520 That's where we're like. Because everyone we also try to 761 00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:53,160 keep our costs as low as that's not very possible. 762 00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,120 No, our course now monthly is now looking like 100K monthly 763 00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,320 that we spend the storyboard. So we use free Azure, free Slack 764 00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,520 free. We see our e-mail addresses, we 765 00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:05,240 see our personal e-mail addresses. 766 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,960 I see my although I have the we use free Zoho. 767 00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:09,800 So free Zozo gives us 5 mailboxes. 768 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,440 So that's how I have James at storyboard dot. 769 00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,600 Com. Then we have like sharing boxes. 770 00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,080 Well, like that rugged thing because we know that like 771 00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,480 walking a desert star water supposed to do a lot of those 772 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:19,720 things. And then we've grown 773 00:40:19,720 --> 00:40:21,760 tremendously. Like one of the appearances of 774 00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,200 my life was when we just open Instagram randomly and we got 775 00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:27,720 it. We got three tags, you know, and 776 00:40:27,720 --> 00:40:30,120 one of them was like, I'll never forget Grace. 777 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,040 She said she just did that video, no description, no 778 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:34,840 nothing. I never met her before. 779 00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,240 She just said, guys, I want to introduce you to an app when you 780 00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:42,360 can make money from day one. And she talks about this app is 781 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:44,160 called story port. On story port you can post your 782 00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,920 content that she's like, use my code and don't forget to use my 783 00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:50,240 code, my referral code. When I saw it, I just screamed. 784 00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,360 I was like, guys, guys, guys, we stay in the house. 785 00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:59,360 It was like when we say we like like consistent fight on. 786 00:40:59,960 --> 00:41:02,360 And then I reach out to the house like, hey, this, your ad 787 00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,600 is on point. She's like, yeah, that's why she 788 00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,280 sent me the ad. She wasn't ready to charge 789 00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:07,920 anything more later. We tried to compensate her, 790 00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,880 right? And then, you know, we posted 791 00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,600 the ad, he had so many views, he has so many reactions. 792 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,040 Then we just, you know, I kind of borrowed money from my sister 793 00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:18,280 to say we need to like promote this thing. 794 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:20,600 So we like, you know, started promoting it. 795 00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:26,240 We got 16 posted the video. We got 16,000 downloads for as 796 00:41:26,240 --> 00:41:29,840 low as I didn't even know what to say for as low as like 16,000 797 00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:32,280 because we were seeing it like, wow. 798 00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,880 So when we say, I mean, that's in itself is marketing, right? 799 00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:38,960 So it's not like, it's not like we spent like 0 on it. 800 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,200 It's just like what marketing have we done and how how healthy 801 00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:44,920 was it? Who was the project? 802 00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,440 We spent, you know, we spent very tiny amount of money from 803 00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,120 time to time. But other than that from that we 804 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,680 started getting lots of India checks here and there, India 805 00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:56,360 checks to keep us alive. We hired more, we got some more 806 00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,320 divisive. We had more developers come 807 00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,320 joints to report. And pretty much I've been going, 808 00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,600 we've run ads very occasionally. Hello. 809 00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,200 Hi brother, Can you hear me? Hi, I'm here. 810 00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:07,600 I'm here 50. It can happen to you as well. 811 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,160 Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share 812 00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,040 something important. This episode includes a paid 813 00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,760 partnership with Better Health, a platform designed to make 814 00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,200 starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a 815 00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,520 leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel 816 00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,480 overwhelming. There are seasons where stress, 817 00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,640 uncertainty, and pressure build up, and you need a safe space to 818 00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,640 process it all. 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And with over 7000 reviews and a 834 00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:32,600 4.5 Trustpathy, Breathing Help is a platform you can rely on. 835 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:36,040 So if you feel like you'd benefit from talking to a 836 00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:40,560 therapist, is it data help.com/kingdames? 837 00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:47,520 That's betterhelp.com/kingdames to get 10% off your first month 838 00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,080 of therapy. Once again, this is a paid 839 00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,360 partnership with Better Help and I encourage you to take that 840 00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,560 first step. If you've been thinking about 841 00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,360 it, sometimes the best investment you can make these in 842 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,400 yourself. They're reading all those lies. 843 00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:17,040 I wish I could call out a Buddha Right lies doing all these 844 00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,080 cooking videos they will like so I I was sleeping with my 845 00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:23,480 sister's husband and then I just hear that one. 846 00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:28,600 I'm like walk up fast. This is not like so my sister 847 00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:32,600 caught me sleeping with her husband and then, you know, I 848 00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:37,080 told her husband. So I think that's. 849 00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,120 The hell. People reduce things more, 850 00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:41,840 right? It's fiction, right? 851 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:44,400 I said. Right, it's fiction. 852 00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,200 The worst one. The worst one are the AI 853 00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,400 generator stories for me personally. 854 00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,280 But how do you tell if it's an AI generator story? 855 00:44:59,720 --> 00:45:02,480 Get out better myself. Get out better myself. 856 00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:11,800 I don't need you. I do it myself. 857 00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:13,720 Get out better myself. Let out the beast. 858 00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:16,560 Don't play with me better. Mind your finish. 859 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:18,320 I cannot stop now. I ain't finished. 860 00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:23,040 I'm gonna keep on going until I got that the way that I'm gonna 861 00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:24,280 do it. I know that. 862 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,200 I know the kid with the bull. Tell them my life I'm the one 863 00:45:27,240 --> 00:45:29,760 and I'm a gamble on a ramble on. I'm about to get my ramble on 864 00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:31,680 and I'm the one they really couldn't get a handle on. 865 00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:33,640 They went and see they missed the but they get a game tomorrow 866 00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:35,800 and not know. They never thought we would make 867 00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:37,760 it underdogs. It wouldn't be Gable. 868 00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,240 They was going to ask what we bring tell them we bringing the 869 00:45:41,240 --> 00:45:46,960 table. Hi there, are you a professional 870 00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,680 or business owner teaching investors for sharing big ideas? 871 00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:54,800 What your presentations just are not keeping up with your vision? 872 00:45:55,720 --> 00:45:59,120 That's exactly why I use Gamma app or Proud partners. 873 00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:04,400 Gamma is an AI powered platform that helps you build beautiful 874 00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:08,280 decks, documents and web pages in just minutes. 875 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:12,520 No complicated formats in no design headaches, just clean 876 00:46:12,720 --> 00:46:15,880 modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly 877 00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,400 and professionally. If you want to present like a 878 00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:23,320 pro, Sign up today using to stack link in the description 879 00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,640 below and start creating smarter with. 880 00:46:25,720 --> 00:46:27,560 Camera app. We're live, ladies and 881 00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,080 gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's 882 00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,200 podcast. And today I've got with me a 883 00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:37,320 very, very special guest fighting out of Soviet in the 884 00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,560 world make Walker with James Nelson. 885 00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,640 How are you, James? Yeah, this is possibly just like 886 00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,520 wow, but I don't think he'll be very special get I mean, I don't 887 00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:50,520 think I'm special. OK. 888 00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,520 We went to if it's together so. So you see that that that that 889 00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:56,880 is the buyers brother. That is the buyers brother. 890 00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:01,040 Like, OK, big shout out to our mutual friend Damilola or 891 00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,520 killer, right? The moment she told me, I mean, 892 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:07,040 I have somebody, I have somebody for you, right? 893 00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,720 And then she said James Nelson. I was like, well, that sounds 894 00:47:09,720 --> 00:47:12,080 like that sounds like a foreigner. 895 00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:15,000 And then she was like, no, he went to he went to owe you with 896 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,480 us. I'm like, okay, come on, give me 897 00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,160 his profile. Let me reach out to him. 898 00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:21,120 And then that is how this happened. 899 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:23,840 So shout out to you, Debbie, and of course shout out to you 900 00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:27,120 yourself as well. So I finished in 2015, right, 901 00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,640 But I guess we're like around. Oh wow, same time. 902 00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:34,040 So it means that you were in all year round the same time the 903 00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:38,200 lights of our Asha care fireboy Tinker Akon. 904 00:47:38,240 --> 00:47:43,720 I really. I was actually, wow, he was. 905 00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,160 I was. I remember, I remember meet say 906 00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,840 I knew Fire Boy. You know, I knew Fire Boy from 907 00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:54,040 AOL. He used to he's bought my 908 00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,040 friend's guitar. He's bought him his guitar once 909 00:47:56,040 --> 00:48:00,720 in a minute and he felt he was like, I mean like stopping. 910 00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,320 I mean, it's always incredible to know that, you know, and I 911 00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:13,760 think anybody watching this was that she also know that life is 912 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,880 such a wholesome journey that you have to be incredible with 913 00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:19,560 everybody. I mean, imagine I was like 914 00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:23,280 hyping up Fireboy and with like really good friends. 915 00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:29,520 I mean, that's the I was like, hey, I don't think he knows I 916 00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:34,440 exist other than, you know, I went to used to play with 917 00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,400 family's guitar a lot. And I will yeah, but that's I 918 00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,280 mean, interesting times to be honest. 919 00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:44,120 And it's goes good to see that, you know, over time growth 920 00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,240 happens. People are an incredible place. 921 00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:49,960 Just you see that good happens and it's not a one day thing. 922 00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,480 So the fact that you're not, you know, as a today, today, today 923 00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:54,880 is not happening means that, you know, everybody joining 924 00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:55,800 essentially. Yeah. 925 00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,960 Yeah, exactly. You might not be. 926 00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:02,200 You might not be where you want to be, but you're not where you 927 00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:04,240 used to be. That's what I like to tell 928 00:49:04,240 --> 00:49:07,920 people. You used to be brother. 929 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,640 Well, Peanuts 800,000 users for minutes and like we're trying to 930 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:18,440 scale that off and we're making pretty much it's a platform that 931 00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:21,920 helps writers and creators monetize their work and also 932 00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,080 helps this new age consume more written content. 933 00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,680 So people don't read as much. People are not reading fiction, 934 00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,920 they're not reading novels, but they're thinking more of they're 935 00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:33,720 reading all those lies. I wish I could call out some 936 00:49:33,720 --> 00:49:38,440 food that write lies like engagements, like that's 937 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,600 something that when I read, I'm like Ted slide or Ted tweets, 938 00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:43,960 right? I'm really like easy life. 939 00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,840 This fiction or that should be sent one that when they did not 940 00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:52,000 this cooking videos they were like so I I was sleeping with my 941 00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,920 sister's husband and then once I just hear that one I'm like walk 942 00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,640 up fast. This is not like like a cook 943 00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:02,000 that do like so my sister calls me with the husband putting salt 944 00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,840 and then you know, I told the husband and I'll do that. 945 00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:12,200 I'm like right, So I think that people reduce things more right, 946 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,240 It's fiction, right. I said right to money. 947 00:50:15,240 --> 00:50:17,040 To me it's fiction. And then. 948 00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,600 The worst one. The worst one are the AI 949 00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:21,840 generator stories for me personally. 950 00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,720 But how do you tell if he's an AI generator Story? 951 00:50:24,720 --> 00:50:25,440 Let's go there. How? 952 00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:29,440 Do you tell bro just touch it. I, I am AI myself. 953 00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:31,480 I'm the human AI. Do not forget my name is 954 00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:35,880 Akimalai CMA right? So but that you know, just 955 00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:40,040 aside. I thought everybody like, OK, 956 00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:45,080 so, yeah, because the reason why I said that right is that most 957 00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:48,640 times, for instance, not the most fundamentalism you open a 958 00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:51,600 website by anybody I know it's it's an AI website. 959 00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,320 It was. It's just, it's just easy. 960 00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:57,520 It's just easy to know. So it depends if it's in 961 00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,760 writing, if it's in writing, right, It's very easy to know, 962 00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:03,480 right? Because a lot of them don't 963 00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,040 clear the long dashes, the Oxford commas, you get it. 964 00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:09,000 You can see right through the bullshit, right? 965 00:51:09,240 --> 00:51:12,520 Like, you know, this is AI and of course, if it is, you know, 966 00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:16,960 audio visual, right, the voices, you know, I have, you know, used 967 00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:21,080 a lot of AI tools. I have AI, you know, tool stacks 968 00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:23,720 as my, you know, partners, right? 969 00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:26,600 I have a few partners. I have probably like 20 of them, 970 00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:31,120 you know, from gamma to webinar geek to, you know, I have a lot 971 00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:34,400 of tech partners, you get it, that have paid, you know, 972 00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,840 partnerships with us on this podcast. 973 00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:41,760 So it's very, very easy. I think from experience I can 974 00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,720 easily decipher whether something is AI generated or I. 975 00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:47,400 Mean and that's one incredible thing we've done on because we 976 00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,640 think on storyboard because I think that in future that we 977 00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:52,520 have premium to reading original content from people that 978 00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:53,880 actually write look at the storyboard. 979 00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,240 We have different models that say you know so all the stories 980 00:51:56,240 --> 00:51:58,280 that are disputed on the homepage algorithm like filters 981 00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:02,000 it out so then that all AI knows that this is an AI retail story 982 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,480 save it out if you copy and paste things as well. 983 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,960 We want authentic writers to find their voice. 984 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:12,280 We want authentic stories to be read and told on Twitter, on 985 00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:14,440 trends, people reading tiny, tiny bits. 986 00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,880 I mean, if I write a story about my time in Oye, you write and I 987 00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,680 put it on a blog and I send it to everybody. 988 00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,720 Well, everybody walk up us. But I'm telling you guys that 989 00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:26,960 actually I knew Fireboy, what's our status? 990 00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:29,040 And I'm giving you guys this to that day. 991 00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:32,080 I go to this day, right? So it's not like they don't want 992 00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,280 to read more, but it's just like bringing it to the format and 993 00:52:35,280 --> 00:52:38,360 the style that you read is what we've done at Storyboard. 994 00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:42,760 And the beautiful thing is we just released about 50 books 995 00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:46,120 from African Classics, Ultima Amanda's works on Storyboard. 996 00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:50,400 Now we have incredible line of coming and Femi or said the last 997 00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,040 book is also coming in the coming months. 998 00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,120 I still have any conversation with Human Foundation House on 999 00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:56,160 that right. So. 1000 00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:00,880 More auto, yes, incredible stuff that bringing their stories to 1001 00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:02,560 the format that people want to read it. 1002 00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:06,120 And you see that fundamentally reading and publishing and 1003 00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,080 writing story hasn't changed, but now we are bringing it to 1004 00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,760 the recent generation how we consume things. 1005 00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,600 I can tell you read more stories, you've read more Jits 1006 00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,280 from people's story, Instagram stories, you know, other stories 1007 00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:19,960 where you know on Instagram, which is a tweet anyway, they 1008 00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:21,400 are flexible. Slide one. 1009 00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:22,800 Slide 2. Slide 3. 1010 00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,720 Slide 4. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1011 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:28,800 That is a story. So if you continue like that, 1012 00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:30,360 you've actually write 8000 words. 1013 00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:34,800 Alright, so the question is, can we take this format right and 1014 00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,640 make it an entire experience of reading? 1015 00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,600 So and then think about what Spotify has done for the music 1016 00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,760 industry, what's Netflix has done for the movies industries. 1017 00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:47,600 Now you there's an original Netflix. 1018 00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:50,960 Spotify for people, Spotify for the podcast industry as well, 1019 00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:55,400 brother, Spotify for the podcast industry like you just cashed 1020 00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:57,480 out on Spotify check I think yesterday. 1021 00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:01,560 So Spotify zero, you're also they are good partners with us. 1022 00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:03,960 Bro, you're getting the $25.00 right now. 1023 00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:08,040 Shot us to Spotify but that you know. 1024 00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:12,480 Invest in that speed. Invest the money. 1025 00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:15,080 No this. Common. 1026 00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:16,480 Invested also, nobody has done anything. 1027 00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:19,600 It's a swap. Nobody has done anything for the 1028 00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,440 writing industry to be right. Nobody has done anything for the 1029 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:27,040 writing industry. And we think that we can we can 1030 00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:30,960 digitize that process and make that home where not everybody's 1031 00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:33,920 going to get a publishing deal because I just the way not 1032 00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:35,400 everybody gets into a record label. 1033 00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,680 When you sing an incredible song, you can put it on your 1034 00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:40,920 Spotify. You can I mean, not everybody 1035 00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:44,480 will get even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube and 1036 00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:46,480 then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube. 1037 00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,760 YouTube movies are huge, big deal right now. 1038 00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:50,840 So it's the same. We're not able to get a 1039 00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:54,000 publishing deal. Not everybody is going to be 1040 00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,600 discovered as well. But is this platform where if 1041 00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,240 you write an incredible story, it's there, right? 1042 00:54:59,240 --> 00:55:01,640 You can engage audience and you can monetize from them. 1043 00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:03,840 They can't take you, you can't look your stories. 1044 00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:05,760 The beautiful thing about storyboard is that you can't 1045 00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:11,240 screenshot it right? So it's it's super the next 1046 00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:15,000 platform for lots of African students and African creators as 1047 00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:16,480 well. Amazing, amazing. 1048 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,280 I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you, 1049 00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:23,320 right? So sit back while I give you 1050 00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:24,880 flowers. I like to give people their 1051 00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,680 flowers while they're alive, you know, so let's go. 1052 00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:31,440 So guys, today's conversation is a master class in building from 1053 00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,560 nothing to something that people cannot ignore. 1054 00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,240 So meet James Nelson, Product leader, web three builder, 1055 00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:41,600 founder of Story Part, a platform that skills to over 1056 00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:46,920 165,000 users without marketing, PR or paid growth. 1057 00:55:47,240 --> 00:55:51,040 From leading product at global organizations to assembling and 1058 00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:55,040 managing cross functional teams, working purely on belief and 1059 00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,760 vision. James represents a rare breed of 1060 00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,000 operator. Someone who does not just build 1061 00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:04,000 products, who builds ecosystems. This episode is about the 1062 00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,320 mindset, skill set and tool set at the highest level. 1063 00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:11,680 So how do you go from zero to 1? How do you lead without control? 1064 00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,000 How do you create demand without noise? 1065 00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:17,960 Let us get into it. Once again, the man, the myth 1066 00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:22,000 and the legend. James Nelson, you walk up to the 1067 00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:25,520 podcast. So it's interesting, like the 1068 00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,040 dynamics. You're always welcome, brother. 1069 00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,880 You're always welcome. Just just the mere fact that, 1070 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:34,240 you know, we shared that background of that's a great 1071 00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:36,240 effect on the greatest effect. Wow. 1072 00:56:36,240 --> 00:56:41,360 So I'd like for you to walk us through the journey from data 1073 00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:45,200 analytics, right and product rolls into building store 1074 00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:46,640 report. Like what? 1075 00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,320 What have been that those defining moments that shaped 1076 00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,680 your thinking as a product leader? 1077 00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:54,800 OK, cool. So walk us through your journey 1078 00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,400 from data analytics and product rolls into building store 1079 00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:00,160 report. Like, what were the defining 1080 00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,160 moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader? 1081 00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:06,520 Yes, I might not say product leader. 1082 00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:11,280 I'll say it's important to have so many capabilities and have a 1083 00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:13,080 lot of experience. So whatever you're doing, you 1084 00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:15,720 have to have as much experience. So I mean, I studied accounts 1085 00:57:15,720 --> 00:57:17,760 and I have a business background, which, you know, 1086 00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:20,400 pretty much helps me know so many things about running the 1087 00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:22,560 business, right. And then you look at my 1088 00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:24,920 experiences. You know, I started from. 1089 00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:29,480 I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics for about. 1090 00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:32,560 And. I work in Hellenic, Coca-Cola. 1091 00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,800 We have some revenue goods management and then a strategy 1092 00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:37,440 there, then access user experience. 1093 00:57:37,440 --> 00:57:40,080 Pretty much done so many things. Right. 1094 00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:42,680 Wait a minute, brother. You worked with Coca-Cola? 1095 00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:44,440 Yeah. Yeah, used to be a Hellenic. 1096 00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:48,160 Coca-Cola Hellenic. Oh wow, the bottling. 1097 00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,680 Company so it's like wow, interested interested. 1098 00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:56,440 The last guy we had on the podcast was the ex president of 1099 00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,160 Coca-Cola International. That was the last guest we had 1100 00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:02,440 on the podcast. What a coincidence. 1101 00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,440 So we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show. 1102 00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:08,280 Interested, interested. Sorry to interrupt people. 1103 00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:13,160 That's very no, that's. Very FMCG is very cut truths in 1104 00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:16,000 terms of like. I like the fact that everything 1105 00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:20,680 we do there is very data-driven. You know, you want to sell X 1106 00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:23,480 amount of cases, right? You are, you have so much 1107 00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:25,880 insights. What did we sell last year? 1108 00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:27,920 What's the business plan this year and what's the real 1109 00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,080 estimates, right? So if you can compare across 1110 00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:32,640 those three metrics where I would now say what's happening, 1111 00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:34,760 why are we doing better? Is it, are we increasing 1112 00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:36,000 volumes? Are we selling more volumes? 1113 00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:38,160 Are we selling less volumes at the price? 1114 00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:40,360 Are we did we increase prices with discrete price? 1115 00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:43,280 Are we giving more discounts, you know, stuff like that. 1116 00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:46,320 And it's so data-driven. And that's one thing that I 1117 00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:50,680 liked about understanding how when a business is so 1118 00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:54,440 transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill 1119 00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:56,000 down. And I think that's what a lot of 1120 00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:59,600 tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy 1121 00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:02,400 data driveness. So it's like, why did our 1122 00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:06,280 volumes go down? Was it downtime? 1123 00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:08,680 You know, what are the effects? It fits into one data source. 1124 00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:11,680 And then is it true That just shows, you know, if you have all 1125 00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,280 those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so 1126 00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:16,760 transparent for you to see the business. 1127 00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:20,280 Was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem? 1128 00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:22,960 Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, OK, if it 1129 00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:24,880 was a staffing problem, did we lose staff? 1130 00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:26,480 Did we gain staff? It was an infrastructure 1131 00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,320 problem. Partners, what is the downtown 1132 00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:31,000 what Business Report saying? It helps you see the business. 1133 00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:33,560 It helps you actually know what to improve and what to tracks. 1134 00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:36,960 I had that background already, right, which had given me the 1135 00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:41,760 discipline on how to know what to track and how to run, how to 1136 00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,040 just know. I mean, tech would say, oh, 1137 00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:46,560 you're North Star metric N symmetric before all that was 1138 00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:48,880 happening in tech. They already had those things 1139 00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:52,240 existing in the FMCG industry, you know, where I also came from 1140 00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:55,560 too, right? So, yeah, my, my background has 1141 00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,680 been more of discipline and also learning to use so many tools 1142 00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:01,560 and learning so many things, right? 1143 01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:05,920 And everybody should be a, or every product manager. 1144 01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,320 Everybody should be a product of so many learnings. 1145 01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:11,440 Right. Like, I mean, you mean you run 1146 01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:13,520 this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know 1147 01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:16,040 what break your phone is, you know what profit and loss is, 1148 01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:17,720 you understand revenue you. Understand. 1149 01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:19,560 Exactly, brother. Exactly, brother. 1150 01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:22,600 You know, like in my head, in my head when you were talking, I 1151 01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:25,640 was like this guy's applied his cost account and his management 1152 01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:28,480 accounted from the FMCG background. 1153 01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:30,480 That was just what was in my head, brother. 1154 01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:38,960 Exactly, bro, even even even as you run your podcasts, you're 1155 01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:41,480 looking at the streams, you know, at what point did they 1156 01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:42,440 pick? Did they finish watching? 1157 01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:44,880 Did they finish watching? Like is there so much analysis 1158 01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:47,360 that goes into which is like, you know, it's not just demo out 1159 01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:49,800 with a nice voice and knows how to speak well. 1160 01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,000 It's a demo out with so many aspects of him that actually 1161 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:57,440 makes him run this podcast and runs it fundamentally well, 1162 01:00:57,760 --> 01:00:59,840 right. So I think it's the same thing. 1163 01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:02,560 I think this side is important. Exactly. 1164 01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:05,240 So I think that's the same thing that in terms of, you know, all 1165 01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:08,760 the things that I've done helps me to say, OK, when I said I was 1166 01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:12,400 going to build this thing, because I always, the history of 1167 01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:14,840 it is that I always used to write on my WhatsApp status 1168 01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:17,240 about everybody. Like I write about my 1169 01:01:17,240 --> 01:01:20,880 colleagues, you know, I can write about like on my WhatsApp. 1170 01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:22,040 I have to do this. For. 1171 01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:24,360 Who is sleeping? My man who they bought my who 1172 01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:29,680 they bought phone for, you know, everybody, like everybody's so 1173 01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:31,080 good to like that kind of gossip. 1174 01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:35,080 It's like corporate gossip and like this is like like before. 1175 01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:38,600 And then I used to use different things. 1176 01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:42,480 I'm like, oh, Fumi and Chuma. I used to like everybody knew 1177 01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:44,760 that they were like real life people in the office, like dummy 1178 01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:47,160 and everybody when I'm like, guys come and you know, it was 1179 01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:50,120 like just a bit of like stream everything podcast and 1180 01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:52,200 streamlining just like casual conversations. 1181 01:01:52,520 --> 01:01:55,080 And he had so much engagements. Some days I'll wake up to like 1182 01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:57,320 100 messages. Some days I'll like, stop this 1183 01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:58,160 thing. Be like James, you don't. 1184 01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:00,720 We were talking about yesterday. So what did you say? 1185 01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,120 Because they knew that they were like people that I was talking 1186 01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:06,040 about. And then I'm like, OK, people 1187 01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:09,720 like to engage more in this style, you know, so how do we 1188 01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:13,440 commercialize this thing, right? And then pretty much teamed up, 1189 01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:16,760 teamed up with a couple of people that have worked in my 1190 01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:19,880 career as well. But fundamentally, I always like 1191 01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:22,120 to and that's how we've been growing story for this. 1192 01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:26,000 If this then what firstly is to say, OK, we we have to build the 1193 01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:28,800 app first, right? The app now says it does. 1194 01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:33,160 The basic thing once you do that is if we now have this platform 1195 01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:35,560 that you can create story and share stories, what next? 1196 01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:37,920 Then we need to be able to lock stories, then we need to be able 1197 01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:40,760 to pay for stories. And then, you know, it's if 1198 01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:42,280 this, then what? Then what? 1199 01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:44,800 Then what? So now it's like when we've done 1200 01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:46,160 all those instruments integration. 1201 01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:51,360 Next thing was how come people across the world OK, right, for 1202 01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:54,120 these things, do you want to integrate on an arithmetic 1203 01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:56,680 progression, which will be slow or do you want to go 1204 01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:59,480 geometrically, which is web 3, right? 1205 01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:03,240 So pretty much made the entire app AUSEC type thing. 1206 01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:05,800 We partnered with base, we got on the base founders Fellowship 1207 01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:08,240 and we're able to now do payments on it. 1208 01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:11,160 So it's everywhere you are. You could pay for stuff with 1209 01:03:11,160 --> 01:03:13,200 crypto. So it's like, OK, but it's 1210 01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:16,120 fundamentally if you backtrack, you have to build the first 1211 01:03:16,120 --> 01:03:18,760 layer of this thing, then second layer, then this. 1212 01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:22,680 I mean, I mean, every founder states it, but in reality we're 1213 01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:25,800 not, we're still less than 10% of where we're headed or like 1214 01:03:25,800 --> 01:03:27,680 10%. So we still have like 90% of the 1215 01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:29,880 work to be done. We want to add voice. 1216 01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:33,120 We're expanding to comics, you know, and it's just like so many 1217 01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:36,320 things, you know, storyboard needs to do. 1218 01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:39,880 We want to do a, you know, from Amazon, you can read directly on 1219 01:03:39,880 --> 01:03:43,600 storyboard, those kind of integration right where you can 1220 01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:46,640 see Amazon. Read this podcast to report. 1221 01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:49,720 Yeah. Wow, do you intend to integrate 1222 01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:54,160 with Kindle or like, because Kindle is that aspect of Amazon 1223 01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:57,800 that takes care of, you know, the books is that is that what 1224 01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:00,680 it is? And of course, I think your 1225 01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:05,320 your, your would I say your model is a bit in line with what 1226 01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:08,680 these guys do medium soft stock and poorer. 1227 01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:13,760 So is there is there any plan to have any fun of partnership or 1228 01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:15,080 collaboration with those of those I? 1229 01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:17,760 Mean well, Yeah. The beautiful thing is we can 1230 01:04:17,760 --> 01:04:20,320 all coexist, right? Those platforms do what they do 1231 01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:24,720 best in long form. We bring our story style, social 1232 01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:27,880 media style, which we think the new age prefers to reading and 1233 01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:30,680 which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media 1234 01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:32,800 style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just 1235 01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:36,040 has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores clustered in Lagos 1236 01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:38,640 and Abuja. So it means that if I write a 1237 01:04:38,640 --> 01:04:41,840 book or someone writes a book and you're in Benway or you're 1238 01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:45,680 in the North or you're in the East, it's be as hard as 1239 01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:49,680 important within a country. You know, you know, it will be 1240 01:04:49,680 --> 01:04:54,000 very hard until it gets super pirated before you can see it in 1241 01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:58,280 or you can see it in Chalawa, right? 1242 01:04:58,640 --> 01:05:01,760 That's how bad it is. So, and it means that once 1243 01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:04,760 bookstore is supposed to save 6,000,000 Nigerians, it's not 1244 01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:07,800 practical. But this country has 150 1245 01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:10,760 smartphone users. So it's like we need to harness 1246 01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:13,320 that bit. But then previously the fear is 1247 01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:16,640 if you do an ebook, people will screenshot and they will share 1248 01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:19,400 it across themselves. Unfortunately, I was reading an 1249 01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:23,880 article on Bella Niger OK, you go feel the the Co founder of 1250 01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:26,720 Okada books and I was talking about the experience how took a 1251 01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:30,640 mark was book was pirated right and then it was quite sad when 1252 01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:32,280 you had the PDF. But you don't see the same 1253 01:05:32,280 --> 01:05:34,760 thing. If my if don't just release the 1254 01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,480 song today, right, it's going to be on the streaming platform and 1255 01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:41,640 you won't see people, you know trying to you can't record it 1256 01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,840 out, you can't extract it out. I mean, if you go all that 1257 01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:48,080 manner to take it out, then it means that you reliable and 1258 01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:50,960 persecuted because it means that you actually did a deliberate 1259 01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,280 intention to actually so it doesn't happen again with music, 1260 01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:56,800 right. It happens more with it used to 1261 01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:59,320 before. So we've solved all of that as. 1262 01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:02,280 What we did it used to, right? I remember, I remember back in 1263 01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:06,640 the day used to like, I think music actually maybe. 1264 01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:13,360 Yeah, bro, bro. So that's weird. 1265 01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,840 Yeah. We know where we are headed such 1266 01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:22,280 that when you write a book, you know, it's profitable. 1267 01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:24,480 You know, I don't need to know any publishing house. 1268 01:06:24,680 --> 01:06:26,880 I can put my story. The story is good. 1269 01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:28,920 I put on story. People discover it just the way 1270 01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:31,080 they discover. Everybody goes viral now on 1271 01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:32,920 Instagram. I saw, I was, I was watching 1272 01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:35,640 this content creator. She used to have like 100 views, 1273 01:06:35,640 --> 01:06:37,680 200 views. All of a sudden she has 600,000 1274 01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:39,840 views on one video that she did, which was I think the one that 1275 01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:44,000 was like saying that if you filter tomatoes, I laughed hard. 1276 01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:45,480 That's like when you get tomatoes. 1277 01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:48,560 There's this hack that you use a whatever to like filter it and 1278 01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:50,960 then so like so that when you are when you are boiling it, 1279 01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:53,800 sorry, I'm talking about it when you are boiling it, you know the 1280 01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:56,440 water will not be there, right? Like filter the water first 1281 01:06:56,440 --> 01:06:58,280 before you and then strikes a few tight. 1282 01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:00,880 And she discovered that when she filter the ultimatum on she said 1283 01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:02,360 one more guy, this is in our shafts. 1284 01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,880 The only thing that was left was like it was really time. 1285 01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:09,600 You should like it's better. I burn my gas not true with this 1286 01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:12,320 tomato water. So I mean actually by that 1287 01:07:12,320 --> 01:07:15,800 content, just like 600,000 like it's an opportunity for I 1288 01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:18,520 followed her and she's growing like she puts another video. 1289 01:07:18,560 --> 01:07:20,600 It has more views. So we want to do the same thing 1290 01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:23,480 for writers, right? So you don't have to like it's 1291 01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:26,800 like creating a platform for democracy where the right 1292 01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:30,720 stories get seen by the right people and you become very big 1293 01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:32,480 and who knows? Someone cannot approach you to 1294 01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:34,760 say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right? 1295 01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:38,120 We want to make this into a comic and we want to make this 1296 01:07:38,200 --> 01:07:42,840 like, so it's a hard work, but we know that if we do this right 1297 01:07:42,840 --> 01:07:44,600 now, it's crazy that platform for Africans. 1298 01:07:44,600 --> 01:07:47,080 So mediums of stuff and like, so they don't pay Africans, they 1299 01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:49,360 don't even pay Nigerians. We just started paying Nigerians 1300 01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:51,280 shitty money. Like last year it was a loan. 1301 01:07:51,560 --> 01:07:53,360 A loan would change all the dynamics every day. 1302 01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:56,000 Like tomorrow you can wake up and change how, the how, how 1303 01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:58,080 people get paid. It's like now it's like only 1304 01:07:58,080 --> 01:07:59,560 you're only getting money from people that pay me. 1305 01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:02,440 And it's like only verified people can like, I mean like. 1306 01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:05,000 And so it's important that Africans take people by their 1307 01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:07,480 own and build their own platform, which which is what 1308 01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:09,720 we're doing. And unfortunately, people are 1309 01:08:09,720 --> 01:08:12,120 not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that 1310 01:08:12,120 --> 01:08:16,040 sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Meta? 1311 01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:19,319 Can you hear me? Yes, I do. 1312 01:08:19,479 --> 01:08:21,560 You're talking I can. You're talking about somebody 1313 01:08:21,560 --> 01:08:24,319 who sells bags, you know, pay money to Meta. 1314 01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:27,279 So probably you're talking about the Meta verification? 1315 01:08:27,279 --> 01:08:28,560 Yes, yes. Hold on. 1316 01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:30,520 Can you give me can you pause for a second? 1317 01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:33,160 Sure, sure. Yes, I need to take a call. 1318 01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:34,359 Sure, we decide. AI cut this side. 1319 01:08:34,359 --> 01:08:35,720 Yeah, hold on. Just give me a second. 1320 01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:39,359 I need to take a call. Yeah, sure. 1321 01:08:39,920 --> 01:08:41,279 Hello. Hey, I'm back. 1322 01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:44,120 Yeah, Riverside, uh, you're back. 1323 01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:48,800 This is on the fact that you're using reverse and you're able to 1324 01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:50,319 cut it. So I'm like, OK, cool. 1325 01:08:50,319 --> 01:08:52,840 Let me just someone's coming to my house and they have missed. 1326 01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:55,560 They've missed their way. Yeah, I just said, you know. 1327 01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:00,960 What this the AI tools have to be working for? 1328 01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:07,080 The body of your pain side is 400 and what now $438 for the 1329 01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:08,880 for the year. But that's crazy money. 1330 01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:11,120 That is that is crazy body you like. 1331 01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:17,560 Because imagine having to hire an editor to cuts, cuts, cuts. 1332 01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:18,439 We do. We do. 1333 01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:20,240 We do, Yes. Is this horrible? 1334 01:09:20,359 --> 01:09:27,000 Yes, now. Unfortunately, did what? 1335 01:09:27,120 --> 01:09:29,520 Unfortunately I talk really fast sadly. 1336 01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:32,359 OK, OK, No, no, no, not a problem. 1337 01:09:32,359 --> 01:09:35,600 Not a problem. I've done over 170 episodes from 1338 01:09:35,960 --> 01:09:37,840 I've been with the good, the bad and the ugly. 1339 01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:41,920 Never, never a problem. So what did you say that's? 1340 01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:44,439 Impressive. We need to talk offline. 1341 01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:46,279 OK about. OK, about. 1342 01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:50,359 Don't worry, don't worry. OK Riverside, we're back in. 1343 01:09:50,960 --> 01:09:53,760 Amelia wanted to host a webinar, but the tool couldn't deliver. 1344 01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:57,160 Zooming out, she turned to Webinar Key, an expert solution 1345 01:09:57,160 --> 01:09:59,320 for webinars. With seamless setup and 1346 01:09:59,320 --> 01:10:02,240 intuitive design, she delivered the perfect webinar. 1347 01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:05,280 Webinar Key host webinars like a boss. 1348 01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:08,520 Now you've been a founder myself. 1349 01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:13,120 Being a founder, I can't resonate with you on so many 1350 01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:17,800 things. But there's one thing I want to 1351 01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:19,440 talk about here. And of course, you've spoken 1352 01:10:19,440 --> 01:10:21,560 about it already. It's about hard work. 1353 01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:26,520 Nobody likes hard work, right? But there's no substitute for 1354 01:10:26,520 --> 01:10:29,480 hard work when it comes to building something from the 1355 01:10:29,480 --> 01:10:32,960 ground up. So what would you say are the 1356 01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:36,720 beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building 1357 01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:42,040 products, especially when you're bootstrapping building from zero 1358 01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:44,560 to something? Well, there is. 1359 01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:48,000 I think that I'll be honest with you because I've seen this 1360 01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:53,840 happen too many times, right. I know for one that stamina is 1361 01:10:53,840 --> 01:10:56,160 the most important thing. Yes, stamina is the most 1362 01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,560 important thing. That idea, you know, in the 1363 01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,520 words of I'm not that fantastic. I won't say something that they 1364 01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:03,240 could, but I'm not that guy, right? 1365 01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:06,520 That, well, my favorite of all time is anyway. 1366 01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:10,080 Yeah, I'm not that guy in the West, in the West of Winston 1367 01:11:10,080 --> 01:11:13,120 Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to 1368 01:11:13,120 --> 01:11:15,000 failure without losing enthusiasm. 1369 01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,840 That has been my fundamentals as we started this business. 1370 01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,720 Look at the emails that I sent my my Co founders back in this 1371 01:11:20,720 --> 01:11:24,040 when I'm like, you know, when I when I when I look at the 1372 01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:28,200 conversations that I've had over time, when I told my founders 1373 01:11:28,200 --> 01:11:31,480 that, you know, even if he feels like we're feeling and we're 1374 01:11:31,480 --> 01:11:35,400 feeling, we're feeling like we need to pick up ourselves and 1375 01:11:35,400 --> 01:11:38,680 not lose that enthusiasm in what we're doing so we can keep on 1376 01:11:38,680 --> 01:11:40,960 the struggle. And like, you know, we don't 1377 01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:43,040 lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people 1378 01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:45,080 have come, we're trying to get a mobile developer. 1379 01:11:45,080 --> 01:11:47,240 Somebody was hard. People have come to stay put. 1380 01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:49,040 I'm really overwhelming the work right now. 1381 01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:51,880 I need to go. Yeah. 1382 01:11:51,880 --> 01:11:55,160 So as I was saying, so it's important that we don't lose 1383 01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:58,120 enthusiasm. It's important that you know, 1384 01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:01,520 because the truth is that they start up with a hypothesis or an 1385 01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:02,920 experiment. They will. 1386 01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:06,960 People read this way if we do it, they might, they might not. 1387 01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:08,960 If it's a hypothesis, an experiment, can we change it 1388 01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:11,720 really quickly as we're giving the service and the experience 1389 01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:13,680 is happening? Can we took it again? 1390 01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:15,680 Can we took it again? Can we took it again? 1391 01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:17,080 Right. Can we see what's not working? 1392 01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:21,000 So it's like, it's like so many things like you are jumping 1393 01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:23,240 down. Isolation upon isolation. 1394 01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:28,200 Exactly So, but the idea, the most fundamental is that you 1395 01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,960 don't lose that enthusiasm. There's so many times when we've 1396 01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:33,720 come to the hard stop and we think that this is it. 1397 01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:35,800 I just need to sleep and wake up. 1398 01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:39,360 And then we're like action. Like I tell myself, like, I 1399 01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:40,320 mean, we're not making so much money. 1400 01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:42,160 We've been we've been on for a while, right? 1401 01:12:42,440 --> 01:12:44,880 Because I mean, for what we are doing, we need to be at scale 1402 01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:47,680 before we, you know, for our ads when it starts coming in. 1403 01:12:47,680 --> 01:12:49,400 And that's what happens with any brand, right? 1404 01:12:49,400 --> 01:12:51,640 If you're be doing your, you're going to be at scale before it 1405 01:12:51,640 --> 01:12:55,120 becomes popular and dense. What if I said, Hey, we want a 1406 01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:57,320 partner content. Your $1 million is rolling in. 1407 01:12:57,320 --> 01:13:00,480 And then I'm like, or more, we think that, you know, it was 1408 01:13:00,480 --> 01:13:04,400 overnight for you, right? So in the same way but the idea 1409 01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:06,720 to stay consistent, not loose things. 1410 01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:12,960 Then bro 2 views. Yeah, exactly. 1411 01:13:13,080 --> 01:13:17,320 So that idea, that thing that keeps you on, right, that gives 1412 01:13:17,320 --> 01:13:20,240 you that stamina and that enthusiasm is the most important 1413 01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:21,040 thing. And that's why you should be 1414 01:13:21,040 --> 01:13:24,600 what you love for sure. Because when, when the lights 1415 01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:28,720 feel in the heads of Sharon, you know, we just remember. 1416 01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:32,120 Like, do you mean that like the thing that I know I'll never 1417 01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:35,320 casually write it on my status and I lost the report because I 1418 01:13:35,320 --> 01:13:37,720 can just casually write whatever I want to write, right. 1419 01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:40,760 So those things that made you fall in love with that thing, 1420 01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:43,080 even if it's 5 views, you're happy that you have a 1421 01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:45,880 fulfillment that you shot an incredible podcast. 1422 01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:49,400 It was great, it was nice. Like it's not fundamentally that 1423 01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:51,800 because if you think that you're going to make money within a 1424 01:13:51,800 --> 01:13:54,600 certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it and you 1425 01:13:54,600 --> 01:13:57,440 never go to the end of it where you know you have to stay. 1426 01:13:57,960 --> 01:14:01,200 Yeah, even if it has to meet like 500 episodes that you do. 1427 01:14:01,400 --> 01:14:04,400 So like even if we know that we have to be on this without with 1428 01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:08,760 09 for like 5 years and we're going to get 5 million users now 1429 01:14:08,760 --> 01:14:11,720 5 million is that they would say everybody can run your ass on 1430 01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:13,640 this platform. It changes everything. 1431 01:14:13,640 --> 01:14:16,680 You know, it's an endless ocean of like, you know, such that you 1432 01:14:16,680 --> 01:14:19,320 know that MKBHD who is super successful in what he does. 1433 01:14:19,560 --> 01:14:23,280 Like he literally said, if Netflix wants to give me a deal, 1434 01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:25,560 no matter the price, you tell them bother. 1435 01:14:25,640 --> 01:14:27,440 Like he's like Netflix like don't bother. 1436 01:14:27,440 --> 01:14:29,680 He's like no need. Like, there's nothing more to do 1437 01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:33,520 on Netflix that we are not doing here because like, like, like 1438 01:14:33,520 --> 01:14:36,440 you need to get to that point of success in whatever you build 1439 01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:39,640 where you can command that confidence in what you're doing. 1440 01:14:39,640 --> 01:14:42,320 So and again, but you know that every, so that you know that 1441 01:14:42,440 --> 01:14:45,560 every episode you turn out, you're going to make $1,000,000 1442 01:14:45,560 --> 01:14:48,360 from it without even pushing it. You just need that. 1443 01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:51,160 Yeah, once I, once I throw out the, you know, that's where you 1444 01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:54,080 want to get to, right. But you need to steal. 1445 01:15:04,160 --> 01:15:07,520 I'm happy you're Nigerian. I'm happy you're a Nigerian. 1446 01:15:07,520 --> 01:15:09,640 I saw something, I can't remember where I saw it. 1447 01:15:09,640 --> 01:15:12,840 I think on social media they said something, say consistency 1448 01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:17,920 pays off, but you go on mad first before you pay. 1449 01:15:17,920 --> 01:15:24,320 You go on mad. You go on mad before you this. 1450 01:15:26,400 --> 01:15:29,360 Is the same thing so. You reminded me of that post. 1451 01:15:31,040 --> 01:15:32,160 It is what it is. It is what it is. 1452 01:15:32,160 --> 01:15:34,560 So I don't even fear. I mean, obviously everybody, 1453 01:15:34,560 --> 01:15:36,320 we're trying to fundraise. Everybody needs money. 1454 01:15:36,320 --> 01:15:39,480 Like, you know, I mean, imagine you had a podcast in each 1455 01:15:39,480 --> 01:15:41,440 country and we're flying to each country to shoot the podcast. 1456 01:15:42,000 --> 01:15:43,800 Do you get what I mean? You just fly me down. 1457 01:15:44,480 --> 01:15:47,600 That's what money can do. We have a fastest studio and we 1458 01:15:47,600 --> 01:15:50,600 shoot like 60. That's what money can do. 1459 01:15:50,600 --> 01:15:53,600 So everybody, because we have rich quality content like that, 1460 01:15:53,600 --> 01:15:56,280 you have access to it. Like that's what money can do. 1461 01:15:56,360 --> 01:15:59,160 So everybody's fundraising. I mean I would like to. 1462 01:15:59,840 --> 01:16:02,960 Speaking, Speaking of, Speaking of in studio podcasts, the next 1463 01:16:02,960 --> 01:16:05,280 episode after you is actually an in studio podcast. 1464 01:16:05,600 --> 01:16:07,920 So you are. You are literally manifesting it 1465 01:16:08,000 --> 01:16:11,640 brother. Yeah, it's such an incredible. 1466 01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:13,960 I'm just going to hide the identity of the guest. 1467 01:16:16,160 --> 01:16:18,200 Wow. That is, it's interesting. 1468 01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:21,680 It's interesting. I mean, so, so for us, you, you 1469 01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:25,560 see that for us, we know that, you know, even if we're going to 1470 01:16:25,600 --> 01:16:28,800 discuss to get like 5 million, we know that the most important 1471 01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:33,000 thing is to stay on course. I mean, look at Tim 23 Bill and 1472 01:16:33,000 --> 01:16:34,800 everybody knows Timmy. So I know every day I'm trying 1473 01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:38,040 to unknow it every single day I'm like, I'm never going to buy 1474 01:16:38,040 --> 01:16:39,960 anything from you guys. Let's be clear. 1475 01:16:41,720 --> 01:16:44,720 I wasn't. Every time I think I'm always 1476 01:16:44,720 --> 01:16:46,640 like, I just go to it's irrelevant. 1477 01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:48,360 Don't show it again, it's irrelevant. 1478 01:16:48,360 --> 01:16:50,920 I'm tired. I don't have money to buy. 1479 01:16:51,640 --> 01:16:53,440 I'm not shopping. I have money. 1480 01:16:54,040 --> 01:16:56,440 I'm being a startup. So stop showing me incredible 1481 01:16:56,440 --> 01:16:58,240 things that I know I'd love to buy. 1482 01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:00,360 But I'm like, you get what I mean? 1483 01:17:00,520 --> 01:17:04,800 So I I mean right. But everybody, one way or the 1484 01:17:04,880 --> 01:17:07,000 other, I've downloaded the app. My mistake. 1485 01:17:07,120 --> 01:17:09,960 Bible. OK, where, where was I? 1486 01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:12,120 What was I talking about? I was talking about, you know, 1487 01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:16,000 the ability to stay excited, right and and push on and I mean 1488 01:17:16,440 --> 01:17:19,280 really much fundraising as well. But it depends on who believes 1489 01:17:19,280 --> 01:17:22,840 in finding out that you know, who believes in what you guys 1490 01:17:22,840 --> 01:17:26,400 are doing and who thinks that if you guys stay consistent and 1491 01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:29,800 they support you guys being consistent and they see certain 1492 01:17:29,840 --> 01:17:32,520 things, certain traits that you guys stay consistent that you 1493 01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:36,800 can achieve that right. And essentially knowing that. 1494 01:17:37,040 --> 01:17:39,280 Sorry, I'm just mentioning of thoughts because I'm like 1495 01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:43,000 thinking of too many things. So is knowing that who supports 1496 01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:45,840 that idea that if you guys are persistent in doing this, 1497 01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:47,800 they'll achieve their setting goal. 1498 01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:50,480 All right, because when you start doing something, you know 1499 01:17:50,480 --> 01:17:53,400 that you know this thing has potential, it has possibilities, 1500 01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:57,000 right. So yeah, that's kitten is timing 1501 01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:00,440 out to stay excited. And I mean consistency is good, 1502 01:18:00,520 --> 01:18:03,040 but in your in ways of Adima that you romant. 1503 01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:09,400 He could nearly run back and you know, like would I say a quick 1504 01:18:09,400 --> 01:18:12,800 one like for those guys that are watching out right now, that are 1505 01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:16,400 young founders, right, What you have just said is highly 1506 01:18:16,400 --> 01:18:19,880 underrated, brother, right T stancey is key and you know, 1507 01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:23,280 people watch and I use myself as an example. 1508 01:18:23,720 --> 01:18:29,280 The very first would I say major brand partnership deal that I've 1509 01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:33,600 got right was Better Help. And we know Better Help is the 1510 01:18:33,600 --> 01:18:38,200 number one therapy brand in the world, number one online therapy 1511 01:18:38,200 --> 01:18:41,400 brand in the world. And I remember when I first 1512 01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:44,400 started out with podcasting, I used to admire the likes of Joe 1513 01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:47,560 Rogan, you know, and you know, the top broadcasters in the 1514 01:18:47,560 --> 01:18:50,280 world that are partners with Better Help. 1515 01:18:50,360 --> 01:18:54,480 And I'll go to the Better Help website and see or you can get 1516 01:18:54,480 --> 01:18:58,640 10% off Courtesy Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan visitors and 1517 01:18:58,640 --> 01:19:01,960 everything. But when I got my own deal, the 1518 01:19:01,960 --> 01:19:04,280 e-mail that was sent to me, right? 1519 01:19:04,280 --> 01:19:07,280 He read something along the lines of we are scouting for 1520 01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:09,480 creators to add to the partnership, right? 1521 01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:14,040 And then we've been following your workforce some time and we 1522 01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:17,360 admire what you do. And it gave me some perspective 1523 01:19:17,480 --> 01:19:22,240 as to people watch out for consistency, like big brands 1524 01:19:22,280 --> 01:19:26,160 only want to work with creators or founders that are consistent, 1525 01:19:26,160 --> 01:19:28,120 that have demonstrated consistency. 1526 01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:31,480 So it's very important for young people out there. 1527 01:19:31,560 --> 01:19:34,680 Whatever is that you're doing, stay consistent, right? 1528 01:19:35,080 --> 01:19:38,600 Keep pushing a lot of people quit before they had the 1529 01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:41,840 opportunity to see results. So I just put that out there. 1530 01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:45,280 Coming back to story port, right, you actually launched 1531 01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:48,920 this from the ground up, right And you have this obsession with 1532 01:19:48,960 --> 01:19:52,800 solving problems and of course that aligns with the product 1533 01:19:52,800 --> 01:19:59,120 thinking, but also you guys have been able to skill to 165,000 1534 01:19:59,120 --> 01:20:02,320 plus users with no marketing that that I really caught my 1535 01:20:02,320 --> 01:20:04,560 attention. So how how did you guys scale 1536 01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:07,680 to, you know, that massive number of users with no 1537 01:20:07,680 --> 01:20:09,320 marketing? Like what were the decisions 1538 01:20:09,320 --> 01:20:11,720 that drove that that growth process? 1539 01:20:12,160 --> 01:20:15,040 I like that same new marketing, but it's not really that. 1540 01:20:15,680 --> 01:20:18,160 But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect on growth, I'll, 1541 01:20:18,760 --> 01:20:21,800 I'll say growth. So when there's a we, when 1542 01:20:21,800 --> 01:20:24,280 there's a we, there's a we. Let's start from there. 1543 01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:27,280 You don't have money, you don't have money, right? 1544 01:20:27,520 --> 01:20:29,920 You can't manufacture cash, so you have to think you have to 1545 01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:33,840 get creative. If you can't afford chicken or 1546 01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:36,600 fish in a soup, I need to make soup. 1547 01:20:36,680 --> 01:20:39,960 You can use alternative like mushrooms, right? 1548 01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:43,360 This is like, how can we do this thing if we don't have money for 1549 01:20:43,480 --> 01:20:45,200 this thing? So these are incredible products 1550 01:20:45,320 --> 01:20:47,400 the. Fancy name is bootstrapping 1551 01:20:47,520 --> 01:20:49,920 correct? He knows how amazing it is 1552 01:20:49,920 --> 01:20:52,160 because you know all the product features, you know the impact, 1553 01:20:52,160 --> 01:20:53,920 you know what's gonna happen. You know how it can shipping, 1554 01:20:53,920 --> 01:20:56,840 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right now only you knows that 1555 01:20:56,840 --> 01:21:00,760 part. Neither does your user because 1556 01:21:01,080 --> 01:21:04,240 everybody would join and we're like, OK, cricket refresh, 1557 01:21:04,320 --> 01:21:05,760 refresh. What's going on? 1558 01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:09,880 I'm like, I see who writes in this lady who said on Instagram, 1559 01:21:09,960 --> 01:21:12,440 she's like, she wrote this story and she was like, you can buy 1560 01:21:12,440 --> 01:21:15,560 the you can see the completing part of the state for just 5000 1561 01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:18,160 naira. Now they say, Madam, take these 1562 01:21:18,160 --> 01:21:19,640 things to people. Actually did I sense that? 1563 01:21:19,640 --> 01:21:22,000 But I'm sure she's not ready. I've not seen it right. 1564 01:21:22,360 --> 01:21:24,760 But you just be like, God, this that is this product that they 1565 01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:28,200 can use that better off. But yeah, so that awareness is 1566 01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:30,840 important. And a question now starts to be 1567 01:21:30,960 --> 01:21:32,960 how can we get this awareness? How can we put this out there? 1568 01:21:33,240 --> 01:21:34,960 And you know that money's on the table. 1569 01:21:34,960 --> 01:21:38,320 So what's what can we do? One thing about the mind is that 1570 01:21:38,320 --> 01:21:41,120 the mind will drive solution. Like I don't let's say my mind 1571 01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:43,000 drives solution. Like if you tell me that this 1572 01:21:43,000 --> 01:21:45,560 thing cannot be done, my mind starts to process how to 1573 01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:47,960 disgrace you, how to say I've done it. 1574 01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:54,400 So if you say this is a, it has to work. 1575 01:21:54,640 --> 01:21:57,240 So away from that, let's look forward. 1576 01:21:57,320 --> 01:22:01,080 So we pushed it out and we're pushing out the report, right? 1577 01:22:01,080 --> 01:22:02,920 We're doing incredible work. We're pushing on our social 1578 01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:04,720 media, you know, we're interrupting different 1579 01:22:04,720 --> 01:22:06,320 conversations. So on you tweet something, you 1580 01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:10,480 go on that, it downloads the report, you put a link to so 1581 01:22:10,480 --> 01:22:12,320 many things. But again, playing to your 1582 01:22:12,320 --> 01:22:14,240 strength. We have a technical strength in 1583 01:22:14,240 --> 01:22:16,400 storyboard. We don't have marketing in the 1584 01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:18,200 money. Everything I've seen is foreplay 1585 01:22:18,280 --> 01:22:20,080 if you don't have Money Marketing. 1586 01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:23,360 Now again, we used a lot of our technical strength ensure that 1587 01:22:23,360 --> 01:22:27,680 we ship the SDKS to the stores. So you see those ads that when 1588 01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:30,040 you when you're going through, you see a before you touch 1589 01:22:30,040 --> 01:22:32,960 anything, just install, the install comes up, right. 1590 01:22:33,160 --> 01:22:37,280 So you put all the MMPS things to track such that in the event 1591 01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:41,160 that we decide to run an ad, right, we can maximize even if 1592 01:22:41,160 --> 01:22:46,880 he's 5000 or Putin, we can get as high as $5000 from that, 1593 01:22:47,320 --> 01:22:49,120 right? So even if the money is not 1594 01:22:49,120 --> 01:22:51,560 there, it's not huge money, just tiny money that we're putting in 1595 01:22:51,560 --> 01:22:54,680 here and there. You know, how can we call a 1596 01:22:54,680 --> 01:22:57,320 small creator and then to do something for us? 1597 01:22:57,600 --> 01:23:00,040 But fundamentally you want your product to create that network 1598 01:23:00,040 --> 01:23:02,840 effect where the product is selling itself. 1599 01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:06,000 There are some products that you use that you see that somebody 1600 01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:07,600 just tells you about. There's no ad. 1601 01:23:07,720 --> 01:23:11,120 You figure it out like you know, it's like it's too, I'm sure 1602 01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:14,720 nobody you found Riverside, Riverside not in an ad to say 1603 01:23:15,040 --> 01:23:17,080 download this, but I know that if I'm dealing, I'll get 1604 01:23:17,080 --> 01:23:19,520 Riverside. So that kind of by the way. 1605 01:23:19,520 --> 01:23:22,320 Riverside are one of our tech partners as well. 1606 01:23:22,360 --> 01:23:24,680 By the way, Riverside are one of our tech partners. 1607 01:23:24,880 --> 01:23:27,560 But for every side of so you know, people sign up to 1608 01:23:27,560 --> 01:23:30,920 Riverside, we we get something. So please sign up with our our 1609 01:23:30,920 --> 01:23:35,320 referral, our affiliate link. Let me do a little bit of 1610 01:23:35,320 --> 01:23:37,000 marketing. Oh, OK. 1611 01:23:37,280 --> 01:23:39,360 Yeah, that's cool. I mean, we'll test it out for 1612 01:23:39,360 --> 01:23:40,720 sure. I mean, we like to use so many 1613 01:23:40,720 --> 01:23:43,360 tools until they tell us to pay. When they tell us to pay, that's 1614 01:23:43,360 --> 01:23:45,480 where story for that I that's in story for. 1615 01:23:45,480 --> 01:23:47,080 That's where we draw the line. That's where we're like. 1616 01:23:48,040 --> 01:23:52,400 Because everyone we also try to keep our costs as low as that's 1617 01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:56,680 not very possible. No, our course now monthly is 1618 01:23:56,680 --> 01:23:59,480 now looking like 100K monthly that we spend in storyboard. 1619 01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:01,920 So we use free Azure, free Slack free. 1620 01:24:01,920 --> 01:24:04,680 We see our e-mail addresses, we see our personal e-mail 1621 01:24:04,680 --> 01:24:07,520 addresses. I see my although I have them, 1622 01:24:07,520 --> 01:24:09,480 we use free Zoho. So free Zoho gives us 5 1623 01:24:09,480 --> 01:24:11,280 mailboxes. So that's how I have James at 1624 01:24:11,280 --> 01:24:11,920 storyboard dot. Com. 1625 01:24:12,440 --> 01:24:14,000 Then we have like share. Boxes. 1626 01:24:14,440 --> 01:24:16,600 Well, like that rugged thing because we know that like walk 1627 01:24:16,600 --> 01:24:19,080 in a desert starwater. So to do a lot of those things. 1628 01:24:19,080 --> 01:24:20,640 And then we've grown tremendously. 1629 01:24:20,640 --> 01:24:23,920 Like one of the appearances of my life was when we just open 1630 01:24:23,920 --> 01:24:25,640 Instagram randomly and we got it. 1631 01:24:25,840 --> 01:24:29,680 We got three tags, you know, and one of them was like, I'll never 1632 01:24:29,680 --> 01:24:31,840 forget Grace. She said she just did that 1633 01:24:31,840 --> 01:24:34,000 video, no description, no nothing. 1634 01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:37,440 I've never met her before. She just said, guys, I want to 1635 01:24:37,440 --> 01:24:41,640 introduce you to an app when you can make money from day one and 1636 01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:43,520 she talks about this app is called story port. 1637 01:24:43,520 --> 01:24:45,760 On story port, you can post your content that she like use my 1638 01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:48,840 code and don't forget to use my code, my referral code. 1639 01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:53,320 When I saw it, I just screamed. I was like, guys, guys, guys, we 1640 01:24:53,360 --> 01:24:54,680 also in the very we stay in the house. 1641 01:24:54,720 --> 01:24:57,760 It was just like when we say we're like an app is like 1642 01:24:58,040 --> 01:25:01,520 consistent fight on. And then I reach out to the 1643 01:25:01,520 --> 01:25:03,640 house like, Hey, this, your ad is on point. 1644 01:25:04,240 --> 01:25:05,600 She's like, yeah, that's why she sent me the ad. 1645 01:25:05,680 --> 01:25:07,320 She wasn't ready to charge anything more later. 1646 01:25:07,320 --> 01:25:09,200 We tried to compensate her, right? 1647 01:25:09,680 --> 01:25:13,200 And then, you know, the we posted the ad, it has so many 1648 01:25:13,200 --> 01:25:14,960 views. He has so many reactions. 1649 01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:17,360 Then we just, you know, I kind of borrowed money from my sister 1650 01:25:17,360 --> 01:25:18,640 to say we need to like promote this thing. 1651 01:25:19,000 --> 01:25:20,960 So we like, you know, started promoting it. 1652 01:25:21,400 --> 01:25:26,600 We got 16 posted the video. We got 16,000 downloads for as 1653 01:25:26,600 --> 01:25:30,200 low as I didn't even know what to say for as low as like 16,000 1654 01:25:30,600 --> 01:25:32,640 because we were seeing it like wow. 1655 01:25:32,760 --> 01:25:36,200 So when we say I mean, nothing itself is marketing, right? 1656 01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:39,280 So it's not like, it's not like we spent like 0 on it. 1657 01:25:39,640 --> 01:25:43,800 It's just like what marketing have we done and how held it was 1658 01:25:43,800 --> 01:25:46,000 it? Who was the budget we spent? 1659 01:25:46,640 --> 01:25:49,080 You know, we spent very tiny amount of money from time to 1660 01:25:49,080 --> 01:25:50,480 time. But other than that from that we 1661 01:25:50,480 --> 01:25:53,040 started getting lots of India checks here and there, India 1662 01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:57,880 checks to keep us alive. We hired more, We have more 1663 01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:01,520 developers come joins to report. I'm pretty much We've run ads 1664 01:26:01,520 --> 01:26:02,920 very occasionally. Hello. 1665 01:26:03,400 --> 01:26:05,480 Hi brother, Can you hear me? Hi, I'm here. 1666 01:26:05,480 --> 01:26:07,920 I'm here 350. It can happen to you as well. 1667 01:26:08,200 --> 01:26:11,520 Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share 1668 01:26:11,520 --> 01:26:14,400 something important. This episode includes a paid 1669 01:26:14,400 --> 01:26:18,120 partnership with Better Health, a platform designed to make 1670 01:26:18,120 --> 01:26:21,560 starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a 1671 01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:24,880 leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel 1672 01:26:24,880 --> 01:26:27,880 overwhelming. There are seasons where stress, 1673 01:26:27,880 --> 01:26:32,000 uncertainty, and pressure build up, and you need a safe space to 1674 01:26:32,000 --> 01:26:35,000 process it all. 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