They're reading all those lies. I wish I could call out and do
that right lies. I was sleeping with my sister's
husband. And then I just say that one,
I'm like, walk up fast. This is not so my sister caught
me sleeping with her husband and then you know, I told her
husband so I think what the. Hell.
Do reduce things more, right? It's fiction, right?
I've said right to money. To me, it's fiction.
The worst one. The worst one are the AI
generator stories for me personally.
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app. We're live.
Ladies and gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's
podcast. And today I've got with me a
very, very special guest fighting out of somewhere in the
world. Make welcome James Nelson.
How are you, James? Yeah, this is the first way.
It's like Wow, but I don't think he'll be very special game.
I mean, I don't think I'm special.
OK. We went to if it's together so.
So you see that that, that, that that is the buyers brother.
That is the buyers brother. Like, okay, big shout out to our
mutual friend Damila or Killer, right?
The moment she told me, I mean, I have somebody, I have somebody
for you, right? And then she said, James,
they'll say, I was like, wow, that sounds like that sounds
like a foreigner. And then she was like, no, he,
he went to, he went to OAU with us.
I'm like, OK, come on, give me his profile.
Let me reach out to him. And then that is how this
happened. So shout out to you, Debbie, and
of course shout out to you yourself as well.
So I finished in 2015, right? But I guess we're like around Oh
wow, same time. So it means that you were in all
year round the same time. The lights of our Asha ke
fireboy tinker Akon I really. I was actually wow, he was.
I was. I remember, I remember meet say
I knew Fireboy, You know, I knew Fireboy from AO.
He used to, he used to blow my friend's guitar.
He used to move him his guitar once in a minute and he felt he
was like, I mean like stabbing. I mean, it's always incredible
to know that, you know, and I think anybody watching this was
just life is such a wholesome journey that you have to be
incredible with everybody. I mean, imagine I was like
typing up Fireboy and we're like really good friends.
I mean, as I say, I'm like, hey, I don't think he knows I exist
other than, you know, I went to play with family's guitar a lot.
And I will. Yeah.
But that's, I mean, interesting times, to be honest.
And it's goes good to see that, you know, over time growth
happens. People are an incredible place.
Just you see that good happens and it's not a one day thing.
So the fact that you're not, you know, as a today, today, today
is not happening means that, you know, it was a journey
essentially. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. You might not be, you might not
be where you want to be, but you're not where you used to be.
And that's why I like to tell people I am not here.
You're not where you used to be. Brother well Peanuts 800,000
users for minutes and like we're trying to scale that off and
we're making so pretty much three points.
It's a platform that helps writers and creators monetize
their work and also helps this new age consume more written
content. So people don't read as much.
People are not reading fiction. They're not reading novels, but
they're thinking more of they're reading all those lies.
I wish I could call out some food that right lies on my
engagement like that when I read I'm like Ted slide or Ted tweets
right. I'm really like this fiction or
that should be sent one that when you do notice cooking
videos, they will like So I I was sleeping with my sister's
husband and then once I just say that one, I'm like walk up fast.
This is not like like like so my sister calls me with the husband
putting salt and then, you know, I told the husband and now told
that I'm like, right. So I think that hell, people
reduce things more, right? It's fiction, right?
I said right to money. To me it's fiction.
And then. The worst one.
The worst one are the AI generator stories for me
personally. Well, how do you tell if he's an
AI generator Story? Let's go there.
How do? You tell bro, just touch it.
I am AI myself. I'm the human AI.
Do not forget my name is Adimalai, Right?
So but that you know, I thought. Everybody like, OK, so yeah,
because the reason why I said that, right is that most times,
for instance, not the most fundamental things, you open a
website by anybody. I knew it's an AI website.
It was an item. It's just, it's just easy.
It's just easy to know. So it depends if it isn't
writing, if it's in writing, right?
It's very easy to know, right? Because a lot of them don't
clear the long dashes, the Oxford commas, you get it.
You can see right through the bullshit, right, like, you know,
this is AI and of course, if it is, you know, audio visual,
right, the voices, you know, I have, you know, used a lot of AI
tools. I have AI, you know, tool stacks
as my, you know, partners, right?
I have a few partners how probably like 20 of them, you
know, from gamma to webinar geek to, you know, I have a lot of
tech partners, you get it, that have paid, you know,
partnerships with us on this podcast.
So it's very very easy. I think from experience can
easily decipher whether something is AI generated or I.
Mean and that's one incredible thing we've done on because we
think on storyboard because I think that in future that we
have premium to reading original content from people that
actually write look at the storyboard.
We have different models that say you know so all the stories
that are disputed on the homepage algorithm like filters
it out so then that all AI knows that this is an AI retail story
save it out if you copy and paste things as well.
We want authentic writers to find their voice.
We want authentic stories to be read and told.
It's on Twitter, on trends, people reading tiny, tiny bits.
I mean, if I write a story about my time in where you write and I
put it on a blog and I send it to everybody, well, everybody
walk up us. I'm telling you guys that
actually I knew Fireboy, what's our status?
And I'm giving you guys I got to this day, right?
So it's not like they don't want to read more, but it's just like
bringing it to the format and the style that you read is what
we've done at Storyboard. And the beautiful thing is we
just released about 50 books from African Classics.
Ultima Manda's works on Storyboard now we have
incredible line of coming and family.
I said the last book is also coming in the coming months.
I still have any conversation with my publishing house on
that. It's lots of business of more
auto, yes, incredible stuff that bringing their stories to the
format that people want to read it and you see that
fundamentally reading and publishing and writing.
So it hasn't changed, but now we are bringing it to the recent
generation how we consume things.
I can tell you read more stories, you've read more jets
from people's or some story, Instagram stories, You know all
the stories where you know on Instagram, which is a tweet
anyway, they are flexible. Slide one.
Slide 2. Slide 3.
Slide 4. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is a story. So if you continue like that,
you've actually read 8000 words. Alright, so the question is, can
we take this format right and make it an entire experience of
reading So and then think about what Spotify has done for the
music industry, what's Netflix has done for the movies
industries. Now you there's an original
Netflix. Spotify for people, Spotify for
the podcast industry as well, brother, Spotify for the podcast
industry. Like just cashed out on Spotify
check I think yesterday. So Spotify zero you also they
are good partners with us. Bro you're getting the Spotify
dollars right now. Shout out to Spotify, but that
you know I'm that. We invest the money.
In it's a swap. Nobody has done anything for the
writing industry to be right. Nobody has done anything for the
writing industry. And we think that we can we can
digitize that process and make that home where not everybody's
going to get a publishing deal because I just the way not
everybody gets into a record label.
When you sing an incredible song, you can put it on your
Spotify. You can, I mean, not everybody
will get even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube and
then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube movies.
That huge big deal right now. So it's the same.
We're not everybody's going to get a publishing deal.
Not everybody's going to be discovered as well, but is this
platform where if you write an incredible story, it's there,
but it's you can engage audience and you can monetize from them.
They can't take you. You can look your stories.
The beautiful thing about storyboard is that you can't
screenshot it right? So it's it's super the next
platform for lots of Africans to with an African creators as
well. Amazing, amazing.
I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you,
right? So see back while I give you
your flowers, I like to give people their flowers while
they're alive, you know? So let's go.
So guys, today's conversation is a master class and building from
nothing to something that people cannot ignore.
So meet James Nelson, product leader, web three builder,
founder of Story Pod, a platform that's killed to over 165,000
users without marketing, PR or paid growth.
From leading product at global organizations to assembling and
managing cross functional teams, working purely on belief and
vision. James represents a rare breeder
operator, someone who does not just build products, who builds
ecosystems. This episode, so it is about the
mindset, skill set and tool set at the highest level.
So how do you go from zero to 1? How do you lead without control?
How do you create demand without noise?
Let us get into it once again, the man, the myth and the
legend. James Dawson, you walk up to the
podcast, so it's interesting, like the dynamics.
You're always welcome, brother. You're always welcome.
Just the mere fact that we shared that background of, let's
say, great effect on the greatest effect.
Whoa. So I'd like for you to walk us
through the journey from data analytics, right?
And product grows into building store report.
Like what? What have been that those
defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product
leader? OK, cool.
So walk us through your journey from data analytics and product
rolls into building store report.
Like what were the defining moments that shaped your
thinking as a product leader? Yes.
I may not say product leader, I'll say it's important to have
so many capabilities and have a lot of experience.
So whatever you're doing, you have to have as much experience.
So I mean, I studied accounts and I have a business background
which, you know, pretty much helps me know so many things
about running the business, right.
And then you look at my experiences, you know, I started
from, I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics
for about, then I work in Hellenic, Coca-Cola, we have
some revenue, good management and then the strategy there,
then AXA user experience pretty much done so many things.
All right. Where?
Where the me, the brother? You, you worked with Coca-Cola?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I used to be a
Hellenic, Coca-Cola, Hellenic bottler, the bottling company.
So it's like. Wow, interested, interested.
The last guy we had on the podcast was the the ex president
of Coca-Cola International. That was the last guest we had
on the podcast. What a coincidence.
So we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show.
Interesting, interesting. Sorry to interrupt you about
that. That's very no, that's.
Very FMCG is very caught truth in terms of like, I like the
fact that everything we do there is very data-driven and you
know, you want to tell X amount of cases, right?
You are, you have so much insights.
What did we sell last year? What's the business plan this
year? And what's the really estimate,
right? So if you can compare across
those 3 metrics right now, say what's happening, why are we
doing better? Is it, are we increasing
volumes? Are we selling more volumes?
Are we selling less volumes at the price?
Are we, do we increase prices with discrete price?
Are we giving more discounts, you know, stuff like that.
And it's so data-driven. And that's one thing that I
liked about understanding how when a business is so
transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill
down. And I think that's what a lot of
tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy
data drivenness. So it's like, why did our
volumes go down? Was it downtime?
You know, what are the effects if it's into one data source and
then it's it's two that just shows, you know, if you have all
those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so
transparent for you to see the business.
Was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem?
Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, OK, if it
was a staffing problem, did we lose staff?
Did we gain staff? Was an infrastructure problem.
Partners was the downtown Business Report saying it helps
you see the business, helps you actually know what to improve
and what to track. So I had that background
already, right, which has given me the discipline on how to know
what to track and how to run, how to just know.
I mean, tech would say, oh, you're North Star metric, not
symmetric. Before all that was happening in
tech, they already had those things existing in the FMCG
industry, you know, where I also came from too, right?
So, yeah, my, my background has been more of discipline and also
learning to use so many tools and learning so many things,
right? And everybody should be a, or
every product manager. Everybody should be a product of
so many learnings, right? Like I mean, you mean you run
this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know
what break your phone is? You know what profit and loss
is? You understand revenue you.
Understand. Exactly, brother.
You know, like in my head, in my
head when you were talking, I was like this guy's applied his
cost account and his manager had accounted from the FMCG
background. That was just what was in my
head, brother. Yes, bro, even even even as as
you run your podcast, you're looking at the streams, you
know, at what point did they pick?
Did they finish watching? Did they finish watching?
Like there's just so much analysis that goes into which is
like, you know, it's not just similar with a nice voice and
knows how to speak well. It's a demo with so many aspects
of him that actually makes him run this podcast and runs it
fundamentally well. Right.
So I think it's the same thing. I think it's important.
Exactly. So I think that's the same thing
that in terms of, you know, all the things that I've done to
say, OK, when I said I was going to build this thing, because I
always, the history of it is that I always used to write on
my WhatsApp status about everybody.
Like I read about my colleagues, you know, I can write about like
on my WhatsApp, I have to do this for who is sleeping married
man, who they bought, who they bought phone for.
You know, everybody's like everybody's so good to like that
kind of gossip. It's like corporate gossip.
And like this is like the same like before.
And then I used to use different things.
I'm like, oh, Fumi and Chuma. I used to like I was students
and everybody knew that they were like real life people in
the office, like dummy and everybody when I'm like, guys
come and you know, it was like just a bit of like stream
everything podcast and streamlining just like casual
conversations. And he had so much engagements.
Some days I'll wake up to like 100 messages.
Some days I was like, stop this thing.
Be like James, you don't finish that thing we were talking about
yesterday. So what did you say?
Because he knew that they were like people that I was talking
about. And then I'm like, OK, people
like to engage more in this style, you know, so how do we
commercialize this thing, right? And then pretty much teamed up,
teamed up with a couple of people that have worked in my
career as well. But fundamentally, I always like
to. And that's how we've been
growing story for this. If this, then what firstly is to
say, OK, we, we have to build the app first, right?
The app now says it does. The basic thing once we do that
is if we now have this platform that you can create story and
share stories, what next? Then we need to be able to lock
stories, then we need to be able to pay for stories.
And then, you know, it's if this, then what, then what, then
what? So now it's like when we've done
all those instrument integration, next thing was how
can people across the world pay right for these things?
Do we want to integrate on an arithmetic progression, which
will be slow or do you want to go geometrically, which is Web
3, right? So pretty much made the entire
app AUSEC type thing. We partnered with base, we got
on the base founders Fellowship and we're able to now do
payments on it. So it's everywhere you are.
You could pay for stuff with crypto.
So it's like, OK, but it's fundamentally if you backtrack,
you have to build the first layer of this thing, then the
second layer, then this. I mean, when I mean every
founder says this, but in reality we're not, we're still
less than 10% of where we are headed or like 10%.
So we still have like 90% of the work to be done.
We want to add voice. We're expanding to comics.
You know, it's just like so many things, you know, storyboard
needs to do. We want to do a, you know, from
Amazon, you can read directly on storyboard, those kind of
integration, right, where you can just say Amazon read this
podcast to report. Yeah.
Do you intend to integrate with Kindle or like, because Kindle
is that aspect of Amazon that takes care of, you know, the
books Is that is that what it is?
And of course, I think your your your.
Would I say your model is? A bit in line with what these
guys do medium soft stock and poorer.
So is there is there any plan to have any fun of partnership or
collaboration with those of those I?
Mean well, Yeah. The beautiful thing is we can
all coexist, right? Those platforms do what they do
best in long form. We bring out story style, social
media style, which we think the new age prefers to reading and
which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media
style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just
has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores clustered in Lagos
and Abuja. So it means that if I write a
book or someone writes a book and you're in Benway or you're
in the North or you're in the East, it's be as hard as
important within a country, you know, you know, it will be very
hard until it gets super pirated before you can sit in or you can
see it in Chalawa, right? That's how bad it is.
So, and it means that once bookstore is supposed to save
6,000,000 Nigerians, it's not practical.
But this country has 150 smartphone users.
So it's like we need to harness that bit.
But then previously, the fear is if you do an ebook, people will
screenshot and they will share it across themselves.
Unfortunately, I was reading an article on Bella Niger OK, you
go feel the the Co founder of Okada books and I was talking
about the experience how took a mark was book was pirated right
and then it was quite sad when you had the PDF.
But you don't see the same thing.
If my if don't just release the song today, right, it's going to
be on the streaming platform and you won't see people, you know
trying to you can't record it out, you can't extract it out.
I mean, if you go all that manner to take it out, then it
means that you reliable and persecuted because it means that
you actually did a deliberate intention to actually So it
doesn't happen again with music, right.
It happens more with it used to before.
So we've solved all of that as what we it used.
To right, I remember I remember back in the day used to like I
think music actually maybe yeah, bro, bro.
So that's weird. Yeah.
We know where we are headed such that when you write a book, you
know, it's profitable. You know, I don't need to know
any publishing house. I can put my story.
The story is good. I put it on story.
People discover. I just really discover.
Everybody goes viral now on Instagram.
I saw, I was, I was watching this content creator.
She used to have like 100 views, 200 views.
All of a sudden she has 600,000 views on one video that she did,
which was I think the one that was like saying that if you
filter tomatoes, I laughed hard. That's like when you get
tomatoes. There's this hack that you use a
whatever to like feel tight and then so like so that when you
are when you are boiling it, sorry, I'm talking about it when
you are boiling it, you know the water will not be there, right?
Like filter the water first before you.
And then she tries to feel tight and she discovered that when she
filtered the tomato and she said one more guy this in our shafts.
The only thing that was left was like, it was really time.
You should like it's better. I burn my gas that tree with
this tomato water. So I mean, as you went back with
that content, just like 600,000, like it's an opportunity for I
followed her and she's growing like she posts on that video.
It has more views. So we want to do the same thing
for writers, right? So you don't have to like it's
like creating a platform for democracy where the right
stories get seen by the right people and you become very big
and who knows? Someone cannot approach you to
say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right?
We want to make this into a comic and we want to make this
an excise. So it's a hard work, but we know
that if we do this right now, it's crazy that platform for
Africans. So mediums of that.
And like, so they don't pay Africans, they don't even pay
Nigerians. We just started paying Nigerians
shitty money like last year, even alone, alone would change
all the dynamics. Every day, like tomorrow you can
wake up and change how the how, how, how people get paid.
It's like now it's like only you're only getting money from
people that pay me. And it's like only verified
people can like, I mean, like, it's important that Africans
take people by the horn and build their own platform, which
which is what we're doing. And unfortunately, people are
not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that
sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Meta?
Can you hear me? Yes, I do.
You're talking. Yes I can.
You're talking about somebody who sells bags, you know, pay
money to Meta. So probably you're talking about
the Meta verification? Yes, yes.
Hold on. Can you give me can you pause
for a second? Sure, sure.
Yes, I need to take a call. Sure, we decide.
AI cut this side. Yeah, hold on.
Just give me a second. I need to take a call.
Yeah, sure. Hello.
Hey, I'm back. Yeah, Riverside.
Yeah, you're back. This is on the fact that you're
using reverse and you're able to cut it.
So I'm like, OK, cool. Let me just someone's coming to
my house and they have missed. They've missed their way.
Yeah. I just said.
You know what the AI tools have to be working for?
The body of your pain side is 400 and what now $438 for the
for the year. But that's crazy money.
That is. That is crazy money you like.
Because imagine having to hire an editor to cuts, cuts, cuts.
We do. We do.
Yeah.
Is this horrible? Yes, now.
Unfortunately, did what? Unfortunately I talk really fast
sadly. OK, OK, No, no, no, not a
problem. Not a problem.
I've done over 170 episodes. I've been with the good, the bad
and the ugly. Never, never a problem.
So what did you say that's? Impressive.
We need to talk offline. OK about.
OK about don't worries. Don't worries.
OK Riverside, we're back in. Amelia wanted to host a webinar,
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boss. Now you've been a founder
myself. Being a founder, I can't
resonate with you on so many things.
But there is one thing I want to talk about here.
And of course, you've spoken about it already.
It's about hard work. Everybody likes hard work,
right? But there's no substitute for
hard work when it comes to building something from the
ground up. So what would you say are the
beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building
products, especially when you're bootstrapping building from zero
to something? Well, there is.
I think that I'll be honest with you because I've seen this
happen too many times, right. I know for one that stamina is
the most important thing. Yes, stamina is the most
important thing. That idea, you know, in the
words of I'm not that fantastic. I won't say something that they
could, but I'm not that guy, right?
That, well, my favorite of all time is anyway.
Yeah, I'm not that guy in the West, in the West of Winston
Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to
failure without losing enthusiasm.
That has been my fundamentals as we started this business.
Look at the emails that I sent my my Co founders back in this
when I'm like, you know, when I, when I, when I look at the
conversations that I've had over time, when I told my founders
that, you know, even if he feels like we're feeling and we're
feeling, we're feeling like we need to pick up ourselves and
not lose that enthusiasm in what we're doing so we can keep on
the struggle. And like, you know, we don't
lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people
have come we're trying to get a mobile developer to but it was
hard. People have come straight.
I'm really overwhelming the work right now.
I need to go. Yeah.
So as I was saying, right. So it's important that we don't
lose enthusiasm, right? It's important that you know,
because the truth is that they start up with a hypothesis, one
experiment. They will, people read this way
if we do it, they might, they might not.
If it's a hypothesis, an experiment, can we change it
really quickly as we're giving the service and the experience
is happening? Can we took it again?
Can we took it again, right.
Can we see what's not working? So it's a, it's like so many
things like you are jumping down.
Isolation on isolation. Exactly So, but the idea, the
most fundamental is that you don't lose that enthusiasm.
There's so many times when we've come to the hard stop and we
think that this is it. I just need to sleep and wake
up. And then we're like action.
Like I tell myself, like, I mean, we're not making so much
money. We've been we've been on for a
while, right? Because I mean, for what we are
doing, we need to be at scale before we, you know, for our ads
when it starts coming in. And that's what happens with any
brand, right? If you're beginning your, your
kids be at scale before it becomes popular and dense.
What if I said, Hey, we want a partner content.
Your $1 million is rolling in and then I'm like, or more, we
think that, you know, it was overnight for you, right?
So in the same way but the idea to stay consistent not loose
then it. Bro 2 views.
Yeah, you are, exactly. So that idea, that thing that
keeps you on, right, that gives you that stamina and that
enthusiasm is the most important thing.
And that's why you should build what you love for sure.
Because when, when the lights feel in the heads of Sharon, you
know, we just remember. Like, do you mean that like the
thing that I know I'll never casually write it on my status
and I lost the report because I can just casually write to the I
want to write write. So those things that made you
fall in love with that thing, even if it's 5 views, you're
happy that you have a fulfillment that you shot an
incredible podcast. It was great.
It was nice. Like it's not fundamentally that
because if you think that you're going to make money within a
certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it and you
never go to the end of it where you know you have to stay.
And even if he has to meet like 500 episodes that you do.
So like, even if we know that we have to be on this without with
09 for like 5 years and we're going to get 5 million users now
5 million is that they will say everybody can run your ass on
this platform. It changes everything.
You know, it's an endless ocean of like, you know, such that you
know that MKBHD who is super successful in what he does.
Like he literally said, if Netflix wants to give me a deal,
no matter the price, you tell them bother.
Like he's like Netflix like don't bother.
He's like no need. Like there's nothing more to do
on Netflix that we are not doing here because like, like, like
you need to get to that point of success in whatever you do where
you can command that confidence in what you're doing.
So and again, but you know that every such that you know that
every episode you turn out, you're going to make $1,000,000
from it without even pushing it. You just need that.
Yeah, once I once I throw the VA, you know, that's where you
want to get to, right? But you need to steal the
episode. So it's the same as you.
How? We have to say the.
Cost, you need that. I'm happy you're Nigerian.
I'm happy you're a Nigerian. I saw something, I can't
remember where I saw it. I think on social media they
said something, say consistency pays off, but you go on mad
first. Before you pay, you go.
On. Mad you go, you go on mad before
you. This is the same.
Thing. You reminded me of that post.
It is what it is. It is what it is.
So I don't even fear. I mean, obviously everybody,
we're trying to fundraise. Everybody needs money.
Like, you know, I mean, imagine you had a podcast in each
country and we're flying to each country to shoot the podcast.
Do you get what I mean? You just fly me down.
That's what money can do. We have a fastest studio
machine, like 60. That's what money can do.
So everybody, because we have rich quality content like that,
you have access to it. Like that's what money can do.
So everybody's fundraising. I mean I would like to.
Speaking, Speaking of, Speaking of in studio podcasts, the next
episode after you is actually an in studio podcast.
So you are. You are literally manifesting it
brother. Yeah, it's such an incredible.
I'm just going to hide the identity of the guest.
Wow. That is, it's interesting.
I mean, it's interesting. I mean, so so for us, you, you
see that for us, we know that, you know, even if we're going to
discuss to get like 5 million, we know that the most important
thing is to stay on course. I mean, look at Tim.
We spent three Bill and everybody knows Timmy.
So I know every day I'm trying to unknow it every single day
I'm like, I'm never going to buy anything from you guys.
Let's be clear. I wasn't.
The aggressive advertising. Every time I think I'm always
like, I just go to it's irrelevant.
Don't show it again, it's irrelevant.
I'm tired. I don't have money to buy.
It's when I'm not shopping, I'll have money.
I'm being a startup. So stop showing me incredible
things that I know I'd love to buy.
But I'm like, you get what I mean?
So I I mean this entry bill, right?
But everybody, one way or the other, I've done my mistake.
Bible. OK, where, where was I?
What was I talking about? I was talking about, you know,
the ability to be stay excited, right and and push on.
And I mean really much fundraising as well.
But it depends on who believes in finding out that, you know,
who believes in what you guys are doing and who thinks that if
you guys stay consistent and they support you guys being
consistent and they see certain things, certain traits that you
guys stay consistent that you can achieve that right?
And essentially knowing that, sorry, I'm just my train of
thoughts because I'm like thinking of too many things.
So is knowing that who supports that idea that if you guys are
persistent in doing this, they'll achieve their setting
goal. All right, because when you
start doing something, you know that you know this thing has
potential. It has possibilities, right.
So yeah, that's kitten is starting out to stay excited.
And I mean consistency is good, but in your in ways of Adima
that you romant. He could nearly run back and you
don't like would I say a quick one like for those guys that are
watching out right now that are young founders, right, What you
have just said is highly underrated, brother, right T
stancey is key and you know, people watch and I use myself as
an example. The very first what I say Major
brand partnership deal that I've got right was Better Help.
And we know Better Help is the number one therapy brand in the
world, number one online therapy brand in the world.
And I remember when when I first started out with podcasting, I
used to admire the likes of Joe Rogan, you know, and you know,
the top broadcasters in the world that are partners with
Better Help. And I'll go to the Better Help
website and see or you can get 10% off courtesy of Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan visitors and everything.
But when I got my own deal, the e-mail that was sent to me,
right? He read something along the
lines of we are scouting for creators to add to the
partnership, right? And then we've been following
your work for some time and we admire what you do.
And it, it gave me some perspective as to people watch
out for consistency, like big brands only want to work with
creators or founders that are consistent, that have
demonstrated consistency. So it's very important for, for
young people out there, whatever it is that you're doing, stay
consistent, right? Keep pushing.
A lot of people quit before they had the opportunity to see
results. So I just put that out there.
Coming back to story board, right, You actually launched
this from the ground up, right? And you have this obsession with
solving problems and of course that aligns with the product
thinking, but also you guys have been able to scale to 160, 5000
plus users with no marketing that that I really caught my
attention. So how, how did you guys scale
to, you know, that massive number of users with no
marketing? Like what were the decisions
that drove that that growth process?
I like that same new marketing, but it's not really that.
But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect on growth, I'll,
I'll say growth. So when there's a we, when
there's a we, there's a we. Let's start from there.
Amazing. You don't have money, you don't
have money right. You can't manufacture cash, so
you have to you have to get creative.
If you can't afford chicken or fish in a soup, I need to make
soup. You can use botanist like
mushrooms, right. So it's like how can we do this
thing if we don't have money for this thing?
So these are incredible products and fun factory the.
Fancy name is bootstrapping correct?
You knows how amazing it is because you know all the product
features, you know the impact, you know what's gonna happen.
You know how you can shipping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Right now only you knows that part.
Neither does your user because this story, everybody would join
and we're like, OK, cricket refresh, refresh.
What's going on? I'm like, I see who writes in
this lady who said on Instagram she's like, she wrote this story
and she was like, you can buy the you can see the completing
part of the state for just 5000 naira.
I always say, Madam, take these things to people actually did a
sense that, but I'm sure she's not ready.
I've not seen it right. But you just be like, got this.
That is this product that they can use that better off.
But yeah, so that awareness is important.
And a question now starts to be how can we get this awareness?
How can we put this out there? And you know that money's not on
the table. So what's what can we do?
One thing about the mind is that the mind will drive solution.
Like I don't let's say my mind drives solution.
Like if you tell me that this thing cannot be done, my mind
starts to process how to disgrace you, how to say I've
done it. If you say this is just to say
it has to work. So away from that, let's look
forward. So we pushed it out and we're
pushing out the report, right? We're doing incredible work.
We're pushing on our social media.
You know, we're interrupting different conversations.
So on tweet something you go on that it downloads the report.
You put a link to, to so many things.
But again, playing to your strength.
We have a technical strength in storyboard.
We don't have marketing in the money.
Everything you have seen is foreplay.
If you don't have Money Marketing.
Now again, we used a lot of our technical strength ensure that
we ship the SDKS to the stores. So you see those ads that when
you when you're going through, you see a before you touch
anything, just install the install comes up right.
So you put all the MMPS things to track such that in the event
that we decide to run an ad, we can maximize, even if it's 5000
or Putin, we can get as high as $5000 from that, right?
So even if the money is not there, it's not just tiny money
that we're putting in here and there.
You know, how can we call a small creator and then to do
something for us? But fundamentally you want your
product to create that network effect where the product is
selling itself. There are some products that you
use that you see that somebody just tells you about.
There's no ads. You figure it out like, you
know, it's like it's too, I'm sure nobody you found Riverside.
Riverside not in an ad to say download this, but I know that
if I'm dealing, I'll get Riverside.
So that kind, yeah. By the way, Riverside are one of
our tech partners as well. By the way, Riverside are one of
our tech partners, but for every side of, you know, people sign
up to Riverside, we we get something.
So please sign up with our our referral, our affiliate link.
Let me do a little bit of marketing.
Oh, OK. Yeah, that's cool.
I mean, we'll test it out for sure.
I mean, we like to use so many tools until they tell us to pay.
When they tell us to pay, that's where story for that I that's in
story for. That's where we draw the line.
That's where we're like. Because everyone we also try to
keep our costs as low as that's not very possible.
No, our course now monthly is now looking like 100K monthly
that we spend the storyboard. So we use free Azure, free Slack
free. We see our e-mail addresses, we
see our personal e-mail addresses.
I see my although I have the we use free Zoho.
So free Zozo gives us 5 mailboxes.
So that's how I have James at storyboard dot.
Com. Then we have like sharing boxes.
Well, like that rugged thing because we know that like
walking a desert star water supposed to do a lot of those
things. And then we've grown
tremendously. Like one of the appearances of
my life was when we just open Instagram randomly and we got
it. We got three tags, you know, and
one of them was like, I'll never forget Grace.
She said she just did that video, no description, no
nothing. I never met her before.
She just said, guys, I want to introduce you to an app when you
can make money from day one. And she talks about this app is
called story port. On story port you can post your
content that she's like, use my code and don't forget to use my
code, my referral code. When I saw it, I just screamed.
I was like, guys, guys, guys, we stay in the house.
It was like when we say we like like consistent fight on.
And then I reach out to the house like, hey, this, your ad
is on point. She's like, yeah, that's why she
sent me the ad. She wasn't ready to charge
anything more later. We tried to compensate her,
right? And then, you know, we posted
the ad, he had so many views, he has so many reactions.
Then we just, you know, I kind of borrowed money from my sister
to say we need to like promote this thing.
So we like, you know, started promoting it.
We got 16 posted the video. We got 16,000 downloads for as
low as I didn't even know what to say for as low as like 16,000
because we were seeing it like, wow.
So when we say, I mean, that's in itself is marketing, right?
So it's not like, it's not like we spent like 0 on it.
It's just like what marketing have we done and how how healthy
was it? Who was the project?
We spent, you know, we spent very tiny amount of money from
time to time. But other than that from that we
started getting lots of India checks here and there, India
checks to keep us alive. We hired more, we got some more
divisive. We had more developers come
joints to report. And pretty much I've been going,
we've run ads very occasionally. Hello.
Hi brother, Can you hear me? Hi, I'm here.
I'm here 50. It can happen to you as well.
Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share
something important. This episode includes a paid
partnership with Better Health, a platform designed to make
starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a
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So if you feel like you'd benefit from talking to a
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of therapy. Once again, this is a paid
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first step. If you've been thinking about
it, sometimes the best investment you can make these in
yourself. They're reading all those lies.
I wish I could call out a Buddha Right lies doing all these
cooking videos they will like so I I was sleeping with my
sister's husband and then I just hear that one.
I'm like walk up fast. This is not like so my sister
caught me sleeping with her husband and then, you know, I
told her husband. So I think that's.
The hell. People reduce things more,
right? It's fiction, right?
I said. Right, it's fiction.
The worst one. The worst one are the AI
generator stories for me personally.
But how do you tell if it's an AI generator story?
Get out better myself. Get out better myself.
I don't need you. I do it myself.
Get out better myself. Let out the beast.
Don't play with me better. Mind your finish.
I cannot stop now. I ain't finished.
I'm gonna keep on going until I got that the way that I'm gonna
do it. I know that.
I know the kid with the bull. Tell them my life I'm the one
and I'm a gamble on a ramble on. I'm about to get my ramble on
and I'm the one they really couldn't get a handle on.
They went and see they missed the but they get a game tomorrow
and not know. They never thought we would make
it underdogs. It wouldn't be Gable.
They was going to ask what we bring tell them we bringing the
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Camera app. We're live, ladies and
gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's
podcast. And today I've got with me a
very, very special guest fighting out of Soviet in the
world make Walker with James Nelson.
How are you, James? Yeah, this is possibly just like
wow, but I don't think he'll be very special get I mean, I don't
think I'm special. OK.
We went to if it's together so. So you see that that that that
is the buyers brother. That is the buyers brother.
Like, OK, big shout out to our mutual friend Damilola or
killer, right? The moment she told me, I mean,
I have somebody, I have somebody for you, right?
And then she said James Nelson. I was like, well, that sounds
like that sounds like a foreigner.
And then she was like, no, he went to he went to owe you with
us. I'm like, okay, come on, give me
his profile. Let me reach out to him.
And then that is how this happened.
So shout out to you, Debbie, and of course shout out to you
yourself as well. So I finished in 2015, right,
But I guess we're like around. Oh wow, same time.
So it means that you were in all year round the same time the
lights of our Asha care fireboy Tinker Akon.
I really. I was actually, wow, he was.
I was. I remember, I remember meet say
I knew Fire Boy. You know, I knew Fire Boy from
AOL. He used to he's bought my
friend's guitar. He's bought him his guitar once
in a minute and he felt he was like, I mean like stopping.
I mean, it's always incredible to know that, you know, and I
think anybody watching this was that she also know that life is
such a wholesome journey that you have to be incredible with
everybody. I mean, imagine I was like
hyping up Fireboy and with like really good friends.
I mean, that's the I was like, hey, I don't think he knows I
exist other than, you know, I went to used to play with
family's guitar a lot. And I will yeah, but that's I
mean, interesting times to be honest.
And it's goes good to see that, you know, over time growth
happens. People are an incredible place.
Just you see that good happens and it's not a one day thing.
So the fact that you're not, you know, as a today, today, today
is not happening means that, you know, everybody joining
essentially. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. You might not be.
You might not be where you want to be, but you're not where you
used to be. That's what I like to tell
people. You used to be brother.
Well, Peanuts 800,000 users for minutes and like we're trying to
scale that off and we're making pretty much it's a platform that
helps writers and creators monetize their work and also
helps this new age consume more written content.
So people don't read as much. People are not reading fiction,
they're not reading novels, but they're thinking more of they're
reading all those lies. I wish I could call out some
food that write lies like engagements, like that's
something that when I read, I'm like Ted slide or Ted tweets,
right? I'm really like easy life.
This fiction or that should be sent one that when they did not
this cooking videos they were like so I I was sleeping with my
sister's husband and then once I just hear that one I'm like walk
up fast. This is not like like a cook
that do like so my sister calls me with the husband putting salt
and then you know, I told the husband and I'll do that.
I'm like right, So I think that people reduce things more right,
It's fiction, right. I said right to money.
To me it's fiction. And then.
The worst one. The worst one are the AI
generator stories for me personally.
But how do you tell if he's an AI generator Story?
Let's go there. How?
Do you tell bro just touch it. I, I am AI myself.
I'm the human AI. Do not forget my name is
Akimalai CMA right? So but that you know, just
aside. I thought everybody like, OK,
so, yeah, because the reason why I said that right is that most
times, for instance, not the most fundamentalism you open a
website by anybody I know it's it's an AI website.
It was. It's just, it's just easy.
It's just easy to know. So it depends if it's in
writing, if it's in writing, right, It's very easy to know,
right? Because a lot of them don't
clear the long dashes, the Oxford commas, you get it.
You can see right through the bullshit, right?
Like, you know, this is AI and of course, if it is, you know,
audio visual, right, the voices, you know, I have, you know, used
a lot of AI tools. I have AI, you know, tool stacks
as my, you know, partners, right?
I have a few partners. I have probably like 20 of them,
you know, from gamma to webinar geek to, you know, I have a lot
of tech partners, you get it, that have paid, you know,
partnerships with us on this podcast.
So it's very, very easy. I think from experience I can
easily decipher whether something is AI generated or I.
Mean and that's one incredible thing we've done on because we
think on storyboard because I think that in future that we
have premium to reading original content from people that
actually write look at the storyboard.
We have different models that say you know so all the stories
that are disputed on the homepage algorithm like filters
it out so then that all AI knows that this is an AI retail story
save it out if you copy and paste things as well.
We want authentic writers to find their voice.
We want authentic stories to be read and told on Twitter, on
trends, people reading tiny, tiny bits.
I mean, if I write a story about my time in Oye, you write and I
put it on a blog and I send it to everybody.
Well, everybody walk up us. But I'm telling you guys that
actually I knew Fireboy, what's our status?
And I'm giving you guys this to that day.
I go to this day, right? So it's not like they don't want
to read more, but it's just like bringing it to the format and
the style that you read is what we've done at Storyboard.
And the beautiful thing is we just released about 50 books
from African Classics, Ultima Amanda's works on Storyboard.
Now we have incredible line of coming and Femi or said the last
book is also coming in the coming months.
I still have any conversation with Human Foundation House on
that right. So.
More auto, yes, incredible stuff that bringing their stories to
the format that people want to read it.
And you see that fundamentally reading and publishing and
writing story hasn't changed, but now we are bringing it to
the recent generation how we consume things.
I can tell you read more stories, you've read more Jits
from people's story, Instagram stories, you know, other stories
where you know on Instagram, which is a tweet anyway, they
are flexible. Slide one.
Slide 2. Slide 3.
Slide 4. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is a story. So if you continue like that,
you've actually write 8000 words.
Alright, so the question is, can we take this format right and
make it an entire experience of reading?
So and then think about what Spotify has done for the music
industry, what's Netflix has done for the movies industries.
Now you there's an original Netflix.
Spotify for people, Spotify for the podcast industry as well,
brother, Spotify for the podcast industry like you just cashed
out on Spotify check I think yesterday.
So Spotify zero, you're also they are good partners with us.
Bro, you're getting the $25.00 right now.
Shot us to Spotify but that you know.
Invest in that speed. Invest the money.
No this. Common.
Invested also, nobody has done anything.
It's a swap. Nobody has done anything for the
writing industry to be right. Nobody has done anything for the
writing industry. And we think that we can we can
digitize that process and make that home where not everybody's
going to get a publishing deal because I just the way not
everybody gets into a record label.
When you sing an incredible song, you can put it on your
Spotify. You can I mean, not everybody
will get even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube and
then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube.
YouTube movies are huge, big deal right now.
So it's the same. We're not able to get a
publishing deal. Not everybody is going to be
discovered as well. But is this platform where if
you write an incredible story, it's there, right?
You can engage audience and you can monetize from them.
They can't take you, you can't look your stories.
The beautiful thing about storyboard is that you can't
screenshot it right? So it's it's super the next
platform for lots of African students and African creators as
well. Amazing, amazing.
I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you,
right? So sit back while I give you
flowers. I like to give people their
flowers while they're alive, you know, so let's go.
So guys, today's conversation is a master class in building from
nothing to something that people cannot ignore.
So meet James Nelson, Product leader, web three builder,
founder of Story Part, a platform that skills to over
165,000 users without marketing, PR or paid growth.
From leading product at global organizations to assembling and
managing cross functional teams, working purely on belief and
vision. James represents a rare breed of
operator. Someone who does not just build
products, who builds ecosystems. This episode is about the
mindset, skill set and tool set at the highest level.
So how do you go from zero to 1? How do you lead without control?
How do you create demand without noise?
Let us get into it. Once again, the man, the myth
and the legend. James Nelson, you walk up to the
podcast. So it's interesting, like the
dynamics. You're always welcome, brother.
You're always welcome. Just just the mere fact that,
you know, we shared that background of that's a great
effect on the greatest effect. Wow.
So I'd like for you to walk us through the journey from data
analytics, right and product rolls into building store
report. Like what?
What have been that those defining moments that shaped
your thinking as a product leader?
OK, cool. So walk us through your journey
from data analytics and product rolls into building store
report. Like, what were the defining
moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader?
Yes, I might not say product leader.
I'll say it's important to have so many capabilities and have a
lot of experience. So whatever you're doing, you
have to have as much experience. So I mean, I studied accounts
and I have a business background, which, you know,
pretty much helps me know so many things about running the
business, right. And then you look at my
experiences. You know, I started from.
I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics for about.
And. I work in Hellenic, Coca-Cola.
We have some revenue goods management and then a strategy
there, then access user experience.
Pretty much done so many things. Right.
Wait a minute, brother. You worked with Coca-Cola?
Yeah. Yeah, used to be a Hellenic.
Coca-Cola Hellenic. Oh wow, the bottling.
Company so it's like wow, interested interested.
The last guy we had on the podcast was the ex president of
Coca-Cola International. That was the last guest we had
on the podcast. What a coincidence.
So we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show.
Interested, interested. Sorry to interrupt people.
That's very no, that's. Very FMCG is very cut truths in
terms of like. I like the fact that everything
we do there is very data-driven. You know, you want to sell X
amount of cases, right? You are, you have so much
insights. What did we sell last year?
What's the business plan this year and what's the real
estimates, right? So if you can compare across
those three metrics where I would now say what's happening,
why are we doing better? Is it, are we increasing
volumes? Are we selling more volumes?
Are we selling less volumes at the price?
Are we did we increase prices with discrete price?
Are we giving more discounts, you know, stuff like that.
And it's so data-driven. And that's one thing that I
liked about understanding how when a business is so
transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill
down. And I think that's what a lot of
tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy
data driveness. So it's like, why did our
volumes go down? Was it downtime?
You know, what are the effects? It fits into one data source.
And then is it true That just shows, you know, if you have all
those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so
transparent for you to see the business.
Was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem?
Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, OK, if it
was a staffing problem, did we lose staff?
Did we gain staff? It was an infrastructure
problem. Partners, what is the downtown
what Business Report saying? It helps you see the business.
It helps you actually know what to improve and what to tracks.
I had that background already, right, which had given me the
discipline on how to know what to track and how to run, how to
just know. I mean, tech would say, oh,
you're North Star metric N symmetric before all that was
happening in tech. They already had those things
existing in the FMCG industry, you know, where I also came from
too, right? So, yeah, my, my background has
been more of discipline and also learning to use so many tools
and learning so many things, right?
And everybody should be a, or every product manager.
Everybody should be a product of so many learnings.
Right. Like, I mean, you mean you run
this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know
what break your phone is, you know what profit and loss is,
you understand revenue you. Understand.
Exactly, brother. Exactly, brother.
You know, like in my head, in my head when you were talking, I
was like this guy's applied his cost account and his management
accounted from the FMCG background.
That was just what was in my head, brother.
Exactly, bro, even even even as you run your podcasts, you're
looking at the streams, you know, at what point did they
pick? Did they finish watching?
Like is there so much analysis
that goes into which is like, you know, it's not just demo out
with a nice voice and knows how to speak well.
It's a demo out with so many aspects of him that actually
makes him run this podcast and runs it fundamentally well,
right. So I think it's the same thing.
I think this side is important. Exactly.
So I think that's the same thing that in terms of, you know, all
the things that I've done helps me to say, OK, when I said I was
going to build this thing, because I always, the history of
it is that I always used to write on my WhatsApp status
about everybody. Like I write about my
colleagues, you know, I can write about like on my WhatsApp.
I have to do this. For.
Who is sleeping? My man who they bought my who
they bought phone for, you know, everybody, like everybody's so
good to like that kind of gossip.
It's like corporate gossip and like this is like like before.
And then I used to use different things.
I'm like, oh, Fumi and Chuma. I used to like everybody knew
that they were like real life people in the office, like dummy
and everybody when I'm like, guys come and you know, it was
like just a bit of like stream everything podcast and
streamlining just like casual conversations.
And he had so much engagements. Some days I'll wake up to like
100 messages. Some days I'll like, stop this
thing. Be like James, you don't.
We were talking about yesterday. So what did you say?
Because they knew that they were like people that I was talking
about. And then I'm like, OK, people
like to engage more in this style, you know, so how do we
commercialize this thing, right? And then pretty much teamed up,
teamed up with a couple of people that have worked in my
career as well. But fundamentally, I always like
to and that's how we've been growing story for this.
If this then what firstly is to say, OK, we we have to build the
app first, right? The app now says it does.
The basic thing once you do that is if we now have this platform
that you can create story and share stories, what next?
Then we need to be able to lock stories, then we need to be able
to pay for stories. And then, you know, it's if
this, then what? Then what?
So now it's like when we've done
all those instruments integration.
Next thing was how come people across the world OK, right, for
these things, do you want to integrate on an arithmetic
progression, which will be slow or do you want to go
geometrically, which is web 3, right?
So pretty much made the entire app AUSEC type thing.
We partnered with base, we got on the base founders Fellowship
and we're able to now do payments on it.
So it's everywhere you are. You could pay for stuff with
crypto. So it's like, OK, but it's
fundamentally if you backtrack, you have to build the first
layer of this thing, then second layer, then this.
I mean, I mean, every founder states it, but in reality we're
not, we're still less than 10% of where we're headed or like
10%. So we still have like 90% of the
work to be done. We want to add voice.
We're expanding to comics, you know, and it's just like so many
things, you know, storyboard needs to do.
We want to do a, you know, from Amazon, you can read directly on
storyboard, those kind of integration right where you can
see Amazon. Read this podcast to report.
Yeah. Wow, do you intend to integrate
with Kindle or like, because Kindle is that aspect of Amazon
that takes care of, you know, the books is that is that what
it is? And of course, I think your
your, your would I say your model is a bit in line with what
these guys do medium soft stock and poorer.
So is there is there any plan to have any fun of partnership or
collaboration with those of those I?
Mean well, Yeah. The beautiful thing is we can
all coexist, right? Those platforms do what they do
best in long form. We bring our story style, social
media style, which we think the new age prefers to reading and
which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media
style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just
has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores clustered in Lagos
and Abuja. So it means that if I write a
book or someone writes a book and you're in Benway or you're
in the North or you're in the East, it's be as hard as
important within a country. You know, you know, it will be
very hard until it gets super pirated before you can see it in
or you can see it in Chalawa, right?
That's how bad it is. So, and it means that once
bookstore is supposed to save 6,000,000 Nigerians, it's not
practical. But this country has 150
smartphone users. So it's like we need to harness
that bit. But then previously the fear is
if you do an ebook, people will screenshot and they will share
it across themselves. Unfortunately, I was reading an
article on Bella Niger OK, you go feel the the Co founder of
Okada books and I was talking about the experience how took a
mark was book was pirated right and then it was quite sad when
you had the PDF. But you don't see the same
thing. If my if don't just release the
song today, right, it's going to be on the streaming platform and
you won't see people, you know trying to you can't record it
out, you can't extract it out. I mean, if you go all that
manner to take it out, then it means that you reliable and
persecuted because it means that you actually did a deliberate
intention to actually so it doesn't happen again with music,
right. It happens more with it used to
before. So we've solved all of that as.
What we did it used to, right? I remember, I remember back in
the day used to like, I think music actually maybe.
Yeah, bro, bro. So that's weird.
Yeah. We know where we are headed such
that when you write a book, you know, it's profitable.
You know, I don't need to know any publishing house.
I can put my story. The story is good.
I put on story. People discover it just the way
they discover. Everybody goes viral now on
Instagram. I saw, I was, I was watching
this content creator. She used to have like 100 views,
200 views. All of a sudden she has 600,000
views on one video that she did, which was I think the one that
was like saying that if you filter tomatoes, I laughed hard.
That's like when you get tomatoes.
There's this hack that you use a whatever to like filter it and
then so like so that when you are when you are boiling it,
sorry, I'm talking about it when you are boiling it, you know the
water will not be there, right? Like filter the water first
before you and then strikes a few tight.
And she discovered that when she filter the ultimatum on she said
one more guy, this is in our shafts.
The only thing that was left was like it was really time.
You should like it's better. I burn my gas not true with this
tomato water. So I mean actually by that
content, just like 600,000 like it's an opportunity for I
followed her and she's growing like she puts another video.
It has more views. So we want to do the same thing
for writers, right? So you don't have to like it's
like creating a platform for democracy where the right
stories get seen by the right people and you become very big
and who knows? Someone cannot approach you to
say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right?
We want to make this into a comic and we want to make this
like, so it's a hard work, but we know that if we do this right
now, it's crazy that platform for Africans.
So mediums of stuff and like, so they don't pay Africans, they
don't even pay Nigerians. We just started paying Nigerians
shitty money. Like last year it was a loan.
A loan would change all the dynamics every day.
Like tomorrow you can wake up and change how, the how, how
people get paid. It's like now it's like only
you're only getting money from people that pay me.
And it's like only verified people can like, I mean like.
And so it's important that Africans take people by their
own and build their own platform, which which is what
we're doing. And unfortunately, people are
not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that
sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Meta?
Can you hear me? Yes, I do.
You're talking I can. You're talking about somebody
who sells bags, you know, pay money to Meta.
So probably you're talking about the Meta verification?
Yes, yes. Hold on.
Can you give me can you pause for a second?
Sure, sure. Yes, I need to take a call.
Sure, we decide. AI cut this side.
Yeah, hold on. Just give me a second.
I need to take a call. Yeah, sure.
Hello. Hey, I'm back.
Yeah, Riverside, uh, you're back.
This is on the fact that you're using reverse and you're able to
cut it. So I'm like, OK, cool.
Let me just someone's coming to my house and they have missed.
They've missed their way. Yeah, I just said, you know.
What this the AI tools have to be working for?
The body of your pain side is 400 and what now $438 for the
for the year. But that's crazy money.
That is that is crazy body you like.
Because imagine having to hire an editor to cuts, cuts, cuts.
We do. We do.
We do, Yes. Is this horrible?
Yes, now. Unfortunately, did what?
Unfortunately I talk really fast sadly.
OK, OK, No, no, no, not a problem.
Not a problem. I've done over 170 episodes from
I've been with the good, the bad and the ugly.
Never, never a problem. So what did you say that's?
Impressive. We need to talk offline.
OK about. OK, about.
Don't worry, don't worry. OK Riverside, we're back in.
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Now you've been a founder myself.
Being a founder, I can't resonate with you on so many
things. But there's one thing I want to
talk about here. And of course, you've spoken
about it already. It's about hard work.
Nobody likes hard work, right? But there's no substitute for
hard work when it comes to building something from the
ground up. So what would you say are the
beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building
products, especially when you're bootstrapping building from zero
to something? Well, there is.
I think that I'll be honest with you because I've seen this
happen too many times, right. I know for one that stamina is
the most important thing. Yes, stamina is the most
important thing. That idea, you know, in the
words of I'm not that fantastic. I won't say something that they
could, but I'm not that guy, right?
That, well, my favorite of all time is anyway.
Yeah, I'm not that guy in the West, in the West of Winston
Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to
failure without losing enthusiasm.
That has been my fundamentals as we started this business.
Look at the emails that I sent my my Co founders back in this
when I'm like, you know, when I when I when I look at the
conversations that I've had over time, when I told my founders
that, you know, even if he feels like we're feeling and we're
feeling, we're feeling like we need to pick up ourselves and
not lose that enthusiasm in what we're doing so we can keep on
the struggle. And like, you know, we don't
lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people
have come, we're trying to get a mobile developer.
Somebody was hard. People have come to stay put.
I'm really overwhelming the work right now.
I need to go. Yeah.
So as I was saying, so it's important that we don't lose
enthusiasm. It's important that you know,
because the truth is that they start up with a hypothesis or an
experiment. They will.
People read this way if we do it, they might, they might not.
If it's a hypothesis, an experiment, can we change it
really quickly as we're giving the service and the experience
is happening? Can we took it again?
Can we took it again?
Right. Can we see what's not working?
So it's like, it's like so many things like you are jumping
down. Isolation upon isolation.
Exactly So, but the idea, the most fundamental is that you
don't lose that enthusiasm. There's so many times when we've
come to the hard stop and we think that this is it.
I just need to sleep and wake up.
And then we're like action. Like I tell myself, like, I
mean, we're not making so much money.
We've been we've been on for a while, right?
Because I mean, for what we are doing, we need to be at scale
before we, you know, for our ads when it starts coming in.
And that's what happens with any brand, right?
If you're be doing your, you're going to be at scale before it
becomes popular and dense. What if I said, Hey, we want a
partner content. Your $1 million is rolling in.
And then I'm like, or more, we think that, you know, it was
overnight for you, right? So in the same way but the idea
to stay consistent, not loose things.
Then bro 2 views. Yeah, exactly.
So that idea, that thing that keeps you on, right, that gives
you that stamina and that enthusiasm is the most important
thing. And that's why you should be
what you love for sure. Because when, when the lights
feel in the heads of Sharon, you know, we just remember.
Like, do you mean that like the thing that I know I'll never
casually write it on my status and I lost the report because I
can just casually write whatever I want to write, right.
So those things that made you fall in love with that thing,
even if it's 5 views, you're happy that you have a
fulfillment that you shot an incredible podcast.
It was great, it was nice. Like it's not fundamentally that
because if you think that you're going to make money within a
certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it and you
never go to the end of it where you know you have to stay.
Yeah, even if it has to meet like 500 episodes that you do.
So like even if we know that we have to be on this without with
09 for like 5 years and we're going to get 5 million users now
5 million is that they would say everybody can run your ass on
this platform. It changes everything.
You know, it's an endless ocean of like, you know, such that you
know that MKBHD who is super successful in what he does.
Like he literally said, if Netflix wants to give me a deal,
no matter the price, you tell them bother.
Like he's like Netflix like don't bother.
He's like no need. Like, there's nothing more to do
on Netflix that we are not doing here because like, like, like
you need to get to that point of success in whatever you build
where you can command that confidence in what you're doing.
So and again, but you know that every, so that you know that
every episode you turn out, you're going to make $1,000,000
from it without even pushing it. You just need that.
Yeah, once I, once I throw out the, you know, that's where you
want to get to, right. But you need to steal.
I'm happy you're Nigerian. I'm happy you're a Nigerian.
I saw something, I can't remember where I saw it.
I think on social media they said something, say consistency
pays off, but you go on mad first before you pay.
You go on mad. You go on mad before you this.
Is the same thing so. You reminded me of that post.
It is what it is. It is what it is.
So I don't even fear. I mean, obviously everybody,
we're trying to fundraise. Everybody needs money.
Like, you know, I mean, imagine you had a podcast in each
country and we're flying to each country to shoot the podcast.
Do you get what I mean? You just fly me down.
That's what money can do. We have a fastest studio and we
shoot like 60. That's what money can do.
So everybody, because we have rich quality content like that,
you have access to it. Like that's what money can do.
So everybody's fundraising. I mean I would like to.
Speaking, Speaking of, Speaking of in studio podcasts, the next
episode after you is actually an in studio podcast.
So you are. You are literally manifesting it
brother. Yeah, it's such an incredible.
I'm just going to hide the identity of the guest.
Wow. That is, it's interesting.
It's interesting. I mean, so, so for us, you, you
see that for us, we know that, you know, even if we're going to
discuss to get like 5 million, we know that the most important
thing is to stay on course. I mean, look at Tim 23 Bill and
everybody knows Timmy. So I know every day I'm trying
to unknow it every single day I'm like, I'm never going to buy
anything from you guys. Let's be clear.
I wasn't. Every time I think I'm always
like, I just go to it's irrelevant.
Don't show it again, it's irrelevant.
I'm tired. I don't have money to buy.
I'm not shopping. I have money.
I'm being a startup. So stop showing me incredible
things that I know I'd love to buy.
But I'm like, you get what I mean?
So I I mean right. But everybody, one way or the
other, I've downloaded the app. My mistake.
Bible. OK, where, where was I?
What was I talking about? I was talking about, you know,
the ability to stay excited, right and and push on and I mean
really much fundraising as well. But it depends on who believes
in finding out that you know, who believes in what you guys
are doing and who thinks that if you guys stay consistent and
they support you guys being consistent and they see certain
things, certain traits that you guys stay consistent that you
can achieve that right. And essentially knowing that.
Sorry, I'm just mentioning of thoughts because I'm like
thinking of too many things. So is knowing that who supports
that idea that if you guys are persistent in doing this,
they'll achieve their setting goal.
All right, because when you start doing something, you know
that you know this thing has potential, it has possibilities,
right. So yeah, that's kitten is timing
out to stay excited. And I mean consistency is good,
but in your in ways of Adima that you romant.
He could nearly run back and you know, like would I say a quick
one like for those guys that are watching out right now, that are
young founders, right, What you have just said is highly
underrated, brother, right T stancey is key and you know,
people watch and I use myself as an example.
The very first would I say major brand partnership deal that I've
got right was Better Help. And we know Better Help is the
number one therapy brand in the world, number one online therapy
brand in the world. And I remember when I first
started out with podcasting, I used to admire the likes of Joe
Rogan, you know, and you know, the top broadcasters in the
world that are partners with Better Help.
And I'll go to the Better Help website and see or you can get
10% off Courtesy Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan visitors and
everything. But when I got my own deal, the
e-mail that was sent to me, right?
He read something along the lines of we are scouting for
creators to add to the partnership, right?
And then we've been following your workforce some time and we
admire what you do. And it gave me some perspective
as to people watch out for consistency, like big brands
only want to work with creators or founders that are consistent,
that have demonstrated consistency.
So it's very important for young people out there.
Whatever is that you're doing, stay consistent, right?
Keep pushing a lot of people quit before they had the
opportunity to see results. So I just put that out there.
Coming back to story port, right, you actually launched
this from the ground up, right And you have this obsession with
solving problems and of course that aligns with the product
thinking, but also you guys have been able to skill to 165,000
plus users with no marketing that that I really caught my
attention. So how how did you guys scale
to, you know, that massive number of users with no
marketing? Like what were the decisions
that drove that that growth process?
I like that same new marketing, but it's not really that.
But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect on growth, I'll,
I'll say growth. So when there's a we, when
there's a we, there's a we. Let's start from there.
You don't have money, you don't have money, right?
You can't manufacture cash, so you have to think you have to
get creative. If you can't afford chicken or
fish in a soup, I need to make soup.
You can use alternative like mushrooms, right?
This is like, how can we do this thing if we don't have money for
this thing? So these are incredible products
the. Fancy name is bootstrapping
correct? He knows how amazing it is
because you know all the product features, you know the impact,
you know what's gonna happen. You know how it can shipping,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right now only you knows that
part. Neither does your user because
everybody would join and we're like, OK, cricket refresh,
refresh. What's going on?
I'm like, I see who writes in this lady who said on Instagram,
she's like, she wrote this story and she was like, you can buy
the you can see the completing part of the state for just 5000
naira. Now they say, Madam, take these
things to people. Actually did I sense that?
But I'm sure she's not ready. I've not seen it right.
But you just be like, God, this that is this product that they
can use that better off. But yeah, so that awareness is
important. And a question now starts to be
how can we get this awareness? How can we put this out there?
And you know that money's on the table.
So what's what can we do? One thing about the mind is that
the mind will drive solution. Like I don't let's say my mind
drives solution. Like if you tell me that this
thing cannot be done, my mind starts to process how to
disgrace you, how to say I've done it.
So if you say this is a, it has to work.
So away from that, let's look forward.
So we pushed it out and we're pushing out the report, right?
We're doing incredible work. We're pushing on our social
media, you know, we're interrupting different
conversations. So on you tweet something, you
go on that, it downloads the report, you put a link to so
many things. But again, playing to your
strength. We have a technical strength in
storyboard. We don't have marketing in the
money. Everything I've seen is foreplay
if you don't have Money Marketing.
Now again, we used a lot of our technical strength ensure that
we ship the SDKS to the stores. So you see those ads that when
you when you're going through, you see a before you touch
anything, just install, the install comes up, right.
So you put all the MMPS things to track such that in the event
that we decide to run an ad, right, we can maximize even if
he's 5000 or Putin, we can get as high as $5000 from that,
right? So even if the money is not
there, it's not huge money, just tiny money that we're putting in
here and there. You know, how can we call a
small creator and then to do something for us?
But fundamentally you want your product to create that network
effect where the product is selling itself.
There are some products that you use that you see that somebody
just tells you about. There's no ad.
You figure it out like you know, it's like it's too, I'm sure
nobody you found Riverside, Riverside not in an ad to say
download this, but I know that if I'm dealing, I'll get
Riverside. So that kind of by the way.
Riverside are one of our tech partners as well.
By the way, Riverside are one of our tech partners.
But for every side of so you know, people sign up to
Riverside, we we get something. So please sign up with our our
referral, our affiliate link. Let me do a little bit of
marketing. Oh, OK.
Yeah, that's cool. I mean, we'll test it out for
sure. I mean, we like to use so many
tools until they tell us to pay. When they tell us to pay, that's
where story for that I that's in story for.
That's where we draw the line. That's where we're like.
Because everyone we also try to keep our costs as low as that's
not very possible. No, our course now monthly is
now looking like 100K monthly that we spend in storyboard.
So we use free Azure, free Slack free.
We see our e-mail addresses, we see our personal e-mail
addresses. I see my although I have them,
we use free Zoho. So free Zoho gives us 5
mailboxes. So that's how I have James at
storyboard dot. Com.
Then we have like share. Boxes.
Well, like that rugged thing because we know that like walk
in a desert starwater. So to do a lot of those things.
And then we've grown tremendously.
Like one of the appearances of my life was when we just open
Instagram randomly and we got it.
We got three tags, you know, and one of them was like, I'll never
forget Grace. She said she just did that
video, no description, no nothing.
I've never met her before. She just said, guys, I want to
introduce you to an app when you can make money from day one and
she talks about this app is called story port.
On story port, you can post your content that she like use my
code and don't forget to use my code, my referral code.
When I saw it, I just screamed. I was like, guys, guys, guys, we
also in the very we stay in the house.
It was just like when we say we're like an app is like
consistent fight on. And then I reach out to the
house like, Hey, this, your ad is on point.
She's like, yeah, that's why she sent me the ad.
She wasn't ready to charge anything more later.
We tried to compensate her, right?
And then, you know, the we posted the ad, it has so many
views. He has so many reactions.
Then we just, you know, I kind of borrowed money from my sister
to say we need to like promote this thing.
So we like, you know, started promoting it.
We got 16 posted the video. We got 16,000 downloads for as
low as I didn't even know what to say for as low as like 16,000
because we were seeing it like wow.
So when we say I mean, nothing itself is marketing, right?
So it's not like, it's not like we spent like 0 on it.
It's just like what marketing have we done and how held it was
it? Who was the budget we spent?
You know, we spent very tiny amount of money from time to
time. But other than that from that we
started getting lots of India checks here and there, India
checks to keep us alive. We hired more, We have more
developers come joins to report. I'm pretty much We've run ads
very occasionally. Hello.
Hi brother, Can you hear me? Hi, I'm here.
I'm here 350. It can happen to you as well.
Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share
something important. This episode includes a paid
partnership with Better Health, a platform designed to make
starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a
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So if you feel like you'd benefit from talking to a
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That's betterhub.com/kingjames to get 10% off your first month
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Sometimes the best investment you can make these in yourself.