A Call for Local Mentors
It’s time to explore local mentors.
Coming from a community (Aba, Abia State) that used to be highly underserved and disconnected to technology and innovation was my greatest motivation to finding, developing, and engaging with my passion.
Aba is the commercial city of Abia State and popularly called the Japan of Africa. And these cluster of businesses were also disconnected to technology and innovation as a tool ought to be leveraged to scale their businesses.
I was motivated to building an ecosystem that will spur innovation, groom tech-driven startups, and support the local businesses.
At some point, we invested the very first million+ pay from a single project back into the growth and advancement of the community.
Truth be told, Abia especially Aba has never been this receptive to technology entrepreneurship and innovation as it is today.
Do not think it just happened. Sacrifices were made and foundations were laid.
I will tell the story later about the million+ investment in the Abia technology ecosystem development and the impact.
My journey to finding, developing, and engaging with my passion in community building and startup development started in 2012 after my experience working with the Abia State Government ICT department and Diamond Bank operations unit which changed my mindset and thought process. There was no opportunity for innovation, critical thinking, and progressive learning. Every activity has been outlined on how you intend to execute them. Doing the same thing everyday discouraged me.
Everyone needs to know where his/her passion lies. For me, it is in building or being part of that next unicorn or platform that would transform Africa. That is why I have been a firm believer in the endless advantages of technology startups as a catalyst to endless possibilities.
- The Inspiration Behind The Journey -
For two year, I was building a solution that will transform Africa, after the completion of the MVP in 2013, I started looking for partners and potential investors to provide the seed capital that will help scale up the innovation.
I had meetings with over 20 of them including individuals, businessmen, managers, and companies.
Fortunately, GLO communication believed in me and decided to fund it. While MCL that used to be where we now have the Eldorado Event Center agreed to cover the launching ceremony.
I had a series of meetings with the GLO management and everything was going all well.
At that time, I neither had a team, a mentor, nor an adviser. There were no accessible business and tech hub such as the likes of RAD5 Tech Hub, IgHub, and Learn Factory in the community today.
Being fascinated by the product launching, made me review every single line of my code to the point I became very skeptical and perturbed by the security and sustainability of the solution.
Long story short. I became curious about the system being hacked, or another team of better developers leverages on it to come up with a more advanced solution.
Remember, I had no teammate, mentor, or adviser to fall back to. Unfortunately, the experienced persons then will ask you to buy them a bottle of malt and food just to review your code.
- How Fear Snatched Away My Golden Opportunity -
Guess what, out of fear over the platform security and responsiveness, I started rebuilding some modules of the code with PHP PDO and bootstrap. The fear made me deny the consistent calls from one of the GLO managers as the launch day was almost around the corner.
At some point, they became discouraged and gave up on my inconsistency. They never knew I was seriously battle with fear of launching the next Google that was likely to fail a few days after the launching.
That was how inexperience, fear, no access to mentorship, and community made me lost track of everything.
- What I Learnt From The Experience Six (6) Years Ago -
- Everyone who is aspiring to transform Africa must have a strong team, mentors, and advisers.
- You do not need to get it all together in the first place, work on the Minimal Viable Product (MVP). Improvement can come afterward.
In the quest to overcome my failure of delivering Africa must innovative product seven (7) year ago, I have engaged with Techstars Startup Weekend Norway mentorship program and Google leadership program.
Maximizing my experience with TechStars Startup Weekend mentorship program, I joined the Tony Elumelu Foundation mentors where I mentored young entrepreneurs in East Africa. I have also been privileged to be part of the local mentorship in StartUp Weekend programs and startup/product development masterclass training.
- A Call For Local Mentors -
This is very important to me. If you currently have an innovative idea that can leverage and scale with technology, currently working on the product, or already have a product transforming Africa (early, intermediate, or advanced stage) kindly connect me.
I am very much open to being mentored and looking forward to growing my mentor’s network to help me scale a product I’m about to launch.
If you would love to mentor me, I will be glad if you can kindly reach out to me via my email for me to open up a discussion.
Message To Early-Stage Entrepreneurs
Having a good understanding of entrepreneurship and its processes is paramount to starting your journey in entrepreneurship.
Melody Kuku — Entrepreneurs are people who hope, believe and dream. We know our dreams so well that we can close our eyes in our sleep and still coherently tell you the future we see; the jobs it would create and why we just can’t give up on it.
There may be criteria and just about every reason why our business is not good enough. There may be a thousand and one reasons why it seems we did not convince those who matter about how passionate we are about the path we chose and just maybe we may seem like people who just need some luck-cash to spend and catch fun. It doesn’t matter how it seems and it doesn’t matter what others think.
We may be broken today after hours of searching for that glory email that would have made us people that change the world. Still, we must not give up. I did ask myself the whys and I did think about what I could have done better; what could I have done to show the passion dripping from my soul: to prove that I could indeed stand tall as someone given the mantle to change Africa.
Entrepreneurship is an exciting and demanding experience. Either you are in or out.
Join a community and find the best mentors you need in your journey to success.
Good luck.
uguruigwe@gmail.com
http://linkedin.com/in/uguruigwe
7 Factory Road Aba, Nigeria.
