Counting 2016

Intro

My head has been trying to do a subconscious account of 2016 in the background. After doing a draft on my phone, I finally get to write this.

The year of the start. The true start.

After one failed start, Loystar takes off this year. Febuary 2016 I and my co-founders started the company and began working on our first product. By April we had a prototype ready and got the first paying customer same month. That was a great feeling.

The Team

Privileged to be working with brilliant minds who also have the courage to give us a chance to take a shot at this. I already have good pictures of the future in my head and hope we can build something we all can be proud of.

Telling the story

The pitch is all ours, we've got the ball to play.  That's a line from one of my power tracks.
While we developed the product, we also had to sell the vision. We had 7 pitch events including the DEMO Africa 2016 event  that held in Capetown - which I could not attend due to visa denial. The 6 other events held in Accra and Lagos and was largely successfully. Thankful for the opportunities.

Deal flow. 

Having launched our first product in April, and pitch Loystar at several times in the course of the year, this has resulted in various deal sizes on the table, all amounting to at least $60k and non-cash support worth over $10k from MEST Africa, DEMO Africa, Speedup Africa, Arise Invest and of course, our customers. Not bad for a early early stage company like ours and it goes on to give a sense of what's expected. Very well appreciate the belief of the various investors/partners.

Good people.

The good people of 2016. So many, ain't even gonna name a drop. But the top of the cream know who they are... and I may not have known them so well.. but they still are  very very good people.

Let's get Physical.

2016. Buffest year ever, even though it's almost all gone. Learnt to dance kizomba, a salsa variant. Went out to run 33 times with 43.71 miles covered (runs I tracked). Was out with nature: canopy walk, surfing, bot gardens. Shout out to the crew. Good times.

Let's get Spiritual

This was the year I discovered the biggest biggest desire of God is to be believed.
As a founder, I have experienced first hand.. countless times how it is not to be believed. For the number of people who believe you, there are also the non-believers. It isn't the nicest of feeling to not be believed; but when you are believed, you want to prove to your believers that they made the right choice.

So when I discovered God really wants to be believed, I could very well relate to it. It's kind of empathizing with God to some extent.
I think believing is really what (our) Faith is about. It's a very tangible force because it involves work. (You cannot believe and not take action, that's just a mere wish).

Cheers to Twenty17

So 2017 is to believing more. Believing God's Word (that has always been my impetus) and doing the work. Believing in my team and doing the work, believing more in myself and doing the work.

Thank you 2016, thanks to every one who was a part of it and Cheers to a grand Twenty17.

4 Lessons from the dotcom bubble crash via Peter Thiel's 0 to 1

How could I have not blogged about this.. the later part of this blog's tagline was inspired by Mr. Thiel.
My props for this man, just went higher.

! RT @markessien: Peter Thiel: what an investor!

— ayo Loystar ♛ (@tjwizking) November 9, 2016

Dude backed Donald Trump's election with $1.24million and won his bet. An investor indeed, his mouth is there.

The lessons:

1.  Make incremental advances, grand visions inflated the bubble,so they should not be indulged. Anyone who claims to be able to do something great is suspect, and anyone who wants to change the world should be more humble. Small incremental steps are the only safe oath forward.
2. Stay lean and flexible, all companies must be lean..which is code for unplanned, you should not know what your business would do., Planning is arrogant and inflexible. Instead, you should try things out, iterate and treat entrepreneurship as agonistic experimentation.- Lean my people..lean! PS: It's doesn't mean cheap. People get confused.
3. Improve on the competition. Don’t try to create a new market prematurely. The only way to know you have a real business is to start with an already existing customer, so you should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.
   
   And number 4.. got me thinking. I've always known you should engineer your user acq, but the importance, I never really paid attention to.
   
   
4.  Focus on product, not sales. If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough: technology is primarily about product development, not distribution. Bubble-era advertising was obviously wasteful, so the only sustainable growth is viral growth.

Focus on product not sales.

Goodbye. :)
Update: 17th April 2017

Give product 50%, and Sales/Marketing 50% (Your best option if your product lacks an internal growth engine)

Great product need great marketing.

My sugarcubes 2015 :)

Sugar cubes from this year's MESTmas

"Hey man!

Thanks for all the support. It's been nice knowing you." - Chidi

"Ayo!
Thanks 4 ur awesomeness & ever-willingness to help. Blessings! -Tabby
PS: Keep Jesus flame burning!"

"Ayo, I appreciate greatly your enthusiasm and spirit and everything you bring to the school"- Todd

"Ayo, you are blessed beyond measure much love, " -Mary

"Well done" - anonymous

"Ayo, I really enjoy our walks on Sunday!
You are awesome :) - Nyawira

" ayo - You are a creative mind! I appreciate your work ethic and unique perspective on things! Thanks for being you! Greatness is ahead! " - Emily

Merry Christmas :) - anonymous

"Keep being awesome " - Linus

Thanks all folks.
2015 was good.

Cheers

venue99.com - 2nd runner up at Airtel App store challenge GH

venue99.com is barely 3 months old.

Yesterday, we emerged 3rd position out of 80+ startups that applied for the airtel app store launch in Ghana.

It's a small victory, but we would celebrate it.

Funny thing is, a part of me did not want to attend the final pitch event, but I'm glad I did.

Cheers to the team and more victories.

26 - If there are words for Him then I don’t have them

So I turned 26 today.

I very thankful I'm alive and well - would let that sink in.

I like this Kari Jobe Forever song, especially the spoken word part.

Spoken Word Lyrics

If there are words for Him then I don’t have them.
You see, my brain has not yet reached the point where it could
form a thought that could adequately describe the greatness of my God,
and my lungs have not yet developed the ability to release a breath
with enough agility to breathe out the greatness of his love,
and my voice, you see, 

my voice, is so inhibited, restrained by human limits
that it’s hard to even sing the praise of…
You see… if there are words for Him then I don’t have them.
My God, 

His grace is remarkable, mercies are enumerable,
strength is impenetrable, He is honorable, accountable, favorable,
He is unsearchable yet knowable, indefinable yet approachable, indescribable yet personal,
He is beyond comprehension, further than imagination, constant through generations,
king of every nation. 

But if there are words for Him then I don’t have them.
You see, my words are few, and to try to capture the one true God,
using my vocabulary will never do,
but I use words as an expression,
an expression of worship to a savior,
a savior who is both worthy and deserving of my praise, so I use words.
My heart extols the Lord, blesses his name forever,
He has won my heart captured my mind and has bound them both together,
He has defeated me in my rebellion,
conquered me in my sin,
He has welcomed me into his presence,
completely invited me in.
He has made himself the object of my sight,
flooding me with mercies in the morning,
drowning me with grace in the night. 

But if there are words for Him
then I don’t have them.
But what I do have is good news,
for my God knew that manmade words would never do,
for words are just tools that we use to point to the truth,
so He sent His son Jesus Christ as “The Word”, living proof, 

He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation,
for by Him all things are created, giving nothingness formation,
and by His words he sustains, in the power of His name,
for He is before all things and over all things he reigns, holy is his name,
so praise him for his life… 

The way he persevered in strife,
the humble son of God becoming the perfect sacrifice,
praise him for his death… 

that He willingly stood in our place, that he lovingly endured the grave,
that he battled our enemy and on the third day rose in victory

He is everything that was promised,
praise Him as your risen king,
lift your voice and sing for one day he will return for us
and we will finally be united with our savior for eternity, eternity.
So it’s not just words that I proclaim,
for my words point to “The Word” and “The Word” has a name, 

hope has a name,
joy has a name,
peace has a name,
love has a name
and that name is Jesus Christ.
Praise his name forever!

I'm alive.

-----------------
One Random thing I thought I should start for the next one year is have a more healthy lifestyle.
So I decided I would like to stay off soda and fizzy drinks. Not malt drinks though :)

More of all these smoothie drinks. I have actually joined the fitfam people that religiously have smoothies. My last mix was a drink with Pineapple as base, and cucumber, the right chunks of ginger and garlic plus a tiny slice of raw green pepper (hehe). Green pepper for flavour and fragrance :D

If not for anything, but for the mind set that I am consciously aiming at a healthy lifestyle, that's powerful.

It takes a bit of time to make smoothies, but I should invest in my health, just as much as I in my wealth. Sounds awkward, but you get it, after all Health is Wealth.

So yeah... I'm alive.

My first smoothie, just orange and cucumber :D

PS: someone should just start smoothie subscription already, kent be spending one hour in kitchen cos of one glass of drink. Well.. I guess I can.

Startup, What Problem are you solving? I've found the answer

How do you come up with business ideas? Any very savvy person in the startup would point you to Paul Grahams startupideas.html document.
The essay points out that it's much more easier to get good ideas when you think of problems that exists in the world. Problems are bad things and people would always want to get rid of them, so if you have something that solves such problems, going into business would be quite straight forward.

Problems get level. Big problem = Big idea, choose your level.

In startup context, I see the value of thinking from a problem perspective to generate ideas worth chasing. That's very clear. e.g Dropbox helps with the mess of having to copy your files from one media to another, but what problem does a game like angry birds solve?

This is a classic situation newbie tech entrepreneurs may find themselves in -"what problem is your startup solving"?

To get around this, I like to think of it as 2 and only 2 things you could do as startup:

1. Solve a problem (pain)
2. Meet a need. (desire)

If you are not solving a problem as it were, you are meeting a need. In the case of a game like angry birds, the need for entertainment.

But just a few minutes ago, I found a better answer to the puzzle and I realized that the issue has been the way we were framing problems. See the answer in the quote below:

Everyone is in search of progress (outcomes/reaching goals) and it helps to think of problems in terms of the obstacles that keep them from achieving this progress

We tend to frame only the obvious problems as the problems worth solving. Whereas, anything that limits us from reaching what we want can be seen as a problem.

That's insightful!

http://leanstack.com/no-problems-in-your-business-model-is-a-problem/

Explaining a Tech term to a non-tech audience:MVP

So I have the task of explaining MVP to a non- tech audience. First, MVP is probably not exactly a tech term. Let's call it a buzz word. The term is an interesting one, so interesting, I can't seem to complete this post about it.

So yeah.. here is my 1 min layman explanation of Minimum viable  Product.

MVP is simply an abrreviation for Minimum viable product.It is the least thing you could do as a startup to provide or be of value to your customers. 

There has been so many arguments on the definition of a MVP, and just like the many other startup topics, there is no silver bullet, no clear cut answers, definitely no asking "How do you know what minimum is". 

Some folks have tried to bring understanding to the concept by coining their own version of the same concept. An example is MLP... minimum lovable product. but there is the question of if the love can translate to $$. 

In my humble opinion, I would say, forget MVP, MLP and do MSP. Minimum sellable product. I may have seen this somewhere, but I agree we should let sales be the final judge. Thank you.

Good enough?