Tag: Entrepreneurs

16 Lessons from AfroTech 2018

When was the last time you basked in inspiration? For me, it was last week at the AfroTech conference in San Francisco, CA organized by the talented folks at Blavity. Being in a room filled with black executives, techies, creatives, movers, shakers, leaders, and learners felt right. I couldn’t have envisioned a better return on my time. I attended a few sessions in between networking and recruiting for Amazon. Below are 16 lessons I captured:

1. Daymond John, star of the hit TV Show – Shark Tank, delivered the closing keynote. He shared his 5 Shark Points inspired by his journey in building FUBU and his other successful ventures. Below are the summarized versions of the five points:.

  1. Set a goal. Goal setting is a tried and tested method of achieving great results. Goals give you direction and the ability to say no to things that don’t align with your goals. When you have clear goals, you can also come back to them when things get fuzzy or you take a wrong exit.
  2. Do your homework. Innovation can be finding new ways to deliver something so it’s better, faster, or lighter that what exists in the market today.
  3. Love what you do. When you love what you do, you make sacrifices. You also tend to take a long-term approach.
  4. Remember you are the brand. Can you summarize your personal brand value proposition in 2-5 sentences?
  5. Keep swimming, and remember to take care of your health. Get your health regular checkup because health is wealth. It’s hard to run the world from a sick bed.

2. In Everette Taylor’s talk, he encouraged the audience to resist impostor syndrome. He challenged everyone to believe in themselves, and just start and iterate as they grow.

3. According to Everette, one of the biggest mistakes startups make is forgetting to build a great product that solve specific customer problems. If you’re pushing a crappy product, no matter how good of a salesperson you are, you will not be successful in the long run.

4. Surround yourself with the right people because you’re only as strong as the people around you.

5. Do not underestimate the expertise you’re building in your current role. Find ways to turn your expertise into consulting engagements and start building clients on the side.

6. You know what’s as cool as entrepreneurship? Intrapreneurship. According to Wikipedia, Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization. Rovina and Kim from Amazon captured this in their talk of how they built Amazon’s Textures and Hues by obsessing about the customer and applying Amazon’s leadership principles along the way. If you’re looking to embody the intrapreneurial spirit, they suggest you consider these thought starters to help you come up with ideas:

    • What is a customer experience that you repeat often?
    • Where are the pain points in the process?
    • Try to list ideas to eliminate these challenge
    • One of those ideas could turn into a thriving business

7. The founder of CodePath.org, Michael Ellison, implored the audience to work with people who are so good they intimidate you. And if an experience intimidates you, that’s a good thing.

8. Persistence is key to enhancing your ability to have more luck..

9. Paris Benson, founder of Wizely Financial, stressed the importance of having a board of directors. As a founder, the board is meant to hold you accountable not to be your friend. When selecting your board, strive to get diversity in thought which should include a mix of technical, operational, and financial experience.

10. It’s good idea to have a board member who is not an investor so they can provide an un-biased view.

11. Entrepreneurs should not trade equity for a short-term gain. Long term thinking is key to building lasting value.

12. It was encouraging to see the number of companies that attended AfroTech with the goal of recruiting. According to Sacha Thompson, Inclusion Marketing Lead at AWS, companies should go where diverse talents are. If you don’t have the pipeline, build the pipeline.

13. Many of the speakers had a common theme of defining what success means to you and not what the world says. Success shouldn’t come at the expense of your health or personal relationships.

14. Learn how to delegate so you don’t feel burnt out.

15. If you ever find yourself being the only one that looks like you in a professional setting, it’s your responsibility to do something about it. For example, you could find someone to mentor or refer someone to your company.

16. Hip hop is good for business. According to one of the attendees I spoke to, it was refreshing to hear a Drake song next to a Microsoft recruiting booth, and it wasn’t weird to dance up to the booth with your resume.

See you next year at AfroTech 2019 in Oakland, CA.

F.I.V.E Questions with Stephen Ozoigbo, Venture Catalyst

1. Briefly describe your background- education, experience, etc. What is the most exciting or rewarding aspect of what you do now? What could make it even more exciting or rewarding?
I am a generalist. My background is a hybrid of Technology, Finance and Investments, and International Development. I have been fortunate to live and work in four continents and I consider these experiences to be the backbone of my current status as a Venture Catalyst.
 
I was born in Nigeria and grew up with an admiration of global affairs. When I emigrated to the US as a young adult, I chose the path of embracing knowledge and learning through any means possible and I immersed myself in a variety of learning activities both online and offline. This propelled me through my first Master’s degree and led me to my career in Banking 
 
With the help of a good friend and mentor, I joined Smith Barney as an Investment Associate intern and worked for four years through the Banking realms of Citigroup. I completed my MBA within the same period and transitioned to Foreign Direct Investment activities with the Government of Catalonia in Europe in 2009. This experience shaped my Venture and International development as it allowed me to design, implement and manage a variety of investment activities across macro and micro environments. Particularly, I started working with Startups and saw the power of entrepreneurship as a key variable for economic development. 
 
I took that experience back to Africa and it has become a core aspect of my day to day as an early stage investor in venture activities, a stage agnostic advisor to venture stakeholders, and an active stakeholder in Africa’s entrepreneurial future.
 
The most exciting part of what I do now is applying my knowledge and experience on the African continent with a full exploitation of my generalist tendencies and approach. My personal and professional background in Science, Technology and Finance allows me to sit within convening and offer a  full appreciation of the levers that need to be pulled in driving African innovation ecosystems forward.
 
My roles get more exciting as I meet more young Africans that are just as driven and willing to do the same. My perspectives on this and more were shared in my recent TED Talk.
2. Flash back and then fast forward to the present, what has surprised you the most about your journey thus far? What advice do you have for others looking to take a similar path? Is there something you could have done differently to get to where you are quicker?
I have fond memories of great projects, activities and sometimes disappointments. On a personal note, having the opportunity to work with key public sector partners and friends from the Obama White house and Administration, to the US State Department after serving within the Government of Catalonia for five years stands out as one of my most pleasantly surprising paths. On a daily basis, working with young African entrepreneurs to build solutions of the future and seeing THEIR journeys from a lens of venture creation and acceleration is always a thrill. 
 
For anyone else seeking to follow a similar path, I will strongly advise them to embrace THEIR generalist tendencies and characteristics. It comes in very handy in fast paced, international and multidimensional business environments. I also advise that they have good friends that are specialists!
 
Entrepreneurship is hard. Entrepreneurship in the African context is even harder. I encourage anyone within the ecosystem (or seeking to enter it) to come in with a stomach of steel, strive hard to leave their mark and never relent on their mission towards empowering others.
3. Why is the cause you are pursing or problem you are solving the most important for this generation? How would future generations benefit if its successful? What is at risk if you do not succeed?
The Lions@frica initiative and the DEMO Africa platform and all other programs that we currently have embedded within the African Technology Foundation are quite important in the broader sense of promoting entrepreneurship in Africa. For a generation of Africans that are media entrepreneurs, I also consider our Edutainment Africa platform to be an essential tool for story tellers to amplify the business elements of their craft.
 
As the African media and technology ecosystems merge and digital entrepreneurs continue to rise from their self taught ecosystems across the continent, their ability to build a product, tell their story and sell it across the world will be a critical aspect of their venture pathways.
 
There isn’t a viable risk to not succeeding with these initiatives. Rather, I consider that like many others, some stakeholders will be pioneers and not direct beneficiaries – and we will all continue to strive for the Africa that we believe in.
 
4. Reflect on all of the key sacrifices and trade-offs you’ve had to make to get to where you are today. Which of these would you say was the most pivotal and why?
My personal sacrifices have mostly been around my inability to say NO to service or causes I believe in. From China to Catalonia to Colombia to multiple locations in Africa, I have made a myriad of trade-offs that were sometimes a burden to my personal life but ended up with a rainbow at the end.
 
Answering a call to service and working alongside key stakeholders at the US State Department’s Office of Global Partnerships on the Lions@frica initiative as well as supporting key public sector activities for the Obama Administration would stand out. Working with my good friends at the Government of Catalonia’s Trade and Investment  Office will also stand out. These public sector experiences have enforced my core beliefs that governments are people, and given me a comfort win providing policy guidance to governments all over the world.
 
Working with young startup founders is very rewarding for me. They are Africa’s future and I am always honored to be a page in their book through mentorship, advisory and investment related activities. Building technology solutions with all of these founders remains a key motivation for me as well. 
 
5. What is the best piece of actionable advice that you’ve received that continues to be source of inspiration in good times and challenging times?
I have a daily dose of these, especially since my daily activities are quite amorphous and touch on many parts of the innovation ecosystem. I have a healthy network of mentors and advisors that I reach out to on a regular basis for guidance. I look to my family to stay grounded – my mother and my wife and are biggest fans and critics alike. I seek inspiration in well meaning and self driven innovators from Africa and listen intently to their visions and motivations. Above all else, I am a willing learner –  I have grown to learn from all my experiences, both good and bad.
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn!