Tola and I go waay back, it was him who produced my final year CD. Even then, I knew that he would be one to do great things. Of course, he has had his fair share of failed projects, but he keeps going, no matter what. Today, he shares with us his new project.
Enjoy.....
Tell us about yourself
My name is Tola Oredope and I am a your typical regular, just taking one step at a time.
Tell us about your business
Since this is an Entrepreneurial platform, I think I should
dissect your question - he he he.
To be sincere, this is not yet a business. Hear me out. I
may be wrong, but I see a business as an entity that is trying to execute a
well-defined business plan, based on an existing business model. For example,
selling sugar is a business; as the business model for selling sugar is well
known. Your success in a sugar business is how well you choose to execute the
well-known business model. This includes, sourcing the sugar cheaply and
selling it at a marked up price while reducing operational costs to maximise
profit. Simple. There is nothing new or innovative going on there.
At the moment, I am involved in a startup that has the
ability to carry out a wide range of experiments with various business models
and pivots for as long as we don’t run out of cash. Investors in early-stage
startups are aware of this, so they don’t expect you to make money but to build
value. Once you have built value, which is also known as your “value
proposition” then you have the chance to experiment with various business
models until you can find the best business model for your value proposition.
This is when you become a business and your job is to execute your business
model flawlessly or else you stand the chance to be eaten up.
Now back to the question, I am very fortunate to be involved
in startup developing a platform known as Iya Eko. The whole idea is to build a
platform that allows you to discover, collect, manage and share cultural images
that inspire you. Think of it as a mashup of Instagram, Pintrest and WeHeartIt.
For example, lets assume you are interested in seeing the trending knot wrapper
styles at Edo weddings, where do you go to? Its now Iya Eko because we have the
largest dedicated collection of not just knot wrapper styles but also of
cat-eye makeup, Gele styles, Beads, Sequins Designs, Aso-Oke styles, Wedding
Hijabs and lots more that you can just imagine. This is because we currently
have over 20,000 images and counting of the Nigerian cultural experience as
whole. Hopefully we can start extending our platform to capture the cultural
experiences in India, Malaysia, Peru, Uganda and even places like Afghanistan.
I believe we can do this and we are working hard to make this happen.
Having launched about only a month ago we have been featured
by the local and international press. For example in Nigeria, all top four
Nigerian newspapers - Punch, The Guardian, This Day and Vanguard - have
featured us. Media outlets in the Middle East, South East Asia, UK and the US
have all featured as they see us as the future. But what we have is more than
press features because our users also love the platform. I can hear you say
“But people lie but numbers don’t lie". So here are the numbers - since
launch 4 weeks ago, we have served over 16,000 pages via over 2,500 unique
users with each user spending an average of 5 minutes on our website with
little to no publicity.
What is the idea behind the name Iya-eko?
We wanted a name that brings together various cultures. For
some reason I have been reading about Madam Tinubu of recent who was a well
known adversary of the British colonial Government because she believed all
cultures differ are made up of the same essence. This was hard to comprehend
back then, but she was a visionary that went on to build her own financial
empire. Long after her death, her activism was the stage for women like
Fumilayo Ransome Kuti and many more Nigerian women that traveled all around
preaching that same message - “We are all the same even though we are from different
cultures and backgrounds” - This is the simple message of Iya Eko – even though
our locations may differ, our cultures are similar and made up of the same
essence. This is was Iya Eko stands for and hopefully, this is what we will
show to the world.
How did you get into this line of business?
I have always believed in the power of the well-managed
crowd. Notice I said, "the well-managed crowd" not just any crowd
because too many hands always spoil the soup, if they are not well managed.
From the first Chemical Year CD that I created with yours truly as far back as
2001, (I was a part of this! Yaay me) I believed that people need to have
choices. Back then, I challenged the notion of "One person One
picture" yearbooks that were the norm and asked why can’t one person have
10 pictures, a video, their song of choice and their own profile colour? This
was way back when Mark Zuckerberg was still in secondary school and biggest
search engine was Altavista. Everyone thought it was a stupid idea and it could
not be achieved expect for Sade and her team and the rest is now history.
The same principles lie in the heart of Iya Eko - Why should
my online experience of Nigeria be based on what BBC and CNN decides to show
me? Cant the ordinary people of Nigeria show me themselves? How can see the
trending fashion on the streets of Kano? Why should one fashion editor sitting
in lovely air-conditioned office decide who wore the best Gele last weekend?
Why can’t you show me all the Geles and let me decide for myself which one is
the best? This is why we decided to build the platform.
What are the main challenges you face and how have you overcome them.
I have got millions of challenges but my main one is
building an A+ team. I spent my last week speaking to over 22 prospective co-founders
and advisors but for some reason I can’t seem to find a perfect match. This is
not because, I want too much but it seems like everyone I meet already has a
pre-planned agenda or just wants to ride on our current publicity. I really want
people that are passionate about the Iya Eko idea and can help in driving it
forward.
We are glad that the core platform is working quite well but
we still need to work on the UI design, external facing APIs that will allow
our users embed their collections on their websites and most importantly
finalize our deals with prospective partners. All these require a lot of
dedicated time and I don’t mind any help that I can get.
How will you summarize your journey so far?
It’s been hard, very hard. I have experienced the good, the
bad and the ugly. A lot of rejections, negative feedback and skepticism but I
have no choice, as I have bitten the fruit and I have to carry on. But there
are also good times, for example, when I get messages from Nigerians living in
Russia saying they spent 3 hours on the website as it their only connection
back home or a well known investor from Silicon Valley sees our Quantcast
profile and agrees to chat with me. Those times are priceless.
Where do you see Iya-eko in the future?
I see Iya Eko as a platform that inspires people around the world.
Given another chance, will you do this again?
Definitely, Yes!
So what are you waiting for, visit
www.iyaeko.com and start sharing. Cheers!
