On Starting Your Startup
Hey T-Tribe
Today we share some advice from Odunayo Eweniyi, co-founder and COO of PiggyVest, a fintech company in Lagos, Nigeria. She is also co-founder and partner of FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage angel fund focused on investing in women who are in the very, very early stages of launching a startup. Her field of operation includes Social Media, Marketing, sales, content and product management, and business development.
She talked about some of the lessons she learned and dropped some nuggets.
On Starting a company…
You need to make sure that is exactly what you want to do because it is really hard. There are so many moments in between where you just want to give up and do something else. I typically tell people that I don’t think finding opportunities are exclusive to entrepreneurs because you can find opportunities in anything that you set your mind to do, be it a job or a business. If you are sure that entrepreneurship is the way to go then just make sure that you are ready mentally and physically. You have to be ready to put everything into it to make it work. Go for it if you are 100% sure that this is the path that you want to take.
A lesson she leans on daily
I have learned to believe in my own abilities. This works for me and gets me through every day, especially incredibly tough moments. I go through every day facing things knowing that if I am unable to solve it then I can come right back to it because I basically believe in my own abilities.
I believe in the fact that this is what I was meant to do and I can do it right or if I can’t do it I can learn to do it. Every day when I approach things or I approach a problem I approach it with the fact that this is something I will be able to do either right now or by going up to look for how to do it. I believe in the expansiveness of my ability, my mental and physical capabilities. This is what helps me move through challenges as fast as possible, recalibrate, reset, ask for help and all of those things are built very firmly on the fact that I think I can do it.
An important lesson she learned
It is very important to have a support system. For the most part of my life, not until two years ago, I didn’t have many friends or support system, I had colleagues at work that were close but sometimes it feels like you are on your own. I have come to learn the importance of having a support system, the importance of having people in your corner that you can go to even outside of the office, people you can unwind with, people you can complain to, people who will set you straight when you’re making mistakes. Those are very important. A support system is my go-to and it’s nice to have your own tribe.
Some mistakes she made and the resulting lessons
I have made many mistakes. I have hired too fast, I have fired too slow, I have fired too fast, I have wasted money on ventures that I don’t particularly plan out, I have not put resources into something that could have planned out.
I have actually made so many mistakes but one thing I have learned is that these mistakes happen especially when you are a young founder and the most important part is that you are able to look back on it, take necessary learnings and keep moving forward and that’s what we have done.
When we hired too fast and we ran out of money we had to let everyone go and we started the company basically from scratch and we learned not to hire too fast anymore. All of these things are mistakes but they are built in such a way that if you wire yourself mentally to always learn from them and keep moving they almost always turn out into something good.
Always do post mortems on your mistakes and when you make a mistake and it becomes apparent this is a mistake you have to look in-depth at what you could have done better, what you could have done differently, then take those learnings into the next thing.
There you have it,
- Make sure it is exactly what you want
- Believe in your own abilities
- Support systems are essential
- Mistakes make you grow
I hope this has helped you.
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