By Stanley Ugagbe
Lack of purpose discovery is one of the major reasons the society is littered with young people who are wandering aimlessly in search of what to do. This is because knowing your purpose in life helps you live life with focus. People who know their purpose in life know who they are, what they are, and why they are. And when you know yourself, it becomes easier to live a life that’s true to your core values. When you discover your purpose, you can direct your focus to the really important things. Instead of wasting your time on the inconsequential stuff, you can galvanize your energy towards actualizing that purpose.
Chidi Nwaogu is one young person who identified his purpose early and has been religiously and painstakingly paying the sacrifices to achieve his dreams.
He has successfully carved a niche for himself in the tech space. Haven started his entrepreneurial journey from early age; Chidi has remarkably become a global brand with various international awards to his name.
In this interview with our correspondent, Chidi shared his inspiring entrepreneurial journey. He also offered tips for people wanting to thread the path of entrepreneurship.
May we meet you?
I’m Chidi Nwaogu, a serial tech entrepreneur and software developer. I’m co-founder and CEO of Publiseer, a digital publisher for African Creatives, described by Konbini as “one of the largest digital publishers in Africa” and identified by IFC as one of the startups “that could speed up innovation in Africa”. I’ve been described as one of the “Young innovators making Africa great in 2019” and “50 Top Personalities on LinkedIn”. I’m an Acumen Fellow 2020 (West Africa), Westerwelle Fellow 2019 (Germany), AfricanPLP Fellow 2019 (Cairo), and Yunus&Youth Global Fellow 2019 (New York).
Where are you from? Tell us about growing up.
I’m from the Eastern part of Nigeria, but I was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. I started my journey as a web designer while I was 13. My twin brother, Chika, and I were introduced to the basics of HTML from a Computer Science book we had while in Junior Secondary School. Fortunately, we had a family computer at home, so we could practice HTML and at the same age, we built our first website. Although it was a really basic web page, this was the beginning of everything.
How did you start your entrepreneurial journey?
At the age of 16, my twin brother and I ventured into video game development. We created our first tech company at the same age and released our first video game “Save The Admiral”, which was a 2d space shooter that used gamification and AI to introduce the concept of global warming to teenagers, including its implications and how to mitigate it. Our game was played by thousands of gamers online, but this didn’t translate into any revenue for us. When we got into the University of Lagos, we began to learn web design and development again. We mastered
HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and launched a dating website with a college roommate, which took off and was eventually featured on Yahoo! News. Shortly after the launch of the dating website, my twin and I had to leave the administrative team due to some problems in founder dynamics.
Then, we decided to start a social network, which we called LAGbook, a backronym for Ladies And Gentlemen book. We launched LAGbook at the age of 19 as an exclusive social network for students of the University of Lagos, and it quickly grew from zero to 35,000 registered users in less than six months. So we decided to expand to sustain its growth, and in three years, we had over 1 million registered users from over 100 countries. LAGbook was then acquired by a Canadian tech company in January 2013, and we started our second tech company the same year,
which was acquired the following year for nearly four times the acquisition value of LAGbook.
Tell us about Publiseer
After our second exit, my twin and I took a break from tech entrepreneurship to pursue other dreams. For me, I have always wanted to be a published author, and my twin pursued a career as a recording artist. I wrote a novel titled ‘Odd Family Out’, and my twin recorded a studio album titled ‘Higher’, and now it was time to monetize our hard-work. My twin heard of a music aggregator based in the United States and decided to distribute his studio album with them. They
requested an album distribution fee of $99, and he paid immediately. After all, he just sold his second startup company, but this isn’t the case for many upcoming artists in Africa, who can’t afford such a distribution fee. He started a social media campaign to raise awareness for his album, and within a month, he had huge sales. Now, it was time to receive his royalties, and that was where the problem came in. The aggregator primarily pays royalties via PayPal, and in Nigeria, and many African countries, we cannot receive money via PayPal, but can only send
money, so that payment method was out of the picture. So he had to fall back to the only payment method left and that was cheque payment even though he knew it would take two weeks to receive the cheque and another three weeks to get the money into his bank account. However, after two months, the cheque never arrived, so he reached out to the aggregator to know ask what was causing the delay. That was when he was told that he had taken the money. Upon investigation by the aggregator, it was discovered that someone in Oslo, Norway, used a fake ID to take his money, and my twin was heartbroken. He had to take down his album from
aggregator and sort for local means of monetization. About a year after, he said to me, “Chidi, a lot of independent African musicians have gone through what I went through trying to monetize my music internationally. And I think we should solve this problem for every African creative out there; writers, musicians, and filmmakers; including ourselves.” And that was when the idea for our third and current startup company was born. A digital content distribution platform tailored for the African creatives, and in Q3 2017, we launched Publiseer, a digital content
distribution platform that lets independent African writers, musicians, and filmmakers, typically from low-income communities to distribute, promote, protect and monetize their creative works on over 400 well-established digital platforms in 100 countries, at no charge, with
just a single click, and we share in the revenue generated from sales of these works. Our creatives receive their royalties via local bank payments, which no payment charges, or via mobile money payment, which makes it easily accessible; thus making monetization convenient and risk-free.
How would you describe your journey to stardom?
It’s been like a wave-like journey; ups and downs; crests and troughs. It hasn’t been a linear journey, and I’m just like everybody else. I fail as well, but the difference is that I’m prepared to try over and over again, no matter how long or times it takes, in order to get it done or right.
When the going gets tough, what keeps you going?
My “why” keeps me going, and my why is to leave the world better than I found it. I want to leave my footprints here on earth as much as possible before I’m gone. I want people to remember me not for the wealth I gathered, but for the lives, I touched or impacted.
You’re a recipient of a handful of awards; tell us about some of them
For my works with Publiseer, I’ve won the Migration Entrepreneurship Prize 2020 by the Swiss Government, the Africa 35.35 Award 2019 for Entrepreneurship, the Young Leaders Award 2019 for Media and Entertainment, and the Bizz Business Excellence Award 2019.
What are the things you do differently that stand you out from the crowd?
One, I do not dwell on my successes. I achieve something great, I celebrate instantaneously, and immediately, I move on to the next goal. I’m always constantly asking myself, “What’s next?” “Yes, I did great, but that was yesterday. What can I do great today?” I don’t dwell on past glory. I move on. Two, I fail more times than I succeed. You just don’t see my failures. I fail, I learn from it, and I try again, this time more intelligently. I never say, “I tried.” I try over and over
again until I get it right. Even if it takes a thousand times to get it done, I will do it. I never say, “I can’t” because failure is success when you learn from it. The only time you fail is the moment you quit.
Do you think entrepreneurship is for everyone?
Yes, it’s for everyone, as long as you have the passion to create something new that solves an urgent problem experienced by others, then entrepreneurship is for you.
Perhaps there are people who want to go into entrepreneurship but don’t know how to start. What will be your advice to them?
Figure out that one thing you know how to do better than many people you have come across. Now practice that one thing over and over again until you become undoubtedly an expert at it. Now do that thing and get people to pay you for doing it. That’s how successful businesses are created out of our talents or hobbies.
What’s your message for the Youths?
Please, listen to advice. It’s great that you’re passionate about your idea—and sometimes, you need to ignore the naysayers to realize your dream. However, some zealous entrepreneurs fall trap to dismissing any constructive criticism or advice they receive, which can lead you to miss the opportunity to address possible issues before they happen. Figure out how to sort through truly negative comments and constructive criticism. If someone is offering you genuine advice,
consider stopping and listening carefully. Impartial sources like potential customers,
investors, lenders, or mentors are more likely, to be honest with you than family and friends, so pay particular attention to what they have to say and you can avoid making some serious mistakes with your business.
