From my lens as the founder

After six years of operation, Bendada.com announced its rebrand as Condia.

Bendada.com was the former name of an Africa-focused tech publication I founded in 2018, which now ranks in the top 20% of tech blogs on the continent — according to Feedly, a news aggregator.

It was always the plan to change the name if we made it past the five-year mark, a milestone where half of new businesses fail.

In this article, I’ll discuss our founding story. It is hard to write this article, years later, in a way that will be true to our history. But I will attempt to do so.

Where did we come from?

Benjamindada.com (its first name) emerged from a desire to improve the quality of tech reporting regarding the African continent. It combined my education, tech product taste and media experience with my desire to uplift others.

In 2022, when the team had grown significantly, we established our core values: human-first machine-next, UX over Ad dollars, Correctness over clickbait and test everything. Put together, Benjamindada.com was going to be where people came to read thoughtfully crafted stories about tech in Africa on a beautiful user interface.

So, where did all these come from?

I started writing on the internet nearly a decade ago (2015), after an internship at Andela; one of the most impactful startups in Africa. Unlike the pioneers before me, my entrance into the world of blogging coincided with the rise of Medium; an aesthetically pleasing blogging platform.

Medium shaped my taste for what the readership experience should look like for blogs. Its use of negative space, right font size, generous line height, great layout, native integration to Twitter, great sharing experience and other features spoke deeply to me.

I enjoyed writing because of its ability to connect you to a community that you wouldn’t have had access to if you didn’t share your thoughts on the internet.

Medium made the writing experience more enjoyable and I was keen to get my friends on it. Like old me, many people did not consider themselves writers. Those who were happy to take on the challenge of writing were discouraged by the fact that they’d have to expend energy promoting their articles to get readers. I could fully relate because I was once at that point.

Now that I’d amassed an audience, I created a Publication on Medium and called it Write; “You write, we edit and share”.

It worked. By April 2016 — I was a writer, editor and publisher as many people opted to write and contribute to our publication.

This story is important as it reflects what happened to Benjamindada.com, a year after we launched.

Although Medium made publishing great, it was lacking in branding, especially for publications. Also, they began to have some tech glitches and were charging a lot for custom domain linking. All of this signalled that my three-year relationship with a platform I loved so much was about to end.

Below you will find snippets of a chat between me and the first site developer for Benjamindada.com where we spoke about the name and choice of platform.

Getting into Tech reporting

I completed my IT-related undergraduate degree in June 2016 and by October I was flying out for my Master’s in the same field of Information Technology.

All the while, I continued writing online and sharing on Twitter (now X).

In December 2016, I spotted a post on Twitter that I thought could be fit for a story on a tech publication. I pitched it to the Editor of a local tech publication, she bought it and asked me to write it. That’s how I became a Tech writer!

Here is the email the Editor sent me:

Them Paystack (2015), Flutterwave (2016), and PiggyVest (2016) were just coming out then. So, I naturally gravitated towards fintechs. As a reporter, I built a reputation for writing about fintech startups and as a post-graduate student, I used a Nigerian fintech, Piggybank (now, Piggyvest) in a class on Gamification.

After finishing my Master’s in October 2017, I continued writing for TechCity until I returned to Nigeria in January 2018.

Now, it was time to find a full-time job.

Since fintechs were the popping startups in Nigeria, at that time, it is what I spent most of my time thinking and writing about. On January 2, 2018, I published this landmark piece on banks and financial services (many of the insights are still relevant six years after) and eventually landed a job at Eyowo as a Product Manager (March 2018).

As a tech reporter by training, working on the industry side opened my eyes to a lot more nuance that I would never have gotten from merely interviewing industry leaders. My eyes began to open to licensing considerations, product trade-offs, hiring in tech and some fintech-specific concepts.

I thought I’d better start a publication that breaks down these knotty fintech concepts in a way that people will understand. Plus, it’d not just be about fintechs, I’d apply my academic essay-writing skills plus startup reporting experience to deliver “impressive reporting on tech”, which was our tagline at the start.

Viola! The new publication was born.

In the next series, I’ll talk about our accomplishments and challenges. In the meantime, if you have questions for me, please reach out. So, I can incorporate them into the next write-up.

Also, check out our new website, Condia.

Yesterday, I read the story of an engineer who’s faced multiple hurdles with providers’ APIs. (Will link below, but the very relatable story ended with him selling his new product. So, content marketing game >>>)

However, there was a silent teammate in his rant that I want to spotlight — the person who sourced, engaged, evaluated, negotiated and secured the APIs from that provider. In essence, the Product Partnerships Manager.

Too often, I see people and companies confuse the definitions of a Partnerships Manager and a Product Partnerships Manager (PPM).

Here is the difference.

A partnerships manager belongs to the Sales organisation while a PPM belongs to the Product organisation.

Their activities are similar but the orientation is different. They work from the opposite sides of the table.

What is the job of a Partnerships Manager?

This is someone who sells a company’s product and services to channels, or large customers — who typically demand customisations. Any additional upfront effort by the seller (provider) has to be a strategic decision because startups and companies are wired to build once and sell everywhere to achieve scale.

Hence, we call such sales relationships with those “channels” a Partnership because both the buyer and the seller have to give something to make this relationship work.

The selling company will give a financial kick-back to the channel partner and the channel partner will promote its product.

A channel, in this case, is any medium that can get you multiple sub-customers or users.

Sometimes, Partnerships Managers are also referred to as Sales and Partnerships Managers, Strategic Partnerships Managers, Partnerships and Alliances Managers or more loosely, Business Development Managers. It largely depends on the company’s need, sales division and choice of framing.

For instance, say Company A sells flour. It can hire a Partnerships Manager to sell to Culinary schools. A culinary school is not the final consumer of flour, in the way a bread factory is. Rather, through a partnership with the Culinary school that advertises the flour, Company A will get multiple customers. The culinary school can advertise the flour by using it for demos and recommending it in their class. Their class would be typically filled with existing and potential factory owners).

N.B Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread.

To make such an alliance happen, the culinary school might request for the flour to be made with more wheat grain because it only teaches its students (the factory owners) how to make wheat bread.

You get the picture.

So, as the Partnerships Manager, I take that request back to my product team and because of the estimated volume of business I expect to get from that Culinary school, we make a product decision to skew the flour composition that we sell specifically to that Culinary school (as a channel). I don’t have to skew the flour composition for the rest of my client base. Thereby, still preserving my core product.

Now, that’s the basic depiction of a Partnership Manager's role.

Bonus: If company A sells directly to the factory owner, that would be categorised as a "Direct Sale"

How about Product Partnership Managers?

A product partnership manager, on the other hand, will take the company’s product roadmap and see where providers (aka suppliers) are needed to enable a build.

Following through with our example of the flour-making Company A, the product partnership manager will be the one to source and sign up the makers of wheat, and/or nuts as suppliers of Company A.

Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds.

For redundancy, the product partnership manager might decide to onboard multiple suppliers of the same product ingredient.

Back to the article that I referenced earlier. The first lesson that Anthony, the writer, said he learnt was that “If your core business critically depends on a third-party, you had better implement fallbacks early.” Baking in redundancy into your supplier relationships is what allows for the implementation of fallbacks.

Away from the bread analogy, let me tell you a personal story as it relates to the startup and software business I’m in.

A Day in the Life of a Product Partnerships Manager (PPM)

After several internships and a master’s degree, my first full-time role was as a Product Manager (Partnerships) for a digital bank. And I’ve gone on to do versions of this role at many other companies.

So, how did my first job as a PPM happen? I’d applied to be a Product Manager (PM) but because there was already an existing PM, the role was split such that one person would focus on the day-to-day (internal) product management while the other would focus on the (external) partnerships needed to make the product work. At the end of the day, we were both responsible for building the product but from different angles. You get?

The company set up then was interesting. So, because I was dealing with API providers, I had a back-end engineer assigned to me. As I sourced, evaluated and signed up providers, the backend engineer was there to integrate and also do a second level of evaluation (technical) to ensure that their APIs worked in the way we expected them to.

The first external functionality we (the digital bank) wanted to build out was getting money into the customer’s wallet. One of the methods to do that was via card funding. So, the first provider I signed was a card processing partner, which is the core of many payment gateway businesses. So, to start, I signed Paystack.

Earlier in the year, the team at Bendada.com started wrote a review of seven payment gateways in Nigeria. You should read it.

As part of signing on a provider, you always have to go through their own onboarding process which can be onerous because you are onboarding a business, that you do not own (so you need to collaborate with multiple internal teams).

The requirements to onboard a business depend on jurisdiction and the compliance requirements applicable there but oftentimes, the KYB processes are similar:

• fill out an application form (paper-based or through an app),
• negotiate and review SLAs (contains the responsibilities of each party, fees, resolution timelines and other terms),
• share company docs (incorporation certificate, MEMART)
• share regulatory license (where applicable)
• provide shareholding structure in the entity that’s applying to work with the provider
• provide KYC on UBOs and Directors (acceptable ID & proof of address),
• a signed board resolution letter authorising you to open an account on behalf of the company, etc.

As you can see above, the Product Partnerships role requires collaboration with Legal & Compliance (to share the company docs etc.), the office of the CEO (to help you get them to sign documents) and engineering team (to implement the APIs).

Shortly after our product went live. We got pitched by another payment provider who was offering us better fees than the Paystack I’d initially signed. Guess who? It was Opera (OPay) through Ridwan Olalere (who is now the CEO of LemFi) but was the Director of payment product.

Interestingly, Anthony's time at Opera coincided with my time at Eyowo (early 2018).

Tying it all together, Ridwan pitching Opay to us was him acting in the capacity of a Business Development Manager. His being redirected to speak with me, was because I was the Product Partnerships Manager — a door for evaluating potential provider relationships for your company.

Later on, for additional redundancy, we also signed up Interswitch for their Payment Gateway (IPG). Often, each of the different providers has their strengths (USP) and with enough bandwidth on the engineering team — you can integrate multiple for fallbacks while monitoring metrics to determine how to route.

Part of our review of transactional data helps us see that most of the card funding transactions were from GTB users (known to be tech-savvy, youthful and experimental). So, what did we do? We went to GTB to ask for on-us APIs to process their card transactions on our platforms. Thereby effectively dropping the cost of GTB card funding transactions and ultimately reducing our transaction processing cost.

In summary, product partnership roles are not sales roles. They are product-related roles. My preferred archetype for these roles is someone with a technical and business-related educational background, sound commercial awareness, good relationship-building and communication skills, and product thinkers who can make use of data for decision-making.

Below is a tweet that I made in excitement after figuring out how to use Google Script to save engineering time and still get work done:

I never got to write that tutorial but you can read about why I opted to flex my programming muscles by using Google Script & Sheets to build a front end for internal data transaction monitoring.

Automating tasks at work using spreadsheet applications

March till now, what have I been up to?

Five months ago, I reflected on a three-year journey with Softcom. I ended that post with “In the meantime, you can expect to see me on your TV soon 😌 , pending my next career announcement!”.

Well, the TV still hasn’t happened yet but I’m ready to make my next career announcement.

In March when I told you guys to await my next career announcement, I was trying to decide on where to settle long-term. I tried going into core Marketing and Growth but felt I would be better suited in a more generic leadership role.

By June, I had concluded the last shoot of the first season of a pan-African tech show I hosted for Accelerate TV and the AFF. The show is called The Big Tech Show 🎞. On that show, I interviewed entrepreneurs in Nigeria 🇳🇬, Kenya 🇰🇪, Rwanda 🇷🇼, Ghana 🇬🇭, and South Africa 🇿🇦. The goal was to uncover how they’ve built their businesses and learn the uniqueness of their market. I expect the show to air before the end of the year, but you never can tell.

As of July, I was helping set up conversations with entrepreneurs in Nigeria, while running a few operational duties for them as a Market Entry Consultant. Before I completed my Consulting contract with them, they offered me the job of their Nigeria Country Manager, which I started in August.

The story about how I found about Stitch and “shot my shot” has to be a different post, but I’m glad it has all worked out to this point.

Why Stitch?

You cannot truly appreciate why I joined Stitch if I do not tell you a little bit of history from my lens.

A brief recap of my journey through tech

Over the past six years, I’ve witnessed the development of the tech ecosystem in Nigeria by covering it and working at startups.

One way to measure or track such ecosystem progress is to ask;

What startups are being founded and funded at this time?

In 2015, I joined my first startup, Andela — a startup that was “paying people to learn how to code” in Nigeria. At the time, Andela was in Yaba, just like many other Nigerian startups. I had the chance to attend tech events at CcHUB, and interact with other people in the ecosystem.

At one of those events, I met the cofounders of Stutern — a company I’d later work with in 2016. By the December of 2016, I’d spent a year within the tech startup space and was going to cover it on TechCityNG’s platform. Big shout-out to BellaRose and the Techcityng team for the opportunity!

In 2018, I started my blog — benjamindada.com — and continued writing about tech while working at a tech company, Eyowo. Another person joined me to write on my blog and slowly as I got deeper into my tech 9–5 work, I started to write less on my tech blog. Anyway, today, the blog successfully runs without me, as we have staff working on it.

Tech in Nigeria from 2015 till date

In that same 2015, card-processing payment startups were being born. Paystack and Flutterwave were founded in 2015 and 2016, respectively. In 2016, they both got into the much-coveted YC-program, in what was, as of then, a rare feat. By the end of 2016, Paystack had raised a whopping $1.3 million seed round.

“Piggyvest started as a result of a viral tweet we saw on the 31st of December, 2015” — Josh Chibueze, a co-founder and CMO of Piggyvest told Benjamindada.com. “It wouldn’t have been possible for us to start Piggyvest at the time if there was no Paystack”, he added in this video.

In 2016, Piggyvest officially launched, heralding the future of digitally-enabled businesses built on the back of these newly-minted infrastructure companies. Paylater (now Carbon) emerged in 2016. In 2017, Cowrywise came to the scene, Branch launched in Nigeria. FairMoney also started operations in 2017. In 2018, Eyowo relaunched as a digital bank, Kuda and OPay also launched. Need I say more? The year 2016–2018, saw the start up of many digital: banks, savings, and lending platforms.

In 2019, newer fintech industries were being explored. Wealthtech platforms; Chaka, Bamboo, and Risevest launched in 2019.

See also: A comparison of the Wealthtech apps in Nigeria.

In summary, the spark of 2015/2016 had given birth to a new set of million-dollar companies in Nigeria. We had built online payment rails (predominantly, card), digital platforms were now able to collect payments online but there could be more. So, soon enough it was time for us to go deeper as an industry and as a country.

Since 2018, developed countries like the UK had already passed into law a new concept called “Open Banking”. “The aim of this regulation was to increase competition and choice for consumers and small businesses”, reads an excerpt from a reflective post made this year. Recall, in 2018, we were still trying to convince: more businesses to collect payments online, and more shoppers to pay online in Nigeria. Hence, the surge in the number of new fintechs that launched off the back of online commerce, as we knew it.

So, yes, we’d enabled inter-bank transfer, online payments with card & bank account. Open banking is the next step.

In 2020, Open Banking startups — Mono and Okra were in the news for raising pre-seed funding almost the amount that Paystack raised as seed, just five years ago. So, to be at the cutting-edge of fintech innovation in Nigeria, working at an Open Banking startup feels like the right place to be.

Stitch is an Open Banking startup that although started in South Africa has pan-African ambitions. Having witnessed the rebirth of a digital bank, Eyowo, working at a startup as Stitch gives me that opportunity to contribute to the making of an industry-defining moment.

I see my media work as having contributed to the promotion and positioning of Nigerian startups in the world. Now, I wonder how many future Piggyvests will be born on the back of Open Banking in Nigeria, in the next five to ten years.

I believe the continued development of my career and contribution to tech in Nigeria is in both sponsoring its coverage and working to shape it. Especially because I have the passion, resources, and qualifications.

To conclude, I joined Stitch because it presented an opportunity to advance the cause of the next generation of Nigerian entrepreneurs and startups.

Thank you for reading!

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect somewhere down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn paths and that will make all the difference.
 — Steve Jobs (2005)

Over the last six months, I’ve made life-altering decisions — including who to love, and where to work. In this post, I want to tell you about the latter.

A little background

On January 12, 2015, I started an internship with Softcom Limited, an indigenous technology firm co-founded by Yomi Adedeji who is also the CEO.

I got the internship by pitching myself to Yomi at a school event that he attended as an alumnus. Although it was not automatic, that act of shooting my shot began the process for me. In 2015, I was in my penultimate year in the Department of Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Covenant University, Ota.

Final year students of my department had to do a technology-related undergraduate project, usually programming. So, with my placement (SIWES¹), I was hoping to learn more programming that will give me the confidence to do my final year project.

Enter Softcom — proud partner of potential. Yomi asked me to meet with someone who acted in the position of Tech Lead at Softcom and the person decided to take me on.

In my time at Softcom (2015), I contributed to multiple edtech initiatives. These edtech initiatives include the deployment of over 6,000 mobile learning devices (tablets) to a secondary school and a University, organising a Future Ready Educational Conference and brainstorming on a mobile app for connecting teachers and students.

While I enjoyed my time doing the work of a Junior Project Manager and Technical Support Associate, I was afraid that I might not have enough time to get the hands-on programming experience I sought.

So, after spending more than 80% of my SIWES at Softcom with only about a month left, I moved² to Andela. Then, Andela was a one-year-old startup in the news for paying Nigerians to learn Computer Programming. Still, I was hoping to garner enough coding experience before returning to school. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into their Software Engineering team that built internal tools. But at least, I got to work with Ebun Omoni in the (Developer) Success department. (Read about my time at Andela below).

What is it like to intern at Andela, NG?

Three years after my internship at Softcom, I rejoined the company in March 2018. By the time I was rejoining Softcom, I had an MSc in my bag and a Google internship under my belt.

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4 years ago, I was an Industrial Trainee interning at Softcom.---4 years after, I'm a full-time employee at Softcom.What I'm most grateful for is the years in between and that I'm worthy of a return to such a company.🔐 Google Internship🔐 Foreign Master's https://t.co/0KP1T5VOla

Between March 2018 and now, I’ve had the opportunity to do some interesting work while rotating across functions to get a fuller grasp of the industry.

2018: Working at Eyowo, a fintech and a bank

I started as a Product Manager (Partnerships) in Eyowo (2018). Working in Eyowo at the very early stages gave me an opportunity (of a lifetime) to truly understand and appreciate the nuances of the fintech space.

In Eyowo, I focused on product partnerships and third-party relations (including working with regulators).

As part of my product partnership work, I explored working relationships with NIBSS, Banks, Switches, Card Schemes, and Telcos via VAS companies. We needed each of these people for inter-bank transfers, bill payments, wallet deposits at bank branches, cardless ATM withdrawal, card issuance and USSD shortcode/service. Today, we have our USSD shortcode and all these functionalities on Eyowo. Card is coming, anticipate 🔥

Also, I was involved in evaluating what regulatory passes we needed to fulfil our mission, sourcing the requirements and putting together the documents (including writing a Business Plan) for the licence application. Several trips and demos at the CBN office in Abuja, we now own a PSSP licence!

Those two things were major highlights of my work at Eyowo and I’m very proud of all the work the team has put in so far.

2019: Moving to Client Services

After a year, when we had set everything in motion at Eyowo. I left to join the Client Service division.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned that I used to be a corporate guy before startup culture engulfed me. First, I attended a University that made its students dress corporately! Then, my first taste of real-world working conditions was at a Consulting firm, KPMG (some 7 years ago). So, basically, client service charisma and communication was in my blood. But now coupled with my IT background in designing process flows and drawing UML diagrams, I was ripe for a Solutioning role.

So, yes, I left Eyowo to become a Solutions Architect, reporting directly to the Chief Solutions Officer, Seinde Olobayo, whom I had met during my internship.

As a Solutions Architect in Softcom, I was involved in some level of pre-sales consulting. So, in the role, I was working as a “supporting striker” to our Account Managers. I supplied them with client engagement and sales enablement materials like proposals, presentations, brochures and I followed them to meetings as a form of complementary Technical Account Manager.

We worked on numerous deals and projects both for clients and ourselves, respectively. Some of the products and proposals we designed and submitted have been executed while others are in the works.

Take, for instance, the Coca-Cola EPL National Consumer Promotion. In my role as a Solutions Architect, I worked with the Key Account Manager to craft a winning proposal for the project. As you’d expect there were many other people involved in closing and delivering it, including the Product Lead and Engineering team.

Overall, I enjoyed the work I did. It was fast-paced & demanding and I got to enable the work of other people. This was where I got to work more closely with Yvonne Ige, who would later become my manager till this day.

2020-date: The evolving role of a Business Manager

In line with the company’s objectives to become a house of brands, it became evident that new roles were needed.

There was an opportunity to become a Business Manager (BM) overseeing the profit and loss of a business division. The business division was going to be made up of a product, its manager & the engineering team, then, we had Account managers selling the product to business clients. We had four major divisions: Payments, Learning, Identity and Data.

I was promoted to become the BM of Data. Thus, DataBeaver was the product in my division.

Alongside the team, we created a website for DataBeaver, I was more involved with the copy for the site. Then, I did some bit of Solutioning work to support the Account manager(s) selling DataBeaver to business clients (B2B).

As we continued to interact with the market, we realised that we built DataBeaver for businesses and not quite for the average consumer. So, we expanded our vision. This expanded vision meant that we needed to revamp the product and hire more product marketing managers than project managers (who typically helped the clients use our product).

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So, my team at Softcom is looking for experienced Product Marketing Managers to help take our refreshed products to the market. Find here a detailed description. And if you can, please apply today. All the best!https://t.co/DKeP2XZPg0

I collaborated with the People team to design an assessment centre for the shortlisted Product Marketing Managers and today, we have hired three of them 🔥

However, sadly, I do not get to work with them for long, because this week is my last week at Softcom.

Bringing it all together

Softcom has grown, or should I say, evolved. From a company of about 20 employees (2015) to over 150 employees (2021). As at my first day in Softcom in 2015, the office was still being renovated but anyone who resumed in 2019 will only have the memory of Softcom’s current beautiful office space in Ikeja GRA.

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Every day, I'm grateful for Softcom's desire to become a better place to work. We are clearly not there yet with a lot to fix, but we are on our way.

We’ve had our fair share of ups and need improvement, but we are well on our way to becoming better.

We have gone from having predominantly male employees to a more balanced workplace.

Gone from not having any elaborate retreats to flying over 100 people out of the country for a retreat in Dubai and South Africa.

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IDK IDK, but I just want to give a special S/O to the Softcom Operations team and everyone on the Retreat Committee. Year-on-Year, y'all pull a madness by taking north of 100 people to a whole another country! How long till we open Travel Agency 🤷🏾‍♂️#softcomRetreat19 pic.twitter.com/J1Mg4sOZdk

As I celebrate my third year anniversary on March 14, 2021, I do not think there will be a better time to take a bow from Softcom, after:

• 2 promotions
• 2 Softcom leagues played, scoring at least two goals 😎
• 2 international retreats attended — Dubai and South Africa
• 3 company awards received; including the CEO’s Outstanding Award
• Countless tweets bragging about Softcom

I will miss my manager, my immediate team, and all of my friends that have been there since 2015; Ope, David, Jenna, Remi, Tunde and the rest of the team.

At this stage, I can only hope that the dots connect in my future.

But for now, thank you — Yomi and Seinde — for having and mentoring me. Softcom has shown me what’s possible. And I’m looking forward to all the work we do together in the future.

In the meantime, you can expect to see me on your TV soon 😌 , pending my next career announcement! — Benjamin

[1] SIWES, also known as, “Industrial Training” is a compulsory skills training programme for Nigerian students in tertiary institutions. For my Course, it spanned 6 months, the entire Omega Semester.

[2] At the time, it wasn’t the norm for people to switch places during their SIWES, due to the attending level of paperwork and coordination with school officials who come to visit (spot-check). Nonetheless, I did it because I thought it was the best for my academics and career. In fact, I received two other job offers during my SIWES, Citi and KPMG. But I chose Andela. Choosing Andela meant, I forfeited a return internship to KPMG NG and I missed out on about ₦90,000 cash from Citi.

In September 2017, I completed my course at Lancaster University and between then and when I graduated in December I had to find a job to sustain me in the UK (else I was gonna go back to Nigeria, possibly even missing my graduation — Dec 13).

For sustainability, I said, I did what was supposed to be one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever done in my life — work as a Waiter, of course, I wrote about it. It was supposed to be humiliating, but I took it as a chance to tour the bustling city of London, so win-win-ish.

Got back to Nigeria on January 27 (or 28) 2018, and tried to be jobless. To me it was an opportunity to do the things “I love(d)” like going places, greeting people etc. But the way my bank account was set-up, I was burning through saved-up cash too fast and I would need a job.

One of my visits saw me attend Softcom’s event in February, where my long-time friend and boss, Yomi asked me to do NYSC with them. Gladly, I would and I did. I had worked there in 2015 as an intern, and this was an opportunity to return “back to my roots”. Went through a series of interviews & conversations and I landed a job there as a Product Manager for their first Business-to-Consumer (B2C) product — Eyowo.

Started with Eyowo in March, didn’t know what I was getting myself into — Nigeria’s FinTech space — all I knew was that at the beginning of December 2017, I had worked with a Financial expert and former Diamond Bank board member, as such, I learnt one or two more things about the workings of the financial system. My learnings with him formed an Op-ed piece titled On banks and Financial Services. That article started my journey to 100 stories in 2018.

Benjamin Dada on Twitter

1. https://t.co/7KLaGngHJn

Shortly after I joined Eyowo, I registered for my NYSC and got posted to the North. Up North? Yes, Borno to be precise (not Bauchi, if you know you know 😃).

My decision to go to Borno was strategic — automatic redeployment after camp. But where would I camp? Katsina — put in a temporary camp separate from the ones they put the original Katsina-posted Corpers.

Travelled by plane within Nigeria for the first time on April 19, 2018, headed straight for Kano cause no airport in Katsina. From there we drove to Katsina, in what turned out to be an over two hours journey.

Katsina was dusty at the time and hot, like on some days it was 42⁰C!

Sha, the camp came and went. Met Teju, Lanre, Ore, Mercy, Jerusha and a host of other cool people. Disappointed myself but we move 💪.

Got back to Lagos, May 10 and I was shedding skin like a snake that is moulting. Like, I’d raise my shirt up and I’ll see dried skin drop.

June 17, I launched my personal site with the first blog post being a spotlight on a home tutoring company.

This was such a big deal to me because I had written for more than two years on the internet without controlling my own personal space online. Medium (this site) was good until it wasn’t, getting a site in one’s name would do better for brand building than piggybacking off a third-party like Medium in this case.

Now the challenges I faced trying to float this site, no be here, they were so enormous I thought of running back to Medium. But right then, when I was still considering it, I decided to make my site commercial. Like a “Linda Ikeji for tech news”, where the only reference here to “Linda Ikeji” is in the use of a personal name not in the type of work or writing we do.

How is that going? Not gonna lie, it’s tough trying to get people to acknowledge you as a reputable source of tech news if your name is not prefixed or suffixed with the word “-tech-”. But I do not think we (benjamindada.com) have done badly.

www.benjamindada.com on Twitter

Gather round, people for our #top4of2018 First up on our list is our full coverage of the first-ever international developer conference in Nigeria - @ConcatenateConf https://t.co/M0Ek44fyJQ

There has been so much to learn and I had been compiling them into an article for you guys looking to launch a personal blog in the coming year but been too lazy to finish.

As part of making my making my blog commercial, I decided to hire associates that would run the blog in July. They would be involved in writing articles and driving the blog’s numbers. After a very selective process (< 10% acceptance rate) for something “not so serious”, we emerged with 2 people who became the first associates of benjamindada.com. At the time, we weren’t really making money but I paid both of them almost 2x Nigeria’s minimum wage from my 9–5 salary.

In the first month of hiring them, we did well, published our betting series which bought us some confidence and set the bar of expectation high for us.

Inside Nigeria's ₦5-billion-daily Betting industry

But by the next month, they had gone quiet and were not responsive. Didn’t even communicate to us why they went quiet, we were so annoyed, yet decided to reach them, but to no avail. So, we moved on without them.

And yes, my mum celebrated her 50th birthday 🍷. We had a small in-compound party and it was surprisingly good.

Can’t remember anything spectacular that happened in August. *runs to check Google Photos timeline*. Went on my first-ever 6D ride (Wall of China), attended a landmark developer conference in Nigeria— Concatenate. Visited Softcom/Eyowo’s Abuja Office, while at the same time seeing FarmCrowdy’s (they were in the same building).

The following day, I visited ThriveAgric — a FarmCrowdy competitor, LOL.

Flew back to Lagos. Moro playfully came to do a photoshoot in my office (Eyowo), plus, I met Susan for the first time.

I gave a speech to a bunch of teenagers at the CITY Summer Leadership camp.

My family moved houses.

On the first day of September, my friend and two-time course mate from secondary school and University celebrated her 23rd, we turned it up a lirru bit. It was like an opportunity for a reunion for those of us that went to the same school. As usual, I acted as the group’s photographer (had to find the one that had me in it, LOL)…cause GoOglE PixEl takEs The BesT PhoTos, KMT.

Went to a concert in Abuja at Transcorp Hilton hotel, and it was boring 😞 , and I can promise you, I wasn’t even expecting too much. SeyiLaw was there but man was handicapped, couldn’t help the show.

My workplace partnered with NACK to run a pop-up event, Praiz, Teddy A, Uti Nwachukwu and a bunch of cool people showed up.

In October, I met Donaldson for the first time, had a small chat with him at a restaurant in Ikeja. Donalson does some Digital marketing work for my blog and he’s been very enthusiastic and engaged.

I also met Omojuwa and he knew me already from Twitter, yay! Your boy be doing bits.

Had an office party at Banana Island we stayed that night 😄after doing Karaoke, it was my first Karaoke ever, LMAO. I sang Assurance by Davido, hehe. Don’t ask me for who 👀.

October 24, representatives of benjamindada.com visited the US Consul General’s house in Ikoyi for a meet and greet, pre-Ingressive summit.

I and Moro represented the blog that evening. Moro helps with Operations and designs for the blog.

We (benjamindada.com) were one of the media partners for the annual Tech Meets Entertainment (TME) Ingressive Summit which happened this year, yay.

Attended the wedding reception of Bukky’s — my former coursemate — sister. This was pivotal cause I hadn’t turned up that much in a while.

In November, benjamindada.com partnered with Google Dev Fest to roll out what turned to be one of the most attended developer events in Lagos — one of the world’s populated cities.

We — Krypton — played the finals of the Softcom Champions League at an astroturf in Lekki. I scored 2 goals and made 2 assists in the tournament.

Sadly, we lost. So, no $1000 for us.

November 16, I celebrated my birthday. How? By doing a photoshoot.

December, we had an ‘80s Christmas party after which we were off to a company retreat in South Africa. There we visited Johannesburg and Cape Town and I overcame(?) my fear of height by zip lining.

I went Ziplining and I didn’t die.

P.S — this post officially marks my 100th post for the year! So, done and dusted!!!

— — — — — — — — —

Ugh, that was a lot to write. In summary, in 2018:

• got back safely from the UK
• started my NYSC
• launched benjamindada.com
• acted as media partners for 5 events; TPLDA, GDG Dev Fest, Atlassian User Groups Lagos, and two Ingressive-led events
• visited South Africa for the first time
• completed my goal of writing 100 things in this year

I failed to:

• read 3 books; read just 2
• complete a Product management certification; started and did about 60%
• start saving for a car; funds got diverted towards more pressing issues

— — — — — — — — —

Next year, we go again.

• save towards a car
• read (or listen to) 12 books
• complete that Product Management course
• get published in reputable international media organisations like the FT, and Quartz

Wow! thanks for reading this!

We (me, my siblings and my aunt) had just arrived in Ghana for a vacation and as part of our itinerary, we visited Kakum National Park located on the coast of southern Ghana.

Kakum National park has a 330-metre long, 7 bridge canopy walkway which we all attempted plying. For context, the walkway was the height of a storey building with more than seven floors. And it was surrounded by nothing but interwoven ropes, swinging sideways at each pounce of a foot. To make it more daunting, it stands over an area of rainforest, such that when you look down, you might begin to panic and not have the mental strength to complete the journey.

One of such people who couldn’t stand the fear was my then over forty-something-year-old aunt who turned back after the crossing the first bridge.

I was also one of such. But instead of turning back, I tried to make sure I was the last person to cross the bridge and in severe cases, I pleaded with my siblings to not come behind me while I walked on one of the bridges. Luckily for me, on many occasions, I was the last to mount the walkway, so I got the chance to walk towards the next bridge terminal ̶f̶a̶s̶t̶ slow as I could.

After walking for over 30 minutes I finally got past the seventh bridge. And viola! I made it!!!

I did it afraid, going slowly and it made me really happy! Something happened to me unconsciously, awareness and confidence. I became aware of my fear of height, however, completing the 7-bridge high-walk boosted my confidence in my ability to complete what I start.

Ten years later, I was in another African country — South Africa — this time for a company retreat. And Ziplining was one of the events on our itinerary. I boldly indicated my interest to participate in it, signing something that looked like a “death warrant” 😅 and joined the team enroute the venue.

New video by Benjamin Dada

Not gonna lie, I was having doubts about my ability to follow through with it, all the while we were in the pick-up van laughing and taking pictures. But my fears were further accentuated when we arrived the starting point.

Merely looking down, I was already permutating the backup plan for if I did something wrong, or if the rope cut or something went wrong, how would I (or anyone else) be rescued?

We were paired into groups of eight (8) but the videographer decided to join my group so we were nine (9). Guess who was (almost) the last person?, me of course!

My thinking was that if other people could do it, I can do it.

One of the instructors(better described as a jungle animal — monkey — for lack of a better word), mounted the rope and swang on it like a true monkey. He made it look easy peasy. The first person in our group was a military-like guy, he did his own, shouting along the way, and arrived safely at the other end. I thought to myself: “Well, this one na hard guy normally, so…”

Until it got to the turn of one of the ladies in my group and I saw how she survived, LOL. So, I decided to give it a try.

Our lead instructor — Tee — strapped all of us and asked us to sit on the air, so that it would form a good angle for us to slide through. There were multiple times I didn’t want to “sit” out of fear.

By the time we got to our third terminal, I thought to myself “Phew, we are almost there”, I was assuming it was only seven (just as in the Ghana incidence) ropes to traverse. At this time, one of the ladies (lady P.) in my group couldn’t take it anymore and asked that Tee ziplined with them to the next terminal.

By the eight terminal, Mr W. was already tired and asked that he be let go, so, one of the supporting instructors escorted him out, lady P. joined him, they had had enough.

The thing about ziplining is that some would be very fast and high, others would be long, some would be short and low etc. It required some level of strength to hold on to the rope anchor and some level of skill to reduce once speed, else you’d have a rough arrival at the other end.

Long story short, I made it to the 10th terminal and it was time to leave. See me thinking we’d get like a cable car or something. But voila! na trekking tinz.

We did a little bit of mountain climbing through a defined path and came to a place where the truck that dropped us would now be picking us.

Not gonna lie, it was utmost fun, albeit scary but worth the adventure!

Unto my next adventure, which do you think I should try next?

Skydiving? Definitely not me and you.

Shalom.

Benjamin

Benjamin Dada on Twitter

So, just built a Google script using one of our devs APIs. The actual spreadsheet is the front-end, Back-end is the Code editor in Google Sheets. Tutorial?

FWIW: One of the beauties of spreadsheet applications is that they always have somewhere to script (write code that makes content show up on the actual sheet with the rows and columns). 
For Microsoft Excel, the programming language used to script is Visual Basic, while for Google Sheets it is Google Script (a variation of JavaScript).

Background

I work as a Product Manager but I sometimes find that my front-end developers are swamped with a lot of work (backlog). So, I can’t keep requesting “nice-to-have” features.

Typically, it has been argued that to be a Product Manager you have to possess some software development knowledge and that’s a reasonable ask. Because, how do you manage what you don’t understand? But, I digress.

Statement of the problem

I needed a way to cross-reference a specific project’s activity with the corresponding user growth data. Perhaps, I might be able to find a correlation and hopefully a causation for why we were incurring such high costs in an area of the project.

In a short time, the devs had been able to produce a dashboard for the executives to see the most critical numbers, like total users, volume, and value of transactions. But I’m not an executive, just an employee who also needs to make sense of data to be presented to the execs.

Approach

So, I requested for the direct APIs (come in the form of URLs) which the front-end engineer used to populate the dashboard.

To test the APIs (aka see the response data), I put it into Postman (it’s like a web browser, used for testing APIs), and voila!

So, I had the response from both APIs in their separate tabs.

So, what I first did was to manually scan the response data in search of the specific key I was looking for. I would then enter it into a spreadsheet per day to form a table.

But after doing this for the first three days, I realised it was not scalable and this project was going to be on for months. So, I went in search of a way to automatically feed data about the specific things I was looking out for in the response into my spreadsheet.

In the next post, I will dive right into the technical bits and give a conclusion.

In the meantime, you can reach me on Twitter. Also, you can become part of the DadaBen clan, a crop of people I share my life and work with.

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m mopping the sitting room floor. I had started my mopping journey from upstairs listening to songs on YouTube (you know, man don’t have space on his phone, so man streams) using my Bluetooth headset.

By the time I got downstairs, the song paused. “Ah, the network is out 😒”, I reckon. The network in my house is better upstairs but unavailable downstairs.

So, I had to make a decision between two alternatives.

One, leave my phone upstairs where the network is good and continue jamming up. Two, listen to something offline.

But alternatives had their drawbacks. For the first, if I left my phone upstairs, I actually will not be able to jam-up, because of the distance between my phone and the headset.

For the second, I don’t do offline songs (which is my go-to while carrying out routine tasks like mopping).

So, I would have to listen to something else that’s not online music.

But what would that be?

A few months ago, after I completed my first book this year (and in a long time, to be honest), I started r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g listening to another book.

I would listen to it everyday on my way to work. But the journey was short — ~30 minutes, so, before I could finish replying messages I’ll find myself at work. For the first week, I was diligently listening to the book after a while, I stopped unwillingly. And would use any available time to listen to it.

Plot twist: there is no “available time”.

So, here am I with a mopstick and a bucket half-filled with water in front of me, thinking of what to listen to next.

Bingo! my book!

It satisfies all the offline condition above. Therefore, I could keep my phone in close proximity and listen to it wirelessly while mopping away.

But why should you care?

The title of the new book I’m listening to is Made to Stick, which basically talks about how you can communicate ideas that people remember for a while — sticky ideas.

As chapter 6 was ending it concludes by saying “giving people a reason to care about your idea makes them act on it more” (paraphrased, cause I don’t remember it verbatim).

That why should people care question kept lingering on my mind. So much so that I went to share it in my Slack group of writers.

Turned it into a criteria by which we publish articles on the blog henceforth.

We want people to read our articles on benjamindada.com, so, we must be able to answer the question:

Why should people care?

To answer this for the blog, the author has to have thought about it in that manner and be prepared to tell the team why an audience (including us) should care about his story.

So, I’m saying to all the storytellers out there, ask yourself why should people care?, before putting together your story. It helps inform the direction in which you present the information. For instance, whether or not you start your story with a real-life story or a meaning statistic or a recommendation.

I’m learning a lot from Made to Stick and I’m happy to share it with as many people that would want it.

Pop your email here on the blog and I’ll be sure to send it to send it along with next week’s newsletter.

P.S — I imagine someone would ask “Why you should care about my story”. Well, I don’t have an answer because it is easier said than done 😜.

BTW, I think the central idea of this story stuck, do you also think so?

Chat banking in South Africa and Nigeria took off in 2016 and 2018, respectively. This happened primarily on Facebook Messenger. Yesterday’s announcement by Nigerian banks will see it extend to Facebook’s Whatsapp. The two Facebook services combined dominate the instant-messaging market for Africa.

Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, (GTB) was one of such banks to make the announcement yesterday to offer banking services on WhatsApp. They will leverage WhatsApp’s business solution to offer their customers more communication channels. Business Post reports that this is in line with their efforts to enhance service delivery and banking experience.

Users would be able to make inquiries and access to other basic banking services on the platform. Basic banking services include checking of balance, transfer of money and now, value-added services. Examples of value-added services include bills payments and airtime purchase.

GTB’s CEO, Segun Agbaje, explained that customer feedback was an important part of how they churn out products. So, preparing to launch a service that could make it easier for customers to give feedback seems logical.

“…we are passionate about driving constant interaction with our customers to learn more about how we can serve them better. As well as to provide them with the financial solutions that can add real value to their lives. By leveraging the WhatsApp Business Solution, we are continuing to expand our service channels as part of our commitment to making banking… readily accessible to customers wherever and whenever they choose to bank.”, he said.

Likewise, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) has also promised to extend the capabilities of their chat banker, Leo, to Whatsapp by September 1. With Leo on WhatsApp, customers will be able to carry out basic banking services, THISDAY reported.

Their Group MD, Kennedy Uzoka said “our customers are at the heart of our business and we…are never relenting in matching our words with equal action”. He adds that their “…aim is to make banking seamless and effortless for…millions of…customers”.

Leo which went live on January 11, 2018, has already raked in awards and recognition for the bank. Exactly 6 months after — July 11, they received the Euromoney award for Best Institution in Digital Banking.

The Magazine’s Editor, Clive Horwood said: “…one bank stood out in the last year for the inventiveness of its efforts in digital banking: United Bank for Africa”. He continues “one of its signature launches in Nigeria was Leo, an e-chat service using artificial intelligence to help customers execute transactions on Facebook”.

As expected, they will look to replicate the Leo Facebook Messenger success on Whatsapp. Their Online Banking Group Head, Austine Abolusoro asserts “…Leo…will replicate on WhatsApp, the success it has experienced on the Facebook Messenger platform”.

Related article 👇

First impressions on UBA's FB ChatBot

Clickatell at the helm of the Whatsapp Business revolution in Africa

A South-African global messaging company, Clickatell is one of the handful of companies selected to become Whatsapp’s Business Solution Providers. A Solution Provider helps provide the tools businesses to receive, store and send messages. They are responsible for making Whatsapp Business solution work for big businesses like banks. Their head office is in Silicon Valley, California, USA. But they have other offices in Toronto, Nigeria and Cape Town.

Bonus: They are currently looking for a Project Manager in Lagos.

Clickatell’s CEO, Pieter de Villiers reiterates their drive to become the go-to solution provider for businesses looking to deploy on Whatsapp. “…We are determined to be the go-to partner of choice for businesses globally,” he said.

They have bundled their own SaaS solutions (Connect, Touch and Transact) with Whatsapp’s API such that businesses making use of them can immediately begin making use of the Whatsapp Business Solution without having to do a lot of customisations.

Their current customers include Absa Bank (owned by Absa Group Limited), GTB, UBA and FirstBank.

While they have since concluded integrations with Absa Bank, the rest of the (Nigerian) Banks are still work-in-progress.

Yesterday, Absa Group Limited announced that they had reached over 10,000 customers in just 3 weeks of launch — July 11. Their Chat banking service is reported to have sent 300,000 messages already. Users can check their account balance, buy airtime and make payments using natural language and short commands. The Group had launched its Chat banking service on Facebook Messenger and Twitter in 2016. According to Absa’s CIO Jacques Barkhuzien, it took the company two years to develop Chat banking on WhatsApp; and it was developed in partnership with Facebook and Clickatell, a global messaging company, African News Agency (ANA) reported.

Soon, we expect that FirstBank Nigeria would announce [its plans for] similar implementation. Perhaps, they are just waiting to get further with their implementation which is has been “slow”, according to a source familiar with the matter. “Apparently, we all haven’t finished implementation. The technical partners, Clickatell haven’t been helpful at all”, we are told.

Following the announcement by GTB, and UBA we expect more tier 1 Nigerian banks plus large businesses to follow suit. But how fast can Clickatell deliver?

Try out our Whatsapp Business API’s Click-to-chat: +2347019215600.

Daniel Iyanda contributed to this article.

Originally published at www.benjamindada.com on August 3, 2018.

Thursday, July 19, Twitter announced the appointment of Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (NOI) to their Board of Directors.

Aged 64, NOI becomes the first Nigerian to be appointed to the social media company’s board.

Harvard Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) and MIT PhD holder — Okonjo-Iweala is the first female finance minister of her country — Nigeria where she served multiple terms. First, under the former President Olusegun Obasanjo then under Goodluck Jonathan. The former lasted July 2003 to June 2006 and the latter, August 2011 to May 2015.

NOI, the Policy titan

The Executive Chairman of Twitter, Omid Kordestani references her “policy expertise” in his speech.

For Twitter’s leadership, activity on Twitter ranks low for choosing board members. And rightly so, since they are not there for “twitter activity reasons” as Twitter user — @Balatic alludes. In fact, they see it as a basis for improvement on their appeal. Hence, critics mentioning her low engagement on the platform might want to “take a pill”.

Hillary on Twitter

@jack @NOIweala @authorzoellick @marjscar Those who say you have to be active on @twitter to be on the board lmao. Take a pill. You can rest assured Madam Economist is there for economic reasons not twitter activity reasons. Once again, take a pill

As part of her curriculum vitae, she was the Managing Director of the World Bank in 2007 through to 2011 and has been on many boards to date. All these broadened her outlook on policy and developmental issues.

Thereby, making her a suitable candidate for key leadership appointments like being the President of her nation. Many Nigerians like Imoh Umoren wish so.

Imoh Umoren on Twitter

I wish Ngozi Okonjo Iweala becomes the president of Nigeria someday....Brilliant woman who understands the problems and hasbthe spine to try to solve it

It is common knowledge that it takes more than strong policymaking and fiscal management skills to lead a country. Political adeptness is also key.

Speaking on her Twitter appointment, GEJ states that her policies helped pull millions out of poverty.

NOI won for the Nigerian Economy

NOI’s reforms had a positive impact on the economy and this reflected in the macroeconomic stability enjoyed between mid-2003 and 2007. Indeed, her most impressive feat was obtaining a debt relief to the tune of 30 billion dollars from the Paris Club in her first term as Finance Minister. This helped Nigeria save on debt repayments. These savings supported the government’s efforts to boost economic growth and eradicate poverty.

With an eye for fiscal sustainability, NOI also started the infamous excess crude account (ECA) .

While this was particularly useful in sustaining Federal and State spending, it came with its own problems. In her second term, States rallied against this savings fund choosing to spend all revenues from the ECA. This fiscal indiscipline is partly responsible for the fragile state of sub-national finances today, where states struggle to pay salaries.

NOI was competent in her role as finance minister and despite concerns about her role in GEJ’s government, her legacy is untouched. It is that of supporting reforms which accelerated growth and encouraged fiscal responsibility.

But is Nigeria ready for a female president?

Political analyst, Ugo believes that Nigeria might not be ready for a female President due to the existent patriarchy.

“I don’t think Nigerians are ready to elect a female president, in part because the patriarchal system that dominates the political parties will not produce a female candidate. You only need to look at the numbers for women in elected offices.” — Ugochukwu Iwuchukwu

But, he admits that she has proven herself in handling the economy.

While there are several benefits to Nigeria if NOI becomes President, it is unlikely to happen.

Some such benefits include:

• a stellar global reputation which is necessary for courting investors,
• a will to put in place structural reforms despite political considerations and
• support from multilateral agencies

But it is unlikely to happen because of the patriarchal presidential candidate selection process highlighted above. Plus, age is not on her side. With the recent #NotTooYoungToRun bill passed, we look forward to seeing younger adults contest to rule the country. Hence, the chances of someone above the retirement age ruling becomes smaller and more contested. Being sixty-four years old leaves her with less than a decade to rule this country, if at all. Given that the next four years are out of question, it becomes unlikely that she will become the first female President of Nigeria.

Thus, we must look to raise more (female) leaders with the resolve to break the status quo as well as provide a platform for them to perform.

Adedayo Bakare contributed to this post. Photo credit: Quartz.

Originally published at www.benjamindada.com on July 21, 2018.