Every two weeks, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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Let’s take it to the beginning. What do you imagine led you to marketing?

Curiosity.

Let me explain: I studied chemistry in university, and it was a fallback course — I’d wanted to study medicine. 

During a long day at the lab in my second year, a friend complained about how much work she had to do for managing her clients’ social media accounts. Naturally, I was confused. It’d never occurred to me that people were paid to handle social media accounts.

But I also got incredibly curious and asked her to tell me more about it. By the end of our conversation, I was very fascinated by what she told me. I had one question in my mind: “Why can’t I do this as a job too?”

Did you have an answer?

The closest thing to an answer was the realisation that while I liked social media and could find my way around most platforms, I didn’t have the skills I needed to use them for work. Now, I knew I had a chance to change this and was convinced that I’d unlock something out of it. 

When I returned to my hostel, I got down to business and started doing heavy research on social media management. This effectively kicked off the learning phase in 2017.

Energy! How did you approach the learning phase?

I didn’t overthink it. I took any course that was available and free. The first course I signed up for was the Shaw Academy digital marketing course. Then others followed. 

The knowledge acquisition phase was relatively easy, thanks to my curiosity and interest. 

However, a lot of it was unstructured. Nevertheless, I was intentional about taking courses that give certificates upon completion — I thought they were proof of knowledge until  I realised I’d learn and scale faster if I had proof of work.

Thankfully, my sister had an event management company, and her business became my playing ground. 

Tell me more about that

My sister got her clients through word of mouth, and she was good with that. Her business’s social media presence, on the other hand, was dead.

I decided to change that. 

In practice, this meant I worked with her to bring her services online. I created accounts for her business on all platforms and managed and grew them. 

Although the work was pro bono, it did something for me: if I learned something new, I tested it with the business’s accounts as part of my various experiments and see what stuck. Also, my work here landed me my first marketing job. I got a social media marketing internship at an agency. 

I’m curious. How did you decide it was time to try something different?

My curiosity got bigger the more I learned about social media marketing. Also, I believed I’d gotten good enough to make some money out of everything I’d learned — the amount didn’t even matter.

Fair enough. What specific steps did you take to land the internship?

I scoured social media platforms. I’d go on Instagram and search for #Socialmediajobs and similar hashtags to find open roles. A random search led me to the digital agency that eventually hired me.

I worked at the agency for three months, and one of my biggest lessons from the experience was that it’s okay to be a little selfish about your growth. 

The agency wasn’t very structured. I learned a lot about how to use social media when I worked there, but it didn’t take long before I felt I needed something more challenging. I went for it and quit. 

A few weeks later, I got another internship at a digital agency called Webcoupers. This was my boot camp. 

How so?

Webcoupers had more structure and worked with bigger clients. As a result, there was a lot to do, and I was there to take it all in. For example, I was primarily a social media intern, but I did everything connected to digital marketing — from email marketing to influencer marketing and creative ad development. 

Additionally, this was the first time I saw what a career in any area of digital marketing could look like, and I liked what I saw. When I left the agency six months later, I knew I was all in. I’d even started freelancing on the side and making extra money. 

Now, the next step was figuring out how to put myself out there. 

Sweet. On what path did this lead you?

After Webcoupers, I focused on school for a bit — I was in my final year and working on my project — before starting a full-time role at CKDigital, another digital marketing agency. I was hired as a social media specialist and my starting salary was ₦‎70k.

I don’t know how best to explain it, but it was a really big deal because it showed me I’d open up a clear route to growth and all I needed to do now was to keep honing my skills. In only two years, I’d gone from not knowing what to do with my chemistry degree to finding what I was good at and excited about. 

It was reassuring. Wasn’t it?

Yeah. Almost unbelievable, too. But I consistently did my part as well: I threw myself into the work and talked about my processes. You hardly get it wrong with these combinations. 

What happened after?

I worked there for three months. By the time I finished my final year project in December 2018, another wave of discontent had set in. Like that, I started searching for another role and found a digital content associate role with SheLeadsAfrica. I resumed work in January 2019. 

How was this different from your previous roles?

My role transcended just growing social media accounts. Now I was doing more thinking about how to use content to drive value for the business and its community. Fundamentally, this was my transition from social media marketing to content marketing.

I only worked here for about three months, though. 

Let me guess: You found another opportunity

I did. I knew I wanted to work there from the moment I read the job description. I was convinced that I was the one they were looking for. 

I guess I was right because I got the job. In April 2019, I started working at Carbon as a digital content marketer. 

And it keeps getting better 

Haha. I joined the business seven days before a massive rebrand. The company was changing its name from Paylater to Carbon. I was given a heads-up during the hiring process, but now that I was in, I had to get down to work immediately and make sure that the rebrand went on as planned. 

On my first day, we didn’t have any marketing materials we needed for the rebrand, so there was a lot to do in my first week. The whole week was pretty much identifying the gaps that existed and moving quickly to plug them.

What was your biggest takeaway from this experience?

If I took anything away from my first week, it was that the best way to navigate being a marketer is putting your head down and doing the work. To put this in context, I didn’t have the luxury of time to understand the product or Carbon’s customers before owning the marketing aspects of the rebrand. But two things helped me pull it off: asking questions and taking feedback — and I explored these because I was determined to do the work no matter what it took. 

I stan

You see, being open-minded and excited about work makes a lot of difference. I was just happy to be there, and it influenced the way I approached my work during my almost two-year stint there. 

Fast forward to 2020, Covid-19 happened, ushering the start of remote work. At the time, I was living with a friend who had just started freelancing with Toptal. Then she started talking about working for this foreign client and earning in USD. I was like, “Huh. I can do this as a marketer and want this for myself, too.”

I imagine that spurred you into action

Absolutely. Interestingly, I was in a few talking stages with Nigerian companies, but now that my sights were set elsewhere, I wasn’t committed to the process anymore. 

As with everything else I’d done up until that time, I kicked things off with research. But when it came to applying for jobs I was qualified for, I wasn’t prepared for how difficult the process was. 

What do you mean?

In the beginning, I was automatically getting rejected because I lived in Nigeria. If I made it past the first or second stage, I’d get axed in the third stage.

I was even close to getting one until the company ghosted me. I’d done and aced the interview. The same for the assessment tests. The only thing left was an offer, and they never got back to me. 

Do you remember how that felt?

It hurt, but the show had to go on. That said, it was tiring researching, applying and interviewing all the time. So, I had to figure out how to refine my process and keep iterating, which meant paying attention to what was working and what wasn’t.

What did this look like in practice?

I was asking the companies that rejected me for feedback, and I used whatever information I got to optimise my resume and portfolio. 

Also, I became very specific about the companies I was sending applications to. One of my earliest mistakes was applying to any “remote” company — some companies say remote, but they mean remote US or remote EU and won’t hire anyone who isn’t from these regions. 

I stuck to doing my part and putting myself in the faces of people who might consider hiring me. Eight months after I sent my first application, I got an offer from Wizeline — a software company headquartered in Mexico — to join their team as a content marketing manager. 

I should add — applying for roles is a job in itself; you get better the more you do it. I know this from experience. 

Back to Wizeline. 

Working with the company opened up a path to relocating to Mexico. 

I’m really curious about how this happened

EndSARS happened. On the 21st of October, 2020 — a day after the shootings — I was on the phone with a friend in Canada, and I told her that I needed to take a break from Nigeria. We spent the whole morning looking at digital nomad visas and found Mexico on the list. 

I wasn’t sure that the company would be willing to relocate me, but my friend urged me to ask. And when I eventually mentioned it to my manager, it was a joke. But she took it up with the People team and next thing, they were scheduling immigration calls, discussing the process and filing the documents. A few months later, I got a new offer to work for Wizeline Mexico. 

I took a pay cut, though. 

Why?

When I was in Nigeria, I was earning in USD. However, the move to Mexico meant the business would pay me in the local currency, which was still a lot stronger than the Naira — just not as strong as the USD. Nevertheless, it was still a good deal.

I moved to Mexico in May 2021. A year later, I relocated to the UK via the Global Talent visa route. 

Wait a minute. How?

In December 2021, I went on holiday to the UK and spent some time with some friends. I realised on this visit that while I loved Mexico,  there were a couple of things it couldn’t give me. On top of that list is a community and access to very specific things I needed. For context, I lived in Guadalajara and had to go to Mexico City to find Nigerian meals or a hairdresser who knew what to do with my hair. 

When I considered all of this, London seemed like a good next move. 

But how did you get the global talent endorsement?

When I got back to Mexico, I started working on my application and compiling my documents. It felt like a culmination of my entire career — I had to talk about my career and the impact I’d made in and out of work: from the work I’d done, the events I’d spoken at to the people I’d mentored. Everything mattered.

The difference between someone who gets the endorsement and someone who doesn’t is in how well they can prove the work they’ve done. But also, you can’t prove something that doesn’t exist. Over the years, I’d done everything I needed to get the Visa, so I got it. 

In May 2022, I moved to the UK. 

Phew. What was happening on the work front?

I’ve worked at two jobs since the move to the UK. Between June 2022 and May 2023, I did content marketing for an insurtech company. But I started to feel like I wanted to work in an industry that was more aligned with my interests.  So I left my role and found a new one. Since July, I’ve been managing content marketing at PhotoRoom — an AI-powered photo editing software company.

You’ve had quite a journey. What’s one thing that prepared you the most? 

Once I got a handle on the technical side of content marketing and decided I was in it for the long haul, I made it my life’s work to build a global career. I stopped seeing my work through a local lens — I didn’t want my work to be great by Nigerian standards; I wanted it to be great, period. This framing changed everything and helped me refine how I thought about my work. 

I won’t lie; taking available opportunities and getting the best out of them have also been pivotal to my growth. It’s why one of my core interests is helping people find these opportunities through a community I launched — Smarketers Hub.

I’m listening

When I started my marketing career, there weren’t as many communities then as there are now. So before I worked in organisations where I had senior leaders to guide me, I had to figure out a lot of things alone. 

It doesn’t have to be that way for everyone else. 

The idea to start a community came in 2018, and it launched for the first time in 2020 and the second time in 2022. A small team manages the community, but the job to be done is to help marketers upskill and position themselves for great opportunities.

You’ve gone from figuring things out on your own to helping others figure things out

It’s quite something, isn’t it?

It is. Last question, What do you find most exciting about your career in digital marketing 

My career has been wildly unpredictable. It’s so exciting because it keeps me open-minded about every moment. Also, there’s much to do and explore, so there’s always some new growth milestone to hit, especially if you’re as curious as I am. 

It makes sense because my curiosity led me down here in the first place. 

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

Follow the newsletter

Every two weeks, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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Let’s start easy. What do you imagine led you down this path?

I’ve always wanted to work in the entertainment industry. One minute, I was a 12-year-old kid watching Kennis Music’s Primetime Africa show on TV; the next I was rapping in secondary school. I rapped because that’s what the cool kids did. 

A few years later, I was now in the university. For a short period, the plan was to manage an artist I met. 

But you’re not an artist manager now, are you?

I’m not. In my third year in uni, I started putting out my rhymes, and people liked them. However, I didn’t pay much attention to the hype. In my final year, I wrote a school project for someone, but I didn’t get paid in cash. 

Oh?

He introduced me to a studio and an artist — who is very big now — as payment for the work I did for him. We wrote and recorded a song together, and I liked the results. I was thinking, “Maybe I should do music.” 

But it wasn’t a burning passion. 

When did this change?

I’m poor with dates, so I can’t put a particular timeline to it. But the conviction to chase a music career to the deep ends became stronger after putting out my first body of work in 2017. 

Sounds huge. How did you pull that off?

It happened in stages. The first, most significant realisation was that I’m a stronger singer than  rapper, and this only happened because the people around me made see that.

Music is made up of two important parts: songwriting and production. I could write songs, but I couldn’t produce them by myself. So the first person I needed on my team was a producer, and a friend introduced me to Olumba. 

The original plan was to make one song and see what it sounded like. It turned out that Olumba and I had so much creative synergy that we just kept going. And that’s how I figured out my sound, which I call Urban Folklore. The core of it is the storytelling. 

I’ll say that those early collaborations with Olumba helped me discover my sound. He was like, “You sound better when you sing in Yoruba. You should do more of it.”

And a star was born

Haha. After recording a bunch of songs, we had an idea to make a project about Lagos, telling the stories we forget to remember about the city because we’re too caught up in the hustle. We made as many songs as we could to tell these stories — I don’t remember how many there were — but we streamlined them into the eight that made the album. We called the project Ariwo Eko.

This was in the Soundcloud era, so we didn’t need a robust distribution plan. There wasn’t a strategy to make money either — it was about getting my voice and Olumba’s production heard. 

What was your idea of success  at the time?

I wanted to make something my friends would listen to and play for other people. This happened on a much bigger scale than I expected, so I was good. Outside of my circle, the reception to the release was also mind-blowing. I got tons of opportunities that I didn’t even think about.

Tell me about some of them 

Remember I said that there wasn’t a clear path to monetisation when I put out the album? But a few months after it went out, my work had made enough rounds that I started getting invited to perform at shows. At least 95% of my early income came from the shows I performed. They were small, intimate shows — an office hangout here, a book reading there — but they paid enough to cover basic needs. Also, it was reassuring because it proved that I was onto something. 

While I performed at a few big shows too, I didn’t get paid for them. I did them for promotion and visibility. 

The conviction was strong now. 

In your opinion, what’s the first thing anyone needs to know about being an indie artist? 

First — and I can’t talk about this enough— know for a fact that you want to do it. Music is a jealous profession and takes pretty much all your resources. It demands everything, so you need to ask and answer an important question: do you want to do it or not?

Also, advice a friend gave me a few years ago changed my perspective on how to navigate this life and make the best use of resources. They said, “You don’t make a masterpiece out of a masterpiece, you make a masterpiece from the pieces you’re surrounded by.” 

In practice, this means that you can always get quality output, even with limited resources. The trick is being humble enough to find somebody as hungry as you that’d do something for you at a price you can afford. If you’re waiting for ₦7m to shoot a video, you might be wasting your time. As ridiculous as it sounds, you’ll find someone that’ll do it for ₦70k. 

Ah, I see. 

It’s also about finding smart ways to figure out how to put yourself and your work out there. Even if I spend ₦7m on a music video, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get half the airplay the biggest artists in Nigeria will get. But I can always put short clips on Instagram to increase my reach and grow the community of people that listen to my music. 

It’s also about asking your people for help. If you can’t afford to shoot a video with models, you can try putting your friends in it. In my experience, you’d be shocked at the lengths people will go for you.

A lot of the things I’ve done in the past few years have been tied to how well I could get the people I know to help. This was how I built my team— most of them were people I already knew and had relationships with. 

Fair enough. Is there a moment you consider your first significant milestone?

In 2018, I uploaded a short video a friend had recorded while I was rehearsing for a show. Guess who saw it and reached out?

Who?

Mr. Eazi. The next thing I know, I got into the emPawa program. The deal was to send them a song, and the company would pay for its video and marketing. For an up-and-coming act that couldn’t afford the quality of video and promotion, I got with the program, this was a big deal and blessing.

Love it. How did you decide what song to promote though?

I chose the song that people liked the most on my first album. I figured if more people found this song and liked it, they’d have a reason to listen to the whole album. 

Smart. What happened after?

When you have a foot in the door, the next thing to focus on is increasing your reach. It never stops.

In what specific ways did you increase your reach?

Live performances are my strongest suit, so I was intentional about getting as many shows as I could; paid and unpaid. If you offered me ₦5‎0 to come and sing for you, I’d do it. 

I also leaned heavily into social media, putting out as much content as I could. It was about building a community of people who love my music, and it was proven that I could find new fans on social media.

It seems like you had to do it yourself. Did you ever consider going the label route?

This might be a flaw, but I’m very big on DIY. I mean, at some point, the plan was to build my talent to an undeniable level so the labels would come knocking. But now, my energy is going towards winging it. In my case, it means preaching to my little community and going to spaces I’ll find people that’ll like my music.

I like to think I’m not doing badly at it. I’ve got two albums out of this model. 

Lit. Tell me about the second album. 

It’s called Odu, and it came out in 2022. I decided that I could use some help in getting the best out of this body of work without necessarily being signed to a record label, so I looked out for distribution and licensing deals.

 After finishing the album, I prepared a deck and sent it out to record labels, licensing houses and distribution companies. I got several offers and streamlined my options to the one I think was the best for me. 

What did you look out for?

Creative control was the most important. Then the revenue-sharing plans and the willingness of the other party to push the project. 

By the way, I got a licensing deal with emPawa. 

How does this work?

I’m leasing the company the rights to my music for a few years. During this period, we split whatever revenue the record makes. Once the licensing period is over, the rights return to me. Essentially, I’m giving them a product, and their job is to unlock as many opportunities as they can with it. 

I have the talent and they have the resources to push it and get the best out of it in a way I can’t at the moment. While all the money won’t be mine, it still works. At the end of the day, 100% of ₦100 is ₦100. But ₦10% of ₦1m is ₦100k. This is a useful framework to think about things like this. 

I’m wondering how you made the deal happen

To be honest, the existing relationship I had with the company helped push things forward. But if I learned anything from the process, it’s that no one is doing you a favour. It’s a business, and everyone is trying to make money.

I hear you. Apart from the business side of things, how do you stay true to your sound in the middle of changing audience preferences and trends? 

Every artist considers the consumer when making a song. But I have a principle not to lose elements of myself or my music to chase a hit song. To keep me grounded, I try to make the kind of music that I’ll like to listen to. No compromises here. 

That said, I think about patterns and trends, too. And I’ve dabbled in more mainstream music as well. But for the most part, I tell the stories that are true to me, even if I combine them with elements of other genres. 

You’ve spent a few years in the game now, what do you imagine will happen next?

In the short term, the focus is on growth, and I understand that the foolproof way to unlock this is by being consistent. Then I can increase my audience and really blow. 

I don’t think I’ve touched the kind of money I should be making yet, so there’s much to look forward to. The goal is to build a sustainable career as an entertainer. 

I don’t have all the answers. But I know what’s got me here: it’s doing what I need to do to get better and learning as I go. I don’t think this ever fails. 

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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Let’s start with when you got on Twitter

That was in 2017. 

I was a second-year student of Mass Communication at the University of Benin. Whenever I was in Lagos, I loved listening to Toolz and Gbemi on the radio, and they mentioned Twitter a lot on their shows. It seemed like a lot of fun happened on the platform. More curious than anything else, I opened my first Twitter account. The plan was to use it like an average user would — just tweet my thoughts into the world. 

But something started to happen.

I’m listening 

I wanted to have fun on Twitter, and my tweets were a reflection of that. But I didn’t think people would find me funny and relatable. At least not until my follower count started increasing. I was convinced that something was happening here when I got my first viral tweet in 2018. Then another. 

I imagine you took something from this

I figured that it was a content game. People will gravitate towards you if they find your content valuable. In my case, people wanted to laugh, and they knew they could come to my account for funny content.

Subsequently, my routine was built around tweeting something that had the potential to be well-received, and get some visibility and new followers off it. Additionally, I was figuring out ways to keep my account engaging. It was about community building as much as it was about content creation.

I see

 It still hadn’t occurred to me that I could monetise my account or be contracted to work for brands. I was only doing it because I thought it wouldn’t hurt to be popular on Twitter, and it helped that I didn’t even have to put my face out there. 

What specific tactics did you use to grow your account?

A mix of different experiments. At some point, I was on a follow train. This is how it worked: accounts agreed to follow each other and engage with each others’ content to reach more people. I was also a part of retweet groups.

But ultimately, I realised that the greatest hack is putting out quality content. Everything else was secondary.

When did you first realise what the money-making potential could be?

Sometime in 2018, an influencer on Twitter organised a class on influencer marketing and possible ways to monetise Twitter content. I liked what I heard, and while nothing was guaranteed, it was the first time I saw how I could build a brand on the platform. 

Also, during a conversation with another influencer, I asked them how much they earned on their last campaign and they told me it was ₦‎500k. What struck me the most was that they only had to put out two tweets per week for the six months the campaign ran. 

I was like, “This can’t be about fun and banter anymore.”

What did you do next?

I devised a plan to up my content game. In practice, this was pretty much giving more thought to the kind of tweets I was putting out. As much as it was about volume, it was also about quality. So I’d take as many days as I needed to craft the right tweet or thread. I was also creating a content bank I could use on days I didn’t have something to tweet about. 

It wasn’t the easiest thing to do because I was going through it at the time. For starters, I was a broke university student just trying to figure out his life. 

What were your biggest challenges during this time?

Combining creating Twitter content with my school work took a bit of figuring out. The biggest challenge, though, was the cost of data. 

I had to be online almost every hour to follow the important conversations. But I couldn’t always afford to do this. Nevertheless, social listening was important, so I constantly had to find ways to afford the data I needed to be online. 

I don’t know if I had the conviction that it’d pay off at some point, but it did. 

This was when you started getting paid to promote brands?

Absolutely. In 2019, someone sent me a DM and asked if I’d be interested in putting out a few tweets to promote a brand they were working with. They were also going to pay me ₦50k for it. ‎

I was like, “Wait, what?”

It was a pretty big deal for me. This was in 2019.

It took you two years before you could monetise your content 

Two long years. But once that first gig came, others followed. In December 2019, I got a lot of gigs and made hundreds of thousands of naira in a single month. That signified something — there was no going back. It was now a business. 

I respect the thinking

I realised that I couldn’t build everything about the business on my being funny — I could be hilarious, but I could also be other things. So I started looking into other niches, settling on freelance writing because I was doing it on the side.

I also started talking about my freelance work and creating useful content around it.

This gave me a chance to diversify my income sources. I was using my clout to promote my writing. If a tweet or thread went viral, I’d plug my writing services underneath it. People reach out to you for what they know you can do. So I was working with brands to achieve visibility, working on writing projects with other clients and getting paid for both.

I’m curious, how do you get gigs as an influencer?

Your social media account’s visibility and engagement levels matter a lot;  that’s how you get noticed. If you’re right for a campaign, a brand or marketing agency will reach out and have a conversation with you. If the gig is right for you, you accept it and discuss the terms. 

Word of mouth also goes a long way in getting gigs. I’ve gotten some jobs just because someone who follows me talked about me in a board meeting. 

Must be nice. Walk me through what happens after you accept a gig

The campaign starts and runs in three stages: ideation, execution and review.

 You work with the brand or the agency on the best way to promote their brand. Once this is settled, you get to work, execute and get results. KPIs and deliverables are attached to every campaign, so there are numbers to track and hit. 

After the campaign runs its course, every party involved reviews and measures the success of the campaign. 

How do you decide how much to charge for a campaign?

The standard is having a rate card. As my followers and engagement increase, so does my pricing. Sometimes, I look at how much other influencers in my network charge and tailor my rate card accordingly. 

What challenges or setbacks do you deal with now and how do you navigate through them?

Content drought is probably the most prominent. It’s tough when you’re short of content ideas, but it comes with the territory. That said, the drought never lasts. When it happens, I just relax and continue to show up. 

It also doesn’t matter how good your content is, if the algorithm is not in your favour, everything goes to waste. Nevertheless, I find that this is also temporary. If you keep putting effort into creating, it’ll swing back in your favour.

Fascinating. What’s your favourite thing about what you do? 

Beyond the monetary gains, visibility comes with additional perks.

For example, when I served in 2021, I was posted to a village in Nasarawa state. Only one network had good service there, so I needed a new sim card. But I didn’t know who to turn to. I tweeted about it, and the manager of the telecom company in Lafia found my tweet, reached out and made sure I got set up on the network at no cost.  

Random events like this mean a lot. The community I’ve built has been the most rewarding part of this journey.

Speaking of community, how do you engage with your audience and build meaningful relationships on the platform?

My hot take is that if your followers haven’t started calling you by your real name, you need to work more. I try as much as possible to let my audience feel like they know me and can trust me. And the trick here is to constantly engage them.

Love it. What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in the past few years?

It’s important to follow the social media platform rules. I can’t talk about this enough. The barrier to entry is relatively low, but it comes with its drawbacks, too. I can’t imagine the thought of losing my Twitter account — I’ll probably start and grow a new one, but it’s a lot of work. 

The goal now is to reinvent myself as much as I can and diversify my sources of income. I do some work outside of Twitter already, which is important. The next thing on my list is to experiment and invest in more content formats, then build strong communities on other social media platforms, especially Instagram. 

At the end of it all, making a living on social media all comes down to the strength of your community. 

Also Read: How Fisayo Fosudo Went From Graphic Designer to Top Visual Storyteller

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

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Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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Let’s take it back to the beginning. Was becoming a mechanic always the plan?

No, I don’t think so. But I’ve always been good with my hands. Before I turned 10 years, my parents already trusted me to fix little things around the house — from changing electric bulbs to troubleshooting the generator’s minor faults. 

But I also loved engines. If a mechanic came around to fix my parents’ cars, I always stayed with them, curious to know what they were doing. It’s interesting how much I picked up from this process. 

I wasn’t sure what to use the body of knowledge for, though. The plan was to become a civil engineer. 

Where did the interest come from?

My dad is a civil engineer. I used to go to the field with him, and it looked like something I’d be good at.  Fast forward to 2009, I got into the University of Lagos to study Civil Engineering. After a year, I was like, “Wetin be this?”

What happened?

I’d failed a few courses, and I knew that I was going to have an extra year. To be honest, I was always an average student, but the university kicked my ass in a way I didn’t think was possible. Naturally, I started falling out of love with civil engineering. 

But one thing didn’t change — I still loved engines, and I loved cars. It helped that I had a car and made frequent trips to the mechanic workshop. Every time I was there, I was always eager to study what the mechanic was doing. 

In my second or third year in the university, I decided to act on this interest. I wanted to be more intentional about learning how cars work and how to fix them.

What did this plan look like?

I had a good relationship with my mechanic. So I asked him to take me in as one of his interns. He was hesitant at first because I was in the university, but he agreed to it when he saw that I was relentless. For the next few months, I was sharing my time between his workshop and the campus. 

While this was going on, I was constantly thinking about how to take this learning curve to the next level. Thankfully, I found a structured learning opportunity.

I used to follow a super helpful weekly radio show about cars. The presenter owned an auto workshop called Automedics, and he always came off as an expert. Then I started thinking about interning at his workshop. On a whim, I sent him a cold email, asking if I could intern with him.

He rejected me outrightly.

Ouch

I wasn’t going to give up that easily. A few days later, I went to his office to plead my case. He was sympathetic, but he said he couldn’t take me in at the time. I was crushed — but at least I tried. Then something unexpected happened. 

One of my mum’s friends had a canteen near the workshop, so I went there for lunch. When I told her the reason I was in the area, she grabbed my hands and took me back to the workshop. As it turned out, my mum’s friends knew the guy. She didn’t even have to say much before the man said, “Okay, start on Monday.”

LMAO. Look at you being a nepo baby

Haha. I spent about two years at the workshop and got so good at fixing cars. The workshop didn’t pay interns, but after a few months, the workshop manager started giving me a stipend every weekend. 

What do you think made the difference?

I was incredibly invested in what I was learning and wanted to take in everything — from cars’ bodywork to the engine to the electrical systems. 

Also, the incremental knowledge I’d been gaining about automobile systems since I was young came into full bloom when I was at the workshop. And I never stopped trying to learn. My companions were a book called Introduction to Automotive Engineering and Youtube videos from mechanics like EricTheCarGuy and Scotty Kilmer.

My bosses could tell that I was in this for the long haul, and they respected that by giving me as many responsibilities as they could. I was only too happy to take them on. By the time I left the workshop in 2014, I’d already started getting my clients. 

By the way, I was still in university. My parents and I made a deal — they’d let me pursue a career as a mechanic and I’d stay in school until I got my degree, however long it took. I finally graduated in 2016.

Whoop Whoop. But how did you build your client base when you left the workshop?

My community of friends helped me build my first customer base. At first, they trusted me to fix their cars. Then they started referring their parents to me. And it grew from there. Till today, my biggest acquisition channel is through word of mouth. It’s undefeated. 

I feel you. What happened after?

Every mechanic needs a workshop, and the next step was getting my space. But I couldn’t afford it yet. So I talked to a mechanic I’d referred a couple of customers to and asked if I could share his space with him. Luckily, he agreed to it, and I was there for a year until the government took control of the land and chased us out. 

Omo

Without a workshop, I struggled to get new clients. The thing about being a mechanic is that the customer’s perception of you is the difference between getting a job or being passed over for it. And this is built with the little things like a workshop and the quality of cars in it. 

How did you manage without a workshop then?

I worked on the roadside for a bit. That meant I had to finish up every job I got within a day. When I saw that it wasn’t working or inspiring customers’ confidence, I decided to work with my plan B. One of my aunts had a big compound, so I moved my workshop to a corner there.

But you were still looking for a new space?

I was. Fortunately, someone pointed me in the direction of a dump site. When I saw the space, I knew it was what I wanted. I sent an application to the authorities that were in charge of the piece of land, and it was approved. Subsequently, I cleared the place out and started setting it up. This was in 2017, and I’ve been here since, slowly building the business. 

You’ve done this for about 10 years now. How do you establish relationships with customers and ensure you keep a loyal customer base?

The best way I’ve sold myself and retained customers is through the quality of work I do. Transparency is a close second. The end goal is to build trust and a great relationship with most of your customers. However, that comes with its own risk, too. 

I’m listening 

The cost of having a close relationship with your customers is that some of them may take your services for granted. The worst thing someone can do to your business is owe you money, and people tend to do that when they have the opportunity. Man, I’ve seen a lot — from fake transfers to payment defaults. 

I take everything as character development. Besides, the job is very rewarding when everything goes right.

I imagine your process has evolved to mitigate this risk

Absolutely. It’s a business, and I’ve learned to run it like one. It starts with little things like developing terms and conditions and doing proper invoicing. As I said, it’s a lot about perception. If people think they can get away with your money, they’ll try to. 

Is there anything else that makes running this business difficult?

Substandard parts are the bane of my existence. Parts suppliers will always try to run you down, and the sad thing is that there’s no foolproof way to tell an inferior part apart from a genuine one. You find out after installing it in the car and putting it to the test. Unfortunately, customers don’t care that you are a victim, too — if the car part you replace doesn’t work, they expect you to replace it at no cost to them.

 I get it, really. But it makes it incredibly difficult to run this business. For context, I’ve lost close to ₦‎4m this year, and about 80% of it is a consequence of purchasing substandard car parts. 

A workaround to this is importing all the parts you need into the country, but that’s more expensive, and not everyone can afford to do it. Sometimes, I even buy parts in bulk because it’s cheaper that way, but the risk here is theft. My store has been burgled a few times. 

That’s tough 

There’s no best practice for fighting these risks. You just learn from each experience and figure out how best to iterate your processes. I’m still in business and that shows that I’m doing a few things right. 

Speaking of doing things right, what area of expertise do you possess that sets you apart from the competition?

I also fix electric vehicles — the Teslas and all. It’s still a new market in Nigeria, and I’m in it already. So I like to think that I’m relatively early here, and it’s playing out great already. I worked on setting up charging stations for the electric buses the Oando Clean Energy and Lagos state government recently bought. That’s growth in my books.

There will be more opportunities in the electric vehicle market soon, and I like that I’m positioning myself for it already. It’s going to be a good source of revenue. 

I bet you’re right. How do you keep yourself up to date with the latest trends in the auto repair industry?

It’s not difficult to be plugged into the latest happenings in the space. Before a new car or technology is released, it’ll be teased and talked about for months, which gives me enough time to find out everything I need to know about it. It also helps that most of my friends are in the car and auto community, and we talk about these things every time we meet. 

I believe that you’re in a good place now. But what does levelling up mean to you?

The plan is to grow the business beyond being a car repair company. There’s nothing special about fixing cars. What makes the difference is the add-ons you won’t find in another workshop or garage. I’m thinking about running end-to-end services for anything related to automobiles — from fixing to rentals to discarding old vehicles. A one-stop shop of sorts is the goal.

In a way, I’m driven to do this to attempt to change the narrative about mechanics, especially in these parts. I have a degree, but I chose to do it because I loved it. And you know what? I’ve become fairly successful at it.

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

Follow the newsletter

Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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Let’s take it back to when you first thought about becoming a pilot

Random story. I didn’t grow up wanting to be a pilot; it just wasn’t in the realm of what was possible at the time. Civil engineering was a more realistic career choice, and that’s what I studied at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA). After graduating in 2009, I got a job with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) operations in Nigeria. 

But something changed

From the moment I got the job, I started saving money for my Master’s Degree — a couple of universities in the UK and Canada were on my list. Three years later, I had saved enough to start the application process. But during a conversation with a mentor, they said, “Why don’t you go to flying school and become a pilot?”

And that was it?

For the most part, it was. My mentor had some flying experience, and I suspect that’s why he mentioned it. But it triggered something. I always loved planes and the physics behind them. It just never occurred to me to pursue a career in the aviation industry. Not until that moment. 

Now, I had two options: go ahead with my plan for my master’s or go to flight school and transition into becoming a pilot. The thrill of the latter hooked me. 

Haha. Just the thrill?

There was also the income potential. My research showed that I’d probably earn more as a pilot down the line than I could as a civil engineer. There was one more thing to consider though.

What?

The barrier to entry was steep. And it wasn’t just about the basic requirement — I had a university degree when a secondary school certificate was the minimum qualification I needed.

The primary barrier was the cost of getting a pilot license. I settled on an aviation school in Jordan, and when I enrolled in 2012, the fees were about $65k. That was a lot of money. 

What about aviation schools in Nigeria?

They were cheaper, but there was no guarantee that I’d finish my training in good time if I explored a school in Nigeria. The biggest issue flight schools in the country face is aircraft availability. So I might have to spend three years in what was supposed to be a two-year programme. That didn’t sound appealing to me. 

Jordan was the best option at that time. Thankfully, my mentor offered to pay for the bulk of the fees. I also had some savings and my mentor and family members chipped in the balance. With the fees sorted, I flew out of Nigeria to Egypt, and then to Jordan to start my training course. This was 2013.

Sweet. How did it go?

I paid for something called the Air Transport Pilot License (ATPL) training, which is the highest level of certification a pilot can get. There are two other certifications — the Private Pilot License (PPL) and the Commercial Pilot License (CPL). The PPL is the starting point, then the CPL. But no new pilot can leave the flight school with the ATPL. 

Why not?

Every pilot needs a minimum of 1500 flight hours to qualify for the ATPL exam, and it unlocks the path to becoming a captain. 

How many years did you spend in flight school?

A year and four months. I left with a CPL plus ATPL frozen license, which meant I had passed the theoretical exams, but I hadn’t fulfilled my flight hours requirements. I had 250 flight hours under my belt at the time.

Wait, what does “flight hours” mean?

It’s the number of hours a pilot spend in the air. It’s the aviation industry equivalent of “experience level.”

Ah, got it. What job options do 250 flight hours give you?

Not a lot. It certainly wouldn’t get me a job in Jordan, so I returned to Nigeria in 2015. Fortunately, my timing was perfect. Air Peace was still a relatively new airline and was recruiting pilots for its operations. My flight hours were enough to get me a job in their flying crew, and it’s great that happened. 

What do you mean?

A pilot license only gets you one foot in the door. The next step is to get something called a type rating. It’s a certification that allows you to fly a specific type of aircraft. 

Usually, baby pilots pay for this from their pockets. But because Air Peace was building their team, they sent me to Casablanca for my type rating and paid for it. At the end of my training, I was cleared to fly the Dornier 328 jet and started my new job as a second officer. This was 2015. 

I’m curious. How do flight operations work? 

There are two pilots in the cockpit on every flight: a Captain and the Co-pilot, and the latter’s rank is a Second Officer, First Officer or Senior First Officer. Now the Captain sits on the left and the Co-pilot sits on the right

The duties are shared between the two pilots, and we call this process “pilot-flying” and “pilot monitoring.” Essentially, it means one pilot is in charge of navigation and controls and the other assists and monitors their flight management. 

The Captain decides if one pilot will fly the aircraft for the complete flight or if both pilots will take turns before the commencement of each flight sector. For example, the Captain can be the “pilot flying” during take-off and the co-pilot takes the role during descent and landing. 

YOU SHOULD READ THIS TOO: The #NairaLife Of A Baby Pilot Managing A Million A Month

Whew. Tell me about your first flight as a commercial pilot

It was thrilling for the most part. But there was a nervy moment when my training Captain gave me the pilot landing duties when we were about to land the plane. That wasn’t a problem, but I thought he’d assist me. He didn’t. 

I landed the plane all right, but boy, was I nervous. It took about two more flights before I built up enough confidence. I haven’t looked back since.

Whew. So what came after?

The only thing left to do was to work and gather more flight hours. I started my role as a Second Officer like every pilot in the early stage of their career does. The next milestone was being promoted to First Officer, and this happened after I clocked 800 flight hours.

By 2019, I had built my flight time to 1500 hours. Two things happened here: I returned to Jordan to complete my ATPL certification. Since I’d already passed the theoretical exams when I was in flight school, I only had to do and pass a series of skill tests to prove my proficiency. Then I got my certificate. 

On the work front, an ATPL certificate and 1500 flight hours meant I had now fulfilled the requirements to be promoted to Senior First Officer. 

The title means a lot of things, but most importantly, it means you’re a pretty good pilot and can now be on the path to making Captain.

Exciting. But I imagine there are other requirements

Absolutely. A Captain is the pilot-in-command and is responsible for the safety of the aircraft, crew and passengers. So it’s a big responsibility and multiple factors come into play to become one. The minimum requirement is 4000 flight hours. But you also need to have a spotless record, particularly with your competence, attitude to work and how you work with your team. Those cannot be in question.

I hit 4500 hours earlier this year, and the airline kicked off the process of making me a captain. Subsequently, I took a series of short courses and a simulator exercise, and that was it. In May 2023, I was decorated as a Boeing 777 Captain at Air Peace.

It took you eight years of active employment to get here 

And those were very exciting eight years. At every point, there was always something to look forward to. Beyond getting promoted, I went for two other “type rating” exams between 2017 and 2019, which cleared me to fly the Boeing 737 and the Boeing 777. I also started flying international routes in 2019.

Well done. A lot of career growth is determined by how many hours you’ve spent in the year. How do you ensure that you’re not overworking?

Regulation takes care of that. A pilot cannot fly more than eight hours a day, thirty hours a week, 100 hours a month and 1000 hours in a year. A great day in the life of a pilot is simple — it means you take off and land your plane safely, and to a reasonable degree, these hour limits make sure of that. 

Ah, sweet. What do you find most rewarding about being a pilot?

Access to multiple destinations and airports is quite an experience. My favourite airport to fly to is the Dubai International Airport. Also, the pay is enough to live a very comfortable life. It feels like I’ve recouped the money I invested in myself to go to flight school. I feel proud of myself when I remember that. 

I’m not sure what my life would look like if I continued a career in civil engineering. But you know what? This one isn’t bad either. 

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Interview by: Oghenetega Ogodo

Let’s start with the obvious question. How does one transition from banking and finance to the culinary arts?

It’s a long story. But two things shaped my path after university: an itch for cooking I couldn’t ignore and a mum who rode for me. 

Let me take you back a bit: my favourite childhood moments were the ones I spent with my mum in the kitchen where we bonded over cooking. It wasn’t about preparing food for the family; it was our time to gist.

So sweet 

But becoming a chef wasn’t something my parents and I considered as a career. There had to be a safer choice; banking and finance played that role.

Then Covenant University happened.

What happened there?

I didn’t get into the school the first time I applied in 2014, so I spent most of the gap year in the kitchen. I went to the university in 2015, with a lot of ginger for cooking.

But the school didn’t allow students to cook in the hostel. The only thing they allowed was kettles. 

LMAO

At first, I couldn’t make anything more complex than custard or oats. Then, I started making noodles with my kettle and liked the results.

Sometimes, I’d make noodles and rice for other people. It didn’t take long before I started charging people to cook for them. Nothing tells you you’re doing something right more than people knocking at your door at 2 a.m. to ask if you could cook for them.

2 a.m.? How much were you charging?

Between ₦‎200 and ₦500. I was making enough that I didn’t need to dip into my allowance to take care of myself. My friends were amazing and sent people my way, so by the end of my first year, I already had a community of people who liked my cooking, but something else gave me the ultimate ginger. 

Tell me about that

The school offered a general course called Entrepreneurship for Development Studies. Basically, it was a self-development course to prepare us for life after school. The messaging was something like “Go for what you want and like.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about my banking and finance degree, but I knew how cooking made me feel. The thought of making a career out of it felt right, which was validated when I did some research and found chefs in the country who were doing really great.

Must be nice to have your life figured out in uni

The key thing was that my parents supported me. My mum, especially, was my number one fan. However, she pushed that I got my degree first You know, just to have something to fall back on if a chef career didn’t work out. 

Talk about hedging your bets

In my second year, I started looking at a list of possible culinary schools I could attend. I was particular about attention to detail and the fine dining scene. One school consistently came out top of my list — Red Dish Chronicles. I reached out to the school’s students, and they all had great things to say. That’s how I knew it was the one for me.

I graduated from Covenant University in 2019 and was mobilised for NYSC. Immediately I returned from camp, I enrolled at the culinary school for a six-month diploma in cuisine.

What did you need to get into the culinary school?

The requirements were a secondary school certificate and an understanding of the English language. They don’t even care if you have zero knowledge of food. As long as you have an interest, you have a place in most culinary schools. 

Fascinating. What was the hardest part about this learning phase?

I didn’t find anything particularly difficult. I like to think it’s because I watched a lot of MasterChef and other cooking shows over the years that I felt at home at the school. I was just having fun, and it reflected in my grades. I did well enough that the school got me an internship at Eden Life.

Oh yeah?

The school gets an internship for students who passed above a certain grade — I think it was 75%.

Cool stuff. What did you do at Eden?

I was a commis chef — a junior member of the kitchen. That’s where you start if you’re building a career as a chef. I reported to the Head Chef and was in charge of prepping, inventory and a little bit of accounting. 

Can you paint me a picture of what the kitchen might look like to a chef just starting out?

There’s no one answer to this, but it’s fast-paced and can be chaotic. But one of the first things you learn is speed and accuracy; these are the two most important things you need to navigate the kitchen. Once you have the two on lock, the rest falls in place. 

After four months at Eden, I started feeling like I might have outgrown the role.

Why do you think this happened?

The scale of the work I did. I think working at startups stretches your capacity. But I should add that the head chef was versatile and was happy to pass down their knowledge. 

Anyway, I was ready for the next thing. 

Did you know what that was?

Upskilling. So I went back to culinary school for another six–month diploma in patisserie. This single move got me my next job as a pastry sous-chef at a pastry shop, and I didn’t spend more than three months there before I got my next job. 

Where?

The House. This was November 2021. I was hired as a sous chef at the restaurant.

Sounds like it was a big deal

In a way, it was. I’d moved from being a junior member of the kitchen to middle management in less than two years. 

What did you do to make this happen?

I didn’t have to do much. I love that I do — I think that’s the basic explanation. I believe that passion is a fuel that keeps you moving. That said, I’ve also been lucky and backed by God and the people close to me. 

What’s the scope of your work at The House?

I cooked, managed, trained and supervised the kitchen staff and stations. But fundamentally, it was my job to make sure everyone was doing their job according to the schedule. I was also always in contact with the procurement department to ensure they got us the right supplies.

What do you think everyone needs to know about the role?

You probably won’t learn the soft skills you need to do the job in culinary school; that bit is on you. But I imagine that emotional intelligence, people skills and good communication are the most important.

But I’ve grown so much in the past three years that I’ve started dabbling into private events and working my own gigs. 

How did you make it happen?

It started with me volunteering to assist my culinary school instructors when they went out for their private events. I worked these jobs for free. But the good thing about it is it helped build confidence. I also leveraged my personal network when I was starting out, and the list is growing. I’ve earned more than my salary from one gig. But I like the structure a full-time role gives me, so I’ll stick to that for a little longer. 

What’s your least favourite thing about working in the kitchen?

The work-life balance may take a hit because the kitchen is physically and mentally demanding. I left my job at the restaurant for this. 

Oh, You did?

I left in September 2022 and took up a job as a chef instructor at Crumbles Chef Academy, a culinary school. The hours here are more flexible, so it works great for me. It’s exactly what I need at this time.

What do you imagine is next then?

My plan has always been to go to a prestigious culinary school abroad. But I figured I should start with one in Nigeria and work here for a while to get some experience. So I’ll explore foreign training in the next few years. The goal is to keep optimising for growth. 

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

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Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

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In 2017, Fisayo Fosudo had a lot to look forward to. He’d just spent his life savings — about $5k — on video production equipment. For the then-21-year-old creative, this purchase was the key to unlocking the next stage of his career, transitioning from graphic design to content creation and visual storytelling. 

But this decision was years in the making. 

About four years earlier, Fisayo was a curious, bright-eyed 17-year-old whose favourite pastime was watching YouTube videos. His interest in these videos propelled him to also start making home videos with his mum’s iPad. 

“I was so awestruck by the device, so I tried to use it to create videos. They were just not flattering; the camera wasn’t very good at the time,” Fisayo tells me. “But I remember using the iPad to shoot a drama in church, and everyone loved it.”

Even though he created these early videos for fun, he still had to navigate a familiar struggle every creative deals with at some point: the quality of his output didn’t match his taste. 

“I was always watching video content from YouTubers in the US, like Marques Brownlee and Jonathan Morrison. I loved the quality of the content they put out and wanted to create something like those. But I could never manage to do that with an iPad.”

It was also around this time that he noticed a gap in the Nigerian content creation space for the consumer tech videos he liked to watch. According to him, this was a source of discontent, and he’d have given anything to plug this gap. 

But the cost of throwing his hat in the ring was steep. First, he had to upskill his video production and content creation game. Also, he needed money to purchase all the gear he needed. As a university student studying for an economics degree, there was no clear way to make either of these happen.

So, he pivoted into something else. 

The pivot into graphic design 

“I’ve always had an artistic side. For as long as I can remember, I could draw. I used to have a lot of fun drawing comics,” Fisayo says. 

In his second year in university, he leaned into this and picked up graphic design. Subsequently, he took design courses, read a ton of books and combined the knowledge into starting a student enterprise. The remainder of his time in uni was spent upskilling and honing his skills. In his final year, he stumbled on freelancing and started working for clients from all over the world. 

His work as a graphic designer led him to his first job straight out of university in 2015. 

“I met this guy at an event — his name is Ayo. He saw some of my work and loved the quality. One thing led to another, and he introduced me to the Max.ng founders, who hired me as a social media strategist. That’s how I got my first job.”

At Max.ng, Fisayo wore many hats. While his primary role was in the design department, there was also an opportunity to work in video, and he gladly took it. His fascination with video creators aside, he thought learning the basics of video production would make him a more-rounded creative. So he used all tools available to gain as much practical knowledge as he could. 

“There was a camera in the office, and I’d always play around with it and used it to create stuff. It helped me learn and master video production.”

Max.ng was his day job. But Fisayo spent a lot of his nights working on freelance graphic design projects. With the income from these side projects, he saved up $5k and bought his first set of production gear in 2017.

Starting a YouTube channel and betting on himself

As a voracious consumer of video content, Fisayo realised the huge visibility potential he could unlock with Youtube, which informed his decision to open a Youtube channel after purchasing his gear in 2017.

“Google is the biggest search engine. YouTube is the second. Both are owned by the same company. So when you use Google search, chances are a YouTube link would pop up,” he explains. “It was a no-brainer that YouTube was the way to go.”

Much like the creators he’d been following for years, Fisayo wanted to create consumer tech content — a very niche offering in Nigeria. But this came with a big question: “Would people watch a Nigerian creator when there were bigger acts like Marques Brownlee creating similar content?”

While he didn’t have a definitive answer to this — it’s hard to predict audience behaviour — he trusted that his videos would fight for their share of attention because of their use case. 

“My thinking was that Nigerians had questions about devices and gadgets, and I wanted to be the person answering those questions.”

On the more practical side of things, Fisayo figured it might also be a smart play if he focused on the moderately-priced mid-range devices targeted at Nigerians. 

“The big guys were covering the big phones. So I thought my videos should be more about brands like Tecno, Infinix, Xiaomi and Oppo. When I realised this, I was more confident about finding product-market-fit.”

With the early kinks ironed out, he jumped into his new endeavour. And at first, it was something he did during the weekends because of the demands of his work at Max.ng. In November 2017, he went full throttle on YouTube. He was taking a page from the popular investment advice: when you have conviction[about an opportunity], bet big. 

Growth can be slow and painful

Perhaps the first lesson Fisayo learnt was that building from the ground up is lonely and incredibly hard. Out of a job and a regular stream of income, he needed to make it work. But there was no eureka moment or anything that pointed to growth. 

“The first six months were hard,” he says. “Nothing actually happened. Nobody was calling me to review their products, and I wasn’t making anything off the videos I put out. Yet I was putting money into it because I had to buy and use the products before I reviewed them.

“Luckily, I was living with my parents at the time, and my bedroom was my studio space. It gave me the time I needed to figure things out.”

The first semblance of a win came later in 2017, following a brand partnership. On a whim, Fisayo reached out to the Head of Partnerships at Tecno, requesting a phone to review.

“They didn’t even know I was in Nigeria because of the quality of the videos I’d put out. They were sold and sent me a Camon CX that was launching at the time. I did the video. It got over 20k views. I followed this up with a review of the Camon CM, which made the trending bar in two countries. I was stunned.”

He’d soon have more reasons to celebrate. The next phone he reviewed was a Samsung, also sent to him by the makers. The success of both videos was a massive booster.

When I asked him if there was anything he did differently to land the partnerships, his answer was simple. 

“I tried my hardest to make high-quality videos that were beautiful to watch. And I did it consistently. Although it was a challenge to stay consistent when it was hard and money wasn’t coming in.”

One thing he’d have loved to control was his channel growth. The subscribers came in trickles. 

“When I made the Tecno video, I was at 3000 subscribers. As I put out more content, the numbers grew. On average, I was getting about 1000 new subscribers a month.”

The interesting thing about numbers is how they add up. The channel hit 100,000 subscribers in 2021, four years after its launch. About two years later, the number has increased by over 300%.

On monetisation

Naturally, the conversation about channel growth and numbers led to another important aspect of the creator journey — monetisation. 

Nobody invests $5k into anything without hoping to get something more out of it. But Fisayo anticipated that it might not be possible to monetise his channel and content immediately. 

“I expected the grind to be slow. So I didn’t put my mind to it like that.”

It took about eight months before Fisayo landed the first paid brand partnership. Soon after, he was eligible for the YouTube Partner Program — the platform’s ad revenue and monetisation program for creators.

To make money directly from YouTube, something called “Cost per mille” comes into play. It means how much advertisers want to pay for every 1000 views their ads get on a piece of content. Factors like location and content type affect how much a creator makes from this program. 

“The cost per mille in Nigeria is typically between $1 and $5. The more the channel grew, the more people watched the content and the earnings from YouTube increased. That said, the channel makes more money from working with brands.”

About six years into this, a lot hasn’t changed in Fisayo’s monetisation model. 

“Our two major sources of revenue are ad revenue and partnerships with brands. There are a couple other things that happen on the side, but these are the recurring ones.”

Developing more content buckets

Between 2017 and 2020, Fisayo made exclusively tech content. In 2020, a personal experience inspired him to branch into more subject matters.

“I realised I hadn’t been saving money. So I decided to save 70% of my income for a year. I also read a ton of finance content while at it.”

At the end of this experiment, he had a strong desire to make finance content, breaking down financial concepts and trends. He had an economics degree he hadn’t had much use for, anyway. Combining all his strengths, he created a series called Finance Friday.

“It was an instant hit. The channel reached more people and grew more rapidly. Now, half of the subscribers are there for the tech content, and the other half are there for the finance content. 

According to Fisayo, his biggest takeaway from this is how creators can evolve and add more value to their offerings. Since then, he’s launched another series — Leaderboard — and is currently working on shipping more. 

The marathon continues

As our conversation drew to a close, I asked Fisayo what he thinks has consistently contributed to his growth and success over the years, and what other creators can learn from it.

“Thinking about the audience does a lot of good. The audience wants quality video and audio. They also want solid and useful information. If your content is not beneficial to them, you lose them.”

This underlying principle guides his content creation process, which he optimises to be as rigorous as possible, with research as the backbone. 

“Between using and understanding the product, researching, scripting, shooting and editing, we spend about five weeks working on the tech reviews before they’re ready to go out. The finance videos take between three days to one month, depending on the complexity and level of research we need to do. I want to create value for the audience, and that’s what really matters,” he explains.

About six years, thousands of dollars in revenue and over 400,000 YouTube subscribers later, Fisayo is looking forward to unlocking the next level in his career.

“I want to improve what I know and how I share knowledge. My plan for the next few years is to continue figuring out how to improve the quality of the content I put out. That’s the job.”

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Getting a job at Microsoft before graduating? Chisom, you have to show us the way

I promise it wasn’t a big deal. I was just aware that there’s a lot more to life than school.

What does that mean?

While I was invested in keeping my grades up, I realised as a computer scientist, it’s not all about books. In the real world, people want to know if you can code, programme or build something. As a student, I just focused on that.

Your degree didn’t prepare you for the real world?

Every computer science student knows we’re taught mainly theory. On some occasions, we’d use software, but on most, we learnt about coding on a whiteboard or paper. 

Coding on paper?

No shade to Nigerian universities, but I didn’t make a lot out of what I learnt there. Still, it was an important experience for my journey.  

How?

I met the guy who got me into coding in my second year. There was an innovation hub on campus and science students liked to hang out there. On one of the random days I stopped by, I met a tech bro designing an android application.

It wasn’t unusual to see people coding, but it looked like he was designing a mobile application on his laptop. I was intrigued and asked what he was up to. That was the first time I’d heard anyone talk about building apps on Google Play Store.

Two years in computer science and none of that came up in class?

All I’d done was code on paper and attempt to teach myself on a laptop. But that guy was developing real apps for phones. That was an upgrade I knew I needed, so I asked him to teach me.

Sweet. So the journey to tech sis, how did that go?

I had some programming knowledge from joining Aptech in Calabar in 2018, but it was still hard to keep up with the tools for building the apps. I got a hang of it eventually when I started taking tutorials online. The tutorial videos had practice projects at the end that made it possible for me to build a portfolio, which was instrumental to my transition to software engineering.

What’s the difference between being a computer scientist and a software engineer?

The difference is in the practical aspect. Software engineers design and ship products by the minute. While a computer scientist is more theoretical; it’s like a bigger umbrella.

What major thing helped you to prepare for the role? 

The projects at the end of each tutorial. After a year, I wanted to apply for internships, but I didn’t have a resume. When I looked up samples, there were sections for work experience and personal projects. And I didn’t have anything relevant to include. That’s a big issue when there are a million other people trying to get the same job you want.

I get you. What was the first experience you got as a student?

Building my first phone application in 300 level. I wasn’t sure what to build initially. But it was easier to replicate a more culture-specific version of the programme I’d been taught. That’s how I made Igbò Amáká, a language-teaching app.

How well did Igbò Amáká do to be relevant enough against a million other people?

The most important aspect was getting the application to work. Companies want to know you can actually build the app. And I did. By the time I graduated, I’d built a second application designed to help visually-impaired people send emails. That was pretty impressive to talk about during job interviews.

When did you start applying?

Before the end of my final exams in early 2020. I wanted to get a software engineering job and start immediately after school. So I was submitting 30 to 50 applications a day — I literally flooded the internet with my resume, applying for jobs. But I was more interested in getting into the Big Tech companies — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft or Google.

You weren’t even thinking about Nigeria at all?

I was at first. While applying and going through interviews, I realised that junior and internship roles are like “mid-level” roles in Nigerian companies. They always asked if I had work experience. So I changed plans and focused on the big tech companies. My thinking was they have more capacity to train people with little experience. 

Fair enough

But even with the projects I’d done, I wasn’t getting hired at any of the companies I actually wanted. They were looking for someone with more experience than I had. 

The first interview I failed was Bloomberg’s. Then the aptitude tests for Google, Facebook and Microsoft followed. That’s how companies kept dropping me. It made me feel like it wasn’t a project problem anymore.

Then what was it?

I had the skills. But the recruiters needed more than me being able to build applications. Every entry-level engineer can code. The question was how well-grounded I was as a developer without any work experience.

Did I have any published articles? Any volunteer experience or a portfolio website to showcase? That’s the difference between startups and bigger companies like Google. They don’t just care about your work experience as a student. Skills that demonstrate being good at communication and problem-solving are what matter.

How about the aptitude tests you failed? What were you missing?

Everything around data structures and algorithms. When you combine them with strong soft skills like communication, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, they can be the real access card to bigger organisations. 

Interesting. What do data structures and algorithms mean?

It’s a course on its own. Data structures and algorithms test your knowledge of logic, coding and communication. You get to answer technical questions using your preferred coding language, and the tests can be complex. They’re the most common questions international organisations ask. 

What helped you pass them?

A book called Cracking the Coding Interviews. It’s a bible for data structures and algorithms. And courses on Educative helped because they were more structured.

How long after your first attempt at Microsoft did you try again?

Six months. I felt ready to apply again in August 2020. And I’d been applying to other companies as well. Every interview was my practice leading up to my final interview with Microsoft.

Clearly, things worked out

Yeah. I got a call back in December and an offer letter in January 2021 to resume after school in November.

You were doing all this in your final year. How did you manage it?

Haha. Time management. I spent most of my early mornings doing some work before school. I’d get back quite early to work on my final project, revise what I was taught and get right back to work again.

It was a rollercoaster, but it was worth it.

Best in studies

It’s funny how I was offered an internship as a technical analyst at Bank of America (BOA) just a month before the Microsoft offer. I applied during my six-month period of preparing for interviews. 

That’s wild

The euphoria was intense. I was going to school, running a three-month internship and looking forward to resuming at the Microsoft office in Lagos. 

What do you think changed with the Microsoft interview? How did you scale through the first stage this time?

I felt ready for the test. Every other failed attempt made me ready. That’s the only way to explain it.

Give us some inside gist. What were the other phases of the interview? 

After the coding test, there’s a phone interview with four phases. Each one lasted 45 minutes, followed by two non-technical interviews. My manager interviewed me and asked questions like what I’d do if my team didn’t understand a task. Or how I’d approach a problem I couldn’t solve even after asking for help and googling for answers. The focus was behavioural questions. 

I scaled through, and now I’m here. 

And how has your experience at Microsoft been so far?

It’s been more than a year, and my time at Microsoft has taken me from a university graduate with no experience to a seasoned software engineer. I still have a lot to learn, but the future looks really bright. 

If you could go back, what would you have done differently?

I would start earlier. I’ve met colleagues who started off with an undergraduate internship at Google. And I wish I didn’t doubt opportunities like that were possible.

What’s one place to start looking out for the right opportunities?

I get asked a lot of questions like this, so I’ve created a database of resources for interviewing and getting started in tech. And my Twitter page is dedicated to helping more people get into big tech companies. 

What does the next level look like for your career?

Gaining more technical skills. The world is moving towards innovation, and I’d always want to be at the peak of things. Fortunately, I’m at a company that has the same vision I do. 

I’d also love to explore leadership roles in tech, managing engineering teams and products. I know I have to keep upskilling — taking courses and staying current with tech trends — leveraging my network and building a solid brand for myself to make this happen. And I plan to make it all happen.

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Hustleprint stories drop every two weeks on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. WAT, and Hustleprint guides will drop in the interim weeks. 

So you can follow each drop, Hustleprint will be published in our money newsletter.

Every week, Zikoko will share the hustle stories of Nigerians making it big in and out of the country. With each story, we’ll ask one crucial question in several ways: “How you do am?”

Sola Ajao is a 59 -year-old Nigerian woman based in Boston, US. She started cooking at 10 and grew to love it. But when she moved to the States to get married, she realised there was a gap in accessing African foods. She’s spent 20 years building a business to bridge the gap and tells us how she’s done it. 

Do you have any formal training as a chef?

No, but cooking has always been a part of my life. I started cooking for my family when I was ten years old. We didn’t have a maid, and I had two younger siblings, so my mum taught me to take care of the family while she was away at work. It made me grow to love food. 

How did you move from being a ten-year-old learning to cook to growing a business?

When I was 26, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts to marry my husband. I was living in a different country for the first time, and I could never find familiar ingredients to cook my meals.

Whenever I wanted to make something as simple as jollof rice, I’d drive 215 miles to New York for the spices. It didn’t take long to notice the gap, so I decided to buy African spices and foodstuff from New York to start a food business in my Boston home. 

Interesting. So there was no competition in Boston at the time?

None that I knew of. New York, on the other hand, was a much bigger hub. When Africans came to the states in the 80s, they usually landed in New York — that’s what most people referred to as Yankee. 

As a result of the influx of Africans in New York, they had the infrastructure for importing African food. So I’d place my orders through vendors in New York who had importing licenses.

How were you able to build a network in a new country?

When I started, I was pretty much taking a leap of faith. I put all my savings into the business. I tried to get other sources of funding, like bank loans, but it didn’t work out.  

Also, introducing African food to Boston wasn’t easy. Everyone was familiar with Chinese and Indian food, but Nigerian food wasn’t as common. So naturally, the business started very small, and I took up corporate jobs to make up for the money I wasn’t making. I came to the United States with only a secondary school certificate, so the job I could get at the time was a secretarial role at what is now known as Bank of America.

But kids change things. 

When my kids came, I decided to be at home more often. This made it easier for me to build a network. I started daycare at home and met a lot of other mums who needed help with their kids. This was a good opportunity to market my products, and I did at every chance. I started offering catering services too — food is a basic human necessity.

My husband became a church minister in 2008, which helped me connect with more Nigeran and African people in my community. 

And there weren’t any regulations against running a restaurant from your home?

I only took bulk orders for events while I was trying to expand to accommodate daily orders. It’s very common for caterers to cook from their homes as long as they’re licensed. We call this concept “home cooks” or “home chefs.”

What was your most notable catering opportunity?

A convention for people from Edo state in 2007 was my biggest contract. 2000 people showed up to this event, and I had to hire a team of ten to pull it off. By the end of the day, people from all over the U.S. had tried my bestselling jollof rice. I was pleased. I built on that and continued to grow the business until I got a store in 2020.

I’d wanted to get a store for the longest time, but I didn’t have the money to put into it with a family to take care of. When I got COVID in 2020 and spent two months not knowing whether I’d survive, I knew there wasn’t enough time to wait for the right moment. It’d been 20 years already.

I decided to take a calculated risk and put all my money into renting a property. But even with the money, it wasn’t easy to find a space in my town. The real estate market here is extremely tough.

But without any formal training, how did you manage to scale up the business?

The most important thing to keep in mind is turning your everyday life into useful and profitable skills. 

For instance, being a minister’s wife meant I needed to communicate and network even when I didn’t feel like it. I needed that to understand good customer service for my grocery store and catering business to grow. There’s no separation between my business and personal life because my business grows from my life experiences.

Also, a culinary degree isn’t what gets you through the door when you’re cooking a different style of food. What sells you is how well you can educate people and persuade them to actually try your food. 

So how do you educate non-Nigerians about Nigerian food and get them to actually try it out?

We host pop-up experiences in different areas of our state, Massachusetts. It takes our business model to various locations outside of our storefront location. We recently did a pop-up in a predominantly white neighbourhood over 25 miles away. We had 100 transactions, many of whom promised to visit our store.

We also use social media as a form of education and entertainment, promoting our foods and creating educational content around them. We also invite influencers to do food tastes at our store. We even have a Spicy Indomie Challenge with some of our community members who we affectionately call the #DAMFam.

Did you depend on the supply chain in New York as the business grew?

Not entirely. I registered the business in Nigeria in 2022 for about ₦50k. So I don’t always have to depend on third-party vendors in New York. Instead, I can import directly from local vendors in Nigeria. This has strengthened the business’s B2B wholesale model. 

I’m curious. It took you 20 years to get a physical store. Is there any part of the journey you’d change if you could?

Honestly, there isn’t. It’s natural to feel like I could’ve prepared more. But I believe my personal journey is my destiny, hence why I named my business Destiny African Market. My hope is someone will learn from my journey and not have to go through the same hardships.

And the first rule for Africans hoping to start a catering business in a foreign country? Where’s the first place to start when you have nothing?

Focus on the quality of your food. While I’m still not a formally trained chef, I’m now a licensed caterer and have all of my certifications to serve people safely with quality food. That’s a good place to start. 

Don’t be afraid to find a mentor and learn from others even if they’re not from your tribe or country. I’ve mentored so many African caterers and food service providers, who’ve garnered great success and even opened their stores before me. I love to mentor and support people. Collaboration is important in our community because it’s so small.

What do you think is next for the business?

The short-term goal is expanding to other “African food deserts” for communities that don’t have African food options within a five-mile radius of their home. African culture, especially fashion and entertainment, is becoming increasingly mainstream. Our mission is to make African food top-of-mind too.