The Bulletproof Entrepreneur™

The Power Of Becoming An Idea Machine explains why being able to come up with many ideas at a moments notice is beneficial to your growth as an individual and entrepreneur.

In this episode I talk about the evolution and merger of the bulletproof entrepreneur podcast from a monthly show to a daily 7 -10 minute podcast. With the new format, the show will be rebranded to The Chi Odogwu Show in order to accommodate the expanded scope of the vision. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback.

In today's episode, we chat with Charles Okeibunor ( aka

            In this week’s episode, we sit down with Gossy Ukanwoke to discuss his life as the youngest founder and chancellor of an international University in Africa. Gossy founded the Beni American University in 2012 in Nigeria because he observed that many Nigerian students faced significant barriers in their attempt to access quality higher education at affordable prices.

            He also realized that the current university system did not have sufficient capacity to absorb the large numbers of students that sit for the annual college entry exams. His solution was that if he could provide a platform where students could access quality programs at affordable prices, and finish the programs on their own schedule, it would make an impact in lives of the students. Little did he know that his education platform would grow to become one of the most popular resources for online training programs in Nigeria, and would eventually extend its reach to students from other countries across Arica and the rest of the world.

            With the demand far exceeding supply, and in a bid to satisfy the requirements of the education policy makers in Nigeria, he quickly switched gears and decided to add a physical campus to support his growing online university. BAU now incorporates a residential campus that is home to state-of- the-art facilities and is on track to become one of the premiere degree granting universities in Nigeria.

            Though a remarkably humble individual who shies away from the public spotlight, Gossy has received several awards from numerous international organizations recognizing his significant contributions to the development of human capital, entrepreneurship and education in Africa. He’s been featured in many notable media publications including CNN, FORBES, The Guardian UK , Huffington Post and ITV News Africa to name a few.

As one of the youngest university chancellors in history, Gossy notes that education is the great equalizer, and that anyone with an education, determination, passion and focus can succeed at any goal regardless of how unrealistic their ambitions might seem to other people. Though his journey has been fraught with many challenges along the way, he maintains that the obstacles force you to think creatively about solving problems.

We’re glad to have him on the show and hope that you takeaway some actionable information from our discussion.

In this episode, we talk with Emeka Azinge aka Mr. Emedith, the founder of Emedith Consulting & Emedith Solicitors. Emeka started his companies after completing his mandatory one year National Youth Service. During his service year, he realized that he was not suited to the regular 9 to 5 routine. Although he was working at a prestigious law firm and was on track to receive a full-time employment offer, he felt that the bureaucratic and structured nature of the role was antithetical to his entrepreneurial ambition.

Upon completion of his service year, armed with little substantive work experience and a lot of faith he decided to launch his law firm and consultancy businesses. His supreme confidence in his abilities and absolute faith in God gave him the courage to pursue his dreams aggressively despite the challenges. He noted that starting out as a young entrepreneur in Nigeria, the primary challenge he faced, and most young entrepreneurs face is “Converse Ageism” - a bias against a person based on their youth and lack of experience. However, he was able to overcome this obstacle by continuously over-delivering, time and again on all his consulting projects and cases. He noted that to overcome converse ageism, a young entrepreneur must be excellent at their job, therefore making it physically and mentally impossible for a potential client or detractor to ignore you.

Though, a passionate lover of Nigeria, Emeka believes that the government has done nothing to help the youth of the country, and this has created a powder keg of problems that has inevitable devastating consequences. In a bid to provide a solution to the youth unemployment problems facing the country, he has come up with the YAE (Youth Affiliate-Entrepreneurship) model as a framework for creating a parallel economy in which young entrepreneurs can create businesses and opportunities for themselves by leveraging on a network of experienced young entrepreneurs. Though the model is still in the conceptualization phase, Emeka has received a tremendous amount of support and positive feedback and is currently making giant strides towards implementing the model.

Today, his businesses have grown significantly, and he is a highly sought after trainer and coach in the entrepreneurship, personal development and peak performance fields in Nigeria. In addition to building his businesses, he spends a significant amount of his time on his two biggest passions, attempting to quench his insatiable thirst for knowledge by pursuing a Doctor of Business Administration degree from the University of Liverpool and motivating, mentoring and inspiring teenagers to become high achievers by unleashing their power to shine. As always we hope that you listen, learn and take massive action to achieve your goals.

In this week’s episode, we chat with Alisee De Tonnac the CEO of Seedstars World, a global startup competition platform and venture builder. Alisee quit her dream job as a product manager for luxury brands at L’oreal to travel around the developing world looking for the best under-the-radar startups.

In the first year of running Seedstars World, she travelled to 20 countries with her co-founder to run the inaugural edition of the competition. Along the way, she admits that the team made every mistake imaginable, but noted that as long as there was an opportunity to learn something then it was worth it. She notes that her lack of startup experience seemed like a disadvantage starting out, but later observed that it proved to be a hidden advantage as she was able to provide useful insights from a consumer's perspective during pitches.

Today, Seedstars runs the competition across 60 countries and considers over 400 companies in 800 pitches. . After learning the ropes and gaining some operational experience with the first edition of Seedstars World, Alisee is now managing the company and taking it to the next level!Today, she shares some of the secrets she uses to evaluate businesses So listen, be inspired and take massive action.

So in life, we find that things may not work as planned. Therefore, it is important that every bulletproof entrepreneur learns to roll with the punches and just keep on chugging. That's the story of this interview with Yossi Hasson serial entrepreneur from South Africa and co-founder of Synaq. We had the interview in March 2015, and it was scheduled to be released in early April. But, I somehow forgot to upload the file but uploaded the profile picture. You can imagine how embarrassing it was for me, to realize nearly nine months later that I had not uploaded the file as scheduled.

Well, I would like to apologize profusely to Yossi personally for that, and I'm glad to say that this error has been fixed, and 2016 is off to a fine start indeed. Yossi's interview seems to be as relevant today as it was a few months ago when I chatted with him.  His heroic story starts off at 11 years old when he started washing cars and doing other odd jobs around his neighborhood for money. He quickly moved up to selling medical equipment and other high-end items in his final year of high school.  He used some of the money he earned to buy a Stallion XT computer for gaming and was from that point hooked on the internet and technology.

He then launched an early social networking site for his graduating class that grew to have over 3000 students on the platform.  However, the idea was too soon for its time, and he regrets that he had to drop the endeavor because he couldn't grasp the potential that was at his fingertips.  In the course of this venture, he met David Jacobson,  a classmate who would end up being a life-long friend and business partner in Synaq. David was one of the dangerous hackers in South Africa at the time and had managed to get his computer confiscated by the police and himself banned from being online for one year.  Their friendship blossomed in the early days but never led to any ventures until they reconnected a few years later.

David went on to have a few successful stints at some internet companies while Yossi decided to forego University and instead went into business importing second-hand mobile phones. They finally got back to talking about building a business together and created the basis for Synaq. The pair created and launched an open source anti-spam solution, Pinpoint SecureMail, the first hosted, cloud-based anti-spam service in SA based on the Linux platform that soon became the industry leader in the market. 

Using some very creative marketing and business development strategies they were able to win significant contracts beating some of the big boys in the industry. With their profile rising in the tech scene they launched many successful other products includingBrandFu, an e-mail branding, and signature e-mail management system.  Some of their large clients included South Africa's largest  Telecom Company MTN. News of their successes led many M&A proposals, with Dimension Data Internet Solutions ending up acquiring 50.1% of Synaq.

After closing the transaction, Yossi decided to take some need much time off to obtain an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science. His thesis on the role of Web 2.0  in building a startup's brand in South Africa is very insightful analysis.

So listen, learn and be inspired. Find out about his biggest regrets, the lessons learned from his past failures and the success habits that have helped him stay on top.

In this week’s episode, we chat with Raindolf Owusu, a 24-year-old tech wiz kid who’s breaking all the rules and writing some new ones along the way. Raindolf is the founder and CEO of Oasiswebsoft, a web development company based out of Accra, Ghana. Raindolf's foray into the technology space was quite accidental.While growing up in Ghana one fateful day, his dad brought home a computer for his older siblings. However, his fascination with the device would change the trajectory of his life. From his early encounter, he dreamed of the creating many things with the aid of the marvelous device.

Though a visual arts student in high school, he decided to obtain a degree in Computer Science from a private university in his hometown. As a direct result of being bored with the academic curriculum, he and his friends (Kwabena and Aaron) decided to build Africa’s first web browser “Anansi.” They received accolades and publicity for their efforts and then decided to parlay their early success into building their first company.

Though, the brilliant young men were passionate about the work, they had diverging visions of the future, and so each man decided to follow his calling.Raindolf, undaunted decided to follow up with their initial dream and launch Oasis Websoft, a web development company with the sole aim of solving challenging African problems with technology.

But the early success  Raindolf met would soon be replaced by a near crippling failure. He intrepidly decided to build an Operating System based on Linux. After spending many months working, he released the project to the world and was immediately met with an astounding amount of negative feedback.

Though, despondent and dejected by the negative feedback he decides to use the criticism as fuel to power his dreams. He throws himself back into his work and builds two new apps “Bisa” and "Doctor Diabetes", which are healthcare portals that provide a valuable service for young Ghanaian.  In addition to his healthcare apps, Raindolf has also created Anasipedia and Ebola  Ghana Alert.

His prolific abilities in programming, leadership and management has caught the eye of many international organizations and has opened doors for his personal and professional life. Case in point, his recent induction as a 2015 Mandela Washington Fellow  and his  ongoing partnership with IBM. With renewed validation and restored confidence Raindolf is now on a quest to raise funds to grow his start up and show the world how to build a world class company from Ghana.

Press Links For Raindolf

PRESS

Forbes

NPR

In today's episode, we chat with the an undisputed master of creativity. Nalini Aubeeluck is a serial entrepreneur who has started several successful ventures in her native Mauritius.  A classically trained dancer, Nalini started the Nalini Dance School after spotting a gap in the entertainment sector. She soon grew the business to become the leading dance studio and performance group in Mauritius, inspiring many fans home and abroad. However, after a successful 15 year run her company ran into serious financial trouble as a result of the financial crises. Recognizing the need to diversify her income stream to survive the crises and support her family, she then brainstormed and came up with an idea for a one-stop shop for fashion and beauty. She presented the idea at a business competition and it was green light & subsequently produced. At that moment, Nalini had pivoted herself from creative artist to highly respected  TV producer.  Proving that her concept was viable, she came up with a second TV show centered around men. While developing the TV shows, she noticed another gap in the market and created a fashion label called FAITH. Though a young brand, FAITH is currently gaining publicity as a  brand to watch. As a result of her exploits and various business interests, Nalini has been recognized as the unofficial Ambassador of Entrepreneurship in Mauritius and has been featured on CNN's African Voices. Her philosophy, tenacity, faith, belief in God and willingness to take risks embodies the true spirit of being a "Bulletproof Entrepreneur". 

This week's entrepreneur is Uyai Effiong. Uyai started her consulting business after she noticed that small business entrepreneurs experienced the same challenges, she had helped solve for large multinationals while working as a consultant with Accenture. She soon quit her job and embarked on her lifelong passion for entrepreneurship. Her knack for social media and innovative value first strategy helped her land her first client on Twitter. After many successful engagements, she initiated a robust referral system that her reduce her marketing spend but increased her customer base. Although, she notes that life as an entrepreneur in Lagos is fraught with challenges, she believes that the sense of satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment is worth it. So sit back, relax and enjoy the podcast as she breaks down important concepts and inspires you to take action.