Brands, Customers and Products:

An end that sparks a beginning

Community has always been at the fore of my personal and career development. I’m sure if I am ever asked to talk about my life, it won’t be complete without mentioning community and its influence.

I would choose not to believe that this story is unique to me, it’s a similar pathway walked by a lot of people I look up to and admire. This sense of community is what led to the creation of Brands, Customers and Products.

On Saturday April 30, 2022, Brands, Customers and Products, the first of its kind in the Akure ecosystem was launched. It was a one day closed door session structured to teach people about branding, customer acquisition and product/service development.

Akure is a thriving ecosystem, filled with a lot of potential for growth but largely overlooked or underestimated when it comes to conversations around tech, innovation, opportunities, etc. A proof of this is found in some of the feedback I got when I began talking to people about the event.

“If it was Lagos, it would have made more sense”
You’d be able to do this well. You’d pull the crowd you’re looking for, etc.

My response; “It’s because it is Akure, that is why this event is happening”

Akure has a number of independent small communities, but in my perspective, these individual communities have no avenue to mix on a large scale. For innovation to happen, there must be a hard mix of ideas and such ideas are born from gatherings like the one BCP promised.

People in Lagos have numerous communities and corresponding events that bring these communities together. We have a long list of events that bring together the techies, creatives, anime fans, etc. You practically have an event dedicated to a community of people in Lagos, however, this is not the case in a lot of places outside Lagos, including Akure.

We would not deny the boundless possibilities that exist in Lagos, but we will also not shy away from the potential of planting in a fertile ground. We would look onto Lagos, learn, harness its resources as we build our own pool of innovation and talents.

This is the origin story of an event that promises to do that; Brands, Customers and Products.

THE FIRST TWEET

As with all great ideas in the 21st century, it starts with a tweet.

I started a conversational series in 2021; Random Conversations. Here, I brought very remarkable people to discuss random ideas with them in an unstructured conversation. At the start of 2022, I decided to make an outline for this conversational series, I made the outline, pulled together a team and we had the first conversation for the year which was meant to be a conversation that gauges the interest of the potential audience and also introduce the topics and speakers for the year.

That meeting happened.

Then this tweet followed that meeting.

In the image above, all the shaded portions were the speakers not yet confirmed. I reached out to Feranmi a few days after this and he wanted to speak live in Akure.

Well, I guess you could say this is where it all began.

I spoke to Uche Ugo, Charles was open to flying into the state to also speak physically.

My intention when setting up Random Conversations was to be able to answer pressing questions in the minds of youths across the country starting from Akure.

It is to be an online community of which I am still getting the hangs of it.

This is where it all began for BCP.

The next phase was planning.

I made a mistake; I went on with planning alone.

PLANNING INTO EXECUTION

You never know the magnitude of an idea till you begin to put pen to paper to bring it to live.

That’s what happened with BCP.

I did not anticipate the challenges that would unfold in the coming weeks.

Side note: 2 months is such a short period to plan for an event, especially when you don’t have all the available funding on ground.

I worked on the designs personally, and began little publicity along the line, crazy innit?

I had planned to fund the event myself (bold move).

My laptop went down and I had to pull resources together to get a new one. I had complications with my bank, ended up affecting my roadmap also.

The lesson here is, plan for contingencies.

But the most unprecedented challenge was the ASUU strike.

A large percentage of the primary target audience for the event were not going to be available.

Should we postpone it?

I got a number of such advice to do so.

If you’re reading this, you’re well aware we didn’t.

In my opinion, there’s no use postponing it.

If a large percentage of students were not available, we’d make do with indigenes and the ones on ground.

I employed the help of Busari Samuel popularly known as MC Breezey as a PR lead for the event and he got us on the local radio and facilitated some offline efforts towards making the event known across Ondo state.

Gradually, weeks turned into days and into hours and Saturday, April 30, 2022 came.

BCP 2022

This day started on April 29, 2022 when my guests; Uche Ugo and Feranmi Ajetomobi came into the city. They used the day to relax and we used the night to talk and catch up.

Wonderful personalities as this would be the first time I’d be meeting with them physically.

The details of the event would be best told by the participants of the event. However, it was the time of my life.

The value communicated cannot categorically be quantified, but it’s a spark of something that will change the narrative about community in Akure in the coming years.

Much appreciation goes out to everyone who supported the event financially and in other areas.

Plans have begun concerning the sequel of BCP.

For 2023, we are leaving no area to chance.

I have begun putting together a team and I am hopeful you’d be around to be a part of it.