Fakolade Ayodeji Henry

Conversations with Deji forces me to think on his scale.

Introduction

I have always admired Deji of Wii as I fondly call him, as the first time we met was at Wii when I went to fix my Lenovo laptop — the first and only laptop my mum bought for me. Our relationship has evolved from that of a customer-client to a mutual friendship between two people who respect each other. I hold Deji in high esteem and I don’t take access to him for granted.

I happen to be in Lagos for a work trip and after our meetup as a team, I have over 24 hours of available time to make effective use of. I had planned to see Victor Fa’, but as things slowed down on that end, I chose the next best person to have a mind-breaking conversation with, and that was Deji.

Our conversation was not coordinated, there was no script to follow and no timeline, just a rush of catchups on different aspects of our lives. We talked at length about different things — being a founder, working with startups, documentation, being professional, etc. The list of things we talked about was endless, but I’d outline key takeaways below.

Ambition is good.

There is no such thing as being over-ambitious. Ambition is seen through the lens of experiences. 10 billion dollars is an ambitious figure to me right now, but for a person like Elon, that’s a walkover in the park. As we talked about money and the drive to earn more while refining our processes along the way, we sharpened our knowledge as regards what “ambitious” could mean.

Being ambitious is in context. A few years ago, I couldn’t look at a million naira as money that isn’t difficult to come by, but right now, I can breathe and have a million naira as soon as I want it.

But contextually, I have grown beyond a certain threshold, therefore, my definition of ambition has also been refined. This implies that what I see as normal, some people see as an ambitious, and what I see as ambitious, there are people who see as myopic.

Rest is essential.

We also stumbled upon rest as a topic. The air of unhealthy sleep patterns in the room — his living room — was intoxicating. It is essential you find moments to rest from all of the work you’re committing yourself to do. Rest is part of your workflow, or rather, should be a part of it.

You’re not a superhuman, so it is essential you have ways to declutter your mind and renew your energy reserve.

Building trust.

We don’t trust artisans in Nigeria.

Anyone who would delves into a line of business that requires people to trust you will have to go through that wall of distrust that has been built long ago in the minds of people due to rampant unprofessionalism.

We talked about the solution being product education as a means towards helping people differentiate the quality of service. This in no way deters the many years of artisan fuckery and the resultant distrust it has built in people.

This trust issue has rubbed off into the technical space, as people get weary of trusting technicians. As much as they know they might need a technician, they always go out on one limb, not fully trusting, yet not fully resisting.

Deji of Wii

Not everyone is your customer.

This has been said many times, it almost looks and feels like a lie. But it’s true. In our conversation, we broke down customers into 3 tiers:

1. I don’t know I have a problem, so I don’t even know what needs solving.
2. I know I have a problem, but I don’t know how to solve it.
3. I know I have a problem, and I know how to solve it.

There is a 4th category which happens to be a grey area between 2 and 3 — I know I have a problem, and I think I have a solution to it.

This a checker to determine the efforts you’d need to put in to ensure your audience converts. The conversion is dependent on what we called product education.

Product Education

Everyone has a problem or two, but the three categories above determine the ease of converting your customer. However, at each tier, there is a need for product education — show me I have a problem and tell me how to solve it.

But we were careful to make a distinction that education is a process, and it will require you to be patient. It’s an effective path towards getting your audience to understand the need to buy your products, but it takes time to achieve.

A generic approach to product education would be hosting or organizing symposiums, conventions, requesting for slots to speak about the solution you are providing to your target audience, etc. Other people employ the use of radio jingles, TV, etc.

A more non-conventional approach would be to tail the path of startups brands like Liquid Death and mega brands like Burger King, etc.

Copying.

Copying is never a crime, until you get busted.

The police don’t need to pick you up before you know you’re busted. It’s a sorry case for startups who copy strategies as though they have no internal structure of their own. This is where copying is great:

1. I am in the same niche with my competitor and what they are doing is working.
2. I am positioned as an alternative to my competitor.
3. My competitor has so many loose ends to tie that their market share slips through the crack.

But this is where it gets dangerous, if your competitors tie up their loose ends, you’re done for. So, what do you do?

Define your strategy based on your goals, with an understanding of where you hope you’re headed to amongst other things.

Documentation is king.

Deji just began taking documentation seriously. He said, “Documentation should be easy for you, you creatives, God just made it easy for your guys, especially you, Tolu, documentation should be easy to you since you write more often.”

That’s not really the case.

Documentation is for everyone to learn, it’s something that’s so important if you want to scale in your career, you have to take it seriously.

Content they say is king, but documentation is the real king maker. Content organized haphazardly is a curse. In our conversation, I categorized documentation into 3 stages:

1. Documentation for yourself. This can be anyhow you want it to be. It’s documentation done in the way you can understand. It can be scribbles, code words, letters thrown all over the place, etc. Whatever makes it sensible to you.
2. Documentation for your teammates. When you document for your teammates, sometimes you don’t need to go all out, because they might have context to understand some things the way you choose to put them down. If Sherlock Holmes was to document something to a fellow detective, he might do it in such a way every other person in the world might not be able to figure out. (ref.: How Gon’s father left a message for Gon in HunterXHunter).
3. Documentation for everyone else. You have to ensure you break things down and provide context to ensure every other person who you hope will come in contact with this will understand. You can add footnotes, references, etc. You get to ensure you provide enough resources that the average person can pick up the message you’re trying to communicate.

It sounds like war, but this little piece of discipline is what differentiates a lot of people from the rest of us. If we hope to climb the ladder, we will have to learn how to put documentaries together. It doesn’t have to be in writing, it can be voice records, video archives, etc. The goal is to ensure, you have something you can always reference when the time comes.

Your brain is not as powerful as you’d hope, help your brain with the activity of remembering.

Structures are like bones; they hold the whole body up.

We began talking about consultation and consultants and how organizations hire consultants to do stuff and at the end of the day, it really doesn’t make any difference.

I highlighted three things to consider when bringing in someone to consult for you or anyone else:

1. What you tell the consultant when bringing him on.
2. What you tell your team when introducing him to them.
3. Your perception of the role of the consultant in your organization.

The general perception of the person being brought on is essential from these three angles. More often, we have scenarios where founders, or CEOs, believe and project all the work they are meant to do on the consultant, thinking consulting is like magic — you flip a wand and things fall into place.

As much as a consultant will work, it is essential that the structures put in place are properly maintained to ensure all the work doesn’t come crashing down.

We also highlighted how founders are a huge factor to the success/failure of a startup, the worse part of it is that some of them do not recognize the role they play in the success of what they claim to be building.

Structures are important, and the founder or CEO is responsible for putting this structure in place and ensuring it stays in place. If the structure is going to be worked on, it has to be something the head is able to communicate appropriately to every working or functioning unit within his organization.

Communication is the pixie dust.

In all, one essential to building great brands — yourself, business or other things — is communication. Communication is the sweet spot in all of these.

What do I know and how do I let people know what I know?

A lot of people believe talking to be communication, but you can have so much oratory prowess and still not know how to communicate.

Communication is ensuring the person you’re speaking to is able to understand. If that gap is not bridged, then communication has not been made.

Conclusion.

Conversations with Deji always light up dark tunnels in my mind as light is forced through many pathways I don’t get to use too often. His conversations force me to think at his scale and I am grateful for that.

This is one of such conversations that will contribute to how my year turns out eventually, I am sure of that.