Episode 10: JR Kanu

Thriving Nigerian Entrepreneurship with JR Kanu, Founder CEO of REACH 

The COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for a huge swath of the global population. This is especially true for families and individuals living from paycheck to paycheck. One major component that can make a difference in how people grow their wealth and manage their money, is financial literacy. This week on the show we sit down with JR Kanu, Founder and CEO of REACH, a technology company based in Lagos, Nigeria, to talk about how he turned his back on a great opportunity in America to build a legacy in Nigeria and what he’s learned about himself, entrepreneurship, and tech, over the course of his journey. JR expands on why it was so important for him to return to Nigeria after studying and working in America, as well as why the impact of other successful entrepreneurs in Africa was so inspiring to him. Tuning in, you’ll hear JR expand on the founding of the company, how it started as a credit scoring algorithm, and why they made an important shift to helping Africans across the continent better manage their finances. He also shares how his faith helped him to not make decisions based on fear, and how his wife helped him stay the course when he doubted the important work he was doing. Tune in to learn more about JR’s journey, the importance of investing in Africa, and how REACH has helped thousands of individuals improve their financial lives!

Episode 10: Show Notes

Key Points From This Episode:

•   Introducing JR Kanu, the Founder and CEO of REACH.

•   How long REACH has been running and the scale of their audience.

•   How REACH started as a credit scoring algorithm, and how they’ve changed.

•   How REACH realized it had a responsibility to the people whose data they were using.

•   Why REACH has put a pause on lending and how they are prioritizing financial literacy.

•   The concept of Black Tax and how it affects generational wealth and wealth accumulation.

•   The questions posed by REACH’s audience and the cumulative process of answering them.

•   How to find the balance between focus and being adaptive as an entrepreneur.

•   JR’s connections to America and Africa and how he felt compelled to serve African consumers.

•   Why JR declined a very appealing offer from Amazon to continue his work with REACH.

•   JR’s relationship with his wife and her enduring support of REACH’s mission.

•   How JR’s faith has helped him not make decisions based on fear.

•   JR’s hopes for a broader conversation around Africa and the positive associations he wants to build and impart when it comes to the African continent.

•   What it means to have a good relationship with your homeland and what JR observed about families who had built their business at home.

•   Some of the long-term benefits that JR hopes to see for users of his product.

•   How Afua Osei, a fellow business school graduate, helped JR get an important new perspective on his business.

Tweetables:

“It's really difficult for a lot of Black communities across the world to build generational wealth that gets passed down because you're often having to support the people who helped you get to where you are.” — JR Kanu [0:06:49]

“So there were other things that drove me to be here, but then, it was that, six years later, when everything is coming apart, you're like, does this still make sense? I don't know that I can say my courage was as strong as it was in 2014 as in 2020.” — JR Kanu [0:13:58]

“The people who I noticed had really good experiences and linkages with their homeland, if it was an African homeland, tended to be people whose parents were entrepreneurial, who had built something and created a new reality in the midst of what might seem like a lot of dysfunction.” — JR Kanu [0:15:34]

“I want to see these businesses be able to employ more people and give people better incomes that can change their lives. I want to see more people able to act. We're starting to see the shift, where especially in tech, young Africans are able to move anywhere on the planet and get good work because they're just so talented.” — JR Kanu [0:24:58]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

JR Kanu on LinkedIn

REACH

Afua Osei

Afua Osei on Instagram

Jeremy Utley

Marcus Hollinger

[TRANSCRIPT]

EPISODE 10

“JRK: I gave up what most would consider a really awesome offer from Amazon and at some point actually, you know them, a VC that was launching in San Francisco. To do this, this was, I felt very, very called and drawn to creating something on this continent. I moved back to do it. I didn't want to give my, what I considered at a time, my best early years of no crazy work hours to something else when I could be doing this.”

[00:00:29] JU: Welcome to The Paint & Pipette Podcast. My name is Jeremy Utley. It's my job to illuminate the tactics of world-class performers across domains. As a day job, I teach at the Stanford d.school helping students learn what it takes to come up with ideas. I've realized, I need to stay in the classroom learning myself, and this podcast is my classroom.

[00:00:52] MH: Hey, hey. I'm Marcus Hollinger. I lead Marketing and Creative at Reach Records, an Atlanta-based independent record label. I'm also co-founder for Portrait Coffee, where we are seeking to reimagine the picture that comes to mind for folks in specialty coffee. I'm so excited to pull up my desk, alongside my good friend and fellow learner, Jeremy. I think, y'all are going to love what we have for you this season.

[00:01:23] JU: We've got some amazing stories on deck, and we can't wait to dive in and learn alongside you.

[00:01:27] MH: Grab your pipette and your paint brush, and let's make something beautiful together.

[00:01:37] JU: Today we talk with JR Kanu, Founder and CEO of REACH, a technology company based in Lagos, Nigeria. JR, tells us about how he made the decision to leave a safe career path and build his own venture. He talks to us about his incredible vision to make his homeland the place people want to come visit. The importance that role models have played in shattering boundaries and raising his career ambitions and level of expectations of the impact that he wants to have on the world. It's an amazing conversation that touches upon things like faith versus fear, conversations that change the trajectory of a business, the support systems like, wives and families. You're going to love it. I'm excited for you to listen.

[00:02:27] AH: Hearing about JR Kanu’s story today was super inspiring. Someone who left the safety net of corporate America with a lot of promising career opportunities to go back home and build an economy and to build systems that helps make the homeland where he's from more attractive to other people. I think just his perspective to, and also his desire and self-awareness to know that, yeah, it's about providing solutions to help better the continent, but also in a way that's sustainable for business. This is self-awareness. A lot of good conversations, learn a lot from.

[00:02:59] JU: Let's dive in. JR, maybe just by way of introduction, would you for folks who aren't familiar with you, or your work, would you just give us the brief 30 second introduction.

[00:03:11] JRK: My name JR Kanu. I am the Founder of a company called REACH, no relation to Reach Records for the record.  REACH is a tech company founded in Lagos, Nigeria. We help young people figure out their personal finances and their career period. This the driving force behind it for me now is the realization that after basic health, figuring out what little money you have, in many cases for people who live on the African continent, and honestly, just like Black people, period, but figuring out what little money you have, how to stretch it to make it work. Also how to figure out the tips and tricks to make more of it is really, really important.

[00:04:01] JU: Tell us, how long has REACH, have you been running the business? What's the scale of your audience now?

[00:04:09] JRK: REACH was started in 2016. To tell the story, I think I should probably start at the beginning by saying REACH was meant to be the super cool credit scoring algorithm. The plan was to become a TransUnion, or Equifax, figuring out how to, like taking a lot of transaction data and deciding whether or not a person is credit worthy. So the beginning, the way we started off by looking at our users, because we collect this data through an app, because we give people this free app to figure out their finances, and on the back end, we're creating this algorithm.

In the beginning it was all about the credit scoring algorithm. We're like, it's good that we have the personal finance stuff there, but we're company, we're corporate, we have goals, we want to be big boys and big girls, let's go do the thing. We're building algorithm, algorithm, algorithm, algorithm. Then people start asking questions. They're asking questions about how they should, you're telling me all the stuff about my spending, but how should I be spending? It's great, you're telling me that I'm not doing well, but how should I be spending? I'm sure we'll get to the meat of that later, but the product is accessible across Africa, but our biggest markets, our biggest concentrations are people are in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.

That's, again, you’re thinking algorithm, I need to go to those markets. I can build out the credit side, and people are asking you life questions, and you realize that you'd be not a nice person, if you don't figure out how to answer those life questions, given that they are helping you build your company. So you start answering these life questions. Next thing you're writing a book about it. Next, they're asking you more questions. Next thing you're – so one thing leads to another and today, which is actually, we've hit pause on lending, because we strongly and firmly believe that people need to understand the personal finances before anyone comes to give credit. It's really dangerous and potentially perverse incentives to give credit to people who are not ready or who are not aware of what's going on really, when they get credit.

So today, we are a group of about 100,000 people across the continent, 64,000 of them are under the age of 35. So I considered by all accounts youth. I think maybe a different way to think of this is, just on the continent in general of which we are a subset. Four out of five people are younger than the age of 35. Three and four about 75% are taking care of someone who is not a child of theirs. We joke about the Black tax, if you are Black, you've probably heard this, if you aren’t Black, welcome to this world.

This idea that it takes a village to raise a child, but then eventually, the child needs to raise the village. So is this, it's really difficult for a lot of Black communities across the world to build generational wealth that gets passed down, because you're often having to support the people who helped you get to where you are. That's not a bad thing, but sometimes, in general no one is planning for the Black tax, no one is telling you how to deal with it. So I think that's one of the things that also holds people in those cycles, just financial rigidity.

[00:07:11] JU: One question I got to ask is, how long were people asking you questions before you decided you need to answer? I mean, you talked about whose all algorithm, algorithm, algorithm. At what point, because I find in my interactions with founders, a lot of times they go, actually people been asking us for this for a long time, and we just finally got around to doing it and that's the real business –

[00:07:30] JRK: I'm not proud of, I’m still not proud of this, because –

[00:07:32] JU: Tell us about what it was like to be thinking you were building one thing, be hearing – and you got it on the one hand it entrepreneurs got to be focused. On the other hand, you got to be adaptive, right? How did you strike that balance? What was it like for you?

[00:07:46] JRK: It took us probably four or five years of my life, but we started answering them in two years. It took us two years to start answering, so we had a newsletter. Then responses to the newsletter, led us to writing a book. After three years, we wrote a book, but we're still trying to push the credit scoring thing. Then 2020 hit and then we saw just how devastating, well two things how devastating COVID was for people, because there's just, they haven't built any safety net. Those who had been listening to us were like, “Yo, thanks because we made it. We're not crushed by COVID, because we were planning. So thank you for that.” We’re like, “Okay, man. Maybe there's something here.”

Then when the investment dollars dried up for lending and people who are relying on that, as the way they think about how to do life.

[00:08:30] AH: I'm learning more and more and every plan, like you have to have a plan, but you don't hold it so tight or you're blinded by things around you that are changing. You have to huddle up plan, you have to a wink eye, like okay, what's really going on over there? It takes humility to just even have that self-awareness. Happens all the time on my side, man. Don’t hold your plans so tight. Love it.

[00:08:56] JU: I like the point of humility. That's so true. I know, you mentioned me when we were chatting on the phone the other day. How your wife who's from New York, is that right?

[00:09:04] JRK: Yeah.

[00:09:05] JU: Your wife, she wasn't sure about the whole Nigeria thing when you guys came, but then you talked about how at some point you became unsure about the business and she was the one who is encouraging you.

[00:09:16] JRK: Right.

[00:09:16] JU: Does that intersect with these realizations at all? If so, how?

[00:09:20] JRK: My wife is super giving, she's fantastic. Anyone who meets her loves her. I'm the lucky one who got to marry her. When we were dating, she came to visit and I mean, if you've heard about Lagos, Lagos is powerful. It's vibrant. I mean, all the great music is coming out of there now, just saying, but also when you're coming from the structure and predictability of life in Westchester, you’re like, excuse me what's going on here? Why exactly is this happening?

[00:09:50] JU: Imagine there that –

[00:09:53] JRK: So both of us are believers with people of faith. One of the first things you learn to do is not to live by fear. If there's anything I'm ever going to take away from having faith, it's I cannot make decisions based on fear. I don't want to live that way. It's too short sighted. So I said to her, I'm not forcing you. I'm not saying, this is not an ultimatum, but I do need you to figure out internally if this is motivated by facts or fear. What is it about this that is so scary? If it is scary, does that mean it's unknown essentially, because I felt and continue to feel very called to building a company that serves the African consumer.

I mean, REACH is actually a US company, because I still do see myself in many ways as very, very connected to the US. I was like, the drive is for the audience, is for the active consumer. I was letting her know, this is where I am, this is what I think I meant to be doing. I mean, I gave up what most would consider a really awesome offer from Amazon and at some point, actually you know them, a VC that was launching in San Francisco. To do this, I felt very, very called and drawn to creating something on this continent. I'm moved back to do it. I didn't want to give what I considered at the time, my best early years of no crazy work hours to something else when I could be doing this.

She had a lot of talks with her friends and her mentors and came out and said, this is, we're going to do this, because she actually had a lot of peace about the decision. My wife, like I said, great extrovert, she has all the – she literally runs our social calendar in Lagos. I just come along for the ride, but then at the end of 2020, when things just had gone really, really south. This is when we had realized that this credit thing is not where we're going to be. I was like, “You know what? We've done this thing. We’ve given our best shot. Time for America. Let's go. Let's leave. Let's pack up. Let's go.” She was then the one who said, “Mission, vision, big picture, calling.” – I don't think this is how this goes. I don't think that's the end of the story for you.

[00:12:01] AH: Wait, so she gave you a little bit of your medicine, the whole freaking fear thing.

[00:12:03] JRK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think, her thing was also if you do this, you will not like yourself. The person you become, I don't want to see that person, because I know how you are when you are alive with stuff. If you let fear or defeat, translate itself into your choice, you won't like yourself.

[00:12:26] AH: That's super just amazing to see you had a very steady offer at Amazon, right? The fact that you were just able to just take that leap. It's just, it's unconventional, but I feel like there is something about the new age creative, the New-Age Creative Entrepreneur, where they're rejecting some of the standards of success that have been placed on us, not that some of those standards aren't good for most people, but it seems something in you was great, thankful, but I'm creatively wired for more.

[00:12:57] JRK: I don't want to put myself up as that cool guy, because that was 2014. It wasn't an easy ride, but 2020 was just, it was blow after blow, what else can possibly go wrong. Jeremy can speak to this. We've had our five year business school reunion, and you're hearing how much everybody else is earning and you know what you gave up to be here and all of that stuff starts to set and you’re like, I moved my wife from a really awesome career to a fraction of what she's earning. There's just a lot of, what are you thinking? Why are you doing this? Why is the choice that you are making? That you start to question. I would say that's where I was come 2020.

It was easy, the hope of what might be was easy to drive the decision to say no to an offer back then and other things that built it up well. I have a brother who is 12 years younger, and I've been away from Nigeria for so long. I barely had a relationship with him, so I really wanted this. So there were other things that drove me to be here, but then, it was that, six years later, when everything is coming apart, you're like, does this still make sense? I don't know that I can say my courage was as strong as it was in 2014 as in 2020.

[00:14:15] AH: Right. I still think there is something about generally people who step outside of that box, have a creative perspective in them, right? Because they're like, I can either paint this good and to build a building. This takes a little bit of creativity, obviously courage, yes. But yeah, if I can just park that for a second, talk to us a little bit about your knack for creating something and building something that –

[00:14:39] JRK: I think I better understand the question. Yes, to my mind, if I figured this out, I could actually create something that would mean a lot more than what I would be doing. I think it's about the meaning you would have not just for me, but the shorthand I would use back then and I guess still was, I really want people to come visit me. The way I looked at most relationships with the African continent was one of, well, I think they're super exotic and far away or I need to escape. If you are a visitor and you're a tourist, and it's exotic, and you get to enjoy stuff. If you are from here, many people from here want to escape and go to life somewhere else.

I don't want to have my entire existence be of my children looking at where I'm from, and be like, man, that exotic place, or I don't want to end up living there, or just having negative connotations, because the people who I noticed had really good experiences and linkages with their homeland, if it was an African homeland, tended to be people whose parents were entrepreneurial, who had built something and created a new reality in the midst of what might seem like a lot of dysfunction.

Using that short sighted lens to compare African nations to the rest of the world, given everything that we've been saddled with, to create the economies of the democracies we have today, longer conversation. I don't think, we don't get to deal with those realities. Everyone's looking at us, like what was wrong with your part of the world? Why aren't you getting it right? So for me, the one way to shut some of those conversations down was, here's what we did with very little.

[00:16:18] AH: That is amazing. One last point, Jeremy, where I wanted to, because I, when I said I was going to be in Lagos, I actually had to pivot and being UK, we had to meet with an artist actually from Nigeria, who was living in Lagos, who is a creative entrepreneur, who is an artist. He made this point, I think, what you're building with REACH is super inspiring. He said, most of the young — and he's 25, 26 — he said, “Most of the young people in Nigeria, are trying to get out of Nigeria.” What you're building is like, look, everybody has their own course, but fleeing to broader waters and settling here in the West, you're actually coming back and saying, “Hey, I want to create solutions, creative solutions, this reason for people of color poor African specifically to provide a better runway for them 20, 30 years now. That is super dope, man.

[00:17:10] JU: I wrote this down in my notes, and I put stars all over it. One of the best ways to shut down some of those conversations is to say, “Tada.” I wish the fingers could be captured, not that – There's no bad finger. They’re jazz hands. What JR did was jazz hands. Tell me, what did you observe? You said that people who had a good relationship with their homeland had parents who were entrepreneurs. Can you tell us about the people you had observed that with? Because that seems that was an interesting point of inspiration. I'd love to hear also, how it manifests in your mind as a tada moment at some point, but we can get to that. What was the particular family person that inspired you? How did you see their relationship was different?

[00:17:53] JRK: This realization grew over time. I just finished NYU. In a different life, I was a journalist. Again, maybe because I don't like to listen to good advice, I was like, I will not be joining my beloved magazine, Black Enterprise, just yet. I want to go and travel around Africa and meet different people, because I just had this itch. I want to understand, because I had left when I was 17. Most of my adulting, life was starting to happen mostly in the US. I was feeling more and more disconnected.

I visited Tunisia first. This is before Arab spring, and people weren't really free to speak and the young people I was meeting, you could feel it. It just wasn't free. In that sense, people didn’t care about what they're saying to this American-sounding Nigerian. Then I visited Ethiopia. Again, that sense wasn't there. Then I visited Kenya and Kenya and Ethiopia, they're so close, but the feeling, the vibe, it was night and day.

There, I met people whose parents were more in the, I guess, not civil servants. Definitely not. Just were better off economically. Their parents were running some NGO, or they're running a university, which I guess is also a non-profit. Then, I went to South Africa. The people that I had met happen to be more entrepreneurial. A lot of that was happening in Joburg and in Cape Town. I had this friend and his dad had built this really, really cool business. I met him at a conference, an African business conference. Then he was like, “Hey, come visit me in South Africa.”

There's this pride of, “Come see what we’ve built. Come see what we have. Come see what we have done.” It’s like, that is what I want my kids someday to feel about telling his or her friends. In this case, I do have some. Telling his friends, “Hey, come see what we’ve done. Come see how we live.” That was the first time it happened. Then from there, the big one happened in Ghana. In Ghana, I met these – I think, they were cousins I met. It's been a while, so I don't fully remember, but her business is still running. I believe, it’s Chris Christie Brown in Ghana, and she had just started. She had moved, I think, from DC, or Maryland, and she was starting this fashion line, which is it's great to see that 10 years later, it's still running.

She had that same, we're going to create something. It's going to speak about who we are, what we love. It's going to be iconic. That, that if I could bottle that up and sell it, that would be the thing, because it gives you the goosebumps. You know when we talk about your game-changing statement? It was that. I'm just like, that is the thing. That goosebump inducing, I guess, tada, again, look what I've done with this place that others don't see, but I've seen and I've created something remarkable. That for me was very important. Then, by then, it just became a pattern recognition thing of noticing those connections. Yeah, those are the, I would say, the key moments that launched after me.

[00:20:51] AH: Super dope, man. Just to understand, I think, there's something about seeing other models, man, of success was possible. I think, someone mentioned to me before a four-minute mile was just impossible less than 100 years ago. Until that record was broken, eventually, everybody started breaking – It's just like, seeing that. I think this is the point what you're building in Africa. What do you think the long-term benefits, or impact would be, your city, and your footprint as entrepreneur, as a creative entrepreneur, what are some of those down the road impacts continentally or locally?

[00:21:28] JRK: I'm going to go ahead and do this the old-fashioned way, which is the raison d'etre, why we do what we're doing, I am going to go full-on presentation mode and just talk to you about why I think this matters and how we're going to do it. Everything I've said to you about how adulting is – I don't even mean to be a believer. It's just the fact.  Because we live in the information age, where those who have can access information faster, if we don't do something, that gap between those who don't have and those who have will only keep going wider and wider and wider.

If I want to commit my life's work to helping people who may not have access, close that gap for themselves, or reduce the speed at which that gap is growing. There are a few things that need to happen. Now, long-term, I don't want these graphs to – I don't want these numbers to be this way. People living in extreme poverty at 34%. That's one in three. We don't need the world to look this way. Then, the next batch of people are earning under $300 a day. That's 10 bucks.

Literally, what you spend for lunch is what someone makes an entire day. We can definitely do better. Because what kind of quality of life are you living? What human flourishing is there, if you are constantly in survival mode? At what point do you get to be your best self if you are only ever thinking about how to make the next meal?

Yeah, when you eventually do escape that danger zone of falling into poverty, it's a lot harder to fall backwards than to move forward. I'm just like, can we fix that? Can technology and good design and drive, can we actually fix that? Then, at the very, very top, what does that look like? Because if only 2% of the population on Black economy right now is earning $2,000 and more, and yes, they are the rich people of the continent. Imagine if we could actually shift some of these numbers in a way that people are able to, like you said, dream, imagine what can happen?

Because how many great human ideas and inventions and game changers, like what – It's not just about the money. It’s about humanity being trapped, and spending so much time trying to survive that we miss out on all the creativity and everything. When I talk about why this matters, I don't see these numbers changing, because demographically we will continue to be a very young continent. In fact, the beauty of what I'm finding though, is maybe I have this right now, because my wife is African-American, and I'm Nigerian. The Black experience, it's different. It's diverse. On an economic level, it's actually very similar across the board.

When you look at the Black population of the United States, it's really young compared to the rest of the country. Same thing on the continent here, and you see that it's 80% under 35. What's happening with – who's taking care of the older population? It’s the younger population. Or, the fact that people need to figure out work and figure it out quickly, or else, because you don't have an uncle, or an aunt who got into investment banking, or consulting, you may never know what those things are, or whatever great opportunities there are to do stuff. I don't know. I'm looking over, actually moving over here.

Then finally, the more people we have creating businesses, the more people we're employing, the faster we can actually shift some of those numbers around. Long-term Ace, I want to see these numbers. I mean, I don't see them changing, but I want to see the meaning change. I want to see these businesses be able to employ more people and give people better incomes that can change their lives. I want to see more people able to act. We're starting to see the shift, where especially in tech, young Africans are able to move anywhere on the planet and get good work, because they're just so talented.

We're finding out as we didn't know before. There's a lot of talent being ignoring the economy. What does that look like, when the whole world realizes that? I am going to pause my preaching at that point and ask if that answers your question.

[00:25:31] AH: 1,001. Truly amazing. You're looking at things from a very zoomed out lens, you know what I mean? I think that's helpful. You're saying, hey, whether we change the world as an ambitious ploy, we're going to focus on what we can control and create moments of impact at this level, and try to do our part. I think, this is the way you're thinking as an entrepreneur is, that's how we create better systems that are sustainable, versus looking at this giant mountain and saying, “This is impossible.” You're like, “You know what? Consolidate these resources, these collaborations, let's put our energy here. Let’s move to Lagos. Let's address it. Let's build economies in.” This is going to set a blaze for that one person that has that tech creativity that may not have been able to be discovered because of the system he's in. I like how you think. Yeah.

[00:26:18] JRK: I will say that this level of one, the missional clarity, which we've identified started last year. The business design elements that I don't think we talk about enough. Yeah, we had great tech, and I know how to be a good product manager and a good designer, and I can create great tech. Turning that into a viable money-generating business is really hard. I knew that we had great tech. The only outlet for that I saw was credit scoring. Because what else do you do with transaction information? What else do you do with understanding how money moves and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

It wasn't until, well one, discarding that and then spending a lot of time, and I'm talking – it's taken nine months of several conversations with all kinds of people. It wasn't until recently that I understood my business, as well as I think I now do, because I was talking to someone who was helping me see all the different things. That was a network, when – If I didn't have the kinds of networks that I do, I don't know that I would have ever had that conversation that helped me see the business so clearly and turn it into.

Now, when I talk about reach, I see us as there's the app, there's our community, our content that we help people see and imagine and encourage and entertain. There's a research working. Now we do a lot of marketing and social research to help people understand what's happening in, I guess, in the marketplace, and then the events that we create. It took someone else looking into the business and me having access to that person that I could not afford, right? That's actually more, because she is a friend. I know her. Yeah. I know what we do to help create this.

[00:28:14] JU: Well, we got to hear about that conversation. It's different from where I was going to take us to wrap, but maybe just in the last couple minutes. You said, that was a network win. What do you mean, that was a network win? Tell us, what did this person see, and how did they see it in a way that brought you? Because you go, in one way, you're closer than anybody. If anybody can see it, it's you. Yeah, we know that's not always true. Tell me what they saw that you didn't see, and tell me what the circumstance was that enabled them to have a line of sight and speak truth to power, so to speak, to give you a new perspective?

[00:28:51] JRK: This person, if you are listening to this, her name is Afua Osei, and she has great content on Instagram. She is all about partnerships. How do small companies work with big companies? The big companies aren't doing you a favor, you are helping them achieve their goals. Come to the room and come to the table equipped with that knowledge. If you've been running a business for five years, and you're thinking, “I'm going to go do credit scoring.” Well, it's fine. I don't need a lot of people. When you pivot and you're thinking, “Well, I have these change my angle and do a lot more work around financial literacy and career development stuff. I think like, man a 100,000 is nothing. Oh, my goodness. I spent a lot of the pivot time bemoaning what I thought was a small audience base. She was like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. This pursuit of audience is ridiculous. What capabilities have you built? Let's start there, because that is what you take to the table regardless of the size of your audience. That was the first perspective shift. That I think –

[00:29:52] JU: Well, how did you even get into that conversation, JR?

[00:29:55] JRK: If I had returned to Nigeria by the same – We were both returning. I think, we both finished our business school degree at the same time and then moved back. Because we're all fresh B-school grads, in Lagos people are having parties. You meet. Would I have been one of those networks, if I hadn't gone to a business school? Probably not. That's one of those things that helps me be aware of just how lucky those of us who get these things can be. That's one.

Then two, we're friendly. We're on the same WhatsApp groups here and there, so we laugh at each other's jokes. She's a cool person. I'm a cool person. We're nice to each other. Then, she starts putting up this partnerships content on Instagram. I'm like, “This is really, really good.” I’m just telling her, “This is really, really good.” Just because, I think – Let's be encouraging. This really great. You're onto something here. When is your book dropping, essentially?

Then, when that shift is happening, I'm wondering, “I wonder how she would see what I'm doing.” Because I do think we need partnerships. At the time, I really thought it was, I need to figure out how to do sales. I thought that was my problem. I thought sales was my problem. When I called her I was like, “Hey, listen. I can't afford your fancy stuff. Because she's good and she should be expensive. What can we figure out? What can we work out that makes sense? She’s like, “Hey, listen. I know you. I know it's really hard for many people to charge their friends. We know that as creatives. This is a thing that we all struggle with.”

She was like, “We'll figure something out, but let's start with just what's going on.” She listens. I talk for an hour and a half. I'm talking deep life, here's what's going on, here's the business. She comes back a couple of days later. She's like, “This is your business.” That's how it happened. She's like, “I think, you have four arms of this business. I think they're really the core of what drives you. She did that. It's almost like, she did the empathy work. When you use design thinking speak, and then she did the unpacking. It was like, here your –

[00:31:54] JU: Might we say, tada?

[00:32:00] JRK: I was like, “Yes.” I think. I digested what she had done in a couple of maybe minutes. It took me a whole week, because I was like, “How did I not see this??” Then again, she’s like, “Yo, what's the point of the morning not seeing this? Let's just get to work. It's there and now, do you agree with it?” It’s like, I had four different aspects of the business already built, pre-built, ready to go and I just didn't know it. Yeah, that's where we are today.

[00:32:26] JU: It's incredible. Incredible. JR, we're huge fans of what you've done. We’re in awe of your persistence and resilience and humility. I love your dream. I love seeing how doors have opened up as you have remained persistent. Seeing how your wife helped you, seeing how the community has come around you and supported you. I'm really excited to see you achieve your vision. It's an incredible vision you've got.

[00:32:55] AH: Thank you very much.

[00:32:57] JU: Yeah. Thanks for joining us.

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