How to Scale Revenue Without Marketing Spend Using Product-Led Strategy | James Nelson

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I'm Chef Maylin from ADA Club in West Home Nature-led Australian Wagyu. Hi there. Are you a professional or business owner? Teaching investors or sharing big ideas about your presentations just are not keeping up with your vision. That's exactly why I use Gamma app or proud partners. Gamma is an AI-powered platform that helps you build beautiful decks, documents and web pages in just minutes. No complicated formats in, no design headaches, just clean, modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly and professionally. If you want to present like a pro, sign up today using the tools tag link in the description below. Let's start creating smarter with Gamma app. We're live ladies and gentlemen. You once again welcome to the Kingdom Spotcast and today I've got with me a very very special guest. Fighting out of somewhere in the world, make welcome James Nelson. How are you James? This is the part where it's like wow. When you say you have a very special game, I mean I don't think I'm special. Okay we went to eat first together. That is the buyers brother. That is the buyers brother. Okay big shout out to our mutual friend, Camilla O'Kela. The moment she told me I have somebody for you. And then she said James Nelson. I was like well that sounds like a foreigner. And then she was like no he went to OAU with us. I was like okay come on. Give me his profile. Let me reach out to him. And then that is how this happened. So shout out to Dabby. And of course shout out to you yourself as well. So I finished in 2015 right. But I guess we were like around, oh wow same time. So it means that if you were in OAU around the same time, the lights of our Asha Ke fire boy, Chin Koeh Kon, Arulie. I was actually. Wow. It was. I remember I remember me saying I knew fire boy. And you know I knew fire boy from OAU. He used to, he used to borrow my friend's guitar. He used to borrow my friend's guitar once in a minute. And he felt he was like I mean. I was like stop him. I mean it's always incredible to know that you know. And I think anybody watching this but that you also know that life is such a wholesome journey that you have to be incredible with everybody. I mean imagine I was like hyping up fire boy and we're like really good friends. I mean as of today I'm like eh. I don't think he knows I exist other than you know. I went to play with family's guitar a lot. Yeah but that's I mean interesting times to be honest. And it's good to see that you know over time. Growth happens. People are at an incredible place. Just you see that growth happens and it's not a one day thing. So the fact that you are not you know as a day to day to day is not happening. It means that you know everybody join essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You might not be where you want to be but you're not where you used to be. And that's what I like to tell people. I am not where. And of course you're not where you used to be brother. Well we've been at 800,000 users for a minute and we're like we're trying to scale that up. I'm not pushing. We're making changes. So pretty much three points. It's a platform that helps writers and creators monetize their work and also helps this new age consume more written content. So people don't read as much. People are not reading fiction. They're not reading novels but they're speaking more of. They're reading all those lies. I wish I could call out some food that right. Lies. Like Gagemen. Right. There's something that when I read I'm like Ted Slide or Ted Sweets. Right. I'm really like this is a lie. This fiction. What X-Ricense won that when they are doing all these cooking videos they were like so I was sleeping with my sister's husband and then once I just hear that one I'm like what happens this is not this is a lie. They were like like a cook that they were like so my sister calls me sleeping with her husband. They're putting my gear. They're putting the salt. And then you know I told her husband and now told her that I'm like man you're a lie. I think that's the hell. People read those things more. Right. It's fiction. Right. I said right to my instrument. It's fiction. And then the worst one. Worst one are the AI generated stories for me personally. But how do you tell if it's an AI generated story. Let's go there. How do you tell. Bro. Yeah. I am AI myself. I'm the human AI. Do not forget. My name is Adi Mo Lai Simeme. Right. So. But there you know. Like. Like. Like. Everybody like. Where is the. Yeah. Because. The reason why I said that. Right. Is that. Most times. For instance. The most. Fundamental. You open a website by anybody. I know. It's. It's an AI website. It was. Right. So. It's. Easy. It's just easy to know. So. It depends. If. It. Is. the Oxford commerce, you get it. You can see right through the bullshit, right? Like, you know, this is AI. And of course, if it is, you know, audio visual, right? The voices, you know, I have, you know, used a lot of AI tools. I have AI, you know, tools, tax as my, you know, partners, right? I have affiliate partners. I have probably like 20 of them, you know, from Gamma to Webinar Geek to, you know, I have a lot of tech partners. You get it that have paid, you know, partnerships with us on this podcast. So it's very, very easy. I think from experience, can easily decipher whether something is AI generated or not. And that's one incredible thing we're doing on, because we think on StoryPod, because I think that in future, that we're pretty much reading original content from people that actually write, because on StoryPod, we have different models that say, you know, so all the stories that are displayed on the homepage, they are going to like filter it out, so then that, oh, AI knows that this is an AI-rich story, so we have to filter it out. If you copy and paste things as well, we want authentic writers to find their voice. We want authentic stories to be read and told. It's on Twitter, on threads. People reading tiny, tiny bits. I mean, if I write a story about my time in OAU, right? And I put it on a blog and I send it to everybody. Well, everybody work up past. But if I'm telling you guys that, actually, I knew Fireboy on what else they told, and I'm giving you guys these two, that's the, I got this day, right? They don't want to read more, but it's just like bringing it to the format and the style that you read is what we've done at StoryPod. And the beautiful thing is, we just released about 50 books from African classics, Ultramamander's works on StoryPod now. We have incredible line-ups coming up. Fermi Otetola's book is also coming in the coming months. Still having a conversation with him and Audition House on that. It's a massive business, bro. More autotot. Yes, incredible stuff. They're bringing their stories to the format that people want to read it. And you see that fundamentally, reading and publishing and writing story hasn't changed. But now we are bringing it to the recent generation, how we consume things. I can tell you, you read more stories. You read more gits from people's, or ourselves to Instagram stories. You know, all those stories where, you know, on Instagram, which is a tweet anyway, they are like, like two pages, two pages. Like one, slide two, slide three, slide four. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is a story. So if you continue like that, you actually write 8,000 words. All right, so the question is, can we take this format, right, and make it an entire experience of reading? So, and then think about what Spotify has done for the music industry, what Netflix has done for the movies industry. Now there's an original Netflix. Spotify for the podcasted industry as well, brother. Spotify for the podcasted industry, like. Yeah, yeah. Just cashed out Spotify checker, I think yesterday. Spotify is zero, they are good partners with us, bro. We're getting to the Spotify dollars right now. Shout out to Spotify. But then, you know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, invest that money in the top. Now it's in something for the... Nobody has done anything for the... It's a talk. Nobody has done anything for the writing industry to be... All right, nobody has done anything for the writing industry. We think that we can digitize that process and make that home where not everybody's going to get published into you, because not everybody gets into your record label. With this thing, an incredible song, you can put it on your Spotify. I mean, not everybody will get even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube, and then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube. YouTube movies are a huge big deal right now. So, it's the same way not everybody's going to get published into you. Not everybody is going to be discovered as well. But there's this platform where if you write an incredible story, it's there. But you can engage your audience and you can monetize from them. They can tip you. You can lock your stories. The beauty of it is about story points that you can't screenshot it. Right? So, it's super the next platform for lots of African stories and African creators as well. Amazing, amazing. I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you. Right? So, sit back while I give you flowers. I like to give people their flowers, write their life, you know? So, let's go. So, guys, today's conversation is a masterclass in building from nothing to something that people cannot ignore. So, James Nelson, product leader, web3builder, founder of StoryPod, a platform that's killed to over 165,000 users without marketing, PR, or paid growth. From leading product at global organizations to assembling and managing cross-functional teams, working purely on belief and vision, James represents a web leader or operator, someone who does not just build products, he builds ecosystems. This episode is about the mindset, skill set, and tool set at the highest level. So, how do you go from zero to one? How do you lead without control? How do you create demand without noise? Let us get into it. Once again, the man, the myth, and the legend, James Nelson, you walk up to the podcast. So, it's interesting, like the dynamics, you're always welcome, brother, you're always welcome. Just the myth about that, you know, we shared that background of, let's say, great effort, of the greatest effort. Whoa! So, I'd like for you to walk us through the journey from data analytics, right, and product growths into building StoryPod, like what have been those defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader? Okay, cool. So, walk us through your journey from data analytics and product growths into building StoryPod, like what were the defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader? Now streaming. Disney Plus invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six episode documentary. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The end of an era. And don't miss Taylor Swift, the era's tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Now streaming only on Disney Plus. Yes, I might not say product leader, I would say it's important to have so many capabilities and have a lot of experience. So, whatever you're doing, you have to have as much experience. So, I started accounting and I have a business background, which really much helps me know so many things about running the business. And then you look at my experiences. I started from, I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics for about, then I worked in Hellenic Coca-Cola. We also were revenue growth management, and then strategy there, then access user experience, really much done so many things. Where did you meet it brother? You worked at Coca-Cola? Yeah, I used to be at Hellenic. Coca-Cola Hellenic Butler, the bottling company. So, it's like... Wow, interesting. Yeah, so... Interesting. The last guy we had on the podcast was... My brother. The ex-president of Coca-Cola International, Ahmed Bosa. That was the last guest we had on the podcast. What a coincidence. So, we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show. Interesting, interesting. Sorry to interrupt you brother. I mean, within FMC is very... No, that's right. FMC is very cautious in terms of... I like the fact that everything we do there is very data-driven. So, you know, you want to sell X amount of cases. You have so much insights, what did we sell last year? What's the business plan this year? And what's the willingness to make? So, if you can compare across those three metrics, we can now say what's happening? What are we doing better? Is it... Are we increasing volumes? Are we selling more volumes? Are we selling less volumes? Did we increase prices? Are we giving more discount? You know, stuff like that. And it's so data-driven and that's one thing that I like about understanding how when a business is so transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill down. And I think that's what a lot of tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy data-drivenness. So, it's like, why did our volumes go down? Was it downtime? You know, what are the effects? It fits into one data source and then it's a tool that just shows, you know, if you have all those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so transparent for you to see the business. Was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem? Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, okay, if it was a staffing problem, did we lose stuff, did we gain stuff? But the infrastructure problem, our partner was down. And what business reporting, it helps you see the business, it helps you actually know what to improve on water trucks. I had that background already, right, which has given me the discipline on how to know what to track and how to run, how to just know. I mean, tech will say, oh, you're not StarMetric, not StarMetric. Before all that was happening in tech, they already had those things existing in the FMC industry, you know, where I also came from too. Right, so, yeah, my background has been more of discipline and also learning to use so many tools and learning so many things, right? And everybody should be, or every product manager, everybody should be product of so many learnings, right? Like, I mean, you know what, as you're on this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know what breaking fun means, you know what profit and losses you understand revenue, you understand the cost of your money. Exactly, brother, exactly, brother. So you're not just a- Like in my head, in my head, when you were talking, I was like, this guy's a blightest cost accountant and he's managed to get accounted from the FMCG background. That was just what was in my head, brother. Yes, bro. You know, exactly. Even as you run your podcast, you're looking at the streams, you know, at what point did they pick, did they finish watching, did they finish watching? Like, is there so much analysis that goes into, which is like, you know, it's not just Demola with a nice voice and knows how to speak well. It's a Demola with so many aspects of him that actually makes him run this podcast and runs it fundamentally well, right? So I think it's the same thing. I think it's- The business side is important. Exactly. So I think that's the same thing that, in terms of, you know, all the things that I've done, helps me to say, okay, when I said I was going to build this thing, because I always, the history of it is that I always just write on my WhatsApp status about everybody. Like I write about my colleagues, you know, I write about, like on my WhatsApp, I have to do this for who is sleeping with my man, who they bought phone for. Oh, what the? You know. Everybody's like, everybody's so close to that kind of gossip. It's like corporate gossip. And like this was like, like the fourth day's dream. I was just writing on my WhatsApp and then I used to use different names of like, Oh, Fumi and Chioma. I used to like, I was student and that. Everybody knew that they were like real life people in the office, like Damian, everybody. When I'm like, guys, come on. You know, it's just like, just a bit of like, stream, a written podcast and streamlining, just like casual conversations. And it had so much engagements. Some days I'll wake up to like a hundred messages. Some days I'll like stop this thing, and be like, James, you don't finish that story we were talking about yesterday. So what did this message do? Because they knew that they were like the people that I was talking about. And then I'm like, okay, people like to engage more in this style. You know, so how do we commercialize this thing? All right. And then pretty much teamed up, teamed up with a couple of people that have worked it in my career as well. But fundamentally, I always like to, and that's how we've been growing story for this. If this then works. Firstly, it's to say, okay, we have to build it up first. The app now says it does the basic thing. Once you do that is if we now have this platform that you can create story and share stories, what next? Then we need to be able to lock stories. Then we need to be able to pay for stories. And then, you know, if this then works, then works, then works. So now it's like, when we're done all those experiments integration, next thing was how can people across the world pay, right? For these things, do we want to integrate on an arithmetic progression, which will be slow, but we want to go geometrically, which is Web 3, right? So pretty much made the entire app a USC C type thing. We partner with base, we got on the base founders fellowship, and we're able to now do payments on it. So it's everywhere you are, you could pay for stuff with crypto. So it's like, okay, but fundamentally, if you backtrack, you have to build the first layer of this thing, then the second layer, then this. I mean, every founder says it, but in reality, we're still less than 10% where we're headed or like 10%. So we still have like 90% of the work to be done. We want to add voice, we're expanding to comics, you know, there's just like so many things, storyboard needs to do. We want to do a, you know, from Amazon, you can read directly on storyboard, those kind of tech layer integration, right? Where you can say, read this podcast, storyboard, yeah. Do you have an intent to integrate with Kindle or like, because Kindle is that aspect of Amazon that takes care of, you know, the books? Is that what it is? And of course, I think your, would I say, your model is a bit in line with what these guys do, medium, sub-stark and aura. So is there any plan to have any form of partnership or collaboration with those folks? I mean, well, yeah, the beautiful thing is we can all coexist. But those platforms do what they do best in long form. We bring us story style, social media style, which we think the new age prefers to read in, and which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores, closer to the Lagos and Abuja. So it means that if I write a book, or someone writes a book and you are in Benway, or you are in the North, or you are in the East, it's going to be as hard as importing it within a country. You know, you know, it will be very hard until it gets super pirated before you can sit in Abia, or you can sit in Chalawa, right? That's how bad it is. So, and it means that once bookstore is supposed to save six million Nigerians, it's not practical, but this country has 850 smartphone users. So it's like, we need to harness that bit. But then previously, the fear is if you do an e-book, people will screenshot and they will share it across themselves. Unfortunately, I was reading an article on Bella Niger, Ok Chico Fili, the co-founder of Okada Books, and I was talking about the experience, how to come back when the book was pirated. Right, and then it was quite sad when you had the PDF. But you don't see the same thing. If Don't Just Release a song today, right, it's going to be on the streaming platform, and you won't see people, you know, trying to, you can't actually record it out. You can't extract it out. I mean, if you go all the way out, you might not take it out, then it means that you will be liable and persecuted, because it means that you actually did a deliberate intention to actually... So it doesn't happen again with music, right? It happens more with... It used to before. So we've solved all of that as well. It used to, I remember, I remember back in the day, it used to, I think music... Wattree. Maybe... Yeah, bro! Ha ha ha ha! Bro! So that's where... Yeah, it's not very good. We know where we are headed, such that when you write a book, you know it's profitable. You know, I don't need to know any publishing house. I can put my story, the story is good. I put it on Storybook. People discover it, just read it, discover it. Everybody goes viral now on Instagram. I saw, I was watching this content, Great Touch. She used to have like 100 views, 200 views, all of us, and she has 600,000 views on one video that she did, which was, I think the one that was like saying that, if you filter tomatoes, I laughed hard. That's like, when you get tomatoes, there's this hack that you use whatever to filter it. And then, so that when you are boiling it, sorry I'm talking about it, when you are boiling it, the water will not be there. Right? Like filter the water first before you add it. And then she tries to filter it, and she discover that when she filtered the tomatoes, she said, one more guy listening to shafts. The only thing that was left was like, it was very sad, she was like, it's better I burn my gas than throw away this tomato water. So I mean, actually when you're viral with that content, do you have like 600,000? Like it's an opportunity for, I followed her, and she's growing, like she posts on that video, it has more views. So we want to do the same thing for writers. Right? So you don't have to, like it's like creating a platform for democracy, where the right stories get seen by the right people, and you become very big. And who knows, someone cannot approach you to say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right? We want to make this into a comic, and we want to make this an exclusive. So it's a hard work, but we know that if we do this right now, it creates a platform for Africans. So mediums, subs, and like- they don't pay Africans, they don't even pay Nigerians. Mediums that are paying Nigerians, she's seen money like last year, even Elon. Elon would change all the dynamics every day. Like tomorrow, he can wake up and change how people get paid. He's like, you're only getting money from people that pay me, and only verify people can get paid. Like, I mean, like, and so it's important that Africans take the book by the horn and build their own platform, which is what we are doing. And unfortunately, people are not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Metta? Can you hear me? Yes, I do. You're talking- Yes, I can. You're talking about somebody who sells bags, you know, paying money to Metta. So probably you're talking about the Metta verification. Yes. Yes, hold on. Can you give me- Can you pause for a second? Sure, sure. Yes, I need to take a call. Sure, we've decided AI cut this side. Yeah, hold on. Just give me a second. I need to take a call. Hi, teenager. Yeah, sure. Hello? Hey, I'm back. Yeah, we decided AI, we are back. Hey, Deema, you gave me the call. This is the only fact that AI is in reverse. And you were able to cut it, so I'm like, okay, kill. Let me just- Someone's come to my house and they have missed their way. So, yeah, I just said, you know what, since- AI, AI, AI, AI, AI. The AI tools have to be working for the body of your pain. Side is 400 and, what now? $438 for the year, but that's crazy money. That is crazy money you like. I'm sure you know how many people there is watching because imagine having to hire an editor to cut, cut, cut. We do, we do, we do. Yes. Is this horrible? Yes, no, bro. It is. But yeah, so where do you- Of course, you know. Unfortunately, did you- what? Unfortunately, I talk really fast, sadly. No, not a problem. Not a problem. I've done over 170 episodes. I've been with the good, the bad and the ugly. Never a problem. So, what did you say? That's impressive. We need to talk offline. OK, bro. OK, bro. Don't worries. OK. Riverside, we're back in. design. She delivered the perfect webinar. Webinar host webinars like a boss. Now you've been a founder myself in a founder. I can resonate with you on so many things, but there is one thing I want to talk about here. And of course, you spoken about it already. It's about hard work. Nobody likes hard work, right? But there's no substitute for hard work when it comes to building something from the ground up. So what would you say are the beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building products, especially when you're bootstrapping, building from zero to something? Well, there is, I think that I'll be honest with you because I've seen this happen too many times, right? I know for one that stamina is the most important Yeah, so stamina is the most important. That idea, you know, in the words of, I'm not that fantastic. I won't say something that they quote, but I'm not that guy. Right? That, well, my favorite quote of all time is, yeah, I'm not that guy. In the words of Winston Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. That has been my fundamentals. We started this business. Look at the emails that I sent my co-founders back in days when I'm like, you know, when I look at the conversations that I've had over time, when I tell my founders that, you know, even if it feels like we're failing and we're failing and we're failing, we need to pick up ourselves and not lose that enthusiasm in what we're doing so we can keep on the struggle and like, you know, we don't lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people have come, we're trying to get mobile developers to put it was hard, people have come to it, but I'm really overwhelmed to work right now. I need to go. Yeah. So as I was saying, right? So it's important that we don't lose enthusiasm. It's important that, you know, because it's true that a startup is a hypothesis or an experiment. They will people read this way if we do it. They might, they might not. If it's a hypothesis or an experiment, can we change it really quickly as we're given the surveys and the experiments happening? Can we tweak it again? Can we tweak it again? Can we tweak it again? Right? Can we see what's not working? So it's a, it's like, it's like so many things, like you are jumping down and then you want to. Exactly. So, but the idea, the most fundamental is that you don't lose that enthusiasm. There are so many times when we've come to a hard stop and we think that this is it. I just need to sleep and wake up and then we're like, action. Like I tell myself like, see, I mean, we're not making so much money. We've been, we've been on for a while, right? Because I mean, for what we are doing, we need to be at scale before we, you know, before our ads month starts coming in. And that's what happens with any brand, right? If you're building your code, you're going to be at scale before it becomes popular and dense. But if I say, hey, we want to partner content, your one million dollars is rolling in and then I'm like, oh, more. We think that, you know, it was overnight for you, right? So it's the same way. But the idea to stay consistent, not lose things. Then it, bro, two views. Yeah, you are. Yeah, exactly. So that idea, that thing that puts you on, right? That gives you that stamina and that enthusiasm is the most important thing. And that's why you should build what you love for sure. Because when, when you like to fail, in the midst of Sharon, you know, we just remember like, they remain that like the thing that I know, I will never casually write it on my status. And I lost the report because I can just casually write whatever I want to write. Right. So those things that made you fall in love with that thing, even if it's five views, you're happy that you have a fulfillment that you shot an incredible podcast. It was great. It was nice. Like it's not fundamentally that because if you think that you're going to make money within a certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it. And you never go to the end of it where, you know, you have to stay. And even if it has to be like 500 episodes that you do. So like, even if we know that we have to be on this without zero narrow for like five years, I'm going to get five million users. One of five million users, the day we say, everybody can run your ads on this platform. It changes everything. You know, it's an endless ocean of like, you know, such that, you know, that MKBHD who is super successful in what he does, like he literally said, if Netflix wants to give me a deal, no matter the price, he'll tell them, but like, it's like Netflix, like don't bother. It's like, no, like there's nothing wants to do on Netflix that we are not doing. I was like, like, you know, it's just a point of whatever you do. Where you can command that confidence in what you're doing. And again, but you know that every such that, you know, that every episode you turn out, you're going to make a million dollars from it without even pushing it. You just need to say, yeah, once I try to be a, you know, that's where you want to get to. Right. But you need to stay on course. You have to stay on everything. So it's the same as me. How do you have to stay the course? You need to stay. That's for me. Now that's. Bro, I'm happy. I'm happy you're Nigerian. I'm happy you're Nigerian. I saw something. I can't remember. We are so I think on social media, they say something, say consistency pays off. But you go on mad first before you pay. You go. You go on mad before you pay. Right. It's the same thing. So you remind me of that post. It is what it is. It is what it is. So I don't feel, I mean, obviously, everybody's were trying to fundraise. Everybody needs money. Like, you know, I mean, imagine you had a podcast studio in each country and we're flying to each country to shoot the podcast. Do you get what I mean? Like you just fly me down. That's what money can do. And we have a fastest studio. I'm a shooter like 60. That's all money can do. So everybody because we have rich quality content like that. You have access to it. Like that's all money can do. So everybody's fundraising. I mean, I would like to. Speaking of in studio podcast, the next episode after you is actually an in studio podcast. So you are you are literally manifesting it brother. Yeah, it's such an incredible. I'm not going to hide the identity of the guest. Well, that is. Exactly. It's interesting. It's interesting. I mean, so, so for us, you see that for us, we know that, you know, even if we're waiting on this course to get like five million, we know that the most important thing is to stay on course. I mean, look at Tim, we take much money to build and everybody knows to me. So I know every day I'm trying to know it every single day. I'm like, I'm never going to buy anything from you guys. Let's be clear. I want to say that. Addressive advertising. Every time I see them, I always like, I just go to it's irrelevant. Don't show it again. It's irrelevant. I'm tired. I don't have money to buy it. It's when I'm not shopping. I have money. I'm using a startup. So stop showing me incredible things that I know I would have loved to buy. But I'm like, you gave away me. So I, I mean, they spent three bill, right? But everybody won't be able to do that. I've downloaded the app. Maybe stick. Bible. OK. Well, where was I? What was I talking about? I was talking about the ability to stay excited, right? And I'm pushing and I mean, really much fundraising as well. But it depends on who believes in finding that, that, you know, who believes in what you guys are doing and who thinks that if you guys take consistency and they support you guys being consistent and they see certain, certain traits that you guys take consistent that you can achieve that. Right. And essentially knowing that, sorry, I'm just mentioning of thoughts because I'm like thinking of too many things. So is knowing that we support that idea that if you guys are persistent in doing this, they'll achieve their setting goal. All right. Because when you start doing something, you know that, you know, this thing has potential, it has possibilities. Right. So yeah, that's, kicking is starting out to stay excited. And I mean, consistency is good. But in your, in the words of a demon that you are mad. You go nearly wrong back. And you know, like, would I say a quick one, like for those guys that are watching us right now that are young founders, right? What you have just said is highly underrated, brother, right? Sees ten C is key and, you know, people watch and I use myself as an example. The very first, would I say, major brand partnership deal that I've got, right, was better help. And we all know better help is the number one therapy brand in the world. Number one online therapy brand in the world. And I remember when I first started out with podcasting, I used to admire the likes of Joe Rogan, you know, and, you know, the top podcasters in the world that are partners with better help. And I'll go to the BetterHelp website and see, or you can get 10% off courtesy of Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan visitors and everything. But when I got my own deal, the email that was sent to me, right, it read something along the lines of we are scouting for creators to add to the partnership, right? And then we've been following your workforce on time and we admire what you do. And it gave me some perspective as to people watch out for consistency. Like big brands only want to work with creators or founders that are consistent, that have demonstrated consistency. So it's very important for young people out there, whatever it is that you're doing, stay consistent, right? Keep pushing. A lot of people quit before they have the opportunity to see results. So I just put that out there. Coming back to Storyport, right? You actually launched the days from the ground up, right? And you have this obsession with solving problems. And of course that aligns with the product thinking. But also you guys have been able to scale to one hundred and sixty five thousand plus users with no marketing that I really caught my attention. So how did you guys scale to, you know, that massive number of users with no marketing? Like what were the decisions that drove that growth process? I like that same new marketing was not really that. But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect on growth. I'll say growth. So when there's a week, when there's a week, when there's a week, let's start from there. Amazing. You don't have money. You don't have money, right? You can't manufacture cash. So you have to get creative. If you can't afford chicken or fish in a soup and you need to make soup, you can use otanis like mushrooms. All right. So like, how can we do this? If we don't have money for this thing. So it's an incredible product. And from the fancy name is bootstrapping. Correct. And only you know how amazing it is because you know all the product features, you know the impact, you know what can happen, you know how you can ship in blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Now only you know that part. Neither does your users because when we do story put, we thought, yeah, now they don't have that can do this. Everybody would join. And we're like, okay, crickets refresh refresh. What's going on? You know that today I'm like, I see who writes in a lady who said on Instagram, she's like, she wrote a story and she was like, you can buy, you can see the completely part of the story for just 5000 naira. I would say, madam, take this thing to story put. I actually did a sense that I'm sure she has not read it, she has not seen it. Right. But you just be like, can't they see that there is this food that they can use that it better off? But yeah, so that awareness is important. And a question now starts to be, how can we get this awareness? How can we put this out there? And you know that money is on the table. So what can we do? One thing about the mind is that the mind will drive solution. Like, I don't, let me say my mind drives solution. Like if you tell me that this thing cannot be done, my mind starts to possess how to disgrace you. How to say I've done it. If you say, this thing is important, my mind starts to say, it has to work. So, away from that, let's forward. So we pushed it out and we're pushing out story put. Right. We're doing incredible work. We're putting it on our social media. You know, we're interrupting different conversations. So when we tweet something, you go on that, it downloads the report, you put a link to so many things. But again, play to your strengths. We have a technical strength in story put. We don't have make up marketing money. Everything you are seeing is for play. If you don't have money marketing. Now, again, we use the Lord of Art, take the last train and show that we ship the SDKs to the stores. So you see those ads that when you're going through, you see a before you touch anything, just install. The install comes up. Right. So it puts all the MMPs things to track such that in the event that we decide to run an ad where we can maximize even if it's 5000 error that we are putting, we can get as high as 5000 downloads from that. Right. So even if the money is not there, it's not huge money. It's just tiny money that we're putting in here and there. You know, how can we call a small creator and then to do something for us? But fundamentally, you want your product to create that network effect where the product is telling itself. There are some products that you use that you see that somebody just tells you about. There's no ads. You figure it out. Like, you know, it's like a two. I'm sure nobody you found reverse site. We've got nothing on ads to say download this shit. But I know that if I'm doing it, I'll get reverse. So that kind of by the way, we're going to side our one of our tech partners as well. By the way, we've decided on about tech partners for every side of you know, people who set up the riverside, we get something. So please sign up with our our referral affiliate link. Let me do a little bit of marketing. Oh, OK. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, we'll just do that for sure. I mean, we like to use so many tools until they tell us to pay. When they tell us to pay, that's where it's three for that. I that's in story for that. We draw the line. Because we also try to keep our costs as low as as low as as low as possible. Now our cost now monthly is not looking like a hundred K monthly that we spend is to report to these free Azure free slag free. We see that email addresses. We see that personal email addresses. I see is my although I have the means free zoo whole. So free zoo gives us five mailboxes. So that's how I have James. Our storyboard that's gone. Then we have like shit. Well, like that rocket team because we know that is like walking a desert water. So we do a lot of those things and then we've grown tremendously. One of the app areas of my life was when we just open Instagram randomly and we got it. We got three tags, you know, and one of them was like, I'll never forget Grace. She said she just did that video. No description. No. No, I never met her before. She just said, guys, I want to introduce you to an app when you can make money from day one. And she talks about this app is called storyboard. On storyboard, you can post your content that she like use my code and don't forget to use my code, my referral code when I saw it. I just screwed. I was like, guys, guys, guys, we're all sitting in the bed. This is we're staying in the house. Everybody was like when we say we're like and I'm like, consistency fight on. And then I reach out to her. I was like, hey, this is your ad is on point. She's like, yeah, that's right. She sent me the ad. She wasn't ready to charge anything. But later we tried to come to consider, right? And then, you know, the app will post the ad. It has to be new views. It has to be new reactions. Then we just I kind of go with money from my sister to say we need to promote this thing to be like, you know, say promoting it. We got 16. Posted a video. We got 16,000 downloads for as low as I didn't know what to say for as low like 16,000 because we were seeing it like, wow. So when we say I mean, that's in itself is marketing, right? So it's not like it's not like we spend like zero on it. It's just like what marketing have we done and how how was it? Who was the project? We spent, you know, we spent a very tiny amount of money from time to time. But other than that, from that, we started getting lots of India checks here and there. India checks keep us alive. We hired more because we had more developers come join us to report. I'm pretty much happy to include them. We've run ads very occasionally. Hello. Hi, brother, can you hear me? Hi, I'm here. I'm here. Fifty. It can happen to you as well. Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share something important. This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHall, a platform designed to make starting therapy easier. I know for my own journey as a leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel overwhelming. There are seasons where stress, uncertainty and pressure build up and you need a safe space to process it all. That's where therapy comes in. Therapy isn't only for people face and clinical challenges. It's the space to reflect, grow and find better ways to manage stress, relationships and personal goals. It takes courage to seek help, but it's also one of the smartest investments you can make in your mental and emotional well-being. That's why I'm proud to highlight BetterHelp. With BetterHelp, simply feel out a short questionnaire and get matched with a credentialed therapist in just a couple of days. If the first match doesn't feel like the right fit, you can easily switch therapists at no extra cost until you find someone who truly connects with you. Inside the platform, you'll also find tools like journaling and group sessions on different topics that can support your growth. And with over 7000 reviews and a 4.5 trust pilot rating, help is a platform you can rely on. So if you feel like you'd benefit from talking to a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com forward slash King Dames. That's BetterHelp.com forward slash King Dames to get 10% off your first month of therapy. Once again, this is a paid partnership with BetterHelp. And I encourage you to take that first step if you've been thinking about it. Sometimes the best investment you can make is in yourself. There is all those lies. I wish I could call out some food, right? Lies. You're on engagement. Right, guys, I'm doing that when I read it. I'm like 10 slides or 10 tweets, right? I'm really like, this is a lie. This is fiction. 10% warned that when they are doing all these cooking videos, they will be like, So I was sleeping with my sister's husband and then I just hear that one. I'm like, what kind of past? This is not this is a lie. Like a cook that they write. So my sister comes to me sleeping with her husband. They're putting my gear, they're putting salt and then, you know, I told her husband and now I told her that I'm like, man, I'm just a lie. So I think that people will reduce things more, right? It's fiction, right? I've said right too much into it. It's fiction. The worst one, the worst one are the AI generated stories for me personally. What do you tell if he's an AI generated story? It's Toyota Truck Month. Time to get a truck that works as hard as you do. 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But whether you're navigating a complex industry or trying to reinvent one, our breadth of banking experts are here to collaborate on market proven solutions. At Keybank, we're built to grow with your changing needs because we're not just here for the business you are now. We're here for the business you'll become. Re-imagine business as usual. Keybank opens doors. Learn more at key.com slash B2B. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed sponsor jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate see. According to Indeed data, sponsor jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply. Hi there. Are you a professional or business owner? Teaching investors or sharing big ideas about your presentations just are not keeping up with your vision. That's exactly why I use Gamma app. Our proud partners. Gamma is an AI powered platform that helps you build beautiful index documents and web pages in just minutes. No complicated formats in no design headaches. Just clean modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly and professional. If you want to present like a pro sign up today using the tools tackling in the description below. As that creates a smarter Gamma app. We're live ladies and gentlemen. You once again welcome to the Kingdom spot. And today I've got with me a very very special guest. Fighting out of Sorya in the world. Make welcome James Nelson. How are you James? Yeah. This is impossible. It's like wow. But I don't want to say I'll be very special. I mean I don't think I'm special. Okay. We went to eat first together. So eat.com is nice. So you see that that that is the bias brother. That is the bias brother. Like okay. Big shout out to our mutual friend. Dami Lolao Keila. Right. The moment she told me. I mean I have somebody. I have somebody for you. Right. And then she said James Nelson. I was like wow. That sounds like that sounds like a foreigner. And then she was like no. He went to he went to argue with us. I'm like okay. Come on. Give me his profile. Let me retell to him. And then that is how this happened. So shout out to Dami. And of course shout out to you yourself as well. So I finished in 2015. Right. But I guess we were like around. Oh wow. At the same time. So it means that if you were in all year round at the same time. The lights of our Asha Ke fire boy. Chin Kuwa Kon. Arulie. I was actually. I was. He was. I was. I remember I remember me saying I knew Fireboy. You know. I knew Fireboy from A'Woo. He used to. He used to borrow my friend's guitar. He used to borrow my friend's guitar once in a minute. And he felt he was like. I mean. He felt like he was stopping. I mean. It's always incredible to know that. You know. And I think anybody watching this. But that's also not that. Life is such a wholesome journey. That you have to be incredible with everybody. I mean imagine I was like hyping up Fireboy. And we were like really good friends. I mean as that's the day. I'm like. Hey. I don't think he knows I exist. All of that. You know. I went to go to you. All of that. I'm very good at playing with family's guitar a lot. You know. Yeah. But that's I mean. Interesting times to be honest. And it's good to see that. You know. Over time. Growth happens. People are at an incredible place. Just you see that growth happens. And it's not a one day thing. So the fact that you are not. You know. As a day to day to day is not happening. It means that you know. Everybody join essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What if you. You might not be. You might not be where you want to be. But you're not where you used to be. And that's what I like to tell people. I am not here. And of course. But you're not where you used to be brother. Well. We've been at 800,000 users for a minute. And we're like. We're trying to scale that up. I'm not pushing. We're making changes. So pretty much three points. It's a platform that helps writers and creators. Monetize their work. And also helps this new age consume more written content. So people don't read as much. People are not reading fiction. They're not reading novels. But they're speaking more of. They're reading all those lies. I wish I could call out some food. All right. Lies. On my Instagram. My engagement. Right. There's something that when I read. I'm like. Tetslide or Tetswitch. Right. I'm really like. This is a lie. This fiction. All that's we sent to one that. When they are doing all this cooking videos. They will like. So. I was sleeping with my sister's husband. And then once I just hear that one. I'm like. Worker pass. This is not. This is a lie. They were like. Like a cook that they write. So my sister calls me. Sleeping with her husband. They put him on the bed. They put his salt. And then you know. I told her husband. And now to that. I'm like. I'm like. I'm like. Right. So I think that. What the hell. I'm. What. People read those things more. Right. It's fiction. Right. OK. I've said right. It's a. It's a. It's fiction. And then. The worst one. The worst one are the AI generator stories. For me. Personally. Well how do you tell. If it's an AI generator story. Let's go there. How do you tell. Bro. Let's just touch it. I am AI myself. I'm the human AI. Do not forget. My name is Adi Mo Lai Simeme. Right. So. But that you know. Because of that. I thought. Everybody. Like. Where is the. OK. So. Yeah. Because. The reason why I said that. Right. Is that. Most times. For instance. I'm not the most. Fundamental things. You open a website by anybody. I know it's. It's an AI website. It was. An AI. But. It's just. It's just. Easy. It's just. Easy to know. So. It depends. If it is. On writing. If it's in writing. Right. It's very easy to know. Right. Because. A lot of them don't. Clear the long dashes. The Oxford. Comas. You get it. You can see right. To the bullshit. Right. Like. You know this is AI. And of course. If it is. You know. Audio visual. Right. The voices. You know. I have. You know. Used a lot of AI tools. I have AI. You know. Tools. Tax. As my. You know. Partners. Right. I have a few partners. I have probably like 20 of them. You know. From Gamma to Webinar Geek. To. You know. I have a lot of tech partners. You get it. That have paid. You know. Partnerships with us. On this podcast. So. It's very very easy. I think. From experience. I can easily decipher. Whether something is AI generated. Or. I mean. And that's. One of incredible things we've done. Because we think. On Storyport. Because we think that in future. That we are premium to reading original content. From people that actually write. Because on Storyport. We have different models. That say. You know. So all the stories are displayed on the home page. The algorithm filters it out. So you know. That AI knows that this is an AI-rich story. Save it out. If you copy and paste things as well. We want authentic writers to. Find their voice. We want authentic stories to be read. And told. It's on Twitter. And threads. People reading tiny tiny bits. I mean. If I write a story about. My time in OAU. Right. And I put it on. A blog. And I send it to everybody. Well. Everybody work up. But if I'm telling you guys that. Actually I knew Fireboy on What's House They Toss. And I'm giving you guys. That day I got to this day. Right. So it's not like they don't want to read more. But it's just like. Bringing it to the format. And the style that you read. Is what we've done at Storyport. And the beautiful thing is. We just released about. 50 books. From African classics. Ultramamamanda's works on Storyport now. We have incredible line-ups coming. Femi or Tate Della's books. Also coming in the coming months. Still having a conversation. We came out of the publishing house on that. Right. So. More publishing stuff. More author. Yes. Incredible stuff. They are bringing their stories. To the format that people want to read it. And you see that fundamentally. Reading and publishing and writing. So it hasn't changed. But now we are bringing it to the recent generation. How we consume things. I can tell you read more stories. You read more gits from people's. Or ourselves to Instagram stories. You know all those stories where. You know on Instagram. Which is it sweet anyway. There are flex. One slide. Two slide. Three slide. Four. Yeah. Yeah. That is a story. So if you continue like that. Probably you know you've actually read 8000 words. All right. So the question is can we take this format. Right. And make it an entire experience of reading. So and then think about what Spotify has done. For the music industry. What Netflix has done for the movies industries. Now you there's an original Netflix. Spotify. Spotify for the podcast industry as well brother. Spotify for the podcast industry. Yeah. We just catch that Spotify check. I think yesterday. So Spotify zero. You also. They are good partners with us bro. We are getting the Spotify dollars right now. I'm looking. Shout out to Spotify. But that you know. I'm not investing. I'm not. It's really. It's really. Invent that money. It's not. No. Common invest in us as well. Nobody has done anything. It's a strong. Nobody has done anything for the writing industry to be. All right. Nobody has done anything for the writing industry. And we think that we can. We can digitize that process and make that home where. Not everybody's going to get published in jail. Because I just. We know everybody gets into a record label. With this thing. An incredible song. You can put it on your Spotify. It can. I mean not everybody will get it. Even bought by Netflix. You can put it on YouTube. And then people are going to watch your movies on YouTube. And YouTube movies are huge big deal right now. So it's the same way. Not everybody's going to get published into jail. Not everybody is going to be discovered as well. But there's this platform where if you write an incredible story, it's there. Right. You can engage your audience and you can monetize from them. They can tip you. You can look your stories. The beautiful thing about story points is that you can't screenshot it. Right. So it's. It's super the next platform for lots of Africans to written African creators as well. Amazing. Amazing. I think this actually speaks to the intro that I wrote for you. Right. So sit back while I give you your flowers. I like to give people their flowers while they're alive. You know. So let's go. So guys, today's conversation is a masterclass in building from nothing to something that people cannot ignore. So James Nelson, product leader, web three builder, founder of StoryPoint, a platform that's killed to over 165,000 users without marketing, PR or pay grow from leading product at global organizations to assembling and managing cross-functional teams working purely on belief and vision. James represents a rare breed of operator, someone who does not just build products. He builds ecosystems. This episode is about the mindset, skill set and tool set at the highest level. So how do you go from zero to one? How do you lead without control? How do you create a man without noise? Let us get into it. Once again, the man, the myth and the legend, James Nelson, you walk up to the podcast. So it's interesting, like the dynamics. You're always welcome, brother. You're always welcome. Just the mere fact that, you know, we shared that background of, let's say, great effect on the greatest effect. Whoa. So I'd like for you to walk us through the journey from data analytics, right, and product goals into building StoryPoint. Like what have been those defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader? Okay, cool. So walk us through your journey from data analytics and product goals into building StoryPoint. Like what were the defining moments that shaped your thinking as a product leader? Yes, I may not say product leader. I would say it's important to have so many capabilities and have a lot of experience. So whatever you're doing, you have to have as much experience. So I mean, I started accounting, I have a business background, which, you know, pretty much helps me know so many things about running the business, right? And then you look at my experiences, you know, I started from, I used to be in tax consulting, then data analytics for about, then I worked in Helen E. Coca-Cola. We also had revenue growth management and then a strategy there, then access user experience, pretty much done so many things. Right. Where did you meet it, brother? You worked with Coca-Cola? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I used to be a Hellenic. Coca-Cola Hellenic, the bottling company. So it's like, it's just a bottling company. Yeah, interesting. The last guy we had on the podcast was the ex-president of Coca-Cola International, Ahmed Bosa. That was the last guest we had on the podcast. That was that Elko incident. So we're gradually becoming a Coca-Cola show. Interesting, interesting. Sorry to interrupt you, brother. I mean, everything is very, you know, that's right. FMC is very cautious in terms of like, I like the fact that everything we do there is very data driven. Right. You know, you want to sell X amount of cases, right? You have some insights, what did we sell last year? What's the business plan this year and what's the willingness to meet? Right. Compare across those three metrics, right? We just now say, what's happening? What are we doing better? Are we increasing volumes? Are we selling more volumes? Are we selling less volumes? Are we, did we increase prices with the script price? Are we giving more discounts, you know, stuff like that? And it's so data driven and that's one thing that I liked about understanding how when a business is so transparent on all the data points, it's easier to drill down. And I think that's what a lot of tech companies, tech companies don't have that culture of heavy data drivenness. So it's like, why did our volumes go down? Was it downtime? You know, what are the effects? So it fits into one data source and then it's a tool that just shows, you know, if you have all those complex reporting tools that actually makes it so transparent for you to see the business, was it, you know, was it an infrastructure problem? Was it a staffing problem? You're able to say, okay, if it was a staffing problem, did we lose staff? Did we gain staff? Was an infrastructure problem a partner? Was it downtime? What business reporting? It helps you see the business, helps you actually know what to improve on water tracks. I had that background already, which had given me the discipline on how to know what to track and how to run, how to just know. I mean, tech will say, oh, you're not some metric, not some metric. Before all that was happening in tech, they already had those things existing in the FMC industry, you know, where I also came from. Right. So yeah, my background has been more of discipline and also learning to use so many tools and learning so many things, right? And everybody should be a, or every product manager, everybody should be a product of so many learnings, right? Like, I mean, you know, as you run this podcast, you have an accounting background, you know, what breaking phone means, you know, what profit and losses you understand, whether you understand exactly brother, exactly brother, like in my head, in my head, where you were talking, I was like, this guy is a blightest cost accountant and his manager at accounting from the FMCG background. Exactly. That was just what was in my head brother. You know, you're asking me, you know, exactly. Yeah, bro. Even as you run your podcast, you're looking at the streams, you know, at what point did they pick, did they finish watching, did they finish watching? Like, is there so much analysis that goes into, which is like, you know, it's not just Demola with a nice voice and knows how to speak well. It's a demo with so many aspects of him that actually makes him run this podcast and runs it fundamentally well. Right. So I think it's the same thing. I think it's the same for me. Exactly. So I think that's the same thing that in terms of, you know, all the things that I've done helps me to say, okay, when I said I was going to build this thing, because I always, the history of it is that I always just write on my WhatsApp status about everybody. I write about my colleagues, you know, I write about like on my WhatsApp, I have to do this for who is sleeping with my man, who they bought phone for. Oh, what? You know, and everybody's like, everybody's so good to like that kind of gossip. It's like corporate gossip. And like this was like, like the fourth age dream. I was just writing on my WhatsApp and then I used to use different names of like, oh, Fumi and Chuma. I used to like, I was still doing that. Everybody knew that they were like real life people in the office. Like, damn it. When I'm like, guys, come on, you know, it was like just a bit of like, a written podcast and streamlining just like casual conversations. And it had so much engagement. Some days I would wake up to like a hundred messages. Some days I would like stop this thing. It'd be like, James, you don't finish that story we were talking about yesterday. So what did this person do? Because they knew that they were like, life people that I was talking about. And then I'm like, okay, people like to engage more in this style. You know, so how do we commercialize this thing? Right. And then pretty much teamed up, teamed up with a couple of people that have worked it in my career as well. But fundamentally, I always like to, and that's how we've been growing story pod is if this then what? Firstly, it's to say, okay, we have to build the app first. Right. The app now says it does the basic thing. Once you do that is if we now have this platform that you can create story and share stories, what next? Then we need to go to lock stories. Then we need to pay for stories. And then, you know, it's if this then what? Then what? Then what? So now it's like, when we're done all those into payment integration, next thing was how can people across the world pay, right? For these things, do we want to integrate on an automatic project progression, which will be slow or do you want to go geometrically, which is Web 3, right? So pretty much made the entire app a USC type thing. We partner with base, we've got on the base founders fellowship and we're able to now do payments on it. So it's everywhere you are, you could pay for stuff with crypto. So it's like, okay, but it's fundamentally if you backtrack, you have to build the first layer of this thing, then the second layer, then this. I mean, I mean, every founder says it, but in reality, we're not, we're still less than 10% of where we're headed or like 10%. So we still have like 90% of the work to be done. We want to add voice, we're expanding to comics, you know, and it's just like so many things, you know, storyboard needs to do. We want to do a, you know, from Amazon, you can read directly on storyboard. Those kind of tech layer integration, right? Where you can say, read this podcast, report. Yeah. Do you intend to integrate with Kindle or like, because Kindle is that aspect of Amazon that takes care of, you know, the books? Is that, is that what it is? And of course, I think your, your, your, would I say your model is a bit in line with what these guys do, medium, sub-stack and fora. So is there, is there any plan to have any partnership or collaboration with those? I mean, well, yeah, the beautiful thing is we can all coexist. Right. Those platforms do what they do best in long form. We bring out story style, social media style, which we think the new age prefers to read in and which we know a lot of Africans are using that social media style. I mean, fun fact, Nigeria just has 33 bookstores, structured bookstores. So it means that if I write a book or someone writes a book and you are in Benway or you are in the North or you are in the East, it's going to be as hard as importing it within a country, you know, you know, it will be very hard until it gets super pirated before you can sit in Abia or you can sit in Chalawa, right? That's how bad it is. So and it means that once bookstore is supposed to save six million Nigerians, it's not practical but this country has 850 smartphone users. So it's like we need to harness that bit. But then previously the fear is if you do an ebook, people will screenshot and they will share it across themselves. Unfortunately, I was reading an article on Bella Niger's Okichiko Fili, the co-founder of Okada Books and I was talking about the experience how to come back and watch the book was pirated. Right. And then it was quite sad when you had the PDF. And you don't see the same thing if Donjachi releases a song today, right, it's going to be on the streaming platform and you won't see people, you know, trying to, you can't record it out. You can't extract it out. I mean, if you go all that way to take it out, then it means that you reliable and persecuted because it means that you actually did a deliberate intention to actually, so it doesn't happen again with music, right? It happens more with, it used to before. So we've solved all of that as well. It used to. I remember I remember back in the day, I think music. Warp trees. Yeah, bro. Bro. So that's weird. Yeah, we know where we are headed, such that when you write a book, you know it's profitable. You know, I don't need to know any publishing house. I can put my story, the story is good. I put it on Storybook. People discover it just the way they discover. So I think it goes viral now on Instagram. I saw, I was watching this content creator. She used to have like 100 views, 200 views and all of a sudden she has 600,000 views on one video that she did, which was, I think the one that was like saying that if you filter tomatoes, I laughed hard. That's like when you get tomatoes, there's this hack that you use whatever to like filter it and then to like, so that when you are boiling it, sorry I'm talking about it, when you are boiling it, you don't want the water will not be there, right? Like filter the water first before you add and then stress to filter it and she's covered that, when she filtered the tomatoes, she's like, oh my God, this is in her shafts. You only see that one left. So like, you're very sad, you should like, it's better I burn my gas that trayways this tomato water. So I mean, actually we're in a very bad content, she had like 600,000. Like, it's an opportunity for, I followed her and she's growing, like she posts on that video, it has more views. So we want to do the same thing for writers, right? So you don't have to, like it's like creating a platform for democracy where the right stories get seen by the right people and you become very big and who knows, someone can approach you to say, hey, we want to make this a movie, right? We want to make this into a comic or we want to make this an extra, like, so it's a hard work, but we know that if we do this right now, it creates a platform for Africans. So mediums of stuff and like, they don't pay Africans, they don't even pay Nigerians. We just had to pay Nigerians shitty money like last year, even Elon. Elon would change all the dynamics every day, like tomorrow he can wake up and change how people get paid. He's like, now he's like, you're only getting money from people that pay me and like only verify people can do it. Like, I mean, like, and so it's important that Africans take the people by the horn and build their own platform, which is what we are doing. And unfortunately, people are not seeing it. Like, why would somebody that sells bags be looking for dollars to send to Metta? Can you hear me? Yes, I do. You're talking about somebody who sells bags, you know, paying money to Metta. So probably talking about the Metta verification. Yes. Yes. Hold on. Can you give me, can you pause for a second? Sure, sure. Yes. I need to take a call. Sure. We decide AI and cut this side. Hold on. Just give me a second. I need to take a call. Hi, Cheney. Yeah, sure. Hello. Hey, I'm back. Yeah. We decide AI, we are back. Yeah, you give me a call. This is the only fact that you're using reverse and you're able to cut it so I'm like, okay, kill. Let me just, someone's come into my house and they have missed their way. Yeah, I just said, you know what, since the AI tools have to be working for the body of your pain. The side is $438 for the year, but that's crazy money. That is crazy money. I'm sure you know the Metta, even when there's water. Because imagine having to hire an editor to cut, cut, cut, redo, redo, redo. Is this horrible? Yes, no, bro. So where do you talk about? Of course you know. Unfortunately, you did what? Unfortunately, I talk really fast. Sorry. Okay. No, not a problem. I've done over 170 episodes. I've been with the good, the bad and the ugly. Never a problem. So what did you say? That's impressive. We need to talk offline. Okay, bro. Okay, bro. Don't worries. Don't worries. Okay. Riverside. We're back in. Amelia wanted to host a webinar but the tool couldn't deliver. Zooming out, she turned to Webinar Geek, an expert solution for webinars. With seamless setup and intuitive design, she delivered the perfect webinar. Webinar Geek hosts webinars like a boss. Now, you've been a founder, myself been a founder. I can't resonate with you on so many things. But there is one thing I want to talk about here and of course you've spoken about it already. It's about hard work. Nobody likes hard work, right? But there's no substitute for hard work when it comes to building something from the ground up. So what would you say are the beliefs that people get wrong when it comes to building products, especially when you're bootstrapping, building from zero to something? Well, there is... I think that, I'll be honest with you, because I've seen this happen too many times, right? I know for one that stamina is the most important thing. Yeah, so stamina is the most important thing. That idea, you know, in the words of, I'm not that fantastic, I won't say something that they could, but I'm not that guy, right? Well, my favorite quote of all time is, yeah, I'm not that guy. In the words of Winston Churchill, success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. That has been my fundamentals since we started this business. I look at the emails that I sent my co-founders back in days when I'm like, you know, when I look at the conversations that I've had over time and when I tell my founders that, you know, even if it feels like we're failing and we're failing and we're failing, we need to pick up ourselves and not lose that enthusiasm in what we are doing so we can keep on the struggle and like, you know, we don't lose enthusiasm. There's so many times people have come, we're trying to get mobile developers at some point, it was hard, people have come to the airport, I'm really overwhelmed with work right now, I need to go. Yeah, so as I was saying, right, so it's important that we don't lose enthusiasm, right? It's important that, you know, because it's true that a startup is a hypothesis or an experiment. They, will people read this way if we do it? They might, they might not. If it's a hypothesis or an experiment, can we change it really quickly as we're giving the surveys and the experience is happening, can we tweak it again? Can we tweak it again? Can we tweak it again? Right, can we see what's not working? So it's like, it's like so many things, like you are jumping down and then you want to... And then you want to...Exactly. So, but the idea, the most fundamental is that you don't lose that enthusiasm. There's so many times when we've come to a hard stop and we think that this is it. I just need to sleep and wake up and then we're like, action. Like I come right up like, see. I mean, we're not making so much money, we've been on for a while, right? Because I mean, for what we are doing, we need to be at scale before we, you know, before our ads month starts coming in. And that's what happens with any brand, right? If you're doing your...you're going to be at scale before it becomes popular and dense. But if I say, hey, we want the partner content, your $1 million is rolling in and then I'm like, all more, we think that, you know, it was overnight for you, right? So it's the same way, but the idea to stay consistent, to not lose things, then it... Bro, two views. Exactly. Yeah, you are. Yeah, exactly. So that idea, that thing that keeps you on, right, that gives you that stamina and that enthusiasm is the most important thing. And that's why you should build what you love, for sure. Because when the likes fail, in the midst of Sharon, you know, which is to remember, like, the thing that I know I will never, casually write it on my status. And I lost to you, because I can just casually write whatever I want to write. So those things that made you fall in love with that thing, even if it's five views, you're happy that you have a fulfillment that you shot an incredible podcast. It was great. It was nice. Like, it's not fundamentally that... Because if you think that you're going to make money within a certain time and you don't, you get tired, you end it and you never go to the end of it, where, you know, you have to stay there. Even if it has to meet, like, 500 episodes that you drew. So, like, even if we know that we have to be on this without zero narrative for, like, five years, and we know that we're going to get five million users, we're not five million users, the day we say, everybody can run your ads on this platform. It changes everything. You know, it's an endless ocean of, like, you know, such that, you know, that MKBHD, who is super successful in what he does, like, he literally said, if Netflix wants to give him a deal, no matter the price, he will tell them, but that. Like, it's like Netflix, like, don't bother. It's like, you know, there's nothing once done Netflix that we are not doing yet. Because, like, you just get to that point of success in whatever you build, where you can command that confidence in what you're doing. So, again, but you know that every, such that you know that every episode you turn out, you're going to make a million dollars from it, without even pushing it. You just need to, yeah, once like, once like, throughout the PA. You know, that's where you want to get to, right? But you need to still, of course, you need to have a bridge. So, it's the same as, you know, we need to. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Bistro Cat Food. Cats, this ad is for you. Has your human ever called you picky, persnickety, choosy? If so, Perfect Bistro Cat Food is for you, with ingredients like wild caught tuna and pasture raised lamb, tantalizing textures, and delectable flavors that meet even the most discerning cat standards. You're not picky, you're just perfectionists. Perfect Bistro, Mealtime Perfection for every cat. 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I'm happy you're Nigerian. I'm happy you're Nigerian. I saw something. I can't remember where I saw it. I think on social media, they said something. They said, consistency pays off, but you go on mad first, before you pay. You go on mad. You go on mad before you pay. It's the same thing. It reminded me of that post. It is what it is. I don't even fear. Obviously, everybody who is trying to fundraise, everybody needs money. Imagine you had a podcast studio in each country, and we're flying to each country to shoot a podcast. Do you get what I mean? You just fly me down. That's what money can do. We have a fast studio. That's what money can do. Because we have rich quality content like that. You have access to it. That's what money can do. Everybody is fundraising. I would like to... Speaking of in-studio podcasts, the next episode after you is actually an in-studio podcast. You are literally manifesting it, brother. Yeah. It's such an incredible... I don't know the identity of the guest. That is nice, bro. It's interesting. You see that for us, we know that... Even if we are going to stay on this course to get like 5 million, 6 million, we know that the most important thing is to stay on course. We take what's called 3 bill, and everybody knows to me. Everyday I'm trying to unknow it. Every single day I'm like, I'm never going to buy anything from you guys. Let's be clear. Aggression, advertising. Every time I say I'm always like, I just go to... It's irrelevant. Don't show it again. It's irrelevant. I'm tired. I don't have money to buy anything. I'm not shopping. I have money. I'm using a startup. So, stop showing me incredible things that I know I would have loved to buy. But I'm like, you get what I mean. So, I mean, there's many 3 bill, right? But everybody, one way or the other, I've downloaded the app by mistake. Bible. Okay. Where was I talking about? I was talking about the ability to stay excited, right? And push on. And I mean, really one reason as well. But it depends on who believes in... Finding out who believes in what you guys are doing and who thinks that if you guys take consistency and they support you guys being consistent and they see certain traits that you guys take consistency that you can achieve with that, right? And essentially, knowing that... Sorry, I'm just imagining all sorts. Because I'm like, thinking of too many things. So, knowing that we support that idea that if you guys are persistent in doing this, they'll achieve their setting goal. Because when you start doing something, you know that this thing has potential, it has possibilities, right? So, yeah, that's... Kitting is starting out to stay excited. And I mean, consistency is good. But in the words of Adimola, you're wrong. Right. You go nearly wrong. Yeah. And you know, like... Would I say a quick one? Like, for those guys that are watching us right now that are young founders, right? What you have just said is highly underrated, brother, right? consistency is key. And, you know, people watch. And I'll use myself as an example. The very first, would I say, major brand partnership deal that I've got, right, was BetterHelp. And we all know BetterHelp is the number one therapy brand in the world. Number one online therapy brand in the world. And I remember when I first started out with podcasting, I used to admire the likes of Joe Rogan, you know, and, you know, the top podcasters in the world that are partners with BetterHelp. And I'll go to the BetterHelp website and see if we can get 10% off, courtesy of Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan visitors and everything. But when I got my own deal, the email that was sent to me, right, it read something along the lines of, we are scouting for creators to add to the partnership, right? And then we've been following your work for some time and we admire what you do. And it gave me some perspective as to people watch out for consistency. Like, big brands only want to work with creators or founders that are consistent, that have demonstrated consistency. So it's very important for young people out there, whatever ease that you're doing, stay consistent, right? Keep pushing. A lot of people quit before they have the opportunity to see results. So I just put that out there. Coming back to Storyboard, right, you actually launched the days from the ground up, right? And you have this obsession with solving problems. And of course that aligns with the product thinking. But also, you guys have been able to scale to 165,000 plus users with no marketing that I really caught my attention. So how did you guys scale to, you know, that massive number of users with no marketing? Like, what were the decisions that drove that growth process? I like that same new marketing, but it's not really that. But I mean, let's touch base on that aspect, on growth. I'll say growth. So when there's a way, when there's a will, there's a way. Let's start from there. Amazing. You don't have money, you don't have money, right? You can't manufacture cash. So you have to get creative. If you can't afford chicken or fish in a soup and you need to make soup, you can use otanis like mushrooms. So like, how can we do this thing if we don't have money for this thing? So it's an incredible product. The fancy name is bootstrapping. Correct. Now, only you know how amazing it is because you know all the product features, you know the impact, you know what can happen, you know how you can shape it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Now, only you know that part. Neither do the users because when we go to the store, we thought, yeah, now they don't have that kind of business, everybody would join. And we're like, okay, crickets, refresh, refresh, what's going on? You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I see people writing. This lady who said on Instagram, she's like, she wrote a story and she was like, you can buy, you can see the completely part of the story for just 5000 EUR. I would say, madam, take this thing to 3 people. Actually, did I say this? But I'm sure she has not read it, she has not seen it. Right. But you just be like, can't they see that there is this food that they can't use that it's better off? But yeah, so that awareness is important. And the question now starts to be, how can we get this awareness? How can we put this out there? And you know that money is on the table. So what can we do? One thing about the mind is that the mind will drive solution. Let's say my mind drives solution. Like if you tell me that this thing cannot be done, my mind starts to possess how to disgrace you. How to say I've done it. So if you say, this thing is important, my mind starts to say, it has to work. So, away from that, let's forward. So we pushed it out and we're pushing out story pods. Right, we're doing incredible work. We're pushing on our social media, we're interrupting different conversations. So on we tweet something, you go on that, you download story pods, you put a link to so many things. But again, play to your strength. We have a technical strength in story pods. We don't have make up marketing money. Everything you are seeing is for play. If you don't have money marketing. Now, again, we use a lot of our technical strength and show that we ship the SDKs to the stores. So you see those ads that when you're going through, you see a, before you touch anything, you just install. The install comes up. So you put all the MMPs, things to track. Such that in the event that we decide to run an ad, where we can maximize, even if it's $5,000 that we are putting, we can get as high as $5,000 from that. Right, so even if the money is not there, it's not huge money. It's just tiny money that we're putting in here and there. How can we call a small creator and then to do something for us? But fundamentally, you want your product to create that network effect where the product is selling itself. There are some products that you use that you see that somebody just tells you about. There's no ads. You figure it out. It takes a two. I'm sure nobody, you found Riverside. Riverside is not an ad to say download this shit. But I know that if I'm doing it, I'll get Riverside. So that kind of... Yeah, but Riverside, I want to buy our tech partners as well. By the way, Riverside, I want to buy our tech partners. For every side of, you know, people who sign up to Riverside, we get something. So please sign up with our referral, our affiliate link. Let me do a little bit of marketing. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, we'll test it out for sure. I mean, we like to use so many tools until they tell us to pay. When they tell us to pay, that's where StereoPod and I... In StereoPod, that's where we draw the line. That's where we're like, I'm paying. Because I mean, we also try to keep our costs as low as... as low as...as low as we possibly can. Our costs now, monthly, is now looking like a 100K monthly that we spend in StereoPod. So we use free Azure, free Slack, free... We see these are email addresses. We see these are personal email addresses. I see this is my... Although I have them, we use FreeZooho. We use those five mailboxes. So that's how I have James at StereoPod.com. Oh, so... Then we have like shared mailboxes. Oh, wow. But like that, we'll get them. Because we know that it's like walking a desert of water. So we still do a lot of those things. And then we've grown tremendously. One of the happiest things of my life was when we just opened Instagram randomly and we got... we got three tags, you know. And one of them was like, I'll never forget Grace. She said...she just did a video... No description, no... monthly, I never met her before. She just said, guys, I want to introduce you to an app when you can make money from day one. And she talks about... This app is called StereoPod. On StereoPod, you can post your content that she like use my code and don't forget to use my code, my referral code. When I saw it, I just screamed. I was like, guys, guys, guys, we're all staying in the house. Everybody was like... When we said we were like... And then, please, we were like consistent. We'll fight on. And then I reached out to her. I was like, hey, this is your ad. It's on point. She's like, yeah, that's right. She sent me the ad. She wasn't really into charging anything. But later, we tried to compensate her. Right. And then, you know, we posted the ad. It had to be new views. It had to be new reactions. Then we just... I couldn't go with money from my sister to say, we need to promote this thing. So we started promoting it. We got 16... We posted the video. We got 16,000 downloads for as low as... Wow. And they even know what to say. For as low as 16,000. Because we were seeing it. We're like, wow. So when we say... I mean, that's in itself is marketing. Right. So it's not like... It's not like we spend zero on it. It's just like, what marketing have we done? And how hell was it? Who was the project? We spent, you know, we spent a very tiny amount of money from time to time. But other than that, we started getting lots of Indian checks here and there. Indian checks keep us alive. We had more... We got more... We had more developers come join us to report. I'm pretty much happy to include them. We've run ads very occasionally. Hello. Hi, brother. Hi, I'm here. I'm here. 250. It can happen to you as well. Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share something important. This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHall, a platform designed to make starting therapy easier. 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And with over 7,000 reviews and a 4.5 trust panel rating, help is a platform you can rely on. So if you feel like you'd benefit from talking to a therapist, visit BetterHall.com forward slash condamned. That's BetterHall.com forward slash condamned to get 10% off your first month of therapy. Once again, this is a paid partnership with BetterHall. And I encourage you to take that first step if you've been thinking about it. Sometimes the best investment you can make is in yourself.