The story of Kabir and Mr. Ade Oduwole - Part 1

'I need your help sir.'

Hi guys,

Hope you are well. I’m doing okay, Alhamdulillah.

I write this at 9:49 am on a chilly Sunday morning, curled up on the couch with a slight headache. Lmaoo e fit be hunger, e go soon comot.

I’ve had one of my most ‘restful’ weekends in a long time. You see, after spending most of the past few weeks with barely any proper breaks, I resolved to catch my breath this weekend. It became very clear to me how important this was when my Project Lead, who literally disappeared for about 6 days, confessed to me that she had been burnt out.

And so I closed my laptop at about 6:30 pm on Friday (without finishing my tasks for the week) and have not done anything productive since then. Instead, I have seen No Time To Die (disappointing end but worth the watch), read a little, and spent maybe 10+ hours listening to podcasts and YouTube talks.

I have also spent several hours on those ‘meh’ things that need to be done - washing my bathroom, household shopping, folding clothes, cooking, ironing for the week, etc. To be honest, I don’t even mind. Just having the ifokanbale to do these things is a blessing.

** side note:

I was positively overwhelmed by the number of ‘goodwill messages’ that I received in the past week. ‘HAMEED DON’T BURN OUT’ is an email header I never thought I would see. 😂

I received most of them much later (as I rarely check my personal mails on weekdays), but I really do appreciate the love x care x support this community gives to me.

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Anyhoo, back to the newsletter.

Today, I am thinking about our professional interactions. You know, all the random people you try to build relationships with to help find a job, make an introduction, share career advice, fund your startup idea, etc.

Some of them are basically friends x family, but many more are people with whom you have no strong ties. Maybe your roommate’s Uncle that was classmates in secondary school with MTN's CEO. Or your Mummy’s second cousin that is now the Commissioner for Science & Tech in Ekiti State. Etc etc.

From my (both successful and failed) attempts at connecting with people in the past few years, I have learnt a few things. Let's dive into one of them.

Nobody wants to do your homework for you

You know what?

The vast majority of ‘successful’ people I have met are quite nice. Sure there are quite a few jerks as well, but most of the people I have been fortunate enough to interact with are pleasant, kind, genuine people. At least to your face.

And part of this niceness is that, more times than not, they genuinely want to assist with our requests. But almost nobody is willing to do your homework for you.

Let's assume Kabir is a tech entrepreneur with an early-stage idea that can solve a problem for mobile banking apps. He's not sure yet if this idea would work, but he needs access to the software x database infrastructure of a Nigerian mobile-first bank to test it.

He has been following Ade Oduwole, the (fictional) VP, Commercial Operations of GTBank for over 2 years on social media. Ade is a great guy, and genuinely seems to be interested in helping young people develop themselves. From what Kabir can see on his LinkedIn at least.

Kabir is 100% sure that Ade would either be able to help him or introduce him to another person in the banking industry willing to give him access to their back-end infrastructure for testing the idea. After asking many of his friends about contacting Ade, Cynthia tells him what to do.

C: Kabir, send an email to ade.oduwole84@yahoo.com - that’s his personal email. I’m not close enough to introduce you, but I know he checks this mail and actually replies some people.

K: Are you sure it will work?

C: Yes, just send it.

And so Kabir gets to work.

"Good morning sir.

My name is Kabir Olaoye, a graduate of Actuarial Science from Adekunle Ajasin University in 2017. After serving with Silverbird, I spent two years working with Interswitch as a Software Engineer.

I left Interswitch last year to work on my startup - a blah blah blah solution for mobile banking. I believe that this can be revolutionary for banking in Nigeria but currently lack funds and access to the database infrastructure that would allow me test the idea.

I need your help sir. Any guidance you can provide - introduction to people, financial, advice - would be much appreciated. May God Almighty continue to bless you sir. Amen.

Kabir Olaoye

08075724536”

He clicks send. And then he waits.

And waits. And waits.

He never hears back.

What happened?

Well, Ade is a very busy man. And an email like that, while it sounds very nice and straightforward, is immensely stressful for Ade. He receives so many similar emails and prioritizes the few that are easy to act upon.

This one is a bit difficult - How does he verify that Kabir is who he says he is? Who exactly in his network should he introduce Kabir to? How does he know Kabir is competent and will not waste the person’s time? Plus, Kabir just seems so confused. He needs maybe advice, money, corporate resources, and time?!

Ade decides that Kabir seems like an interesting guy, and he will respond to him properly when he has time.

But life happens and he just never gets to it. And so Kabir is back to square one.

But what could Kabir have done differently to better increase the chances that Ade would have replied positively or replied at all?

We will continue this newsletter next week in sha Allah.

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** side note: It is now 8:58 pm on Sunday night. Alhamdulillah, I spent most of the day resting/in pleasant interactions but the day just flew past. I considered rushing the rest of this newsletter but decided that it would perhaps be more valuable if I gave this topic some attention. So see you next week! 😊

** Jara content:

“It’s not about being perfect. Nobody is perfect. And I think that, and err I’ll finish with this…

The quest for being perfection can be very dangerous, can be evil. Because if you’re trying to be perfect, guess what? You’re not going to be successful.

And then you’re going to be incredibly demanding and hard with the people around you because you also expect them to be perfect.

You need to be kind with yourself and others around you, and be able to open up and share what you’re struggling with, understand what they’re struggling with, and help each other out.

To me, that’s a very important consideration.”

- Hubert Joly, Businessman & Former CEO of Best Buy