by Uchechi | Nov 20, 2015 | Blog
For entrepreneurs, hustling is a way of life. Some of us have gotten to the point in our careers where our side hustle has become our full time gig, while others are still holding down another job full time while working towards a bigger entrepreneurial goal.
Welcome to Hybrid-Entrepreneurship: it’s all about working a full time job while building a business part-time. The philosophy is that you’re going to leverage your job in a way that helps you in your business but will also help you at your job.
During the next #yeswecode chat, we’ll discuss hybrid-entrepreneurship and how to transition from your full time dreams to running and owning your own business.
Join us!
Some questions to think about:
- Is it worth our time to pursue hybrid entrepreneurship?
- What are the benefits/challenges?
- What are some alternatives?
- On Shark Tank they are fond of pointing out the diff between a real biz and a hobby. Responses?
- Has anyone here been successful at it? Pls share your success stories?
- How did you finally make the transition from hybrid entrepreneur to full time entrepreneur?
- What lessons have you learned along the way?
- What advice would you give to others who want to make their side hustle into their full time entrepreneurial gig?
by Uchechi | May 31, 2015 | Blog
I thought I was just planning a wedding
Like many women, I was happy to get engaged and plan an amazing day with my husband. We didn’t know this wedding would change us forever, but it did. For our day jobs, we worked in web development. Peter has been a software developer for more than 20 years, and I’ve spent the last 10 in tech focusing on everything from Content Strategy to UX Design. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were our target customers: Tech savvy modern couple with friends and family flying in from around the world. There are many methods to coming up with a great idea, but we started with solving our own problem because it inspired us to actually stick with it and build something useful.
We never found the magic wedding planning website or app.
We searched extensively online for that app or website that would do three things: 1. Connect our guests with each other 2. Allow us to assign tasks to them and ask for help 3. Put everything in one place so we wouldn’t be using 10 apps for our wedding.
The magic wedding website or app didn’t exist, so we had to build it.
What we did find was even more interesting: Despite how busy we were, we made the time to build what would become wedOcracy, the virtual wedding planner for couples and guests. Sounds crazy right? We were working full time, planning a wedding full time and trying not to lose our minds full time. We soon found out that our most creative idea came from our own experience.
Since then, I’ve realized a few things about why the best startup ideas come from personal experience:
1. When you build something based on a personal need, you can focus more on your MVP because you’re often building it quickly to solve an immediate problem.
2. If it’s a problem for you, it’s also most likely a problem that others might be experiencing.
3. You also discover that your industry might be behind the times (hello, a shocking number of people are still planning weddings with binders–ouch), and your idea may be the solution.
4. It’s also a great opportunity to weave your “how and why we built this” story into your branding, and helps keep your story authentic. Also, the press loves great startup founder stories!
Oh, and I forgot to tell you that we not only built wedOcracy for our wedding, we also built it for our Nigerian-American-Jewish wedding in Mexico, so we factored in several scenarios: friends flying in from around the world, travel accommodations, accessibility to fun activities and more.
Conclusion: The biggest lesson I learned is to be open to where your next great idea will come from. Say yes to the journey! Maybe it’s about getting married or opening up a coffee shop or traveling through Asia with your best friend. The best ideas come from a very personal need, so say yes to life’s experiences because you don’t know where they’ll lead you.
Now it’s your turn:
What life experience led to your startup journey/idea? Hit me up in the comments!
by Uchechi | Mar 8, 2015 | Blog
Today is International Women’s Day, and I’m thinking about the women who have made it possible for me to be here.That list includes coders, designers, First Ladies, close friends, my mother, writers, the late poet June Jordan and the many women I meet in technology each and every day.
It also gets me thinking about the doubt that many of us confront each and every day. Are we smart enough, strong enough, competent enough, etc. More often than not, that fear stops us from being awesome in what we were born to do.
Trust me, I’ve been there. I made a career out of public speaking and getting on stage. When I first started, I was so afraid of risking my heart and sharing my work as a poet and spoken word performer, or just telling my story as an immigrant woman who defied cultural expectations.
I also know the other side of that fear–standing on that stage and soaking in what I was born to do. It’s pretty amazing.
So, this Women’s Day I’m challenging myself to choose rejection over fear and do it anyway.
What scares you in your work? How does it stop you from creating each and every day? Are you afraid to say, draw, design, create, make a mistake? Let’s make this the week we do it anyway.
Each day this week, I’ll post my “fear” and how I’m choosing to let it go and create anyway. Who’s with me?
How will you let go of fear this week? I’d love to know in the comments.
Photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk
