Rethink with Ayodele

So a few days ago, a lady had innocently posted for the relationship X’s audience about her initial indifference about her husband and how she didn’t think he was attractive enough at the time. (Honestly I didn’t take too much time to read because, you know — it’s too much and a very chaotic street on X).  Whilst her post was innocently targeted at her audience, she indirectly triggered emotions and trauma deeply buried in the a lot of people who were her husband’s junior in secondary school. For context, I was also his junior and I can relate to a lot of these comments/stories. It was so bad that after I graduated, my dad said “none of his kids will ever step on a unity school” again and he made sure of that.  We all agree that bullying in schools is not an uncommon practice in schools; this doesn’t make it right neither have we founded a structure to eliminate this terrible act that influences and shapes kids through their formative years into young adults. The stories from ...

One of the amazing things about the Nigerian startup scene is the communities where founders learn, network and share their experiences. I belong to 3 of them Collective Founders Initiative, Unicorn Founders (I’m manifesting this) and PremiaBN. If you’re in tech or looking to be in tech and wants to join a community, you should consider one of these.  I saw a question someone asked on the Unicorn Founders platform and I found it very interesting. The question reads:  “As a passionate founder who wants the best work done always, how do you insist on and demand excellence from  your team without being overly emotional about it.”  I posted a response to it and I thought I should share on my blog. See my response below:  Your team needs to know/trust that you know what you’re doing (or saying) and you’re committed to the outcomes. Clarity is key to delivery. Sometimes, because of the level of detail and context we have, we don’t do the great job of communicating cle...

I didn't have any idea of what to write because it is one of those days when I am in my feels and also not feeling up to it. I feel a little bit sad because it's an estranged friend's birthday and as much as I would want to wish them a happy birthday (probably send a gift), I am not quite sure of the reaction. It's also quite interesting because we have two different ideas/views of what the cause of the issue is and at this point 🤷🤷🤷. (Happy birthday to you) But while contemplating on whether to write or not, I thought about the need for my resolve for this blog - making sure that no 2 days go by without my writing something. This is considering different things happen during the course of my day and it's worth reflecting and sharing in a place that's much saner than Twitter (now X) - here. In the moment , the word consistency popped in my head and I was wondering what I'd consider to be the most consistent thing from my everyday life and my answer was a...

    Chess is a game I wish I dedicated more time to learning beyond the rudiments of movement which I learned from the free version of chess pro on my first desktop computer. On the other hand, I spent some time playing draughts aka checkers with my friends after exams in secondary school. Seun (who we popularly called Àgbè) was the best player in school and would beat us in rounds. Haha 😂. One of those afternoons, it felt like I was going to win, I had 2 kings and a 2 other tiles while he had 3 tiles and a king. For a moment, I excitedly boasted about winning and reveled in the idea of winning him for the first time.  Guess what? I lost 😡.  One of the many lessons I learned from playing draughts was the willingness to concede a tile or even my king (in some cases) so that I can ultimately win the game. This lesson stuck and today, it’s one that I use in my dealings with people especially when meeting new people.  For someone with some level of social anxiet...

My dad enjoyed watching movies that narrated wars and would always rent/buy VHS tapes and CDs for us to watch at home. I remember watching sometimes in April, escape of the Sobibors and black hawk down among others with him.  But as a 10 year old, these movies were merely entertainment and I didn’t understand the consequence of the scenes I was thrilled by — real people shooting and are being shot at. This changed yesterday when I was watching Black Hawk Down again nearly 20 years ago — thanks to Netflix’s recommendation.  This movie only captured a single raid out of many others and during the raid, over 1000 Somalis died and 19 American soldiers lost their lives.  Streets littered with dead and severely injured people because of a war that could have been avoided.  In the moment, I wondered what walking on that street would feel like, how the hundreds of thousand lives killed in the genocide are remembered, what impact the experience left on the survivors and most ...

I was 18 when I learned about 42 — the ultimate answer life, the universe and everything . But I really wish finding answers to life’s question could be a simple as an integer. These days, I don’t think/worry too much about it because I found rest and peace — I hope you do too.  But you’re not alone in the quest to find answers to these numerous life questions.  Since the days of the Tower of Babel till now and this has translated into science in its various subject areas: biology, astronomy, geology, palaeontology, engineering, chemistry and physics.  Life is complex and nothing is as straightforward as you would imagine or want it to be.  The uncertainties, the dynamics, and variables don’t make it any easy to predict events in the continuous time-space where we exist as beings. In all of these, we rely on law, religion and culture as a way to find guidance, calibration and moderation for ourselves and others.  Religion, culture and law creates the value syste...

Some time around noon yesterday, an old friend called me to discuss venture funding, entrepreneurship and migration options. This was quite timely considering I’m currently fundraising and dealing with certain realities, I’m have a number of first hand stories to share.   During this chat, he asked a question which stood out — “ what’s the ideal relationship between an investor and a company/founder? ”  My answer was simply “ showing up ”. Both parties need to acknowledge there is a lot of figuring out and the journey to a happy ending requires everyone to show up.  I further likened the relationship to a defendant & advocate relationship in a legal context where the following is expected by default:  there is a need for total trust towards honesty. regardless of the situation, the goal  is set to winning and de-risking the downsides. both parties need to be present and on-time for court hearings (if applicable). sometimes, there are loses but that...

July 1, 2023 Today, I realized that the commonality of our realities as individuals can be an indicator of our growth, quality of friendships and a way to check if we need to change our primary circle. If you’re a founder, you should have other founders in your primary circle. A non founder friend however great doesn’t and can’t share the realities with you. You can’t blame them, they just can’t be the best for you. Sometimes, our friends are not bad people for not helping, they just don’t know how to help and (we hate to admit it) they are too ashamed to admit it