Dear Entrepreneur: June

By Chidi Nwaogu

On April 2, 2019, Jason Njoku, a Nigerian entrepreneur tweeted about how entrepreneurship abuses and consumes us if we let it.

This is nothing but the truth.

Entrepreneurship isn't glamorous at all, and often it affects our mental health. However, in contrast to Njoku's opinion, I believe there is true happiness in entrepreneurship if we share our pains, mistakes, worries, failures, and shortcomings with other like-minded entrepreneurs, and receive feedback and help from them, and grow from there.

In a bid to achieve this, I started a podcast for entrepreneurs called "Dear Entrepreneurs” in April 2019.

Olamide Akomolafe, a colleague, and I anchored this podcast in Accra, Ghana, from April to July 2019; recording eight episodes within three months. In each episode, we talked about our experiences as entrepreneurs, the good, the bad, and the ugly, in order to encourage other entrepreneurs going through tough times.

We garnered hundreds of listeners from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, Germany, United States, and Mauritius, but had to discontinue the podcast, unfortunately, after the eight-episode, as Olamide and I flew out of Ghana and began living several timezones apart.

In December 2019, I somewhat rekindled the podcast, as I began posting across my social media profiles, a series of open letters to entrepreneurs. Since then, I have written and posted over 100 letters and counting.

All letters begin with “Dear Entrepreneur…” and closes with “With love, Chidi”.

In March 2020, I decided to collate all letters already posted online and to be posted, into a book called “Dear Entrepreneur”.

It should serve as a devotional for entrepreneurs looking for a companion along their entrepreneurial journey. It will come in twelve volumes, from January to December; a letter for each day.

My hope is that you start your day by reading one of the letters, and it helps you put everything into perspective.

With love,
Chidi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716784538

Chidi Nwaogu

Chidi Nwaogu is a serial tech entrepreneur, self-taught software developer, public speaker, volunteer mentor, and startup advisor. Nwaogu started his entrepreneurial journey when he was 16 with the creation of 9ja Boi Interactive, a video game development company that combined AI and gamification to teach fellow teenagers the concept and importance of global warming, and how to mitigate it.Today, Nwaogu is Co-founder and CEO of Publiseer, a digital publisher that has helped over 6,000 underserved African creatives living in low-income and disadvantaged communities to earn over $240,000 in revenue, and has been described by Konbini as "one of the largest digital publishers in Africa" and identified by IFC as one of the startups "that could speed up innovation in Africa". He is also the Co-founder of Savvy, a global fellowship program that has equipped over 3,200 passionate and brilliant young individuals from over 120 countries, with the necessary knowledge and skill that they need to start their own impact-driven business in a post-COVID era and succeed as social entrepreneurs.Since Nwaogu was 19, he has co-founded, grown and sold two tech startup companies, including LAGbook, a social network that garnered over 1-million registered users within three years from inception, and was eventually acquired by the Canadian tech company, Gulf Pearl Ltd.Nwaogu has been described as one of the "Young Innovators making Africa great in 2019" and "50 Top Personalities on LinkedIn". Nwaogu began public speaking as a keynote speaker at the 2012 IT Leaders West Africa Summit, where he spoke on the role of social media and mobile in developing nations, focusing on the Arab Spring. Today, he speaks around the world about publishing, entrepreneurship, business, and technology, including at the 2019 International Publishers Association Regional Seminar in Nairobi, the 2019 Geneva Book Fair in Switzerland, the 2019 Legal & Tech Network Summit in Lagos, and the 2019 African Magnates Summit in Accra.As a volunteer mentor, Nwaogu mentors budding and aspiring entrepreneurs and young professionals through platforms like the Lagos Innovates Idea Hub by the Lagos State Government, and the Investment Readiness Program by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Nwaogu's startups have been featured on several media publications, like Africa Business Review and TechCrunch, for their many strides in the tech ecosystem.For his contributions to the growth of the tech ecosystem in Africa, Nwaogu has won the 2019 Africa 35.35 Award for Entrepreneurship, the 2019 Young Leaders Award for Media and Entertainment, and the 2019 Bizz Business Excellence Award. Nwaogu is an Acumen Fellow (West Africa), Alibaba eFounders Fellow (China), Halcyon Incubator Fellow (Washington DC), Westerwelle Fellow (Berlin), and Yunus&Youth Fellow (New York).

Book preview

The fight is won far away from the success people see — it’s first won in the head, behind closed doors, in silence and pain, in the midst of challenges and setbacks, in the workplace, riddled with failure and rejections, and at odd hours of staying awake when everyone was asleep — long before you stand under those lights and smile before a camera.

Chidi Nwaogu

2019

Prologue

Why dear entrepreneur?

officeArt object

ON APRIL 2, 2019, JASON Njoku, a Nigerian entrepreneur tweeted about how entrepreneurship abuses and consumes us if we let it. 

This is nothing but the truth. 

Entrepreneurship isn't glamorous at all, and often it affects our mental health. However, in contrast to Njoku's opinion, I believe there is true happiness in entrepreneurship if we share our pains, mistakes, worries, failures, and shortcomings with other like-minded entrepreneurs, and receive feedback and help from them, and grow from there. 

In a bid to achieve this, I started a podcast for entrepreneurs called Dear Entrepreneurs in April 2019. 

Olamide Akomolafe, a colleague, and I anchored this podcast in Accra, Ghana, from April to July 2019; recording eight episodes within three months. In each episode, we talked about our experiences as entrepreneurs, the good, the bad, and the ugly, in order to encourage other entrepreneurs going through tough