From November 2016 to January 2017, I was busy executing a construction project at my village. When I came back to Lagos, I decided to seek for a digital marketing or digital project management role in any company that values social media, technology and project management.

However, I was more interested in startups because I wanted to gain some kind of experience in the startup ecosystem. I wanted to help a startup grow big through my blogging, social media marketing, online research, SEO, content writing and project management skills. I already knew within me that I would launch my own startup someday but I felt I needed some kind of practical experience in the ecosystem before thinking of creating mine.

So, I created my job search strategy, kept fine-tuning and executing it, and got invited for some interviews with some startups at Yaba and Victoria Island. I went for the interviews, did my best and kept pushing on while waiting for some of the feedbacks.

During my job search period, I was also close to a team of 3 friends who were working on a startup. I kind of joined them, contributed my thoughts and ideas to the startup business model, and also learned a lot from the team. And being someone with an entrepreneurial mindset and some real-life business experience (10 years of doing business at Idumota), it was an interesting moment.

My job search and my involvement with my team of friends continued for some time until it got a stage when I discovered that I could actually gain the needed experience I was looking for in the startup ecosystem by launching something of value and learning along the line. I sat for some days, pondered on that thought and the result led to me quitting my job search. I distanced myself from some of my friends so as to have a quite time and avoid some unnecessary flexing distractions. I used those quite moments to do some serious research on a problem I could solve or a service I could improve using technology. (Sorry friends, now you know why I had been scarce.) My weeks of serious research, asking questions, doing some analysis and comparisons led to the birth of [url]JustPingUs.com.ng[/url].

The startup is currently in private beta and my entrepreneurial journey and learning experience has just begun. JustPingUs is everyone’s personal assistant. With just a ping on WhatsApp (Messenger coming soon!), we can help you get your daily tasks done – so long it’s legal. I’m also using the startup to improve customer service in Nigeria via messaging.

LESSON: If you are a job seeker, it won’t be a bad idea if you’re doing a small side project while seeking for a job. Don’t sit idle and do nothing just because you’re seeking for a job. Find something that would keep you productive even if you’re not making any money from it yet and surround yourself with great thinking and inspiring people. That side project could be end up helping you move from being a job seeker to an aspiring entrepreneur.

Now, join me on my entrepreneurial journey…