The Birth Of An Option
Sooo, Medium Finally!!
Yes i say finally, i’ve always read posts on here but never really saw myself writing, and suddenly that changed. My friend Freddie Odukomaiya recently convinced me to share my story(which isn't much of a story) and journey so far, so i took the bull by horn and here i am! please forgive any mistakes, newbie!
Well then, lets get started. The Beginning.
Recently read an article by David Okwii where he said ‘But don’t just solve a need. Solve a need that the big guns aren’t already solving.’ and i agree 100%. And that was the thought that birthed FueledUp
Over the past months, the question when people hear or i tell them about FueledUp is, what brought about the idea and its simple, Convenience!
Sure you’d say yeah yeah convenience, and thats totally understandable but there has never been an option to getting fuel in your vehicles apart from the filling station, and when theres no option people are conformed to the only option available, like it or not.
Back to my story, so in December’15 after practically crashing, being owed and owing so much and business at a standstill i sat back and began to think deeply on what next and what to “disrupt. Experience in the downstream(retail) sector of the Oil and Gas sector opened my eyes to alot of distribution issues which eventually trickle down to the end user and causes hardship in getting the products sometimes a.k.a scarcity as we know it, and i decided that i wanted to change that, give consumers an option and bring the product directly to them instead, bold move Eyy? Well Aware, but i wasn't bothered, i just wanted to do it and i set out to!
I decided to just not solve a need(Fueling), but to solve a need the Big Companies or filling stations weren’t solving which is convenience for the consumer and getting them fueledup without necessarily visiting a station.
Moving forward, I began to speak to people, ask questions, research on any companies offering this service yet and found a few in the U.S, and the things i read and saw made the bulb in my head get alot brighter because my gut kept telling me i was onto something. Late January, i threw out a poll on twitter, yeah saw may argue that majority who answered may not even have cars, but the response alone showed there were prospects for FueledUp.
Coding And Development
Haha, don’t be fooled by that title, Code what? Nah not me! Well for a while i thought it’ll be me . When the poll results came back i was ecstatic and ‘gingered’, called a few people up to gist them and they kept me motivated but without capital(remember i said i was being owed so much) the motivation did very little.
The search for developers began and the quotes i was given didn’t surprise me but when you don’t have the money, it could weaken your drive and spirit. I shook it off, and took the bull by the horn and went to learn how to code, build an app, loool after the quotes i was given, i just had to! It was frustrating, draining too because i never for once thought i’d find myself learning that as my IT background has always been in Networking but life as we know it surprises us.
Well i learnt and began to build FueledUp’s app, while at that i had drawn out my screen designs and color codes and all necessary things so i had an idea of what the final should look like, unknown to me another hurdle was ahead and that hurdle was getting fed up. I got Fed Up after 15% development and i just had to get a developer at this point, at least help to build the demo app i could show people so i wouldn’t have to explain too much. And i found one, a Chinese developer on Upwork and the next hurdle was communication, oh that gave me constant headaches! Oh and least i forget, i needed to get a developer who wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, but I didn’t have half of an arm and a leg at that point so I had to ask, and personally I HATE asking, but it needed to be done and the app HAD to be developed.
Eventually, i got help financially and me and my developer sorted ourselves out, communication eased out and work got done between Early Feb and he finished all by Mid March. Now while development was ongoing, i was reading so many tech sites both Nigerian and foreign, reaching out to different people on Twitter too, getting their thoughts and while at that i stumbled on TechCabal which would eventually become the first site to write about FueledUp.
Checked out their site and loved all i was seeing, so much information about ongoing things and companies in the tech ecosystem both in Nigeria and the African continent as a whole. I reached out to them about showcasing my ‘startup’ and they responded, actually Osarumen Osamuyi responded politely and during the constant correspondence you could gauge from the mail thread that see he was actually very interested in helping showcase FueledUp, he advised on things they’d want me to get together to show they weren’t showcasing vaporware(didn’t know what this meant, had to google it lool) which i understood and i did as requested and while getting things in order, he constantly checked in to get updates. March 28, 2016 TechCabl accepted our app and released a straight to the point and unbiassed article about FueledUp
……And that was the beginning and public birth of FueledUp
Won’t allow this drag, the story would continue in my next post but for now, Adiós
Thanks for reading.
S.O
