Two years at GetEquity🥳🥳🥳

Yep, you guessed right. I joined GetEquity, a digital platform democratizing access to venture capital, quite early when the lights were still dim in the room.

I initially joined as a community and content person. My role involved creating and liaising with our community of investors, startups and their founders as well as creating engaging content to further communicate what we do. In the beginning, on most days I felt like a deer in headlights. I knew the basic information about the investing world that the average techie knew at the time, which was investors invest in startups, lmaooooo.

I knew there was a process of course, but I had very limited info. I remember in the early days when I would do a lot of research for content, I kept discovering new things and new words. I remember staring at the laptop one day, and saying out loud “what the hell is a cap table”?

Was I supposed to write about all these? Create content out of it? Talk to founders about this shit?

Pardon my lingo, but my mind reeled half of the time.

But then I was on the team, wasn’t I? I was chosen, wasn’t I? I took it because of the challenge, didn’t I?

So I had to step up…

And boy, It’s been one hell of a journey

I had a lot of firsts with GetEquity, first time hosting an audio conversation — this started with our bi-weekly twitter spaces conversation which we held with founders.

Did I tell you the first time I hosted, the space crashed 3 times? I wanted to enter the ground😂😂

I believed it was so my fault so badly, I changed my phone two weeks after, thinking better phone, better twitter spaces right? LMFAO

Jack later gave me the famous line, It’s not you, It’s me.

First time writing a knowledge-based article. That was also epic, needed a lot of google searches but I nailed it. In the past with She Code Africa, my articles were on the programs I ran so this was a big first.

First time writing email newsletters, I remember the first time I added Tolu from GetEquity to the email naming. I had to ask myself a 1000 times if that was preposterous of me. But I reached out to my bosses and a couple of colleagues within my network and all said that was fine. The email naming was also becoming a thing then as well thanks to Uche from Bolt, lol

I wanted to make the emails more personified and have people understand that it was a person behind the pen. I wanted to crack jokes or mention day to day activities and that would have been weird coming from a “GetEquity HQ”

Frankly, I can’t remember more right now but would add as I do

Year 1 was great, we grew so much as a company with 3 products LIVE, Public raise(formerly crowdraise), Private raise(formerly dealrooms), and Secondary markets. Gosh, I couldn’t have been prouder. I wrote the year in review(first time doing this for a company as well), you can check it out here

Year 2(2022) was the absolute best so far. I got a promotion 💃💃 and became a lead in the process, which meant more responsibilities as well as managing people and more money, of course, lmaooo

I remember when I got the news, I was like Me? As per me? Did you say me?

I won’t lie, Imposter syndrome was a bitch at this point. I doubted myself so badly, I had no zeal to work on some days just because I felt like I wasn’t good enough.

Then I had THE conversation(I won’t say a name). And the person asked those same questions I mentioned earlier in this article.

I was on the team, wasn’t I? I was chosen, wasn’t I? I took it because of the challenge, didn’t I? The person added one more as well, your bosses are smart people, aren’t they?

So I washed my face(not literally), fired up my laptop(again not literally), and got to work literally😉😉

My highlight for Year 2 was the Startup Festival, a successful ecosystem event that had over 1000 attendees, 20 exhibiting companies, media partners, 27 speakers, and sponsors. The event was graced with the likes of Agama Emomotimi, Managing Director, Nigerian Capital Market Institute; Zikora Okwor-Wewan, Partner, Springwoods LP; Oluwatimilehin Ogunyemi, Head of Business Operations & Partnerships, Nomba where they came to together to discuss topics ranging from how to Bridge the gap on payments to War for Talents in the African Startup scene and much more important conversations on the ecosystem. I feel like I bled for that program(literally). It deserves its own standalone article which I intend to write soon.

There is so much about Year 2 I’m not sure I can share here, as a company we went through a lot for those who know. As an individual in a company already going through a lot, well, it wasn’t all roses.

But God knows I have grown so much, on some days, I honestly can’t believe it. Is this the same Tolu?

Who am I if I don’t mention the awesome bosses and colleagues(both past and present) that have stood by me through all the ups and downs. Thank you so much to Jude, Temitope, Tomisin(x2), Seni, Lamide, Iyanu, Dams, Wisdom, Eve, Franklin, Drew, Robert and so much more that I can’t mention here for continuously trusting me and supporting me.

I don’t take this for granted one bit.

Another 2 years maybe? No one knows but I’m loving the journey so far. Will forever be proud to be an Equifam.

PS: Finally calling ourselves Equifam when it was time to pick a team name needs a story of its own😂😂