Tobi’s Story

Every Monday, we will curate career stories from professionals in tech. We would discuss their #OriginStories and how they got into tech. Our focus is on people with a non-traditional background, that is, people without a traditional CS degree. Got an interesting story you would like to share? Email blessing@studio14online.co.uk

This week we are speaking with Tobi Oludayomi. He co-founded Studio14 and Benchbox. From starting his own recording studio at 16 to studying Music at the university to being named to the BIMA 100, Tobi’s story is extraordinary.

Let’s start from the beginning.

I have been playing musical instruments since I was like eight years old. I just love music. When I was 16, I got a job in a fast-food restaurant on the subway. I got fired in two weeks. My mom was incensed, she was concerned about ‘what I was going to do with my life’. I was still in college at the time. After I got fired and since I loved music, I began to teach myself how to produce music on a computer rather than just playing it on a keyboard. I then decided to start a recording studio in my bedroom. I bought some equipment and was on my way.

How did your parents react to that?

Random people used to show up at my house; known gangsters and people from all over the city. My mom hated that and she hated the noise but she saw that we were making a bit of money, so her mind was at ease. People used to pay for studio sessions, they paid for my beats as well, I felt unstoppable. I was less than 18 years at the time so she was really proud when she saw the money coming in. At the time(because I have always been entrepreneurial), I was studying Business, Accounting, and Sports as my three subjects at A-level. But I became adamant that I wanted to go and study Music at the university. Funny enough, she let me. That’s not a thing most Nigerian parents would do. She saw that I was making money already and I think that that’s what allowed her to rest assured that music is my passion and I will make money from it.

At that time, my brother, Timi, started graphic design so we had a tag team going on.

I would do the recording and he would design the album covers or mixtape covers or flyers for their event, their logos for their rapper names, whatever they needed. So we used to charge people for a whole package, like a mini-record label. He then started recording as well, so he was trying to do photo shoots and music videos. I would handle the music — the production, the recording and he would handle the creative side of things. Eventually, I went to university and he took over because he was still in college at that time.

What was university like?

University opened my eyes to more technology. I actually studied Music Technology. So it opened my eyes to the technology side of music. From the equipment to software to how to code. I did C++. I hated it. But I had to do it because it was part of the module. I learnt sound design, how to do surround sound, basically how to do all the really cool stuff I had always wanted to do. University was a breeze for me, man. I was just having fun every single day. Funny enough, some of my projects were pieces of music I had created before I got to university so I just handed them in because they were that good. University was just easy for me. I loved every bit of it. It wasn’t pure technology, it was music.

Timi actually came to the same university as me. He’s two years younger than me so he came when I was in the third year. At that time, we had stopped the studio but he was still very good at graphic design. He was getting a lot better, doing logos and stuff for people everywhere in the university, for parties, for events, all that stuff.

My music became more recognised and people recognised my name.. I was selling my music and it was getting played on the radio. When I left university, I now wanted to try and focus on creating music for film full-time. I would be like scoring music for film. Even though I was still working with artists on the side, this was now my dream.

How did that work out for you?

All of a sudden, everything just stopped. Everything just dried up. Nobody was answering my calls anymore. Nobody was responding to my messages. It was a deep dive into silence.

Village people.

It was weird. It was like God just said, “That’s it, no more, You’ve had your fun. Now focus on what I have planned for you.” So I thought, ‘You know what? This is weird. Things can’t just stop like that’. Because things were going pretty well. I was working on a film and was moving to the next level. Then all of a sudden, things just dried up.

What did you do next?

I had always wanted to start my own business anyway, this was my opportunity, I thought. At the time, my Mom used to work for the Council, that is the government. She told us about a business start-up coach who could help foster my business dream. She told me to go and see him, his name was Eric. Before that, in desperation, I went for a job interview with Vodafone but it was too mind-numbingly boring that I had to leave.

I knew that it was in my bones to be an entrepreneur and I was not going to back down. Eric told me to start a business that cost as little as possible. He asked me, “What can you offer people?” I was like “Music? But then to be fair, I had done that and even though I made money from it, I don’t think it’s what I was meant to do” Then I remembered that Timi was a very good logo designer. So Eric said, “Yeah, why don’t you start a branding company?” I was like “Okay”. So he said, “What makes you different from other companies?” So of course, the first thing that came to mind was that we were cheaper than others but that’s not a Unique Selling Point. He asked, “What else?” Then I said, “We are quick”. We decided to start a company called The Logoman and the URL was at 48hourlogo.com. So you go on the website, you pick a package, you give us a brief and you pay, and basically, we design your logo in 48 hours.

That same day, I told Eric “Look your logo is crap, we will make you a new logo, you will be our first client.” Timi was still in university at that time and our university was not too far from home. So I went to see him. I told him “Bro, let’s do this.” Steven, our current CTO, was in Timi’s year. Timi was actually studying Creative Computing which is a mixture of music and computing. So Timi agreed and we designed a logo and got a friend to start working on the website. He wasn’t doing a good job so Steven took over. That’s how we started the company. So these two guys were still in the university and I was back at home working from my bedroom. I just started going around, jumping on buses, going to networking events, just basically trying to tell people what we did.

How did you get clients?

Back in the day, there was a platform I can’t really remember the name, it was similar to Groupon, but for businesses. You know how on Groupon there is holidays and everything, but this platform was strictly for business services e.g business registration etc. So we went on there and even though we were already cheap, we were charging 50 pounds, we slashed the price a bit to 45 pounds for a logo and obviously, the platform was taking its own cut. In 2 weeks, we got 40 clients. Timi could not keep up.

Wow.

First of all, we were stupid. We said 48 hours but clients would always come back with changes and then it would take longer. So it was too much for Timi to handle, so I then decided that I was going to learn design to help him out so we could meet the demand. So I started watching YouTube videos and asking him how he did it. What actually happened in reality was, Timi would make one or two good concepts and I would make two crap concepts just to be able to show the client something. But then some of the clients started to like my work. So I realised I was not as bad as I thought.

Eventually, clients began to demand websites. Specifically, one client. She started her own startup and she wanted a website. And she’s like, “I have a budget of 2 grand”. 2 grand back in the day was a lot of money. We were like, “What?!!”

But we didn’t know how to make websites. At that time, Steven wasn’t that good. What she wanted, he wasn’t able to do because he was still learning. So we started looking for people to do it for us. We came to an arrangement. Timi would design it. Timi could design anything to be fair, website, logo, whatever. Then the company would develop it. That’s how we started to organically grow. People who wanted websites. The lady in question moved to another company and her company wanted a website so she came to us. That’s how we started to bid for outside contracts. So it came from those 40 clients in two weeks that we dove into the digital side of things. We realised we were charging too little for our services. So we came up with a new brand, ‘Studio14’ and we identified as a digital agency.