Interview with Zedilson Almeida | Co-Founder and CEO | Manifesto

Manifesto is a free news aggregator , both national and international. It has immediate access to the latest news of Angola and the world ‘s leading newspapers and media directly on your iPhone :Economy News, Sports News, Politics News, News of Culture, News of Science and Technology, Crime News, Company News, Blogs Angolans and much more! With the “ Manifesto “ you’re going to have Angola and the world in your pocket exclusively in Portuguese as it’s downloadable on Play Store and Google Play.

Can you tell me something about yourself?

- My name is Zedilson Almeida, the co-founder of Manifesto. I am a Fulbright alumnus who graduated from the University of Missouri with a Master’s in Public Affairs and I also received my Bachelor’s degree in Business and Management from Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom. I am an analytical, creative and self-motivated individual, who is passionate about entrepreneurship and international development. I have extensive international experience acquired through my academic and professional endeavors in Angola, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States, all of which enabled me to gain a sensitive cultural awareness.

What was your career before Manifesto was founded?

- After completion of my Bachelor’s degree, I have returned to my home country (Angola) and started my career at Odebrecht, a Brazilian multinational company, working at the administration department. After two years I accepted a new challenge at Standard Bank in Angola where I worked as a Workplace Banking Relationship Manager. After just 10 months I was awarded with a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake a Master’s degree in Public Affairs, which forced me to put my professional career on hold for 2 years. Post completion of the master’s degree I joined Brands Partner Group in Angola, working as the executive adviser/assistant to the CEO and it was the experience gained through this job plus the economic crisis that pushed me to put Manifesto’s idea in motion.

Can you tell me a little more about Manifesto?

• Manifesto is the best news app in Angola which gathers all news articles from the several Portuguese online sources and delivers it right into the readers’ smartphones.

What’s your motivation in opening Manifesto?

- I hope that Manifesto allows the Portuguese-speaking population in general and the Angolan population in particular to have access to information without any hassle or having to pay for it. I also hope to educate the Angolan people to read more and become more informed of what is going on in their communities, cities, and country, as well as in the other Portuguese-speaking countries which will allow them to make informed decisions. I believe that providing the population with an easy way of consuming the news they care most about, with an elegant mechanism to share them with their family and friends, to be a way to empower the population through information.

Who is/are part of building/founding it?

- Manifesto was founded by myself and Rafael Afonso who has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Networks and Security from Birmingham City University in the UK.

What was technically the most challenging part of starting this business?

- Finding the right developer to transform our ideas in reality. It took us more than a year to release the Android version of Manifesto, because we had to restart the project at least three times due to issues with developers. These issues were mainly due to the extremely limited resources available, however we managed to find a good developer and we still use the same one until today.

How did you get the funding? Is it just from your funds? or you have partners?

- We used our own funds. At the time I was not employed and Rafael was still studying in the UK so it was very complicated to get things started, however once it starts rolling nothing can’t stop it and there is a sense of inner strength that allows us to keep fighting for what we want.

So far, how was your business doing?

- We have already published Manifesto on Google Play and App Store and we are already seeing our user base increase, however not in a drastically way because currently we do not have necessary funds to have a marketing budget, so we use word-of-mouth and our own circle of friends through social media to build up our user base. Recently, we have participated in Seedstars World Luanda and that gave us some visibility which translated in mote traffic on our website and resulted in more downloads. I believe that we are already moving out of our inner circle of friends and are already making Manifesto known in Angola and other countries, which is awesome!

Can you tell me a little bit about your products/services?

• Our product, the app Manifesto, provides users with news articles from several online sources right into their phones and allows them to read, like, comment and share them with their family and friends. On the other side we provide services to companies that are interested in advertising through our app, embedding their ads within the news articles, targeting potential customers; and we also allow organizations to push informative articles related to events or their organization to reach our users and educate them.

What is the biggest project you have right now?

- We are currently negotiating an investment that will allow us to start working on Manifesto 2.0, a version that will provide its users with features that will transform the app into something even more interesting and necessary in the daily lives of our users. We are also negotiating partnerships that will benefit us in marketing terms and allow us to reach an even wider audience and achieve our current goals.

How do you handle stress like during the times that you need to meet deadlines, some unexpected problems, technical issues etc.

- I get energized through challenges. Meeting deadlines and unexpected problems is what makes our days more complicated and where I get the most fun out of my daily life. Yes, it can be stressful but there is no better feeling than overcoming an obstacle on our own.

What are your plans in the future? Do you vision to go worldwide?

- Our plan is to conquer the Angolan market first and once we achieve that we aim to expand into other Portuguese-speaking countries. What is interesting is that we are already seeing organic downloads from Portugal, UK and Brazil, which are probably made by Angolans living there or just people who are interested in Angola.

In one word, how would you describe Manifesto?

- Informative

In one sentence, how would you market Manifesto?

- Manifesto is the best news app in Angola that gives you all the news from the best online sources (in Portuguese) right into your pocket, for free!

Do you have any message/quotations to aspiring CEO’s/Founders?

- “Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.” ― Ray Bradbury

Originally published at www.millionrising.com.