WE STARTED A SLACK COMMUNITY
It has finally happened, we are on slack. but why?
Well, let's start from why SENPAI even exists. SENPAI was my reaction to the fact that everyone told me that I can't be creative and make a living in nigeria. SENPAI was created because my dad asked me one simple question
How many photographers do you know that are millionaires?
This was december 2015… I really couldn't not confidently answer that question as almost no creative person had a business I could reference too. It was both disappointing and very interesting.
Why are creative people not coming together to start companies?
Where is the community?
SENPAI was the reaction to that.
I started as a photographer but from the beginning the goal was to connect creative minds and create an environment for collaboration, growth, inspiration, and learning as a community.
The digital agency part of senpai was created to sustain the community and is the “tech” side of senpai.
From the beginning I knew I wanted to attract the most creative youths in the country to the brand. Our voice, style and brand has been tailored to attract people that are eager to learn and express their creative sides and apply it into solving problems and building businesses.
We are not looking for just regular artists or just techies but the intersection of both. People that are creative and are fully aware of their creative sides but are fully capable of applying that creative thinking to solving problems and building business, using technology as a tool. People that can #ThinkSENPAI
I started an instagram account for senpai which has been running for about 2 years now and has been the primary platform for connecting with these creative people. It has seen steady growth and has brought in 90% of our sales and almost all our leads are there incubating and going through the funnel until they finally become clients a couple of years from now.
We gotten all soughts of dms from a wide range of youths that have falling in love with the brand and want to be a part of it and make it their home and for a long time instagram was our home and stills. but communicating with that many people via insta-dm is not only very hard to scale but not really organized.
APPLYING FOR MICROTRACTION FUND
It was 2 am at night I was reading medium like i usually do at this time when i saw a post about a new venture capital investment platform in nigeria call Microtraction. I proceed to fill out the application while half way asleep with no hope of getting the money. I just wanted to see if I would get a response because its more “nigerian” than YC who also didn't accept my idea. ( I dont blame them sha) and sure enough I did.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for applying to Microtraction.
It takes a lot of guts to move to Lagos to make your business a reality — so I really appreciate the commitment you have shown.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to me that SENPAI in its current state is a venture backable business — which we define as a software or technology-enabled business that can grow fast and reach $100M in annual revenue at scale.
However I would like us to chat, I think you have a great eye for visual design and believe you have the potential to do something great so will like to learn more about you and hopefully help you direct SENPAI into a venture backable business if you do wish to do so.
Here’s a link to my calendly for you to book a time to chat.
Look forward to hearing from you.
YB
Founder and Managing Partner,
Microraction
I scheduled a call and we spoke for 27 mins…
I told him about my grand scheme. he then asked a question
How can i quantify and reach the members of my instagram community?
I gave a sloppy answer of course.
Then he mentioned that I am doing something like an andela for creative people. I have never heard anyone say it like this before. I also haven't ever said it like this before. I learnt something new and wrote it down.
He proceeded to mention Dev center and how their community if fully visible and accessible on slack.
A light bulb went off.
Im thankful for that call.
SLACK
For the longest time I assumed creating a slack community required me paying for slack. So i decided to wait until I could afford it and even wondered how dev centre could afford to pay for that many people. This wasn't my first time being introduced to slack as I tried to introduce it to my course mates as way for communicating as I was the course rep. This was 2015 ( didn't work )
Then dev centre posted this article
I didn't read it. I just noticed they were on a free account. because of the 10,000 messages limit. That was all I needed to see.
SENPAI COLLECTIVE IS NOW LIVE ON SLACK.
Almost instantly we created the slack group and sent the initial invites it was all really exciting as we have started this journey. I dont know what it would lead too and how the creative people will cope with slack, which is more techie but we have started and it's very interesting.
We are currently 52 member and growing.
Slack should help us scale our communication, reach and also connect our community to themselves at scaled which is very exciting for us.
CALL TO ACTION
If you are reading this and you feel like our stories, goals and mission resonate with you, then please join our slack community . This isn't for everyone and we would be very strict about who is allowed to remain in the slack over time.
