The Start-up Mixer Q & A with Odipo Dev
Odipo Dev provide key data to organizations that helps in identifying core audiences, brand affinities and influencers and have proven to be applicable to marketing strategies both online and offline.
In the run up to the Start-up mixer tomorrow (March 28) where they are set to have a presentation, we rack the brains of the founders of this leading tech start-up, Odanga Madung and Samer Ahmed.
1. When you were naming your business, what other names did you consider?
Odanga: We named our business after a friend of ours who passed away due to HIV/AIDS we wanted to honor him and that’s how we started this venture. As a result we really didn’t consider any other names when naming our company.
Samer: This whole venture started in honor of Joseph Odipo, and there was no way we were going to name it anything else.
2.What companies (in a field outside of your own) do you admire?
Odanga: Outside our field I really admire Facebook for their CEOs sheer will to dominate the web, New York Times because of their willingness to embrace innovation through the use of data at their media lab, AirBnB and Paypal too.
Samer: I admire Apple and always have, since I saw one of their products. I feel that they capture the essence of combining both beautiful design and usability, making products whose use borders on pure intuition. I also like Boeing, for their continued innovation in a field that seems fine to most people without it. They keep pushing the edge of aviation technology with every new plane they release.
3. If you could have dinner with any five people (dead or alive) who would you pick and why?
Odanga:
i) Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamp- I like the idea that he challenges the norms that are assumed when it comes to starting a company;
ii) Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist- I love his work on irrationality and why we make the weird decisions that we do;
iii) Marie Curie - you don’t win two Nobel prizes for nothing!
iv) Elon Musk - He is perhaps the most interesting man in the world right now revolutionizing both transport and space travel at the same time; and
v) Seth Godin - Marketing was not marketing until Seth Godin came along, his books and talks have literally changed the way people think about putting their products into the market.
Samer:
i) Prophet Muhammad - He is considered the most influential person that ever lived. Just meeting him would allow me to glean enough insight as to how he managed to shift the dynamics of generations yet unborn to this day;
ii) Nikola Tesla. Without him, not much would have been possible in Electricity. He brought us the AC generator, and devised the most technologies ever by one man. He built unconventional devices, such us earthquake machines and electro guns. Some of his patents keep being released by the US Government, but most of his designs are still unknown to the public. I’d like to know what he could have imagined possible with the technology that exists today;
iii) John Nash: He won the Nobel Laureate in Economics. He had a mental illness, making him imagine people and interact with them. I would like to him how he managed to deal with such illness and manage to live with it the rest of his life. One of my greatest fears is insanity;
iv) Steve Jobs: For the same reason everyone else wants to meet him. Just kidding. I want to know about how to push people to greatness when you know so little in their field. I want to know how he really did it, and how he would do it differently, if he had the chance; and
v) My grandfather: The things I’ve heard people speak of him; his resilience, patience, kindness and tolerance have drawn great admiration from many. He died two years before I was born, and would have liked to talk with him and take any advice he might offer.
4. Which two books would you recommend to our readers?
Odanga: Muhammad Ali’s Soul of a butterfly and Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start.
Samer: How to Win friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie and any Fantasy Science Fiction book, because until you start believing in the impossible, you’ll never achieve it.
5. Business books and blogs are awash with habits of successful and effective leaders. What habits/ values have you incorporated into your life/ business that contribute to your effectiveness?
Odanga:
i) Resources: time, money, technology, contacts, experience, ideas
ii) Resourcefulness: Creativity, determination, passion, curiosity
iii) Resourcefulness is what winners are made of.
Samer: Keeping calm. Whatever the situation, we never panic. We maintain our cool, and think it through. I pride myself on the ability to adapt. Every situation we’ve faced, we’ve found a way to do it. Never have we let anything stop us. That adaptability, coupled with resilience (from Odipo), is what makes us who we are.
