Hello there,
I’m writing this article as I return back to work mode from a much-needed break, ‘cos what a year that was! As with many of us, 2022 was a year of many things, highs and lows as well as mixed outcomes. While we made so much progress within the year, for many, it’s not one to relive. It came with so much uncertainty and external pressure that rendered many helpless to the point of questioning or even losing their anchors. It feels like returning from battle and not being sure whether you won or lost the battle, so I would like to describe 2022 as a preparatory or experimental year. It’s also fine if you didn’t share in the same experience, we celebrate you and wish you an even better 2023.
For me, it was indeed a true test of character, faith, and attitude. In the process, I learned so much more about myself and my environment than I ever did in past years. I am now better equipped to decide the kind of life I desire for myself and by myself. One that is on my own terms, goal driven with loud results. The break was a period to cool off from everything and find one’s true self again - the “Victor”. It's also interesting to see that despite how mixed our experience in 2022 was, there’s a general optimism for 2023 as one where we go harder and double down on all efforts, challenge ourselves to do better, be more audacious, and achieve big results. It all feels like we’ve been given another shot at life, a hard reset. I will be holding on to Marianne Williamson’s famous quote closely: “...your playing small doesn’t serve the world”.
As a first step, I decided that I was going to challenge myself to start an annual notes series where I write about the previous year’s experience on a personal level, lessons learned, affirmations, progress with my ventures, and interests.
In October 2022, I made the single biggest decision of my career. I left a highly rewarding and promising role as Chief Growth Officer with Bitmama and Head of Changera App, to cofound a tech startup with some of the best minds I know and long-time associates. This was barely a couple of weeks after Bitmama publicly announced its $2M pre-seed raise, a decision that a handful of associates who were privy to, thought was too hasty, but I remain grateful to Ruth Iselema (CEO, Bitmama) and the rest of the leadership team for supporting me. Anyone who knows me understands that I go all in and don’t look back, once I set my eyes on something, that’ll be all there is to me. I guess that explains the “hasty decision”.
With the types of roles I’ve occupied throughout my career, and my level of involvement, it’s easy to think I was a co-founder at any of my previous engagements, but this is my first time and nothing prepares you for what comes with the experience. Seems like some of us were just built to gravitate toward uncertainty and solving problems. I’d always known that I’d cofound a business someday but wasn’t sure when or how soon. Nonetheless, I’ve always believed so much in positively influencing the world and so I wanted to make sure that anything I will be building was a worthwhile endeavor that allowed me to leave behind a mark on the world. The past three months haven’t been the smoothest of experiences, especially as my cofounders and I all quit our prior roles and decided to go full-time on our new project right before the market took a drastic turn with rising rates, asset price crunch, FTX collapse, global layoffs, and pay cuts, VC slowdown all playing their respective parts.
For the first time, I felt the direct impact of an uncertain business environment, even though we were pre-product. It was almost beginning to feel like everything was slipping away, especially as you could see your plans and strategies all fall through before your eyes. Nonetheless, we found some early believers amongst partners, co-builders, angels, and community who continued to extend us the needed grace to move on, either directly or indirectly. We live in a world of facts and figures, but our world needs more believers because believers build the world for everyone else.
In the heat of the moment, it often becomes difficult to remember your anchors, but I got reminded that the best solutions emerge in a time of uncertainty and crises so we were able to rejig our concept through several paths and are now certain on the direction we are taking. In retrospect, we are grateful for our unique ongoing journey as it has been necessary to shape us into very resilient founders as we embark on building the future.
We’ve managed to keep our project private these past few months but over the coming weeks in this quarter, we will roll out public information on our project. Super excited for what is to come as this project will form the bulk of my life over the next couple of years.
As alluded to earlier, 2022 was a preparatory year and it seems the fire was evenly distributed because gold has to go through the fire in its raw state for its fine shine to emerge. My biggest takeaways from 2022, are the lessons learned, which also form my affirmations and drivers for this and the coming years. I share them below and hope you also draw inspiration from them:
You have the power to decide who you want to become. Once you do so and set your mind on it, don’t see anything else, because your mindset is everything. Your mindset is your single most important asset, so protect your motivation and thoughts at all costs.
Consume and associate with only what edifies and aligns with who you want to become, don’t settle - use your sensory organs to win in life - what you hear, see, touch, taste, smell, basically what goes into you determines who you become. You ultimately become where you spend most of your time, so use it to your favor.
The greatest battle is with self. To win in life you have to win yourself first. Defeat controls and anything that doesn’t align with your goals - laziness, weakness, anxiety, fear, small thinking, guilty pleasures, poverty, boundaries, and limits.
Think and live in happiness, abundance, confidence, assurance, peace of mind, hard work, discipline, do big things, things on the edge of life, loud, bold, and audacious without fear. You attract and become what you think!
Fall in love with doing uncomfortable things because that’s what makes you better and brings your dreams to reality. A life of ease and comfort takes no one anywhere. You have to put in the work to get what you want. Treat all your goals like work, It's called work because it wasn’t meant to be easy, it's meant to stretch you. If you want to have fun, go to a park, but just know it’s not always all about fun. Work hard and work out as much as you eat, sleep and laze, for every negativity fight it with positivity.
You don’t have to feel like it, and you don’t have to enjoy it, you do it because it is the path to your goal and without it, there will be no results. Create systems, build habits and routines and stick to them. Be fueled by your expected results and their impact on changing your life and those around you. Practice makes perfect!
Aim to be a complete man and set goals on all sides which you must crush - physical wellness & well-being, finances, career, relationships, and social life.
Live daring and audacious, turn the world into your theater, prioritize self-care, and growth, travel more, make videos, write more, live actively, meet new people on the same path & share in their experiences, create content and share with the world, never reduce yourself for anyone because you are uniquely positioned and no two people are the same.
Don’t conform to your reality or other people’s perception of you or what should be. Live audacious, free, and in total control of your life and outcomes, once you find yourself shrinking or deviating, you're within the wrong association. It's called your life for a reason. So do it for you, because your life is worth your living.
Life is all about goals, principles, and anchors. So write them down, hold on to them, guard them, and start doing them now because tomorrow is too late.
On a lighter note, my interests in many other areas expanded. I became intentional about my online image and started putting out lifestyle and travel content through my Instagram page (@ebovi_wali). Apparently, I discovered how much I loved traveling, visiting 7 cities in total last year - Nairobi, Barcelona, Accra, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Abuja, and Lagos (where I live now). My year-in-review reel is up on my Instagram page. I also attended three international conferences last year and spoke at two conferences in Nigeria. At Thrive Africa Community, our venture investing outfit, we invested more than the previous year and also expanded our footprints into Kenya. Cheers to more engagements & trips in 2023 and meeting more amazing people and life-changing opportunities.
I fell in love with music even more in 2022 especially the EDM genre, so much that I will actually love to DJ sometime in the future. My best EDM track for the year was ‘Loop by Martin Garrix’. For Afrobeats, producer-turned-artiste Young Jonn, did magic with “If you leave”. For movie shows, my top pick is the financial markets-based show “Devils” and the Yoruba movie “Anikulapo” for the numerous lessons on life and leadership.
I also started listening to podcasts and followed lots of speakers during the year and my favorite was Vinod Khosla - Founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures - for his perspectives on impacting the world with technology. I also gained a strong interest in Yoseph Ayele - co-founder of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship in New Zealand through his talks on how we can build better societies through a borderless world.
My interest in groundbreaking technology such as AI, geopolitics, and global economics grew in leaps and bounds especially as I could clearly relate to its impact last year. I will be following developments in AI closely, the Russia - Ukraine crisis as it unfolds, the US campaign season, activities of Central Banks to curb inflation and its impact on the rest of the global economy, also following developments around global market correction and cost-cutting measures of corporates closely, as well as the Nigerian presidential elections. The reality is that I don’t expect the economic environment to greatly improve from last year as we are now entering a period or maybe a decade of correction and fight for resilience, however, we can be better prepared and not hit with shock and adverse realities as with last year.
I am wishing you a very prosperous and fruitful 2023. If you enjoyed reading this piece, feel free to send me a mail (ebovi@kacha.io) or leave a comment. Also open to speaking with as many of you on mutually beneficial subjects or if you’ll just like to chat some more about vision building, so feel free to reach out. I look forward to writing to you again soon!
Best regards,
Ebovi Wali.