My Startup, Blurpe, turned one year old a months ago on the 3rd of July . I’ve had it in mind to write about the last one year building Blurpe but I’ve been busy with a lot (especially Selar’s creators summit) and finally, I’ve found time to write about the experience. In the last one year of building Blurpe a lot of remarkable things have happened to me and I’ve grown so much! Four years ago when I launched my first Startup, the startup didn’t really start (lol). I lacked a lot of things and it wasn’t just “Money” but knowledge, relationships and the skillset.

One thing I am most grateful for is that in the last four years, I’ve been able to gain all of these. Building a Startup on the outside might seem fun if you’re not the one laying the bricks but truth be told, IT IS HARD! This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life (apart from moving to a new country) but trust me, this is hard!

In the last year of building this product, we’ve had some remarkably great success. I will highlight them here for you:

 

• A Crypto Company Sponsored 50 Youths to take courses on our platform

 

• We’ve trained over 300 young and aspiring marketers on different marketing skills

 

• We were featured on Techpoint, TechTrends, & Digitimes Africa

 

• We grew to a team of 5 (Our team is both in Rwanda & Nigeria)

 

• We pivoted to a HRTech Product

 

• Launched a Talent Pool

 

• We have over 200 active Community Members.

 

• Hired Marketing talents for MoneyAfrica, Creatulz, Land Republic, Digital Ray, and some other amazing tech startups in the ecosystem

 

• And so much more!

 

Looking back in retrospect, I realized that while Blurpe is growing, I have also grown. Not just in marketing but also as a manager and a leader. Here are some lessons I have learned so far building Blurpe in the last one year;

 

• Build what people really want, not what you “think” they want

 When we launched Blurpe, we launched with a “Netflix for Online Courses” model. Meaning people were to pay a subscription fee of $10 per month to access the courses and content on our platform. As much as this sounded nice to hear, Nigeria (Africa) is a difficult place to grow a subscription centered business especially if it’s a CaAS (Content as a service) business.

It wasn’t until this year, a friend of mine, Ayo, who is a cofounder at Land Republic told me that he really wants a growth marketer for his startup and it would be great if Blurpe could help him get someone. He went further to say that most startup founders find it difficult to get marketing talents and that if Blurpe could close that gap, it would be great for the ecosystem. 

That was when I saw the light! We could be the Andela for marketers. We could have a pipeline where we connect marketers to Startups. I have had people reach out to me to recommend growth and product marketers to them for their startup and I have been doing this for free. This could actually be a service! We first tested this service for 3 months and we made so much more money than we had ever made in the last 8 months of building the product.

It was at this moment that I decided we had to pivot fully and in June of this year (when we turned 1) we made more money in one month than the company had  made in its lifetime. When I shared updates with our Angel investor, here’s what he said.

 

 

It felt beautiful seeing someone that trusted us with his money being proud of what we are doing with Blurpe.

The lesson here is we thought the “Netflix of Online Courses” might be what would have given us the traction but apparently, our talent pool is what’s moving the needle for the company. The old marketing lesson of building a product for a market that wants that product, never fails.

 

Although we are now focused on the talent pool and getting great customers to companies, we still train marketers in different marketing skills through out live classes and our learning management system. So our main idea a year ago is now just a feature. The lesson here is to allow your product to evolve based on what customers need and what’s giving you the most traction.

 

 

Our talent pool is the bedrock of everything. If we get our talent pool right (which we are), then we can build a successful company.

 

 

• Build a Community

One thing we really wanted to get right at Blurpe was community. A dedicated community of marketers. A place where they can rant, bant, share resources and grow with each other. I am happy to say that we’ve done this with Bluppers Tribe. It was really difficult at first to grow the community and for conversations to take place but right now, it is a bubbly space packed with brilliant minds. We are building a strong community for marketers. A member of our Community; Blessing, once said, “My commitment to this community remains unwavering, in the times to come, I will continue to be a willing listener, an active participant, ignite conversations, and be a devoted contributor, just as you all have been for me“. When I read this, I felt chills go through my spine when she said this. Our community has been a strong force and I am grateful for the over 200 people we have at the moment.

 

• Build the right team and a healthy work culture

One growth strategy most startups forget about or ignore is building the right team. Through my work as the CMO of Selar, I have learnt how to build the right team. I can say that at the moment, I have an amazing team working with me at Blurpe. We are very small but we are so dedicated to making the product work. Shout out to Patience, Vera, Ray, and Olamide for putting in the work! One thing I have also tried doing is building a great culture at the company because the truth is people will only do great work when there is an environment that supports great work. If your work environment is toxic, people won’t give you their 100%.

Feedback from my teammates, both privately and on socials always give me the motivation to keep building a company that’s worth working in.

 

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• Focus on Customers

I know there’s a trend in the ecosystem where everyone is looking for the next investor which is great, (trust me) because it gives you the room to do a lot! However, working in a company like Selar, I have learned how to focus on customers! To focus on giving value to customers and building a great product because that is what keeps a business running and relevant. Right now, we are laser concentrated on getting the best marketing talents to startups that need them and training marketers in Africa to fit global standards! If we find an investor, great! If we don’t, we keep building! but hey, if you are interested in being part of our pre-seed round please send an email to hello@blurpe.co let’s get talking 🥹

The best is yet to come but even now, the satisfaction it brings to see that Blurpe is contributing its quota towards ensuring that African marketing talents are equipped to stand among their peers globally is worth pushing even harder. Building isn’t the easiest but what I’ve learned so far in products and marketing is that customers can tell when you are in it for the money or when you truly care about them. It’s okay to be in it for the money but you should also care deeply about your customers cause they are the ones that keeps the business going. 

 

Here are some testimonials from our customers, clients and community members.

 

 

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The journey is still far and we are yet to scratch the surface. My goal is to see what Blurpe can be in the next 10 years. We still have a lot of work to do. We are trying to grow the marketers in Africa, change the narrative that surrounds marketing hires and the profession in general and that is a long term game! The good thing is, we are here to play the long term game. What keeps me going is the idea of what we can become in the next 10 years if we remain consistent and committed to our mission.

It’s still day 1 for us – it always is!

Let’s keep building

 

 

PS: To hire marketing talents from Blurpe please click here. If you want to join our talent pool, click here