Video chatting has been made even easier than before. Founder and CEO, Oladayo Olagunju, did a Q&A with Lalawag about his new startup that allows any 2 persons to take their conversations public (live, and recorded). In other words, its a hybrid of Skype and YouTube.
(Click on the image to watch this conversation)
Pitch us your service in three sentences or less. Nyoombl (pronounced like “nimble”) allows any two people to take their conversation public.
What made you decide to focus your company on that service? Transparency. Initially, I wanted to solve my own problem: to sort of connect my family members and friends visually regardless of location. Eventually, it hit me that the most interesting or even most useful or relatable conversations and dialogues in society are, sadly, never heard because they’re between two ordinary people or had over coffee or at the dining table. Nyoombl is about broadcasts and shifting power away from the elite. We are democratizing conversations by letting everyday people to do what Larry King did and empowering the unsung Oprah Winfreys in our midst.
How big is your team? Can you describe your company’s culture? Four. We don’t separate work from play or personal life from professional life. We don’t even call it work. If it’s not fun and purposeful, it shouldn’t be your job. It has to be what you love. Your hobby. That’s how I think of it. When you get paid to work on your hobby, it’s clear you’re not driven by external factors. We live in a hackpad together. We have no work time or play time. It’s all one and the same. Just have fun and get it done, solemnly keeping in mind the ultimate vision. I’d say autonomy and purpose best describe us.
How did your company get its initial funding? Do you have any advice for emerging startups on how to deal with funding? An adviser and good friend introduced me to a friend (and now, adviser) who introduced me to our seed investor. It couldn’t have been orchestrated but it was a match made in heaven. At the time, I had a very buggy but working product and helpful feedback from a few users and friends, but it was not the product sealed it. It was other intangible things. I advice entrepreneurs to speak openly about what matters most to them, and to do it sincerely. The passion and vision matter most. The best investors invest in those.
Has your company ever had to pivot? If so, what was that like? Yes, it was gut-wrenching but exhilarating afterwards.
How do you deal with competition and how does your company stand out from the competition? Although aware, I don’t worry about competition. One doesn’t win a race by looking around instead of staring intently at the finish line. By staring at the finish line, I mean focusing maniacally on the customer experience and solemn promise you deliver to your users. I’m more paranoid about what we’re doing that we should not be doing than by what we are not doing that we should.
Tell us a little about your background? What made you want to start your own company? I don’t think I wanted to start a company per se, but by nature, I think I have a low tolerance for things or conditions with which I am dissatisfied. I always want to do something about it, even when I can’t. I fell in love with pictures and the notion of motion pictures. How sound and movement hit the human senses and end up conveying comprehensible meaning. I appreciated video technologies and pondered why, at the time, TVs did not have a webcam. I had my grandmother in mind. She’s not into PC, Skype, and the like, but she’s very skillful with her TV remote control. I thought it would be useful if she could push one button and see me on her TV screen and communicate with me that way instead of just by telephone. So I thought I should do this. One thing led to another, and I saw there’d be value if my parents could see and hear me conversing live with my grandmother, or if a classroom of pupils could watch two other students discussing live from separate locations. Today, Nyoombl is very different from what it was and it will change more, but what I just narrated is like the seed of how it started. Fortunately or unfortunately, as things evolved, it had to end up as a company.
What are your thoughts on the LA entrepreneurial scene? I honestly don’t know much about it beyond what I read and hear. Nonetheless, my thoughts are that it’s burgeoning impressively with the needed support network including great individual investors, venture capitalists, and celebrities whose value and clout are undeniably apparent even to us here in Silicon Valley.
Who are your three most influential entrepreneurs? Why? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. I tend to like people, entrepreneurs or not, with an unwavering determination an almost stubborn insistence on eventual purpose. Of course, an insistence on purpose or vision does not mean that different missions to that vision aren’t explored or considered. It just means one knows unambiguously where one is going. I like that — especially because there are many ways to Rome, but at least you feel that you are going to Rome. Not Venice. Not Milan. Rome.
What’s the hardest/best thing about being an entrepreneur? It’s the thrill and humbling effect that come with the realization that one as daring to change the current state of things. It’s empowering but delicate. The fact that one or two people think you’re not crazy, all others doubt you, several leave you to your own devices, or just frankly don’t even care or notice…all of this is like a blank slate. You could write the future on that slate or just sit there and mope that it’s a blank slate.
What’s one of your most successful decisions? Can you share something that’s worked really well for you that you think other entrepreneurs could learn from? Trust. It has hurt me before but I find that you only get trust when you give trust. The toughest decions, or even life itself, can’t always be cerebrally modelled or perfectly sorted out. You just have to trust since no one is an island unto himself or herself. I don’t think decisions are either successful or not. Outcomes are. I do many things poorly, but I’m often described as very trusting. It comes naturally to me, alongside its downsides. Perhaps it’s more of a trait than a decision, but I think all humans can make a conscientious effort to be trusting.
What are your next goals? (Either for the current venture or for the company as a whole)The journey is a continuum. That means I’m always in that mode; always looking for passionate people to partake in our dream and to help us, whether it’s a hacker, a lover of social media…or whatever. I know where we’re going but I don’t have it all segmented into steps per se. It’s all one focus. No need to lie to you. Only when you look back can you see the steps clearly. To be frank, it’s like a voyage. When you wake up the next day, just keep moving forward.
To find out more about Nyoombl, follow the startup on Twitter @nyoombl and Facebook
