The Chaos Behind the Wins - About Building AFEX.Africa

By Nnadozie Ekwuribe

Whenever a new product is unveiled, unified applauses resonate. The minds and talents behind the project hold hands with proud grins and uplifted shoulders. More times than not someone gives a speech, rendering compliments to ‘the team behind the win’ and congratulations ensue. LinkedIn posts go up an hour later, backed with beautiful pictures and tagged elaborate (and often verbose) votes of thanks. Even when someone eventually writes about the creative process, it’s all rainbows and sunshine, conveniently skipping past the definite days and weeks of chaos that preceded the completion. If it’s a faux pas to mention such things, here’s a heartfelt pre-apology as I break the unspoken rule.

So, we just launched a new version of our corporate website and it now has quite a refreshing look and feel. The website was a combined product of so many highly talented and creative individuals, working in different squads but sharing one common goal. Here’s the thing about creatives, we are actually quite stubborn. The ability to create in itself depends on some sort of self-strength that over time builds a belief in self. Creatives inherently choose a path and stick to it; being strongly opinionated is part of the JD. I assume you’ve surmised where my story is heading with this introduction?

Let’s skip the arduous task involved in deciding the structure and content of the website. If you know AFEX you’ll know we provide a myriad of solutions targeted at a myriad of target audiences. After mapping out the supposed structure and content, we passed it on to the UI/UX guys with a "feel free, be creative" directive. Turns out you can’t tell people to be ‘feel free’ when you already have in mind a picture of the supposed outcome. As it turns out, the first couple of renditions from the designers deviated significantly from what the content guys had in mind. Regardless of what we all say in job interviews, no one particularly enjoys rejection.

Steve Jobs once said “Teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part...”

I do believe that at some point after multiple iterations and no resolution, everyone started losing a bit of said trust.

So, we did the only sane thing to do: Got everyone involved into a room and threw the previous content out the window. The designers got involved in the storytelling and mapping the user journey. We agreed we needed the website to reflect pan-Africanism, be impact heavy and illuminate our trade solutions. We went through countless existing websites and debated countless details. We discussed themes, colors, look, feel, and other design elements. This was not a one-day meeting, it occurred over a series of meetings, some of which ended in utter disagreement. The text for the hero section alone took literal days of deliberation and then was changed and changed again till someone mentioned writing a love letter with the title “You want to trade with Africa? Who doesn’t”

Eureka!

That for me, was the turning point. Everyone agreed with the tagline and slowly we began to align. There were many more points of deliberations and disagreements but slowly but surely, we canvassed to a central point. Deadlines were shifted and re-shifted, and a couple of corporate threats were invoked, but I think we all knew we had passed the point of turbulence and now were sure of a beautiful outcome ahead.

The development phase was not as turbulent, but as things progressed, that’s when we started noticing some little errors and such. One of, probably the most interesting yet terrifying points, was when I had to present the website formally to the GCEO, Ayodeji Balogun , and he insisted we cast it on a big screen in the office for everyone present to see. All of us who had undertaken the journey stood quietly in shrouded panic, watching together as new creatives with their own opinions scrutinized our sweat. Any negative comment had the ability to take us aback by weeks. When the GCEO eventually gave his thumbs up, that was my actual moment of true triumph.

I believe the chaos, fights, rejections, disagreements, and deliberations, of a group of creatives is what ultimately births true and undeniable works of excellence. It should be spoken about more frequently. If entropy could shape our universe, why not our relatively infinitesimal projects as well?

Thanks for reading about my process, please check out our website at https://www.afex.africa/