#TwentyYearsThrowback - How I became An Accidental Entrepreneur

#TwentyYearsThrowback - How I became An Accidental Entrepreneur?

By 1st of July 2023, Digital Encode will clock 20 years milestone as a business, it has been a journey of Grace, Grit and Gratitude. I am immensely grateful to the most high God for all His benefits that I have enjoyed by the grace of Jesus Christ.

I finished secondary school in 1992 but couldn’t go ahead with my education until the year 1998 because of the typical poverty story of the non-privileged.

I had to result to so many menial Jobs like farming, house keeping (house boy) and selling?Maggi cubes on Eko Idumota bridge between the year 1993 - 1997. I eventually got admission to the Federal Polytechnic Ede, Osun State in 1998.

Fast-forward, I had keen interest in working with some top organizations in the country, Multinationals, but my OND certificate was really a great limitation, likened to pushing a boulder that does not know what it means to move an inch!

However, I had gathered enough first-hand practical experience in my chosen Information Technology (IT) field through the mandatory students industrial work experience scheme (SIWES) and the certification courses (MCP, CCNA) I had enrolled for over the years; and all I prayed for after then was just the opportunity to prove my practical knowledge. I knew I’d break even at the slightest chance. I knew that my breakthrough hinged on time and chance, and I had waited for it, prepared.?

On this day in 2002, I went hustling somewhere around Marina in Lagos, Nigeria and I decided to have a lunch at a popular Coca-Cola Amala joint where I had always enjoyed good meals. It was a very stressful day, and very sunny too, the heat and scorch of the sun fried me as I went about trying to make some money. After I managed to settle down at the joint to hold my stomach with something heavy, which would take me for some more tough hours, I realized that all I had on me was just ?50, which could not afford anything reasonable.?????????????????????????????????????????

I needed to eat something. Hunger pangs were biting my stomach walls and I was just a few minutes away from fainting. My tanned complexion told part of my hustling story.?‘Madam!’ I called out for the waiter and made a shameless order – a plate of Amala without meat.?

While I sat at the joint to devour what I had ordered, I keenly observed two young men seated at a corner, looking clean and peppy, their excitement captured my attention at once. I decided to listen to their conversation from which I gathered that they were Zenith Bank Marketers and had met their target. In their thrill, they decided to meet at the Amala joint to celebrate each with a plate of Amala with assorted meats, fish and all they could eat. And there I was at a lonely corner envying them with my plate of Amala without meat in front of me, starring back into my pale face. I could only think of what they have done which I have not. At some point, I had believed that I also deserved some degree of great success because of the years I had labored and hustled.?

While in my trench of envious admiration, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, ‘Wale, do you know that Jim Ovia employed those guys?’?

I replied, ‘Yes!?Mr.Jim Ovia owns Zenith Bank’. I knew that, and obviously, the guys were working for him.

The Holy Spirit told me that the young men were excited because they had met a target set for them, and challenged me to set any target for myself and He will help me to meet it, that sounded like an open cheque for me, and maybe too good to be true. It was an opportunity I had to grab with both hands. And believe me, I grabbed it.

You see, so many people blunder at this point in their lives when an open-ended offer is given to them. Some people realize at this point that they were actually incubating nothing in their minds, they are just as empty as the break of the day. So, when an offer like this show up, they find themselves counting their fingers and thinking of what to say. But a man with a strong craving for success always live prepared.?

It was Abraham Lincoln who said, ‘I will prepare and someday my chance will come’. I had prepared, and my chance came.

In my case, I already had something in mind, I just presented it as my target. I had since conceived the name of my company, ‘Digital Encode’ in my mind, and had started incubating it.

I got the name “Digital Encode” when I was still squatting with a friend. I was cleaning his stereo one morning when I suddenly picked interest in reading the tiny writing on the sound system. Then, I saw a particular line of words that inspired that name, and immediately, I reached out to my writing materials and wrote it down. So, when the Holy Spirit told me to set a target for myself. That was the first thing that came on my mind. I quickly presented my target to launch Digital Encode!

In 20 years Digital Encode had risen from a humble Nigeria startup to a thriving Global Cybersecurity, Governance, Risk and Compliance Professional Service Firm.?

To Be Continued ……….

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