In 2014, six young Nigerians – Odunayo Eweniyi, Somto Ifezue, Terry Kanu, Nonso Chinagorom, Ibukun Akinola and Joshua Chibueze – founded Sharphire. This was a company building products that actually make life easier for other young Nigerians. The company started off with their flagship product PushCV – a recruitment platform with the largest database of pre-screened job candidates in Africa. Since their first launch, they have also built two other highly successful products, PiggyBank and FrontDESK.
Joshua Chibueze had a chat with TechMoran about their startup, its growth, competitors, challenges and motivation. Presently, the company has three products it is managing. This amount doesn’t come as a problem to the founders as Joshua had revealed below.
All the startups have unique problems that they’re solving and we are team of 6 co-founders, so managing them is relatively easier.
At some point, i was inclined to think in this same direction. PushCV tackles the problem of unemployment. There might be no need to remind us of how high the unemployment rate is in Nigeria.
PiggyBank helps you save money. According to them,
While some banks are just glorified pillowcases for your money, Piggybank actually helps you save. It lets you automatically save little amounts of money daily, weekly or monthly depending on what your goals are.
While FrontDesk on its own hand, enables small business owners to easily launch a simple and secure website that lets them showcase, sell and receive online payments from anyone, anywhere.
As co-founder of Sharphire, which of the startups in your portfolio posed the most challenge during building?
Piggybank.ng
What effect does competitors e.g Jobberman have on PushCV? Is there any?
Unemployment is huge in Nigeria. However, PushCV focuses more on pre-screened candidates as opposed to all other job platforms and is also known to be an expert with CV rewriting.
Which of Sharphire’s startups is most promising?
Lol. They are all promising.
How hard, or easy, was fund raising for your company?
Not too difficult. We believe in providing value first and also that your customers are your first investors.
When you first started out, can you recount your most challenging moment?
When we had to deal with over thousands of CV orders in the space of 4 weeks during a growth hack campaign for PushCV.
What would be the one thing you would do differently if you were given a second chance?
Nothing really. I believe that we have gone through the necessary process and it contributes greatly to where we are today. It can only get better from here.
What keeps you and your other co-founders going (your motivation)?
Feedback from our users across the 3 products.
Any word of advice to upcoming tech entrepreneurs?
Assemble a great team and you have solved more than 80% of your problem.