We made it was categorically clear that we did not vet these nannies ourselves and advised them to interview any potential candidate face to face as well as carry out police, guarantor and health checks before they hired anyone from our platform. In the same way that they would if the nanny was brought by an agent. Almost all of the parents who signed up did not like the fact that we would not take responsibility for the actions of the nannies. This quickly made us aware that the Nigerian market was not ready for that sort of service and probably never will.

As early adopters signed up on the website in search of childcare, we started receiving requests from users for other types of services apart from domestic childcare. People asked if they could find infant photographers, party planners, cleaners and nursery school teachers. In our effort to drive adoption, we fell into scope creep, gradually adding services and features to the platform that were never part of the original vision.

As you can imagine, this effort took us away from improving the UI and UX part of the platform. The look and feel of the website was not comparable to Facebook and Instagram, however the functionality was great. Pages moved really well and navigation was good (if I may may say so myself) as long as you knew what you were doing.

Very soon it was clear that the original plan for people to find domestic nannies on the website was not going to happen. Interestingly, we started to get requests for preschool and nursery teachers specifically in Lagos and Abuja areas. In response to this we created a new page on the website dedicated to job adverts – childminder.ng/nurseryjobs and charged schools to post their job advert and handle initial screening. This was an unexpected pivot and we started seeing an increased interest in this service which was generating a much needed revenue. As we were soon running out of money.

Honestly, I was not interested in the idea of being a tech founder at first. At the time, my dream was a career in HR, however I struggled to get a permanent job. A few entry level temporary contract roles here and there ended without extensions. So at the end of 2015, I decided to pay attention to his pitch and I bought into it. At this time we had two toddlers under 3 years old and finding reliable childcare was the bane of our lives. It was the same for our friends who lived back home in Nigeria. In the UK, there were existing online platforms where you could find childcare, but there was no such thing in Nigeria at the time.

We considered what building a platform like that for the Nigerian market which had unique peculiarities would work. We did some “market research” and asked a bunch of people if they would hire a nanny from a website. Our unique selling point was that we were targeting “higher end” nannies. Educated people who wanted to work in childcare for a period of time. It seemed to be an attractive offer for the people that participated in our “market research”. Our main worry was about safety and to mitigate that risk we created a Safety Hiring page that provided guidance to parents on how to interview and carry out background checks on anyone they found on the platform.

As we fleshed out the idea, my husband began writing the requirements for an MVP. Writing requirements is his ‘bread and butter’ as he often smugly said, in a way I found adorable and cute. He taught me what he knew and that was my entry into the digital/tech space. Shortly after, we found an IT agency based in Chandigarh within our budget and officially joined the global sprint to build the next big platform. We genuinely weren’t looking to be the next Zuckerberg. We only hoped to build something valuable that could pay for it self and maybe left us enough to pay our monthly mortgage.

The IT agency assigned us a project manager Vishal, he was young, vibrant and very patient with us which was a God send. Sometime in 2016, we launched the MVP for web platform childminder.ng. It is an incredible feeling to see your idea come to life. I absolutely enjoyed working on that project, often working late into the night.

As a founder/cofounder you wear all the hats. You are product designer, tester, digital marketer, social media manager, business development manager, growth strategist, adoption champion and most importantly, financier. I taught myself a whole load of skills. My least favourite was figuring out Google analytics and Facebook advertising. Looking back I think it’s because it cost us money to spread the word of our new and shiny platform.

Even now in their teenage years, we occasionally create new boundaries. Luckily they now understand the concept of boundaries and that it is for their benefit. Occasionally they ask for stuff and we either outrightly say no, or we tell them when we could get it for them.

This is a typical parent child relationship. All things being equal the child doesn’t disown his parents simply because they said no to him or asked him to wait. I was listening to a clip of a Christian podcast and the speaker said, (I am paraphrasing) if you get disappointed with God or turn away from Him when he doesn’t give you what you want or even disciplines you, you cannot call Him Father, because fathers get to discipline and set boundaries for their child. That hit me like ton of bricks.

In my walk and relationship with Jesus Christ, I proclaim him as my Father, especially since my earthly father, Benjamin died over 19 years ago. My earthly father loved me, he raised me right as much as he could, taught me to follow Christ. He also disciplined me well. I was a stubborn kid, his first child, so he did not spare the rod on a few occasions when his words had fallen on my selective deaf ears. On those occasions it never occurred to me rebel against him or run away from home. Ok, I thought about running away from home a few times but I knew there was no place on earth where I would be loved as much as I was loved at home.

So when I heard those words from the podcast, it occurred to me that I had never thought about God as a parent in the same way Benjamin was my father. This has helped reframe my feelings about my unanswered prayers. As my Father, he has either said No, which is a full sentence. Or he has said not yet, which means I just gotta wait because He said so, or I have to eat a figurative spinach & broccoli before I can have my desert.

Life happened, marriage, kids, raising kids, so far so good, but now, I find myself having with a familiar feeling of unrest. What have I done with myself, what positive contribution have I made to humanity, asides adding to the population growth. There is a deep need we have as humans to walk in our purpose. Those who find that early, may be spared this horrid feeling. Or maybe not. I don’t know.

I saw a video on Instagram and he poster was talking about how people always worry about what their purpose is and even pray asking God to show or tell them what God’s will or purpose is for their life. The speaker referred to the book of Romans 12:2 where Paul was advising the early Christians “do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will”. The speaker explained that basically, we are free to choose any career path or job, however, whatever we do must be filtered through the will of God. If you have read the scriptures, you’ll know that Jesus’s life on earth is the exemplary life that we should emulate. So if you’re a carpenter, (Jesus’s actual career before his 3 year ministry took off), a pilot, or software engineer, our life’s purpose is to be like Jesus.

Now I have come to the realization that Christians who go through existential crisis may not have come to this full knowledge. I do not know if I will be the next tech billionaire founder or president of my country, or just a regular mum who retires at 60 after a 9-5 job. What I do know now is that I was created to glorify God with my life and in everything I do, share His love to all and proclaim the Gospel of Christ. That is just me, how about you?

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Why this, why now

16 years ago, I was an almost carefree young woman, navigating “the” social media and digital world almost gracefully trying to figure out where I fit in. One thing was clear to me, I liked writing and sharing my thoughts and opinions, and being part of a community of positive people who engage and learn from each other. But, somewhere along the line I completely censored myself on my social media feeds, and decided that blogging (I used Google’s blogger platform) was no longer a good idea. So this is me trying to go back to that young lady who thought the world was her oyster.

What kind of community are you looking to build here

I hope my writings will bring some sort of reassurance to people who read it, that we are not much different and we all go through the same things, maybe in different ways. I’m hoping I find a community that understands my sense of humour because i’m often told - its’ out there. I’m praying to connect with amazing people who will rub off on me in a positive way.

How often would you post

I hope to post once a week - so help me God. Baby steps until I get back to that young lady I used to be.