X01—let me tell you a story
September 2015, I was in church.
It was a Sunday service. I was incessantly eager to leave. It was too long, I think—that detail is hazy.
During the announcements, as I peeped at my phone to look for messages I might have missed, "before we leave ...", the General Secretary started.
You can guess. I was livid.
Sometime in 2016, I was taking a walk to my room off-campus. I'd started design now—thanks to that fateful Sunday.
I dropped by a recording studio because who didn't start out their career—a student in 2016—designing record covers. I'll call him Haytch.
He'd go on to shade people in the design space saying they were not so good. In hindsight, he wasn't lying. It was shit even for my level at the time.
"You've been doing good stuff", he ended his rant, "we should start something solid together".
I loved being rated, so yes, I was grinning.
February 2017, I walked into the Student Union and met Victor taking a design class.
He was specifically teaching alignment at the time and I was intrigued cos he's the first person I'd meet talking about design principles.
I sat down and came back again.
His first words to me were, "you talk like a professional".
January 2018, I was on Idanre Hills. Asides discovering my acrophobia, I spent an ample time listening to Kitan David talk about the Zero Law and the law of Abundance.
I was fascinated by his clarity of thoughts and wanted that for myself. I'd also recently found Chris Do and yes, I was binging like crazy.
March 2018, Neptunn was birthed.
My obsession with Percy Jackson and the Greek god of the oceans, Poseidon was the inspiration.
I was now a CEO and Founder. I was leading a team—now a Creative Director with less than 4 years of experience.
I was also in 400 level.
August 2018, I slept in a club for 19 days straight.
I'd smoke my first cigarette and my first weed. I'd also find out that I'm not a huge fan of alcohol, although I didn't agree until much later.
Why?
Neptunn was managing the feat of a certain DJ Venum to break the Guinness World Record for the Longest Playing DJ.
October 2018, we had our first client.
By the end of the year, we'd made about 660,000 NGN in revenue. That was huge for me at the time.
This could work, I told myself.
I also did my SIWES at my own company. Interesting story for another day.
November 2019, sometime around 11PM, I wrote these words—"let's split, I nor do again".
A week later, I signed a dissolution agreement effective on December 26th. I was leaving my baby. I was leaving Neptunn.
I'd also just worked on my first Sound & Environmental Design project.
December 2019, 8PM, I told my team the news.
"I'm leaving".
School had finished, but I wasn't. I had thought Neptunn was worth the sacrifice and now I lost on both ends—that's what I thought at the time.
"We'll keep in touch", I said as I thought about creating a WhatsApp group that would keep everyone in touch.
March 2020, the Tribbe was born.
April 2020, I thought about, planned and executed a 5-week workshop, about 7 reusable templates, a 198-page workbook that had about 100 applications and 52 participants.
Publicity only lasted 6 days.
January 2021, I got a call. It was Edmund Olotu.
There was a job opening and we were discussing the responsibilities. I got it, surprisingly actually.
February 2021, I got another call. It was a Senior Product Designer position. It wasn't an application call. It was an invitation. I got it.
June 2021, I'm writing this to you.
Moral lesson?
There's a journey, and you're right at the beginning. You can only see the next steps you've taken and it looks little.
A km is made up of a couple thousand steps. A couple thousand steps are made up of a lot of single steps.
It's not a game. It doesn't end. There's no destination. You'll never feel satisfied. That -ick you feel now, it won't go away. You don't finish the boss at the end.
It's a never ending journey.
Your reward is progress.
It's been over 6 years and the progress is worth the steps you take—regardless of how slow or ragged the road is.
Welcome to The X.
Ciao.