People like the idea of someone behind a product so it would
be nice to know who is behind Causefundr. I owe as much to everyone given the
potential success of this very first cause.
My names are Oti Larry, i am a graduate of the 2010 class of
the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. I have not done my youth corp
(country serving things) but i would when i choose to. The story behind that is
not exactly straight but has a short version. I am a software engineer (write
programs, softwares, web apps, websites) but major in Front end dev, UI/UX for
those who understand better. I
work, building a product with my team (www.scoolware.com and www.nollywoodpecker.com) I also freelance, IT subcontracts and regular
jobs here and there. So that’s where the expertise to put up causefundr came
from.
HOW I STARTED CAUSEFUNDR
The truth is Causefundr is just about Baby Kelechi but the
success rate has made me do a lot of thinking and am trying to apply model
which i originally wanted to use for profit making businesses. It’s simple, w
could do up to a 300 children a year if every Nigerian on Facebook can give
N1000 a year (minus extras).
My mum was talking about how she and some other women
visited a member of the church because the child was sick and about how she hadn’t
visited in a while and wanted to give the lady some money. I actually blew it
away. I asked more and she told me more saying the child had a heart condition,
i asked what had being done and she said nothing, they were discharged from the
hospital in 2011 and so on. For some
reason, i wasn’t able to concentrate for about 3 days or so (Software
development requires it) and i called my mum and asked if she had paid the
money she wanted to and she had so i opted to pay. Two days later i paid
N50,000 without even seeing the kid and verifying anything. I asked my mum to
take me to see the parents that evening which we did and it was a sorry state.
Handsome boy still trying to play despite his bad hands. Just like every other
person, sympathy was the only option afterall i have done my part. I asked a
few questions and left.
The preceding one week was crazy, i would complete a some
work fraction in about 3 times the regular timeline. It was disturbing, i knew
the problem but i ignored it. After one week passed, i opened my Diary (i use
it to scribbles and do wireframes) and started the causefundr idea. The next day
i went to the Njoku’s home (Met only the Mrs) and asked every possible
question, collected every document and number i needed. Came back some other
time (Met the father for the first time) and got pictures and a video of Baby
Kelechi. I put up the website, facebook and twitter profile and published it on
Saturday Night (9th June).
By Monday people started responding and by Tuesday, Linda Ikeji featured it on her blog and lots of call started flowing in. I did a little social marketing here and there and that’s how we got there.
By Monday people started responding and by Tuesday, Linda Ikeji featured it on her blog and lots of call started flowing in. I did a little social marketing here and there and that’s how we got there.
We might have a future, help more children...we cannot be
too sure now. Let’s get Baby Kelechi his surgery first and we’d move on from
there. A big shout out to Linda Ikeji at www.lindaikeji.blogspot.com and
other Nigerian bloggers who blogged about this.
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