Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: The journey so far: Nadayar Enegesi, co-founder, Andela

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Nadayar Enegesi is a co-founder and director of learning and development at
Andela, a company that trains African developers and hires them out to
global tech companies. Andela has offices in the US, Nigeria, Kenya, and
Uganda.

1. Tell us about one of the toughest situations you’ve found yourself in as
a business owner.

Being ignorant of the truth that [the] career paths of team members are
critical in business strategy.

Our first training team at Andela was a band of young, skilled, driven, and
passionate engineers.

In 2016, we decided to move to a more scientific and scalable learning
model.

We built a beautiful and inspiring strategy. However, we did not invest
time in thinking about the career paths and desires of our team and how they
fit into the long-term strategy.

As a result – even if the team members were passionate and driven – they
found it difficult to see themselves in the future of the team.
Consequently, we lost 80% of that team. I was heartbroken for a year.

With that lesson in mind, we built the learning team with career paths in
mind, and have attracted a new band of experienced, personable, and
energetic engineers.

Now, Andela takes its employees’ career paths seriously. We look forward to
getting to a point where we can share our people management practices with
the rest of the ecosystem.

2. Which business achievement are you most proud of?

I’m proud of Andela’s team.

Anyone can start a company to scout talent and connect them to global
opportunities. [But] no one else can build Andela. Why? Because Andela’s
team is the secret sauce.

Our team is a diverse blend of nationalities, personalities, professional
expertise, and mental models. This has led to a collaborative environment,
where knowledge sharing is the norm and everyone is organically motivated to
level up on a daily basis.

It’s no surprise that Andelans who have spent at least 18 months at Andela
compare their growth in that short period to growth experienced [during]
multiple years at other workplaces.

3. Describe your greatest weakness as an entrepreneur.

The speed of decision-making.

I already mentioned how Andela’s strength is our team and how we outcompete
through diversity. I believe that the diversity of input into a decision
materially increases the quality of the decision.

Sometimes, this implies that the decision-making process is slower, which
may not be favourable in the short run when you’re a startup.

In the long run, however, walking further to incorporate diverse input in a
decision-making process increases trust in the company, which leads to more
committed team members – that’s a massive benefit.

4. Which popular entrepreneurial advice do you disagree with?

“Before your series A, you hire missionaries; afterwards, you need
mercenaries to succeed.”

In this popular nugget of entrepreneurial advice, “missionaries” refers to
people with limited expertise and exposure, but have passion for the
mission.

“Mercenaries” refers to seasoned professionals [who] only care about
execution and how much they are paid for their work. Many companies have
proven that you can foster a vibrant culture by blending the need for expert
executors with an ethos of purpose and mission.

We are mission mercenaries at Andela. As a result, we have scaled to
900-plus employees with a 90% retention rate since our founding.

And we continue to put thought and effort in our team’s ability to learn
and grow in expertise and size as we scale.

5. Is there anything you wish you knew about entrepreneurship before you
got started?

“Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint.”

I was familiar with the conventional wisdom but never internalised or paid
attention to it. I wish I knew that deciding to be an entrepreneur meant
deciding to be estranged from family and friends if not managed. If I knew,
I would have [prepared] them better.

However, in the process, I’ve built an additional network of family and
friends. And I’m grateful for that.

6. Name a business opportunity you would still like to pursue.

I’d love to materialise my phantom record label, RackCity Records, to
empower people to share happiness, positive messages, and fun through music
regardless of their actual musical talent.

For instance, Andela’s offices in our five countries came together to
create a song and video about two of our favourite productivity tools –
Slack and Trello.

I’m not sure about the actual business model side of it, but it’s
definitely fun.—Howwemadeitinafrica 

 

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