 So, just to tell you I'm Francophone, so English is not my first language, so if sometimes I make mistakes, please don't kill me yet. And also know that I'm the one standing between you and the after party, so I'll try to make it quick so we can just all go. We are a team of two superheroes for now, and of course we are already trying to get more people to join our team, but for now we are just 12. We are specialized in e-commerce customization mode medium, so for example if you have a website and you want to get your customers to customize something online, we do that kind of stuff. Okay, so this is really trending right now and for the next few years, they are already modules that allow people to purchase from their home, from same product to complex one, like a car from their home, a business car designed entirely online and that kind of things, that's what we do. And we sell exclusively of codecanyon and Temporis, I'm not sure if some of you know this website, so we have a little talk there, we've been doing that for 5 or 6 years I think, something about that. And we have 7000 clients around the world, and for us being in this small country in Africa, yes, that's something that we are kind of proud of and we used to brag about that, but it's not a lot yet, but it's something. And for now we make more than $400 and we are looking to double that amount in this year and the next few ones. So what I'm about to tell is how we can do something like that and beat that number because when we talk to foreigners about what we do, what we achieve with the means we have, people say yeah, you guys are strange. How can you manage that? How can you make it work with all the troubles we have? Okay, how did that start? I started alone, I was alone and after my degree I went working for a small company in my country, Benin, and after one year my boss just fired me. Yes, it was kind of hard because I was like, yeah, I'm a rock star, I'm the best. And one day I come to work and we guys say, yeah, you have a letter waiting for you. I say, yes, probably a raise. And they say, yeah, what? And they gave me a letter and it was like, yeah, you are free to go now. I say, what just happened because it was a hot note and they say, ah, okay, but why? Because when someone gives you a fine note and say yes, you are free to go now, it was yes, okay, but why? Effectively, I didn't have a chance to ask my employer that because he was not there. He just sent me a letter from his secretary and said, yes, you are fine. I say, okay, no worries because where I come from, you are very proud, you don't beg and it's hard for us to cry. And I say, yeah, I wanted to cry. I say, okay. So I guess he's goodbye now and okay, so I brought my stuff and just went home to cry. After that, I was looking for money because I didn't have money and I needed money in order to do stuff, get friends, chase girls, get married. So I needed money. So what do next? I joined a public company called Port on the Cotonin. This is a port when they get ships and hand everything there, a public company there in my country, a big one. And after the first day, I said, I can't work here. I just want to resign. And my friend will say, why? I said, these kind of people get a request from our IT support service. When they get a request and say, yes, people, we need something like this, our computers are not working, we can't be like clients, they call us. And when they call our office, I had a boss who was just sitting there and say, yeah, yeah, we are coming, we are coming. And we were like 10 people in the office. And this guy was just sitting down and saying, yeah, we are coming. But nobody was moving. And nobody was working, that was even worse because nobody was working, 10 people in the office, nobody was working, nobody was moving. And people were always calling. And I said, I can't work here because people don't just do anything, just sit there waiting for the end of the month to get paid and just go home and do anything. No, no way. But my mother was also working there. And I said, yeah, okay, let's make her happy for a while before quitting. But I did that for a few months. Yes, about six months. They say, yeah, man, you are too good, you just work here because we need something or someone like you. And I said, no way. I work, you get paid, you give me nothing and then where you are good. I said, no, I resign. My contract was ready. It was all about signing my contract. I said, no way. Me, I just resigned. I can't work in the office. We're nothing all day. And just get requests from customers. People say, my fingers are not working. And people are just, yeah, we are coming. I said, no way. I resigned. And my boss was, why? You have a good money, you have nothing to do. I said, yes, that's exactly the point. I have nothing to do. And I was just running my salary. No way. He didn't understand because that guy just spent around ten years doing that. And he was, it was good for him. But me, no, I was young. I had energy, so I had to spend it somewhere. So yeah, I just buy my friend for good to meeting you. Not really, but yeah, bye. And then I started freelancing on illness. Because yes, I quit, but yes, that's great. But money, where's money? Because we have no job. You still need money, right? We need to go out. We need to make friends. So money. And then I found out about freelancing on illness. Who knows illness? You have too much willingness. Okay. So I did illness and coders. And it was great because I was paying in dollars. And I was spending in CFA. So yeah, money was good. Money was good, but it was not easy because on illness, you have to compete with Indians. I'm not sure if any of you know about India. How you know about India? What do you know about them? You know your stuff. That's Indians. I mean, these people are great. Let's not lie about that. They are great. And even if they don't know what they are doing, you can ask an Indian. Yes, I need to do something like this. He say, here, here. I know, I know. I can do it. Don't worry about that. But that guy doesn't know what to do. And what does he do? He just look online. Look for documentation, how to achieve that. Because he knows that it's not impossible for him. So what if he looks and he can achieve what he didn't do for the first time. And at a cheaper rate. For example, me, I can charge something like 14$ 20$ 15$ 5.0 5.0$ Ok, 15$ And that guy just come along and say 5$ How do you compete with that? That guy knows his stuff. It's 10 times cheaper than you. How do you compete? How do you compete? I found a way. I was ok. 4$ First. And I was getting customers because I had to describe what I should do. So my customers were trusting me to get it done. And once I get them the first time next time they offer me a job I say 50$ And customers don't want something else. They just want to be sure that it can be done. And you know the dictum, right? You don't change your winning team. Something about that. This is something you say in French. You don't know if you have someone who is already achieving something. You don't go somewhere else. You just ok with my friends. You just meet and find an agreement. So yeah. First time was 4$ because that guy was offering 5$ But me is 50 now. And my customers were But ok. And we go from there. And that's how I was able to learn around 5 customers for the first 2 months and then we escalated to 20 customers all paying and recruiting revenue. But I was alone. And I needed to hire more people. What I did I send an ads in order to get more developers to work with me because there is a limit on how much someone can achieve in a day. And it doesn't matter how good you are there is a line you can't cross. So you need other people to come and help you out. So I needed a team. So I started recruiting people one by one. But this is Africa because when you go to school and you try to hire people they are not ready but they want to get paid. So you give a part of a work to someone who is not able to deliver but still want to get paid by the end of the month. How do you do? You say ok I will pay you but I will train you to become better than me. So I get just rest when you are on the work so that's what I did and there are some people who are great better than me but first they started and we build our team from there. After that I met WordPress because it was good you have to code something for scratch every day and then I met WordPress. It was easy because you have to plug in and start plug in and start terms and start clicking click click click until the work is done the work is complete yes stop stop it was good money too because you don't have to go in code just click click click click and it's complete work done get paid and since then yes I become lazy because yes it was press white and now we are happily married me and WordPress of course and five years now and we have more than 7000 kids who are our customers okay yes 7000 kids is not me only I can't do that but 7000 customers paying all paying yes now let's not forget that we are in Africa internet is still an issue even though we have top internet consumer in the world internet is still expensive here even when you are paying customers you can't get a working internet everyday for example in my country when it rains you can't walk I don't know how they do that because but the fact is when it rains one day you wake up it is raining you can't walk just don't cry my friend don't cry don't cry even after that internet was still expensive because we had four or five major internet providers in our country we did all of them all of them I am not lying I am not exaggerating we did all of them one day we started with that down you have to install the connection install the antennas install everything buy a new router everything okay hoping it works but it doesn't and it is still costing a lot of money we did one, two, four, twenty five and one day we were calling our last provider when I heard all young guys we don't have enough bandwidth for you I said when you learn about this we know you we know you we don't have enough bandwidth for you okay why? we tell about you guys we did a lot and you complain a lot we don't have it we can't and that's why that brings me to my next question what kind of bandwidth to expect when you work from Africa let's do some math okay who are developers in the room what developers okay who are simple users simple users normal users regular users who don't know anything about code okay so yeah we have more developers that's strange because usually there are only two developers and all of the other guys are regular users so I think that's congratulations for once we have more developers than anyone in the room so when we work with customers they are for example in the US or they are in Germany you need to upload files on servers because a website is all about browsing files you need to upload your files you need to upload your pictures if you have bad logs and your guy needs video you know you just can't but you should try right so uploading files uploading media uploading websites upgrading doing a lot of stuff that costs a lot of bandwidth if you are alone you can manage well if you are 10, 12 people who does that every day long what do you do will you just buy a router per person that will come up expensive right you can't so I found a way to make it work by implementing something called flexible work hours we noticed that in the morning people were able to make it work because there was not enough charge in the network so in the morning it was the best after 11pm it was also good so I let my guys work from home and they had internet at home and then we had to upload files when someone has a lot of files to upload he just does it by home and we are looking if we combine all our needs we need something around 10 megabytes per second and it is a dedicated line because when you are with an internet provider they give you something we call shared bandwidth that's just a lie because they can say where else you can upload up to 10 megabytes that's a big word up but the way it is very small you can't notice it up so the first day you call to complain they say no man it's up up to 10 so even if you are uploading in 1 megabyte per second you are still good my friend just keep trying so we need 10 megabytes per second a dedicated line because you just want to be alone using that 10 megabytes and when you are uploading that kind of bandwidth sorry when you are using that kind of bandwidth you just need people to be able to deliver but it will be hard to find and we were spending at least 650k naira per month on the internet and even when you get paid that's still a lot of money to give to someone on the internet and when we go outside of Benin our country in somewhere like France or US they spend something around $25 for internet tv phone line everything in that $25 with someone who is spending 650k naira when another person is just home and spending $25 for me I found that very frustrating because you don't get paid easily and when you do you give your money away to internet providers so one thing I learned about that is just to let it go because you just end up dead one morning for heart attack, hypertension a lot of things just breathe be zen and let it go and remember that there is not much you can do without internet so you just have to give money and work and when you work every day you just remember that you have to pay that at the end of a month and work harder in order to get enough money to give them otherwise when you tell your US customers that internet is slow so I can't upload your hundreds where are you based again and I say in Africa say you have internet there yeah true story I heard that you have internet there we do we also have computers we don't browse for online you have a computer too so yeah next one I know that in Nigeria you know about that electricity issue yeah because what's the point having computers when you just can't have electricity to charge them back in the day there was not enough laptops we were using dextops and dextops don't have battery right when you are working you are coding you are saying yeah I'm good okay no electricity and what you do you just want to breathe until the power comes back and then someone started important generators and you say yeah I'm good now I'm saved but when generators are plugged in and are working you get a lot of noise how do you think how can you conceive something write an algorithm and then still be able to code that when right on the door you say you just try are you buying are plugs you have no choice and when we use generators we met someone who is not our friend full scarcity because generators are working all day long right but they don't work for free too you need to fuel them you need to put fuel in them right and then we met full scarcity because we our country is very small we don't produce we don't produce fuel oil okay so we are buying our fuel for use guys but then you when you have full scarcity what do we have Nadia had full scarcity let's try to move to England France but honestly we don't have much to do we just have to wait until you guys fix your full scarcity issue so we can get some fuel because that matter is out of our hands so just be zen and wait until that issue goes away why how do we manage to harm that by politics you see we can spend a lot of time complaining but when you elect a good president who is able to fix few things I miss that that's a lot because we were just suffering waiting that someone one day found a better way to make electricity work in our country and then we elected a new president the first thing he did was fixing the electricity and when he did that I said I don't care how much you how but what do you do me you are my guy forever because I don't care you are my guy because he fix electricity and after that we were able to work really work double our revenue and then just work so that's why politics matter we can complain and say I don't want to vote I don't care who is elected but once someone is elected and fix electricity for me that's good and that's why when they are election people should vote now after that we had to fix clients issue because when people heard that you are from Africa they need okay but I'm not sure that you can support me so there are a lot of techniques because when people found Africa they don't allow first they don't they think Africa is not good enough they they we don't have enough for them to help them out and that's friend because when they heard that we are frequent after using our plug in the station good job guys but only after they vote our product before we free when you give away something from free to customers they won't complete first okay they will just use it try it and make the best of it and then you have a solid product that's why we free matters just think about giving something for free to users something with limited features or limited in time that goes a long way and after we were giving for free we just charge them after few months or if they needed program features and that's how we managed to get a lot of customers by giving something for free and getting them back few months later live chat when a customer is not in our site there is not much he can understand right away so he need to talk to a support team or a developer who implemented the tool he is checking that way a live chat is really important because your potential which stop customers can just come and say yes can your tool do this can your plugin do this can you have that kind of features how do you handle this how do you handle that when you are able to talk to them you got a new sale every time okay so that is one of the things we did in order to get more customers first efficient support when your customer has issue you need to be fast be there answer and then get to another customers that give you a lot of reviews good reviews okay our sales was just create a core you can do everything by yourself so when you get a team you create a core group of developers these guys will help other people train them and get them to train your company okay because you can train everyone you get 4 or 5 people you train them first and then they train other guys for your product to code or everything push to cut the limits you need to know your team limit it's not about getting them to be lazy it's about to get them to be better make the best at what they do and once you reach that limit you can know everyone what they can do what they can't do never stop recruiting I learned that with hard way because we were at some point we were refusing customers we could not hand them all but when you have a lot of money power you never stop to recruit so that means you basically have everyone in your team so you just never stop recruiting and just get people when someone is asking for a job train your team learn to work with your core and then you never let them go okay yeah I'm ahead never let anyone to go just like the mafia when you join with mafia you don't go out okay so we like them they have very good corporate values but don't be them so never let anyone to go you need to be able to understand your team because without your team you are nothing but once you are able to understand your team and nobody will like to go work for someone else because they trust you okay so you don't just don't let them go try to understand why you are trying to find something better and be able to overbate yeah we got that too we got a lot of co-teams because when you are successful people will just come and steal your code that's a compliment but not a good one because that means you are good but if they are better than you they will just give you with your own code so we got that too and we had to let them go why? because someone stole our code but he was in the US we don't have a jurisdiction there you can steal someone from there even if you have a lawyer online you need to be able to pay that guy and you can just bribe someone in the US that cost a lot of money so instead of paying that kind of fees to someone who just stole your code you need to keep it to be better but keep an eye on him otherwise only you just woke up and someone will tell you that guys you stole your plugin from that guy why? because you were not taking off what he was after but once you keep your eye on your teeth you can know everything he is doing and then we have to do it better and of course prevent this from happening because you can fight one piece but you can't fight a hundred of them so for developers when you produce some code you can just minify your source code so someone else can't just steal it okay I think that's all my friend is dead just told me that I don't have any time left so question