I needed to recognize the cold start AKA chicken and egg problem that new platforms face early on.This taught me two important lessons the hard way: I was depressed! A few months of hard work spent in vain.

I only got 200 users, which I had to keep begging to come back to the site. I spammed the internet for days and days.Īfter several days of marketing, reality slapped me hard in the face. I was naively confident that I was going to win.Īfter completing the project, I did what anybody without an advertising budget would do. I spent the next few months building a better social network by adding any feature I could even think of using. Mark Zuckerberg - I’m coming for you - or so I thought. So that was my billion dollar startup idea: build a social network with all the features Facebook didn’t have. Also, Facebook was built to connect with people you already knew in real life. At that time, you couldn’t see your Facebook friends that were online. The idea was to build a better version of Facebook. While I was still learning, a friend showed me the movie “The Social Network.” And after watching it, I was super motivated to build the next big thing. So I already had this model in my head: if I continue to practice - no matter how long it takes - I will ultimately be able to understand these programming languages.Ī few months of intensive learning got me acquainted with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I was only able to get better at them through continuous practice.

When I was younger, I struggled with my reading and writing skills in school. This helped me view the problems I encountered from many different angles. I referred to various tutorials when I was stuck. Initially, the code examples and explanations didn’t make much sense to me. Then I started the W3CSchools HTML and CSS course.Įach day after school I would head over to the website to study. I checked some other resources to confirm that I actually needed to learn these things. The article explained that I need to learn some languages (HTML and CSS) to be able to build a website. Not knowing where to start, I clicked on the first link I saw, which was from W3CSchools. When learning to code, I took the first and simple step of doing a Google search about how to build a website. I would save for weeks to buy a 10 MB internet bundle for 100 Naira ($0.28), and back in 2012, that could last for a month. Growing up, I spent a lot of time online as I loved downloading games and reading Society Of Robots. My journey began with my curiosity about how to build a website. My name is Elvis Chidera and this is my story. Today, I’m a 19 year old Android developer who has worked on over 50 apps and currently works for an MIT startup. In 2012, I was just a village boy from Nigeria who had nothing but a dream and a Nokia feature (J2ME) phone.

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