We are starting a #MeetTheTeam Series and for this week, we decided to put our Founder on the spot.
It was very insightful and apparently, she has an unpopular food opinion that might raise some eyebrows.
“Ideally, your résumé should not be more than a page so to be frank adding courses to your résumé is not important. You should take online courses for you. “
Q: Introduce yourself
A: My name is Toluwanimi Olubanke, founder of Upfolio and a forever Amala and Kdrama fan.
Q: Why you started Upfolio and how it all started?
A: Upfolio wasn’t always Upfolio. It started as Opportunity Tuesdays back in January 2020. I have won a couple of opportunities that literally changed my life and I wanted other young people to have such an experience also, but then I realized how scared everyone around me was about these opportunities.
It was commonly viewed as something special and only some set of people could ever win such, some had never even heard of these opportunities. So every week, I’d curate a really long list of opportunities and share it on my Social Media Stories every Tuesday, I called it Opportunity Tuesdays. My friends literally jumped on this and invited their friends, too and soon, the Opportunity Tuesdays audience became so large that I wanted to do more for the community, I didn’t want to only share them opportunities but also help them win these opportunities. This lead me to create a team and upgrade Opportunity Tuesdays to a platform where we can run projects and programs to help young people win opportunities and Upfolio was born.
Q: What challenges did you face?
A: First was the fear of “what ifs?”. What if people didn’t accept the idea of Upfolio, what if I don’t know how to build a team right, what if it all fizzles out? I didn’t want to start something I wouldn’t be able to complete or be committed to and so, all of these “what ifs?” kept on playing in my mind but I was able to scale this hurdle by sharing with family and my inner circle of friends and their push was all I needed to start.
I had other commitments, and that also promoted the need to build a structure that works for my team, I wanted to build something where everyone on the team could work and grow without my direct input everytime.
It took a while to get there but now Upfolio is a team of 15 resilient young people who are absolutely passionate about helping other young people like them make their way to the global stage without waiting to be told what to do. Of course, I have my responsibilities as founder of Upfolio but I have a phenomenal team that dispense their duties excellently and I’m really grateful for that.
Q: How do you combine school and work?
A: It can be tasking. Running Upfolio along with being product marketing lead for a Health Tech Company, my environmental work with World Oceans Day and being a final year University student. It can be intense. However, I draw strength from the Word of God, a strong support system, my coach and books.
Q: How has building relationships supported your career growth and how do you advise others to leverage relationships?
A: If there is anything special about 2021 so far, It is the fact that I’ve enjoyed the gift of relationships a lot this year. I can’t even begin to highlight how much blessings I have enjoyed from the friendships in my life but it definitely took a while to get there. I am an introvert and so conversations don’t come easy for me but what I have found in my journey is that at any point in time when God was taking me to a new phase, He always provided people to guide and exponentially accelerate my journey in that phase. Of course, it was always up to me to maintain and nuture those relationships.
On leveraging relationships, I feel there are different ways to do this. Social media has made it much easier. Let’s take building a relationship on the internet with someone you admire from afar and who you also consider important for your career as an example. I feel the first step is building a genuine friendship with them. Nobody wants to be friends with someone who just wants to get from them, friendship helps you prove yourself as someone who is not just out to get. So you can start by taking certain actions on social media in a bid to build friendship. Follow them, drop encouraging comments under their posts, reply their stories.
This makes them notice you at first and develop a soft spot for you. Some weeks down the line, shoot them a ‘hi, my name is xyz and I really like your xyz work, it’s really inspiring and I feel you’re a really admirable person.’ If you shoot a dm at this point, the person is more likely to accept your message request and reply because you have already built a surface friendship. Follow up with mid month messages, career questions and even ask how you can be of help, it becomes so easy to warm up to you when you make a request or for you to be the first person who comes to their mind when an opportunity emerges.
Q: How do you think people can leverage the online courses they take better (to position themselves for opportunities?)
A: I’m not a fan of online courses. The only online courses I have been able to successfully complete are those pertaining to my career line and most often than not, they are paid. So first of all, I feel a lot of people take online courses for the wrong reasons. I hear a lot of people, students especially say they are taking an online course for ‘CV boosting’ purposes, and most times the courses are a far cry from their interests or career line. While it sounds cool to take an online course for CV purposes, taking random courses are really not an important addition to your cv. Ideally, your résumé should not be more than a page so to be frank adding courses to your résumé is not important. You should take online courses for you. Fire example, you genuinely want to understand a concept better, take an online course! You’re at a crossroad in your career and you need a knowledge upgrade, feel free to take an online course. Or you just want to catalyze personal transformation then take a relevant course. These are the right reasons to take an online course. The best way to leverage online courses is to take it for you.
Q: What’s the first thing you do every morning?
A: I have my quiet time.
Q: What’s your idea of a perfect vacation?
A: My bestfriend and I switching cities every 1 week from the Carribbean to Asia where no one we know can find us (because we literally always find someone we know everywhere we set foot at. Literally) for like a whole month. Or two. Breakfast served in bed daily. Exploring the cities. Plus a whole lot of shopping, of course.
Q: What unpopular food opinion do you have?
A: People that hate amala need to be saved🙏
Q: One movie that made you cry
A: You want one? I have a lot. But they are Korean dramas and you guys are haters so yeah, I’ll keep them to myself.
Q: What can you talk about with little or no preparation?
A: Opportunities and positioning yourself to be a person of value.
Q: What chanced encounter changed your life?
A: YALI RLC West Africa in June 2019. And meeting my best friend!
Q: What are your favourite apps that help you run your day and stay productive?
A: Well, it’s not like I use it everyday but Notion is a fave, helps me stay organized. Kuda does not help me stay productive but I love that app.
I bet you didn’t want this to end. Stay tuned for more stories, eye brow raises, “crack-up” opinions and endings that touch!
Love,
Content team,
Jesutofunmi from Upfolio.
