2008, we went for a pitch. All was going well until I identified as the CEO. “You don’t look like some that can handle projects worth millions”. We lost the project. After that experience, I removed the word ‘CEO’ from my business cards, it worked. https://twitter.com/neosvy/status/1252593328761307136

Sometimes I’d step out step aside during meetings to call a CEO that doesn’t exist for approvals during negotiations. Worked all the time. Some would have started working with you before they realized you call the shorts. By then it’s too late and you’re already delivering value.

You people think they were joking when they said “Eni to ba y’okun ni ke gbowo fun” (translation: Give the money to the guy with big tummy). If you are fat and have small grey hair in this country, you can sell MMIA and they won’t question your legitimacy.

We went for a logo design pitch with @chiefburger. Everything went well, we quoted 50k. (This was 2007). CEO looked at me, “If you charge everyone you design for N50k, you’d be fatter than this”.

We ended up getting paid N15k.

The client ‘Mr Stanley’ rubbished us that day.

Then things got a lot better when we entered tech. Still putting my thoughts around this, will put it in a thread someday.