(Tumihub’s Founder interview) The importance of being intentional and staying focused.

Hello,

My name is Adigun Oluwaferanmi best known as Jimisewa on Tumihub. I am the team-lead in charge of storytelling on Tumihub. 

A Few weeks ago, I interviewed OMAA, the founder of Tumihub and I am super excited to share this with you. 

He gets to answer 18 questions some of which are his fears, why he started Tumihub, why Tumihub switched from being an NGO, his experience with polygamous marriage, and many more exciting questions. 

Shall we? Let’s go

Q1; What is your name?

A; My name is Quadri Micheal Tofunmi. I gave myself the name Tofunmi because the only third name my parents gave me is Titilayo. How can a boy bear that? 

Well, I guess I chickened out because i know of a Nigerian Musician whose name is Ololade Asake. So why not? Right? 

Q2; Do you have any nicknames?

A; Several of them but I finally stayed on one Mikelomaa. Before now, it use to be OMAA but i realize that a brand was using that, so I changed it – people still call me OMAA though.

Q3; Where are you from?

A; Ogun State, Nigeria

Q4; How has growing up been like?

A; Growing up has been a roller coaster of a lot of things. It’s more like Nigeria’s Twitter community. You know how Nigeria’s Twitter can be so rough, it’s just more like that. 

My dad married three wives, the second wife is late but she has two children, the first wife has like six children. The third wife, which is my mom, has about one child for him which is me but then, my mom already had two children outside the marriage with my dad. 

So, yeah! I have a lot of half-siblings.

Nevertheless, I am closer to the ones on my mom’s side because at first, we were living away from my dad and the others. We later moved into my dad’s place with the others. A lot of things happened – fights, misunderstandings, disagreements, and all. The typical polygamous issues happened to me.

We lived in the house for like 6 to 7 years before my mom decided to leave the house and I moved in with her.

Q5; What impact does living in a polygamous home had on you?

A; Hmmm. Okay, let me start this way. Well, the kind of person I am, it doesn’t really have any negative impact.

Maybe it has helped me build my personality though, but then, I remembered that things were going fine when i was staying alone with my mom. When we moved in with the other member of the family (my Dad and the other wives), things were also going smoothly, my dad made sure we are being treated well despite having so many children. Then when these small problems started, I wasn’t bothered. I am a kind of neutral person, not on anyone’s side especially when there is a fight, I try to caution my mum and I still relate with the other siblings.

We left the house due to a whole lot of issues. At that time, things were kind of rough for my dad and it was beginning to affect my education.

So, I did say it affected me in several ways because, at a point in my life, I had to learn how to have great interpersonal relationships with people. I needed to learn this because most of my life, I kept to myself.

I can see secret for Africa and nobody will hear it from me. 

Having everything all to myself for a long time affected my social life. But I am glad I am learning to do better today. 

I’m going to say that my polygamous family experience has affected me positively because it taught me how to adapt to anything and find joy even when there’s no reason to.

Q6; What has been your greatest fear as a kid?

A; It’s funny how the only fear that I can remember as a kid was bullying.

I changed school when we move in with my Dad; I think I was in nursery or primary, I can’t remember. And as a kid, I always want to play, but there is this guy, this little guy that if I meet today, I will definitely blow his face up. I am going to scatter his face. Why?

I didn’t know this guy from Adam, he is like half of my size back then and he has been in the school before me, so because of that, he is always bullying me. 

There was a time he challenged me and I was scared. My classroom is on the first floor while his class is on the ground floor. Most of the activity (food vendors, playground, etc) has to be done downstairs – even the toilet is downstairs. I was always scared to go downstairs.

Sometimes, if I want to urinate, I will have to hold it so I won’t have to go downstairs so that this guy won’t bully me because he is always doing that. I couldn’t go downstairs to do anything just because of him. 

But one day, I shared my plight with one of my friends, and ever since then, my friend will follow me anytime I’m going downstairs and this bully guy won’t be able to do anything. I was so happy that I have someone that could defend me.

That was the only fear I could remember while I was a kid.

Q7; What has been your greatest achievement as an adult?

One best thing that I so much enjoy I worked on is my temperament and personality. 

At the beginning of my life, I was such a very shy introverted person and it dawned on me that it was too much and it makes me uncomfortable. I made up my mind that I was going to change that which I did and all of my friends never believed I have once been an introverted person. I laugh when I remember where I was coming from and where I am now.

Another thing I am glad I have developed over the years is that if I set my heart to do something, to focus on something, I will do it – even if it will take me more than one attempt. So that is one thing I’m grateful to God about.

Q; What was the most difficult thing/situation you have encountered?

A; I can’t think of any atm

Q8; How old is TUMIHUB?

A; Five years. TUMIHUB started September 23, 2016, and we started virtually on WhatsApp by December 2018

Q9; What triggered you to start TUMIHUB?

A; Okay, I think I have shared this story several times. It wasn’t something I had in mind to start.

I was discussing with a female friend about life; we were talking about what we wanted to do after school. It was close to graduation and at that time, we were closer because there was a lot of time for us.  So, we are always talking about this and that. At that time, I was also looking for an opportunity to talk to people, to educate them and that was how it started.

I can remember vividly that before we left school that time, I told her I want to start sending motivational messages to people on WhatsApp. I did send out my first motivational message, someone reached out that she will like to join us. That was how we started. 

Q10; Who are the first set of people involved in TUMIHUB?

A; We were like 5 people at the beginning. One lady and four guys

Olamide 

Charles

Ayodeji

Babatunde

And myself

 There was a time the five of us went on physical visitation to a school to have a talk session with students.  Later, we switched to using the internet as our channel to reach out.

Q11; What has been your greatest challenge while growing TUMIHUB?

A; Growing TUMIHUB has been teamwork and one of the challenges we encounter as a team is that people tend to focus on how to make money and survive. So since Tumihub isn’t paying, they kind of forget about the brand that we are growing together. So sometimes,  I had to push the brand on my own with little or no support and there are times when there is a lot of support more than I can imagine.

Q12; How has it been handling work, school, and TUMIHUB simultaneously?

It’s not been easy but then, it’s not been hard too. So, it’s just learning how to multitask and I will be lying if I say that doing the three side by side doesn’t affect my studies.

If you compare my success rate right now as a student and who I use to be when I had to face studying alone, there is a lot of difference.

TUMIHUB is not just about one thing, it’s about a lot of things let alone adding a job. It almost affected my studies but I am glad I laid the right foundation. This helped me.

The thing that I do most and also teach others is how to focus and how to build a flexible schedule to be able to multitask.

There is something I call a ‘’ME TIME’’. it’s a time I shut everything out and focus on something important.

The main thing that has been working for me is I focus, I make time for school, work, and TUMIHUB too.

Q13; TUMIHUB was known to be a nonprofit organization before, right?

A; We started as a nonprofit organization, that was the goal. We had no plan of going into anything at the beginning, just motivational messages and rendering help to people.

Later, things started unfolding and we realized that most of us are young, some are in school, some are hustling and we need a stable life – we also need to live well. Tumihub was taking a lot of our time, so it should as well be a source of a stable life. In fact, our vision says

“We don’t just want to get by, we want to live well and let others live well”

So, from there we decided to not just be a nonprofit organization but a profitable business while helping other people.

Q14; What was the first amount of money generated from TUMIHUB?

A; Well, I think that’s like 50k, and that opened our eyes to how monetizing some things will work. It was during the lockdown. 

It’s a long story actually

Q15; Can we hear the long story, please?

A; Okay, so we started making money during the lockdown. 

At that time, we always organize a monthly webinar on our WhatsApp platform every month. So, there is this particular month, we planned a class on Forex trading and we brought someone who owns a forex academy. 

He held a free class for a week, more like a basic class. Afterward, he introduced a paid class.  Tumihub gets 30% of every payment made.

 That was how we got our first 50k and we shared it among the team members.

Q16; What are your educational qualifications?

A; I have National Diploma in Building Technology. BSc in view, very close to the ending of my BSc journey, I am still here because of the ASUU strike. 

It has been an 8 years journey to get a BSc but I am glad I found passion along the way. It has been keeping me dreaming big and helping me meet my basic needs. Most importantly, I am grateful that I started a community that is helping others discover theirs and we have been doing pretty well ever since.

Q17; What are your other side hustles?

A; Alright so, I have a few side hustles

1. I am a content creator; I work with a car brand as a content manager.

2. I also work as a project manager on construction sites.

3. Also, I tried to combine my love for content creation and construction to come up with construction journalism. With construction journalism, I intend to educate anyone who dreams to own a house or who already owns a house on all they need to know and watch out for before, during, and after the construction of their building.  I am pushing toward becoming an influencer in that space.

Q18; What’s your general perception about life?

A; I feel people should live life intentionally, I have seen the two sides of a coin and I see that the best thing is to live intentionally.

Being intentional doesn’t mean you are rigid, the most important thing about being intentional is weighing the options you think it’s best and standing your ground on the best you chose.

Make sure that your intentions are pure.

 Soon, the world will come and dine with you. 

Thank you OMAA.

Cheers Distincts

If you have any questions for him, drop them in the comment box.