Alright, thanks for staying with us. Now a Nigerian lady identified as Doris Amma broke down in tears in a video she shared on social media after a travel agent gave her a fake visa for 2.5 million. While some are of the opinion that the visa application is easy and can be done independently without needing an agent, we can help but to feel her plight. The dwindling state of things in Nigeria keeps fueling this JAPA syndrome trend or the trend and fraudsters are starting or they've been taking advantage of that situation so we want to ask today what are your thoughts on this visa scam and this JAPA trend that is happening right you know what's the best approach for it now please let's hear what you have to say remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or WhatsApp to<PHONE_NUMBER> you can also tweet at us at we show Africa one with the hashtag we show we're gonna thread us to that we show Africa yes so I have to put that in my we have to increase that now so you have to thread us everywhere now so it's important for us to first of all establish like a foundation for this conversation ways is not just an issue we're actually very passionate about young people we're passionate about the things that affect the Nigerian youth of course again by extension the African youth and if you look at the trends you know the people that are actually you know rushing to get their passports and all of those things are young people just trying to go and get better lives for themselves and these are the people that have decided you know what I don't want to go into fraud stars I don't want to do anything in a lot of these young people are really really help them on this and what's called on the going that jack parameter because they just feel like if I go to another climb I'll do better I'll earn better income I'll live a better life right so it's a no brainer if you go on especially on YouTube right most of those sponsored ads and most of those things that come out on your timeline you see oh how to migrate to Canada even on Instagram I was getting a lot more right how to migrate to Canada the right way how to migrate to the US even now when Canada decided you know what they can convert your visiting visa into a work permit if you're able to get a job you know that's something trended so much if I had to ask so many people finally when I believe that okay it is true was when a friend of mine that lives in Canada told me that oh no now it's possible you can actually convert your Canadian visitors visa to a work permit they'll give you a work permit to be able to stay there and work so what I'm saying all of this is you're young you're always online right I don't know how people still fall victim of visas come so I get it because I've been trying to do some visa applications trust me it's frustrating especially the US embassy that I mean US visa portal like you're literally feeling a form right NJ in two seconds it locks you out so once you quickly type in your details and everything just copy your your that's form number so that because as it looks you keep on re-logging in at some point I got tired so the last applications I did the last set of applications I did I had to call my sister that is in the US do you know the thing didn't look out one second she filled up all the form I was on the phone with her telling her the things to help me she was able to fill up the phone for me and all that with I didn't have because it is really frustrating and that's why you see that when you go to especially with the US embassy if you go to the embassy please you see all those people oh you want free form you want to do this they are so there's a thriving market around the bottlenecks that people face in just obtaining a visa so there's a thriving market for that so in that thriving market there are sincere people that will truly help even are we talking about dates getting dates or interview there are sincere people that will truly help you get those things but in that sincerity we have like a number a couple of what's called and a huge number of fraudsters within that space so how this girl was able to fall victim for this I don't know but I can say to I mean to anyone visa is something visa application is something that all you need to do is to go online and find out you see a lot of information you understand what's case scenario what's case scenario I don't even know what to say now maybe what's case scenario is now there are certified bodies you understand that have like licenses to help you with all those applications but what are your thoughts have you ever fallen victim of visa scam and you know what happened because you will be you are the internet you are one before but I have heard and I've read about you know different people who have gotten into that's pretty good and but for this particular instance I was wondering first of all okay 2.5 million I'm wondering what visa application cost that much are you is that 2.5 million for the entire family or just for one person and then I went reading and I was researching and I saw that oh recently I think in March or so some I can't remember his name I didn't put it down but he was arrested in you know and he was charged with I think 11 counts Bodhrin on forgery bribery this so he's one of this kind of people who but unfortunately for him he got caught he's a scam he's a scammer so he's a visa scammer that's what they call him so he's a visa scammer he scams on Canadian visa so he tells you you know he'll help you out he's an agent and he'll help you out with your visa application and you pay and then you know when they're questioning you they always ask you questions like how much you charge and all that and he charges all the way to 1.7 million for a one month visa Canadian visa I'm like it's it's amazing and you know it's amazing that people still fall victim for things like this but we all fall victim for something yeah but for something like this the information is out there if you Google you know the websites to get the application or how do I apply a lot of people put it on social media so these things are out there the information is out there so the fact that people are always on social media and yet they for you know this is borderline going back to the fact that we have a poor educational system here yes because yeah go ahead yes I think me how do I put it because we're so used to I mean we're all quite educated here so it seems very absurd you know that you can just Google it and stop but you notice that a lot of people are just they just have a phone and they don't really know the capacity of what you can get from the internet like I recently downloaded the chat GBT thing because a friend of mine was talking about it of how he edits all his emails via that and it will shock you that as far as this thing is spreading there's still some areas you know where it's just phone call or it's just they just get the smartphone and all they want to do is just tick tock you know can see that we have likes and something but reviews they're always reviews on things you know they're always reviews on even people so I don't know how you know she got into that phase because you are smart enough to do a video of you crying that has gone viral now on a star block but you were not an individual you know able story yeah able to do your due diligence you know via just go really like literally just Google like how much is this supposed to get and so let me explain something getting obtaining a date for visa interview right now some people charge as high as somebody called me sometime last year said to get them that he can get dates and all that it was going to try to maybe four million are less experts experts wait now you they talk say you can Google we're in the Google with you Google it that it will tell you that it's for millionaire is the price Jonathan I'm saying what is happening here is that people are taking advantage of the problem that we are facing and then using it as because now I have someone that if you want to get a date she can charge you as as low as 200k or 150k Jonathan but somebody called me and said I can give you a date for formula and I said for what and I said okay okay so in my head I was thinking for the family no part head I wanted I was waiting for you to ask you that's for your entire family no for part head so when he said like do you hear yourself like you literally I mean I think if I check my phone I will still see that chat you literally think I'm that desperate to travel outside of the country and spend four million there just to get a date I guess that I'm not sure where to a date that I am not sure that I'm even going to be given the visa now that is one somebody else also called me and said okay there's this something that they're doing with the US blah blah blah I should come and pay $40,000 to get the visa I say for what is it say I'm the wrongest person to scam because for me if you have access to $40,000 then well guess what a lot of people doing it now what now blew my brain one of us here what the uncles told me how somebody paid $500,000 for this in Canadian migration something to get passport and it was fraudulent which passports Canadian migration so I'm trying to explain to you that this thing okay no okay it's not adding up we'll take a break when we come back from the break it to add up to you stay with us open our full lies I live I literally want to hear how much people have spent in the name of visa yeah still with us you all still watching ways the ladies are still arguing whether the $500,000 is a lie or is it true no problem so it's a ladies night out and we're discussing this visa scam if you've ever been scammed before or you know somebody have been scammed you understand oh you're still currently going through a scam just tell us you understand please let's hear what you remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS so what's up to the rate one 803 4663 can also treat us at Weshaw Africa one with a hash tag we show you can thread us on at Weshaw Africa as well yeah our phone line is now open the number to call is 0702 5007 749 that's the number to call remember turn off the volume of whatever devices that you're calling us from so we can hear ourselves it is no ridiculous and I'm telling you the first thing hey hey and it's the truth right so this guy that calls me up for instance that says I should come and pay four million there for a date we can still be here for a date four people will be worth wait for people four times four is what one 16 million yes how ridiculous is that $16 is how much no I'm telling you my entire family out to holiday somewhere in the seaside you know so I'm so I'm trying to tell and this one I'm saying it is not now it's not like today was I made like three or four years ago the formula is less less even you know let's let's that's ridiculous for $500,000 yes yes you know and you listen it might sound ridiculous to you but I can tell you for free how much people have paid in the name of relocation right the only people that are escaping these things are two people you are patients and the kind of person that is ready to one do the work because guess what all you need is information and that's why I say that that's why I'm very passionate about transformative education right because if you have you know if you are educated right there is no way you fall victims for all of these kinds of things once you are educated right a lot of people don't want to do the research they don't even have the other energy cell don't want one check on anything but I can tell you for free so many you can actually make say let me tell you something now we even the current situation of how the visa structure is right now in Nigeria it has even made it worse you understand it has made it worse for somebody like me that I am very comfortable I feel my forms there's no visa I have gotten in this life do understand that I've not filled my form myself I've not done the what's called all my bookings of my hotels my everything I do it booking on my date but myself do understand but when you go onto the app and you're seeing so most of these agents they've gone to block block block all those things so that you understand they can get people to patronize them so how do you expect to you know to to beat that so the only way I think that some of these scams whatever can can you probably pipe down a little bit is if first of all they relax some of the the bottlenecks within the embassies because if I am browsing from Nigeria right I would experience a lot of glitches but if somebody is abroad that's why now what people are doing now I saw it in one of this there's a guy that his specialty is to help you relocate to Canada and USA and he's saying it now I saw it on his Instagram post he said it that you can actually send your details to somebody living abroad just like what I did they'll help you fill the form it is actually very very stressful but you they can still scam you now oh no but they can't scam you because at the end of the day you're the one that would be no you this kind of things are friends and family I would never have done that if it's not my blood my sister do you understand if it's not my sister so I'm saying to you so my point I'm trying to make is until this jackpot trend and it's not going to drop anytime soon because guess what as I'm talking to you now I have like four families that are living this September that's why for me it's not just being educated it's being informed yeah you're always if you're always on social media they are posts to follow if you see if you type in visa application you see a few people who you can follow on Instagram that just give advice and then you know what to do so you see I understand education you don't even need it half of these people who you call uneducated who are falling victims on social media they're on Instagram they're on TikTok they're posting and as much as people are posting you know social you know content people are also posting informative content and educated content so be informed see it's you know the lack of knowledge is not the excuse that is nice excuse you so it's not just you saying or you fell victim is based on your ignorance you have you haven't yes you have the knowledge of the power a lot of these people where do you get 2.5 million from in this hard time in this hard time and then you go and you do not do proper proper background check come on so the person that told me to bring $40,000 let me know where you stay no way off let me explain something to you you see let me tell you something people are forgetting that no matter how informed some people are I'm telling you that people like or still for victims you know why there is a bit of desperation there you see me like I did like this now there's nothing you can do to shake me or add to me if I was desperate I would have I would have gone ahead to make that payment yes because the visa wait now the visa gives me access to a lot of things you know and for somebody that you want wait now for somebody that you want to do so many things right you you don't mind having that handy right and that's what I'm so grateful to the US government right extending our visas to 5 years I like Canada on it is the length of your passport that gives you the length of your visa so it's so it just gives you that it blocks of your mind okay whatever you want to travel it is an image you don't have to start looking for a visa so that's one side desperation right is what causes a lot of these things if I was desperate I would have taken that offer but you see when I started asking questions wait now desperate in the sense that a lot of these people that have blocked of their my first of all they don't believe that there's anything else that they can make in Nigeria like they can't end any income again I cannot do anything again the only thing I can see myself doing is that if I leave this country my life will be better so at that point when your state of mind is there there is nothing anybody will tell you do you understand that will bring you back and if anybody tells you at that point that Mary with only 500,000 I can get you this I can get you that Mary you cough out that money even if you are a popper 500,000 Mary even if it was 10 million they call it no sister even if they I'm telling you that's what I'm you're comfortable you don't get it so you are not comfortable here you are still good you're not among the people that are their customers that's what I'm saying so when you are that state of mind where it seems like you know what it's either I do this or I die right anything at that point that anybody tells you to do you will do it so that's where these people are now when this guy asked me to bring that $40,000 I said okay no problem will it guarantee the visa no what would it give me where you know the thing is there yeah so what are you doing exactly do you know what I'm saying and you tell me okay so we drive it to pay everything I want yes I need to pay everything at once before they file in I say uh-huh so you don't have anything at stake it is all my money that will be I say don't worry I'm not that desperate I actually like the idea for the visa but I was not that this I was not desperate but guess what I know so many people that are still dragging now in court on top of that matter so I'm saying to you that you see your state of mind must be ready to say okay you know what whatever happens if it works fine if it doesn't work fine that way you now go through the legal process and some people are in a hurry I know people that have taken two years to get their documentation to be able to file and everything now they finally got in their visa two years do understand some people say no no no no I can get it for you in three months I can get it for you in one month and you say it's okay okay okay that's what happens so all of these things are tied to desperation if you're not desperate you can never fall victim of any kind of scam as far as I'm concerned and you know the systems why you laughing for me I still stand by I don't get it but I on the other hand I understand your point of view you know desperate times call for desperate measures but I don't have 2.5 million to pay nobody to get me no visas I'm here I'm Nigerian and I'll stay until I can find my own way out I'll make sure it doesn't cost me and I'm on the leg and a video on Instagram crying so I think people should moving forward people should try and get involved informed it's it's okay to be on your phone you know out of 24 hours to be on your phone for about for more than half of the time but try and get informed try and learn something new every day if something if you really have the time to save 2.5 million it means because when you're this is how I think about it when you're doing when you're putting down 2.5 million you're trying to save 2.5 million which is a lot of money that's a percentage for that kind of a girl yeah you understand for that kind of a girl I won't even do it and I don't have it to do so you to do 2.5 million listen to this calculation for you to do 2.5 million just for the visa you know that after the day I think I don't know if they still they still do those charges where after you're being granted the visa you pay another sum at the embassy I don't need they still do that no that's your visa fees not a particular thing so after that you're gonna buy a ticket so when even when you were doing that form when you said that formula and I was thinking with this no buy one two three I asked the guy I said would they be ticketing but he said no ma I just want the other package deal and I asked him I said people pay this he said yes I would rather do a holiday to see shows go with somebody I suppose so someone let's go down to wait talking like this because you have option listen you're going to you're going to need to pray wait now you're going to need to buy a ticket let me tell you need to when the time for that listen when the time for that ticket money comes it will also show up you are talking like this because you have options do you understand you need to put yourself no you need to put yourself in the state of mind where these kinds of people are they have not seen you know when somebody has completely lost hope that there is no other option for me I have to do this and don't be sure may use that let me tell you something don't be sure this same girl right she does no mind saving money again but this time around she will try to ensure that it is the right people she's talking to the problem is I want to save the country and her friends and people around her the people who are going to who she's going to have to scam to get 2.5 million or to get money that's what we're saying let's tell ourselves the truth this girl doesn't look I'm not saying that she's not working but she doesn't make enough money to want to put down 2.5 million for visa if you if minimum if you're going to school your minimum school fees even for a BGD is like you're looking at anything more than about from 5,000 pounds if it's pounds or and that is based on discount hmm so are you not thinking about your survival like it doesn't make sense and this is the kind of thing that we keep doing so you get the visa you you borrow money again or you have to scam people in order to find you to get money to buy a ticket and then you get there and then you become a liability to them and then they keep coming back to say that Niger and that is the reason why this process would be elongated because as much as people want to come people are going there and giving Nigeria a bad name so that's the reason why they would hold on to all your passport so that if you are a lot of you wouldn't be able to travel it's not because they don't want the airlines to make money but you're going to their country and rather than being a good citizen you're going there and causing catastrophe and adding to their problems and I want to say to anybody that really wants to jack up and people a lot of countries and have really really relaxed on some immigration laws because they are actually looking for certain kinds of skills so instead of going through all these people that will scam you you understand why don't you check the if you for if you follow the news get yourself informed rightly like NJ said right get yourself informed because they are you can become a truck driver you can come a farm whatever it is that is your craft is your skill if there are so many countries looking for it did you hear that Germany has opened up their their borders you know to Nigerians as well because now they are seeing what how Canada is benefiting from it because what they are looking for is just that they don't want burdens they want skilled workers they want you to bring your capacity your whether it is your your work of your hand or your intellectual capacity to their country and add value to them and of course as in adding value also they would also add value to you because you are paying taxes and all of that they give you better healthcare better amenities better infrastructure so why would somebody wake up because for me to go and pay 2.5 million dollars to this time I know first of all that that route was not a legal route is there somebody there Loma your life hello can you hear us hello can you hear yes your life hello can you hear us this is Loma from India states it is it is too much too much expression that makes people to fall asleep too much expression I'm not being contented with where you are people in this Nigeria are doing well I'm making as me in this country one of the people that are you know what but people here will be thinking that it's good before you know it expression will set in they will start looking for a way to go to that place before you do the full effective of trust car they should see what God has given to you be contented with where you are but I want to ask you my sister this what would I tell my mother about the meaning of this chapter my mother you go here okay how can I explain it to her if I see that people the chapter you must be look at me what does it mean in my language oh yeah thank you for the help us jackpot is say oh the seller of a seller what's jackpot running like you want to run away in Igbo from Nigeria in the Aguafu from Nigeria in the Aguafu that's jackpot in the Aguafu like you want to jackpot I want to run away yeah just people trying to run away from the country to find a better life that's just yeah majorly what it is if you know it's just Nigerians always thinking that the grass is greener on the other side that's it until you get there and then Nigerians are there washing dead bodies and doing ridiculous kind of jobs come on what people see Nigerians need to get to the point where we understand our own authority and our value we need to stop devaluing ourselves I know that things are bad in the country but running away without a plan is as good is as bad as you just jumping off third main land bridge because really you go that you become a liability you either end up in jail or you end up back in this country with nothing and yet made to start from the beginning meanwhile you come back to this country and your mates that you left here who thought you were you know leaving prosperous in out of the country they become governors and then you are back to square one begging the same way you got out I think it's also a mindset you know because some people would actually rather prefer to be in jail in your world so fine because they'll get fed everything I mean you understand so it's it's it's all a mindset I don't know why anyone would want to be in that state of mind but I just hope people can learn from mistakes at least when you don't have to always I feel like you don't for me how I live my life I don't always have to fall victim I learn from other people's mistakes so that it doesn't you don't always have to tell the same story make your own mistakes but you know the way they say that people that are living abroad that they always falling victim of their relatives when they will send them money to them build house jealous and always falling victim of them they will come back and they will just see foundation I mean when they be sending money for 10 years hoping to see a mansion when they arrive it's the same thing with all this real estate company popping up here and there and all of that where do you see most of these real estate companies it is it is they are targeting the aspirants most of them their businesses are the aspirants that are buying those properties so you would think that somebody will be smart enough to say no I cannot fall victim or let me go and get people top real estate companies in Nigeria like you understand so Google is your friend right it's not a cliche it is it's actually there's absolutely nothing you're looking for go to YouTube but you know you have to find a way to identify the fake account and all of those things because there are ways to always determine this thing you just need to have that will power but please above all let's avoid you know avoid desperation is it Sam we have quickly Sam you have like a minute you waited for the end of the show to be calling Sam you're alive quickly go ahead your life quickly go ahead Sam you can hear you we can hear you we have to go sorry Sam I think maybe the phone lines had issues because I really would have loved to hear what people have to say about this but thank you so much ladies we had fun if you've not joined thread yet go join and follow all of us yeah I don't become ambassador because I must blow on that up it seems I've not I have not blown on the other apps this one I must blow this opportunity I cannot miss this opportunity alright thank you so much ladies now before we go and show you couple of us across all social media handings that we show after you can interact with us further drop a comment and more importantly follow all our engagement and social media like share invited families and friends to watch and follow the conversation now if you missed our quote for today here it is again there are some frauds so well conducted that it will be stupidity not to be deceived by them that's so interesting very interesting quote to see you guys tomorrow at 8 p.m. also bring another great conversation to your screen


If not for his size at 5'8 and 178 pounds, Wanda Robinson would have one of the cases for being one of the top prospects in this year's class. The rest of the profile is really that good, it's a lot of fun. His breakout age, receiving market share, and yards per team attempt rates all are in the 93rd percent, how it worked better. Robinson though, despite his size, handed a 41% target share at an SEC school this past season and actually cleared 31% at Nebraska in 2020 before transferring. His top compare was 2-2 Atwell, a second on a pick in 2021 by the Rams, another very productive, very small though to be fair, smaller than Robinson receiver. Expanding on Robinson's comps a little bit, we see Tyler Lockett and Isabella Elijah Moore and Jameson Crowder. It's a fun profile and with his tenure as a running back in the past, we should see a lot of creative touches for Robinson in the NFL.


Hello everybody. I'm really happy to be here on stage again this year. I'm Oskari, CEO of Ivan, Cloud Software Company. Really happy to welcome Olivier on stage with me. Olivier, as you heard, is the CEO and founder of Datadog. Hi. Good to be here. So I had the honor to invite Olivier to Helsinki to speak at Slosh and I'm happy to have him here. A little-known fact about Olivier, I think, in addition to being a founder and CEO of Datadog, is that he actually has a soft spot in his heart for this location, you know, the site of the assembly event. I just heard this was where the assembly was held and when I was growing up I was watching these demos on my Amiga and it looked like everybody was from Finland and finally I'm here today so I'm leaving to dream. Yeah. So I also was part of that community for some time and my background is also in engineering, software development and that is something that ultimately led me to start building Ivan, turning opens or technologies into cloud services. Olivier, you want to talk a little bit about your background. Like, how did you get started with? Yeah, so I'm an engineer. I mean, as I said earlier, I grew up watching demos, then I wanted to program in 3D, then I started programming video. I actually worked on the first version of VLC before some more capable people turn it into something real. And then, you know, fast forward a few years, I was in New York with a very good friend of mine and we decided to start Datadog. I think it was in 2010. Excellent. So we were asked to talk about product-led growth and PLG and what that means. So, you know, I think Datadog has been labeled as a PLG company for a long time, but like, what does PLG actually mean to you? Do you use that term? Yeah, so we don't actually use the word.  I discourage people from using the word. And the reason for that is that half of your organization is not product.  It gives people an idea that they don't contribute, whereas they're actually a very big part of it. So, and by the way, this is one of the main misconceptions. Product-led growth still needs sales. You still need absolutely everything else. You just use it differently and you structure the company differently. So for us, product-led growth is just growth. You know, that's how we do things. And if I were to characterize it, really what it's rooted in is it's putting the customer in control, putting the user in control. So we don't control what they do. We don't push to them. They pull from us.  And then the whole company is articulated around delivering value to them and driving their usage of the product and therefore revenue up. Yeah, that makes sense. Like we started building Ivan as engineers to build a product and a platform that we would have loved to use, something that just allowed me, you know, myself, other people like me to get started building something, using technologies that were familiar to us. We also hadn't heard of the PLG term until, I think actually I first heard about it at this event here in Slush some years ago when we were between I think our A and B rounds. And I thought like, well, I guess that's what we're doing. That's how we got to more than $10 million in ARR before we heard of the term or figured out a different model for the company. So... Yeah. I mean, in our case, so we started very early. When we got the company started it was difficult to get it funded. So we didn't have any money. We didn't have any customers.  So we were very scared of not getting the problem right and doing something that was useless. And as a result, we made ourselves feel better by spending more time with the customer and making sure we really understood their problem and making sure we really solved the problem for them. And I think that's what rooted all of our journey through product like growth. We started by having the funding team spend a ton of time with customers. Then we met the first deals ourselves with customers. Then because we didn't have the money or the prestige to attract great salespeople, we didn't hire any salespeople. So we did some more of the sales ourselves. And that's where I would say the whole motion got in place with the company. Then we scale that. Then of course we added the sales motion behind it. Then we got through all of the other steps. But we didn't do it by choice. We didn't read the blog post about PLG and said that's what we need to do. We did it because we didn't have any choice. I think that's very, very relatable to me as founding Ivan. I was going to ask you when you mentioned like, this is what you did. So just like specifically, who did you mean in the company? Who was working with the customers? So, well, the whole funding team was, you know, but very importantly, what we had very early on is a product team and a product leadership that wanted to spend time with customers and that was not afraid of discussing value and money with customers. So basically the first deals were made by our product team and still today for newer products, a lot of the deals are made by the product team and what this gives us is a product team that intrinsically understands the value, understands what parts of the product are good enough or not good enough because they understand what customers are going to pay for or they're not going to pay for. By the way, this is a mistake I see many new entrepreneurs make, which is that they raise money. It looks like they're going to be successful. They get experienced investors on board and the first thing the experienced investors help them do is hire an experienced sales leader and then what they do is the experienced sales leader is that they start building a sales force right away and they don't get the occasion to develop that strong culture of having their product team interact with their customers and very often the founders are like doing that because they don't actually know how to or like to have conversations with their customers about value. They love talking about product but they don't love talking about value. So my advice to anybody who wants to go that route is to make sure that very early on on the team you have some people in the product organization who are not first who enjoy spending most of their time with customers because that's where the value is but also who are not afraid to discuss what's valuable what's not and to make deals with the very first few customers. Is there a concrete example of a case where you know you've failed at identifying like is something you're building actually valuable to the customers early on? It happens very often actually it's something that happens more often now because we're so we were for the first half of the company the first six years we had one product and we found great product market fit early on and then we spent our time adding to that and scaling the company around it you know up to I think after those six years we're around 100 million in AR or something like that. After that though we started building more product building out our platform adding more to what we're selling to our customers and as we did that we needed to pivot from having one thing that works really really well to having a lot more things some of them are not going to work really well from day one and so we had all the issues that companies have where they go from a position of safety you know which is I know what I'm doing I have validation of it my customers love it to a position where we come up with things that may be great you know right out of the gate or maybe not and oftentimes they're not fantastic right out of the gate I mean oftentimes there are just good parts about them and there's not so good parts and it's a bit of a shift or pivot in culture at that time to get your product team to want to see the bad news actually want to go talk to the customers hear what's not working hear what's missing listen to it you know because usually we were discussing that right before but your customers love you and they are typically good human beings so they don't want to upset your feelings so when you go to them with a new product they'll say yes I'll use it they tell you great things and when they give you feedback about what they really don't like about it or what's missing they try to you know wrap it into compliments like that just the proverbial shit sandwich and most people don't want to look at the bad part like they just listen to the good parts and say yes they love it whereas the only part that matters the only part people really meant was the part that's broken or missing and not today for all of the new products we typically see that when we go from the first phase of every product is working with design partners and then after that we start asking those design partners for money we start charging for the product when we do that is when the bad news comes that's when we figure out what's missing and it's very important for us as a part of our process and culture to to make sure people everybody out of the product side is comfortable with that so you know scale the company from you know two or three founders maybe you know that's another another interesting topic on like how did you get you know scale the company early on but especially with scale you're you know bringing in new people and they have to be educated on on what actually is value creating for your you know your end users your customers so how do you find the right types of people who get what you're doing or do you train them to do so first of all we train most of the people on the sales team most people are I mean some people are familiar with our space but not completely and most especially most experienced sales people are not used to selling you know I hit the word but product-led environment which means that they're going to have customers in charge customers are going to acquire usage over time and they're not going to sell very large commits of fraud and customers are not going to start from day one spending millions of dollars and committing for five years which is a whole a lot of the software sales were made historically so one of the big things we do is when people join we return train them so that they expect to to do smaller transactions faster transactions and then grow their business with customers by driving their usage up by making sure basically customers know where the value is we know where to find it and and get that that usage themselves I think it's great because I think it again it keeps the customer in charge and by the way you have to be willing to live with the consequences of that know which is you push customers to do month-to-month deals and to commit at their level and grow as they see fit which means you're not protected like if something goes wrong if they're not happy if you don't deliver the value you'll have the bad news right away but I think it's it's good because it forces you to get all the news good or bad very quickly and it also forces the the whole sales organization to think long-term they think not in terms of what deal can I close that with this customer but rather what is that customer going to look like for me a year or two years from now and how do I make them successful which I think aligns everyone yeah so over the years you've shown the success of this model scaling to you know where you are today with more than a billion in revenue but early on was it easy for you to also explain the model that you're operating under to your investors that maybe you know where more use is on some more traditional enterprise sales well I think initially the the biggest challenge was not with the investors who were fairly comfortable with the model I think the model was the problem was more with the the employee pool or the tenant pool for sales because it's fairly new I think today is becoming more common but you know five six years ago it was more difficult to find people who were open to the idea and who didn't see that as a you know as a step down you know in their career like it's very important part of it is how people understand their own success and how what the expectation is is of what they're going to be successful when your whole experience has been closing million dollar deals and when on your first day you asked to close a $50,000 deal it's a big shift yeah and and I think it today is easier but it took some time initially to make sure people understood that they were going to be even more successful just just in a different way yeah so we've definitely seen that at Ivan understanding how we can also scale up our sales teams and educate them on the model that we are using as you say it's now more and more common but I think still today the consumption models that we're operating under are not really the standard in most businesses so when it comes to you know being you know running a public company and you have tons of customers that are on this kind of a model like what does that mean to you like well I think as a public company it's fine I think because the what we do which is like what you do like you know you sell databases as a service yeah we sell you know observability and security for infrastructure all of that is inherently recurring like the workloads out there they're not disappearing it's not transactional so from a business perspective it's a it's still a subscription model that is fairly safe I think the one thing that you you do lose in the equation though is you cannot really fully predict growth in the very short term like because it's all depending depending on the customer usage and I think it again I think in the end it's good it makes us stronger because we get the the bad news earlier or the good news often I mean when when customers scale up they don't have to talk to us if they find more value and they use more product they don't have to talk to us it's a very efficient model but I think you do lose a little bit of short term predictability there yeah I think that's definitely what we see as well we're just looking at our top customers and and in aggregate we got our forecast pretty well right but individually customer by customer it was a completely different picture for for all of them so I guess with enough data you you start to see the big picture and the trends trends there yes well it's especially interesting like in the we've had an interesting period through COVID and another one now is you know what look like maybe some economic disturbances it's very interesting to see you know what happens through the usage pattern of customers and you know it's also something that we communicate to our to our investors a lot like to make sure they understand what we see and what the what the validity of the business is so going back a little bit to the product topic so you know you started basically with one product and then you evolved it to bring in more capabilities some you know you grew organically and others you brought into acquisitions can you describe a little bit you know you're thinking about expanding from one product yeah so for us what we built it was always meant to be a platform that brought together different teams and different use cases so and the the infrastructure monitoring was the first use case we didn't even want to call the product infrastructure monitoring initially we just did it because you know a data platform to bring dev and us together you know everybody loved the idea but nobody understood what that was so it was much easier to find product market fit this way but we always intended to build more on that platform and bring more use cases and unify we used to be different parts of a larger observability category we also specifically we thought that if we wanted to grow the company for a very long time we needed to be able to have more than one product and so for us really getting from one to multiple products was the the threshold to cross so we'd feel comfortable taking the company public and basically making a commitment to investors to grow it for a very long time we so we started on that in 2016 2017 and we got to the proof points we wanted by 2019 which is when we took the company public the the biggest challenge is there where to to operate the cold transfer transformations I talked about before which were how do we how do we turn our team that is mostly succeeding into a team that is going to start by filling before they succeed how do we make it attractive for the members of the team you know how do we convince someone who's working on a team that knows exactly what they're doing that has all these customers putting for more to actually go into a place that's unknown where they might fail initially like it actually takes a little bit of transformation initially for that but we also didn't lose the coordinates of the company we kept for all of our new products we kept everything customer driven in terms of usage so basically none of the new products we shipped had to be big commitments upfront everything was consumed as it went and as it delivered value to customers and we made sure the customers had all the levers to control that yeah so when you add more capabilities you add more products I suppose it can be a bit discouraging at first because you don't see the great take up of the new products that you saw with the existing popular ones but yeah yeah I mean initially you see everything that's broken everything that's missing yeah you're picking up new competitors and your competitors make it clear to your to your customers that you're still missing some features you know so it's a it's a race yes but you know the good news is once you've done it a few times you you grow confidence that you know you can actually catch up you can exceed the competition you need to understand how do you deliver value to some customers first like you know products typically start by being super useful to a narrow band of customers and then as you as the products mature they can be useful to a much broader and broader band of customers until they reach the full market and we we've practiced at playbook now did you have to make a lot of changes to your team as you went from you know one product to more products and like how you're talking about datadog and what does datadog mean to to end customers we we did so we you know we had to invest quite a bit on the on the go-to-market side in enablement making sure everybody understood everything fit together we also had to really defend the way we run products so that the product management team wouldn't get isolated from the customer and would still keep that culture of spending their half of their time you know with customers in the customer's shoes and really understood the value of their business so I would say you know it took a few trials and errors to do that I mean from the outside it looks like a beautiful you know exponential growth you know from the inside we broke a lot of things very often and we fixed them even at the organizational level so I think it's a it's a learning process yes yeah so kind of talking about like scaling up the and changing the go-to-market team a big part of your go-to-market team was always as opposed reporting to your chief product officer of the of the company how did that come about so the well actually it's rooted in the what we did by leading with customer growth or customer usage the one year into the life of the company we hired the head of product who is really like the third co-founder of the company and he was the one who was spending most of his time trying to make deal with customers and ended up running the early iterations of the of the sales team before we we hired professional sales leadership to do that and by the way that's another piece of advice again if you have the occasion if you are running a product-led growth company even though you shouldn't call it this way I really encourage you to start by running sales from product and only try to hire specialized sales after that one reason as I mentioned earlier is that you build a better culture in product and you understand your customer problem better another reason is that at least for us when you're a small startup it's hard to attract the very best sales leaders it's kind of the opposite of engineers like when you start from scratch you get the best engineers because they want to shape everything build everything from zero and make it their thing for sales is the opposite for sales you tend to recruit and attract the very best people when you have some scale and something that can be accelerated something that has a high likelihood of being very very very successful if it's made it right yeah that makes makes sense and that's definitely something we've seen seen at Ivan and Candidl we tried to scale up sales too early and it didn't really work out so we ended up scaling the company just by creating better products and talking to our customers and and that's how we got to got to the scale of like 10 million as I as I mentioned before and so by the way I'm an investor in Ivan it's been it's been fun to see you to see it grow yeah really happy to have have you on the I hope you're going back to work after that by the way yes yeah good yeah so you know talking about the company so you know we both started building products for people that you know like ourselves people that we thought you know we would appreciate what we're building but now another I think important important part about building company companies and products is like so what you know what's the identity like who are you and what do you look like and and all that so yeah and I see you have a you have a crab by the way the first time I saw that that was wondering what it was about you know I was wondering if it was a finished thing you know but yeah it's I mean so Ivan's identified by a crab and some people have asked me if it's a seafood business that's not not quite the case but we appreciate seafood and we do have you know company traditions of crayfish parties which is a great Nordic tradition but the identity has is really a big part of the company and we figured out what we want to do much earlier than we figured out how do we actually want to look like we wanted to have a kind of a fresh look look for Ivan we have four founders at Ivan and and we had some debate around should we look like a letter a or should we look like a crab and you know we had some different opinions between the founders so I asked my my then three-year-old daughter to to tell us what we should should be and she selected the crab and that's that's how we've always been being you know working with crabs but like so what about the you know the dog the data dog like the dog so at least you know you don't get the quick and always get the question do you like dogs or do you have a pet dog and you probably don't get that with the crab but the and the sad answer I'm going to break all the all the myth here but I don't have a dog my co-founder doesn't have a dog we call the company data dog initially it was a code name because in our previous company the biggest driver of 10 operation was a very large Oracle database and we called the production machine machines dogs and data dogs were the portion databases and data dog 17 was a database we lived in fear of you know if it went down everything went down so it was the name of pain for us it turns out everybody loved the name like the people remember data dog so we we dropped the 17 so it wouldn't look like a myspace handle and then we we look for a logo for it and we had the one of the first employees was a designer yeah who also followed us from our previous company and he produced a whole list of dogs and most of them were you know attack dogs alpha dogs dogs with sharp teeth and no small eyes and like things that that spell like performance technology you know the future etc and then there was a puppy and everybody said I want the puppy so and I think in the end that it ended up being maybe the smallest choice we've done at a time which was something that can be identified and that also represents the fact that we're here to make life easier not to be you know another problem something scary for our customers yeah well I think you've succeeded very well and on that end you know everybody I think you know loves the dog so thank you for sharing your story it's great thank you all right excellent


internal revenue service IRS tax news IRS accepting applicants for compliance assurance process for 2023 but first an attempt at a joke at the last presidential press conference president Biden was having a great time explaining how much he admired how spectacularly they used to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic president Biden telling a nice story about how neatly and efficiently they used to arrange those chairs explaining how it takes great leadership to keep those chairs in order even under extreme circumstances thanks to my leadership skills cowering running and pulling a skedaddle we are safe from our enemy he went on to compare how the beautiful order of the deck chairs on the Titanic mirrored the beautiful orderly way he has checked off every physical and emotional categorical box in all of America's hiring practices I can't take anymore boxes inside box whatever is in that better be with them all the boxes except perhaps competence hello I'm Dr. Gupta yes I'm a woman I suppose you have a problem with that that top down orderliness being the key to success in a Democratic Republic no is my wife gonna be okay are you questioning my confidence given his brilliance president Biden honestly can't see how inflation continues to increase and his approval ratings continue to decrease I'm afraid it doesn't look good what do you mean take a look for yourself I can't see you should open high Frank oh yeah I can see it now IR 2022-158 September 15th 2022 Washington the Internal Revenue Service announced today that the opening of the application period for the 2023 compliance assurance process the CAP CAP program the application period runs from September 15th to November 15th 2022 the IRS will inform applicants if they're accepted into the program in February 2023 launched in 2005 the CAP CAP employees real-time issue resolution through transparent and cooperative interaction between taxpayers and the IRS to improve federal tax compliance by resolving issues prior to the filing of a tax return to be eligible to apply for CAP CAP new applicants must have assets of ten million dollars or more be a US publicly traded corporation with a legal requirement to prepare and submit SEC form 10 K 10 Q and 8 K and not be under investigation by or in litigation with any government agency that would limit the IRS's access to current tax records to be eligible to participate in CAP CAP taxpayers must adhere to CAP program limits on the number of open years general program information and the 2023 application details are available on the CAP web page there's a link to that here there'll be a link to this in the description


You're welcome back to the Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. We're now going back to history and I remember earlier this week we went back to the year 2013 to tell you about a Boko Haram attack that targeted you know the Commissioner of Police at that time in Atomua State. It was still in 2013 here. It's a Boko Haram attack as well and this occurred in Borno State. So this particular attack on the 27th of May 2013 killed 55 people and freed around you know so many inmates, about a hundred prison inmates. So what this Boko Haram insurgents did is that they attacked an army base, attacked a police station, went to the town's prison as well. They killed 22 police officers, 14 prison officials, two soldiers and four civilians. These Boko Haram insurgents numbered around 200. They had gathered you know in in buses, in gun trucks, you know, pickup trucks as well, you know, hitting this base. It was just such an unfortunate incident. You know over 105 prisoners during the raid was freed and this raid occurred for about five hours. I mean do you know what it means for Boko Haram to attack for five hours on stops, on hindered killing police officers, soldiers, prisoners as well. It was just such a very dark time in Androids history going back to the year 2013. You know how you know the concern about terrorism, Boko Haram insurgency was still was still fresh at that time. They were still attacking lots with suicide bombers, you know with bomb attacks as well. But this day in history, this 7th of May 2013, really wasn't a great one for us in Androids history. The stretch was really something I can imagine all the trauma the victims would have gone through, you know, just being there and getting attacked for that long and the rescue was not even coming their way. Because they had killed the people who should be protected. Exactly. Yeah. I'd also in history today, 1996, a popular American comedian Martin Lawrence wasn't in his as he suffered a nervous breakdown. Let me just give a bit of a background on how that happened there. A comedian Martin Lawrence became a household named during the 1990s, establishing a Hollywood career as a leading actor. Most notably in films like House Party, That Boys, Blue Stray, Can Big Mama's House. Lawrence's numerous film Rose came after his own highly rated long running television series named after him, Martin. In 1996, the comedian suffered a nervous breakdown. Lawrence was picked up by the police for a standing in the middle of a busy midday Los Angeles intersection and screaming at cars. Although initially he said it was due to exhaustion and dehydration, his behavior was symptomatic of a mental breakdown from stress attributed to relationship allegations and legal issues. He was again hospitalized with his public relations agent sighting exhaustion and dehydration as a reason for this episode. On July 29, in 1996, he tried to take a nine millimeter gun onto a plane and received two years probation and fine. He said it was exhaustion and dehydration, but other reports say something else, legal issues and that relationship allegation. Relationships could do things to you. I was about to say, Justin, when we hear nervous breakdown depression, it's sad that these are things still seen in Africa as white man's disease or white mountain illness. But these things happen to us every day. It won't talk about nervous breakdown. It's a period of intense depression. You just feel mentally unable to function and do your life's normal activities.  It's just such a, from what I read, it could last for a few hours, it could last for a few weeks. Matt Lawrence at that time was going through a lot. He mentioned legal issues. He had issues with relationship, dehydration, exhaustion. It was just such a lot. When it comes to celebrities, even though it happens to everyday individuals, but these people have a certain level of responsibility to keep up appearances. And so much expectations for the people. They have to entertain. Indeed. Celebrities, they do go through a lot mentally. You bully them online. You know, people insult them. Even humans, most people don't even see them that way. They just feel that these people are super human to super natural. They should live above normal lives. But that's not true. We should all treat everybody with respect and love. But sometimes they just want to shout. That's free. That's what he did. That's what he did. He went somewhere and said, I screwed in our cars. That's exactly what he did during his legal breakdown. And let's see. The Jim Ico Ramsey, where he's just in the middle of a friend's middle and just pucks his car. And starts shouting. No, say he used that boot. He used that boot. Well, no, this is not a joking matter. We need to rest when you need to rest. True. True. You do need to rest. And just give yourself a break. So that's what happened today in history. May 7th, 2013, a very terrible book. I'm attacked. You know, attacked, you know, police officers, army officers, freed over 100 inmates in a prison in Bournemouth State. And you went back to the year 1996. 1996. Martin Lawrence screamed in the middle of a highway hot after. Just let off steam. Indeed. All right. That's it for you on today in history. We'll take a break here and return with our first big story. And it's about intercurity in Nigeria.