Self doubt and imposter syndrome prevents many from building and shipping great products, Peter shares his own struggles, how he keeps building and his current project.
Hi Peter, what’s your background and what has been your career?
My name is Peter Okwara. I studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Nairobi from 2013 to 2019. I also studied Enterprise Business Management at Strathmore University.
While I was undertaking my Electrical Engineering degree, I also took some time to indulge in matters software by going to tech events and meetups at the iHub in Nairobi.
Before I graduated, I got employed at the IOTA Foundation from September 2019 as a Software developer. During this time my role evolved a lot. At first it was software development and talking to customers, and shortly after learning about cloud from ALC Google Cloud and ALC Microsoft Cloud associate, my role moved to devops
I also did a couple of courses on Frontend development from Udacity (Udacity Frontend Nanodegree) and blockchain (Udacity Blockchain Nanodegree) and this has been sort of the foundation for the things that I work on today.
What are you working on currently and how did the idea come up?
I am currently working on Careergo, a platform that helps people applying for jobs have an easy time when crafting and editing their resumes and cover letters.
When you are applying for multiple jobs, customizing cover letters and sometimes resumes to fit the different organizations and job descriptions can be a time consuming and hectic task. This is where Careergo comes in, we make it easier for you to create and submit multiple standout cover letters and resumes effortlessly in less time and with much less hustle.
Careergo is like your personal assistant when your job is applying for jobs.
At some point in my career, I wanted to switch jobs and found myself applying to multiple openings quite often. During this time the process of creating cover letters to match each and every organization and job description was a huge pain for me.
At the same time, I was thinking of how I could use the skills that I had to make more money on the side. My mentor @coachyawe (X) advised me to look into building a SaaS (Software as a Service) and shared with me a video of someone who was doing the same thing.
The apps he was working on seemed easy for me to build as well because I had the skills, so I thought why not do something along the same lines as his. Luckily for me OpenAI was also just beginning to take off and would be a great resource for the product I wanted to work on, my mentor advised me to look at their work with llm’s and shared a great video as well.
Using OpenAI was a lot easier than I had expected, I built a very simple MVP and presented it to a close group of friends who loved it. I then published it online after a chat with coachyawe and it was a huge hit.
The next step was to build a business out of it and this is where I am at now.
How did you build it?
For the Frontend/Backend technologies I used; Sveltekit, Firebase, Openai and Zoho. For analytics I use Posthog.
I got a lot of knowledge that went into the building process from social media, books and emails.
How did you get your first customers/users?
I got the first users during the initial hype of OpenAI.
I posted the site on twitter and it got so much interest from people. This gave me the initial drive to develop the idea further. During this time not many people were aware of OpenAI and ChatGPT, they used it mainly to create cover letters.
I still haven’t perfected this part, however I run paid advertisements to learn more about the market and what potential customers will react to and relate with, this also provides a guide on what to work on next.
What are some challenges that you have faced and how did you overcome them?
Marketing is definitely still a struggle. But I learn every day and work on the basics like listening to customers and paying attention to things such as landing page design that help with conversion.
In terms of development, I had to learn how to set up authentication, databases and UI, these were not very easy. I remember my first versions were buggy as hell but I am getting better at it now. Integrating payments was also a challenge at first but working with Paystack made things much easier and more efficient.
It was also hard having a clear roadmap on what to build next and which features to improve upon. This is where analytics came in and Posthog has helped a lot with this.
Burnout is also another thing that creeps up on you, I haven’t fully solved it yet, but the gym helps reduce the stress and pressure.
Financially/user acquisition wise how is the product doing?
I have 3 paying users, getting them was no joke😅. Up to date at least 200 people have used the platform.
Over the past 3 weeks we have had 50 additional users.
What are some of the mistakes you made & some disadvantages of working on the product?
Not having proper analytics in place in the beginning to help track whether I was moving in the right direction or not, setting up Posthog analytics helped, it also came in handy when defining metrics for every experiment to run.
I had major doubts about launching my product out there but figured it’s my customers and not me who determines the value of the product.
I also had the fear of validating whether people would be willing to pay for the product, charging customers for the services offered and value provided. I eventually did it and the only way to go from here is up.
What are some of your future plans?
I am working on the resume feature, it has been a struggle to have it up and running but it’s coming along.
Improving communication with customers is also key and this is being worked on and includes better onboarding, mailing lists to mention a few.
Improved marketing, this is a big one and I plan to get more involved with different communities (online and offline) and also work on growing my presence on social media.
If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do?
First and foremost, I would avoid self-doubt. Just do it.
Second would be to put sales and marketing at the forefront and have it go side by side with building and third would probably be to stick with a popular framework like NeXTs.
Any recommendation in terms of who to follow, YouTube videos to watch, a useful website or books to read?
MakerBox — Best Marketing Resources for Solopreneurs in 2023
Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation | Wiley
Where can people go to know more about you and your work?
Check out Careergo on the website, careergo.co
My personal website is available on peterokwara.com
Getting personal, what does success look like to you as an individual and at what point would you say you have achieved said success?
I would summarize this into two points:
● Changing people’s lives and having actual impact in the job market.
● Achieving profit then achieving ramen profitability with my product.
Startup Spotlight: BebaBeggie
BebaBeggie is a convenient, safe and secure short term storage and parcel collection solution.
Their E-lockers offer temporary storage for items in busy areas, CBDs, Gyms, business premises, entertainment facilities, outdoor events and workspaces.
If you have ever been to an outdoor event, you know how hectic it can be to carry around your bag or that jacket you thought you would need but is now just weighing you down and holding you back, your friend won’t carry it for you either. This is where such smart lockers come in, just put it in storage safely until it’s time to go home.
They provide a variety of use cases. Lead by Prince Charles Oduk, check out the website here for more info.
Worth a Read:
💰 Upwork and Taxation: What Kenyan Freelancers Need to Know
📱 Expect Kenyan-Made Smartphones In Shops on October 30th
💸 Safaricom finalizes acquisition of M-Pesa holdings from Vodafone
Thank you for reading this far, don’t forget to tell your friend.