How Yinka Went From Fashion To CX Lead At Flutterwave

Issue #71

From Fashion
To Tech

Greetings ET people 🖖🏾

Once upon a time

Adeyinka used to be a wide-eyed computer science student during her undergraduate days at Lagos State University. She always wanted to do something in information technology, but a hectic university system ruined her chances.

Like many tech students in public universities, she learned how to code using pen and paper. There was little or no practicality about anything she had learnt about computers, science, or the combination of the two; and slowly, but surely enough, the wide-eyed student began to lose her wonder.

After graduating, Adeyinka decided she was going to start a business. She was not cut out for the daily 9–5 bustle. So, she gathered the strength only a Lagos babe could muster and started a small business selling sunshades for people who wanted to get their LadiPoe Big Energy groove on.

Business thrived, and she started eyeing fashion. She jumped ships from sunglasses to selling clothes, shoes, and other accessories she bought from the UK to Nigerians and helped clients change their wardrobes. Business was good for another year before she stopped. 

After that, she decided again to dip all her fingers and toes into fashion design. She got into Betti-O School of Fashion, where she was selected as one of the top 40 finalists out of 200 interviewees. If you’ve been keeping count, this is big change number 3.

She did well in fashion school.Adeyinka graduated in the top 5, and won an industrial machine. With it, she designed for a while; but she says she enjoyed sketching outfit designs more than actually sewing. 

During the interview, we thought this was the tech universe calling out to her. We knew this was where the next big change happened. But we would have thought Adeyinka would get into design, she jumped onto a different path.

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Entering tech by chance?

“I stumbled into tech. I only wanted to get the exposure and resign after six months. Six years later, I’m still kicking.”

A friend who worked in HR at KPMG referred Adeyinka to her first tech job—a customer success associate role at Flutterwave; this was in 2018. She was reluctant to take up the offer because she knew nothing about fintech. There was also her lack of experience in tech generally. Adeyinka’s CV at that time only boasted of her Betti-O fashion school certificate and maybe her three years of running different businesses. She found it absurd to make a jump like that.

After much pleading from her friend, she did it anyway. No surprise that her selling point during the interview was running a fashion business, which—if you’re familiar with how fashion people and tailors are dragged in Nigeria—you’ll understand the level of people skills and customer relationship management efforts you had to put in to not mistakenly find yourself in trouble over little misunderstandings with customers.

Her experience managing people in her fashion business endeared her to interviewers, and she says this has helped her become a superstar customer success specialist in her career. When she wanted to leave her first job, the company pleaded with her to stay, and even offered to bump her salary by 4x. But Adeyinka left anyway.

Today, she still works in fintech, finds time to mentor newbies on ADPList, and creates skincare content on her Instagram page for anybody who’d watch. When we asked her, she said the hustle is propelling her more than anything.

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Yinka’s dream

“There is money in tech; we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.”

Adeyinka’s message to all those doubting “tech money” is that there is more grass to touch. 

One of the highlights of her career was interviewing for an international role that would’ve paid her €5,000 monthly in 2022. Though she didn’t get the role (because she was over-qualified), it opened her eyes to the endless financial possibilities in tech. Adeyinka’s dream is to become a customer success manager or a big tech COO by next year. (We said a big AMEN to this.)

Albeit, she acknowledges that like most things in life, tech money isn’t instant reward. To become great at her job, she’s had to learn a lot about taking ownership, doing analytics, CRM (though Salesforce still gives her the heebie-jeebies), dispute resolution, and de-escalating customer tension—which is the hardest part of her job as she works in fintech. 

Customer success people essentially put out fires for businesses; yet there are only a few representations, communities, or resources for people who want to practice. However, Adeyinka recommends following thinkers like her mentor, Jo-Sharon Udoh, taking Udemy courses, and other resources like CustomerSuccessU. She says if you too, like her, want to make the switch to customer success, it would take six months to 1 year to become employable.

We’ve also written an edition of Entering Tech to show you everything you need to become a customer success manager. 

And as our own self-important comment, we ask you to share this newsletter with smart people like yourself. Deadpool likes chimichangas; but we thrive on your fan love.

As we wrapped up our interview with Adeyinka, we dusted ourselves, ready to leave. Then she added something we just had to put in this newsletter. “Every experience you have is useful; regardless of where you’re coming from. There is always a tie-back to tech. If you have event management experience for example, you can excel as a project manager.”

There is no limit to what’s possible.

P.S: Did you like this edition of Entering Tech? Would you like more like this or less? Share your thoughts by responding to this newsletter or sending an email to newsletter@techcabal.com. 

Here’s where to find your first tech job

If you’re interested in kicking off your career in tech, here’s a list of job boards that regularly upload their platform with African tech jobs.

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