Episode 39 - Revolutionizing Transportation with Adetayo Bamiduro and Chinedu Azodoh

Starting a company comes with plenty of challenges. Scaling comes with others. 

Metro Africa Express co-founders Adetayo Bamiduro and Chinedu Azodoh understand this well. The two entrepreneurs have created a thriving business that has made an impact in the transportation industry and has positively impacted the lives of many across Africa. In 2021, the company received 31 million dollars in series B funding to help scale the business even more.

They join us to talk about the process of starting and scaling a business while staying devoted to their mission and faith.

Episode Transcript

Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.

Richard Okello: Jenna Dewan, thank you very much for joining the show. We're quite excited about the work that you're doing at Max. I personally have heard about Max through our firm Sango, some of the funds that we back. And so we're really excited on behalf to hear the story. You recently raised over $30 million in a Series B funding, which is exciting to see that happening. But I know that you guys have put a lot of work into the company, and the company goes back, I think, as early as 2015 when you started it as a delivery service. So talk to us a little bit about the origin of the business, how you thought about the idea and how it has evolved over time. Yeah, let's start there.

Adetayo Bamiduro: No, I shouldn't. So projects were funded, Max. My background was mostly working out of out of Africa, out of Nigeria, to be more specific, across a bunch of industries. But I was an energy company, right, in the Niger Delta region of Niger for coffee for a couple of years. And I'd heard, of course, you know witness some of the challenges in that region of Nigeria, you know, it's a pretty oil rich region, but also a highly underdeveloped region at the same time. And that led to conflict and also environmental pollution and degradation, you know, in the next 100 years would still be there. So it's a pretty disastrous situation that I encountered. But, of course, you know, I work at a company, you know, had a decent salary. And on some point, you know, I started shooting the customers as the responsibility for some of what was going on there. So I thought, you know, it made sense for me to transition out of that particular career path into something that would enable me to deliver, you know, more impact on the continent, you know, by creating meaningful jobs, elevating income levels and providing transparency in terms of how we operated.

Adetayo Bamiduro: So I got you know, I was fortunate and blessed really. Right. You know, to get a chance to study other my people to this other school, which is where I met with Chinedu. And at that time, both of us were really looking to build a meaningful solution using technology that will create a lot of jobs, great opportunities, and help people you know how to better our high quality living right on the continent. So then we said, Max, So, you know, the journey starting Max was not fundamentally about, you know, logistics and delivery or mobility or e-commerce. It was fundamentally about, you know, how could we create meaningful opportunities for people and large scale bringing about transformations in industry and help alleviate income levels. And then the logistics industry made a lot of sense for us because we just saw that, you know, a lot of people already engaging in the industry, you know, from the point of view of doing deliveries, getting on the back of motorcycles or three wheelers, moving packages around towns, cities, villages, rural areas across the continent. So that was the attraction really for us that, okay, this is quite a big industry, very tangible industry as well, and one that also had, you know, very challenging historical problems, one of which was know what we would call the informal mafia. Right. So huge industry, very low transparency, huge opportunities to make impact. That was pretty much it for I and [...].

Richard Okello: And how has that evolved over time for someone that's not familiar with Max what is the business doing and what's the business model like today?

Chinedu Azodoh: So when we first started out, the goal, you know, like I said, was, you know, to deliver the business and be transformative. But we started out initially offering logistics as a service.

Chinedu Azodoh: What's happened is we spent a lot of time trying to understand a few things, right one, you know, what really delivers value to our customers. Two, how big is the opportunity? So how big is the opportunity, the problem solving? Three, how do we optimize to improve the impact and, you know, expand what we've been doing? So we started out originally, you know, doing logistics primarily for e-commerce businesses, you know, added food to logistics itself, you know, said attempts to expand the impact of providing and also essentially provide better service to our potential customers. Right. I mean, 2017 we rolled out motorcycle based ride hailing in summer 2017. And, you know, that's essentially put our business on a trajectory where we really just took off. Obviously, we covered in 2020 and a few regulatory changes. There were significant changes to how we saw the business should run moving forward. Today, what we've become fundamentally is a vehicle subscription platform. Why? Because we understand better who our customers are. So customers are not necessarily the last mile customers who work with our drivers, but our drivers themselves are the customers. Right? Because we realized that if we're trying to, you know, providing building meaningful business with, you know, high levels of impact, we needed to figure out who was the person who solving the problem for them will ultimately have a much larger impact on the communities and the markets that we support. And we realized very quickly that for the drivers that we support, on average the drivers, I think support about seven people per driver and they also the guys who provide actual transportation services, so once we transport [....], wants to improve quality of life to make things better for everybody else, solving the problems that drivers of the court deal with will fundamentally solve or at least impacts the market at a much greater level.

Chinedu Azodoh: So that's what we're doing today with Vehicle Solution platform today, providing high-performance vehicles in the gas engine and electric mobility space to commercial taxi drivers of the continent. We had almost 20,000 plus drivers. Now, while we're in free markets, with the fourth market's about to go live.

Richard Okello: And this is primarily one of the three markets right now.

Chinedu Azodoh: Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Egypt, is going to have to do the partnership.

Richard Okello: Wow. Awesome.

Chinny Ugoji: So, yeah, thanks, Chinedu and Tayo, that's really amazing to hear. And the thing is, many of our listeners at the beginning stages of the adventures like we know in Africa, so many young people are diving into this entrepreneurial space and they haven't scaled to the size that Max has. You know, when you look back at when you first started. You think you would be where you are today? You know, about to break into Egypt, that you have an international business like this. And also what encouragement can you give to people just starting out on their own business journeys?

Adetayo Bamiduro: There's a great book that starts with the why, and I think it's really positive because, you know, ultimately what the secret can drive out of how things eventually unfold, you know, is quickly linked to the real reason and motivation behind whatever we do. So I think in retrospect, you've got the level of skill about, you know, your identity as an entrepreneur. I think the most valuable is, you know, why are you doing this right? Because ultimately, when not the issue, when you face, you know, huge challenges, huge setbacks. What will keep you going at that point in time would be, you know, why are you doing you know, and I'm one of the fundamental motivations behind it. And so I think once that is sorted, you know, think about where you are, right? You know, you start small, you learn, you know, you learn more about the product, your market, your customer, why you're doing what you're doing.

Adetayo Bamiduro: You build relationships, you know, hopefully get some supporters on board, some partners, some investors, you know, some co-founders and early stage employees as well. You just keep building. I think it's definitely, you know, great to have a long term vision, but really ultimately, the work is day to day, right? And so get up every day, stay focused on the objectives, you know, pursuing that objective, pursuing that mission and building step by step by step, you know, the same, you know, the journey of a thousand miles, you know, begins with one step. So that step is, you think out one step every day, every day, every day, you keep moving forward. You're also not too paranoid about what other people are doing or what's going on around you. Right. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense to learn from the market, from your customers and even from competitors. A lot of people, you know, try not to have the same challenge or a similar challenge. But ultimately, you know, what keeps you going is, you know, having a very clear reason why that's the motivation for what you're doing and also having a very strong conviction around, you know, the overall mission that you're pursuing, but the perspective of what's feasible. Right. You know, just enjoying a day to day, day to day to day, you get more clarity. You know, there are couple of days, weeks, months, you know, almost two years, ultimately. And then you just keep evolving until, you know, you achieve your objective.

Thanks Tayo. That's super encouraging. Chinedu, I'm going to ask you this now. Starting out with your business has its own challenges. You have to have courage. You have to have startup capital. People are, you know, asking you why you're going into business school for the security of a paid job or whatever. But then, like Tayo said, you've taken a day to day, month on month, and now you're kind of stable and it's time to scale. Scaling comes with its own set of rules, own set of challenges. What are some of the surprising challenges you have faced at Max as you've experienced growth?

Chinedu Azodoh: That's a very interesting and challenging question for starters. Right. One of the key things I think that has been surprising for me as we've continually scale is I guess you kind of assume that the work gets easier. The reality is that it doesn't. All right. It's almost the same amount of intensity, a bit different. So, you know, earlier on, a lot of what we're doing is focused on, you know, operational stuff, you know, running around, chasing drivers, recruit team, building out processes, all that stuff. Today, a lot of the work is still super intense. What's changed? So a lot of the time is spent on, you know, figuring out what should the business be doing, where we're headed, who are the people that we need to have in the right places. Gwen As I'm trying to talk to these people to get them convinced them to join the business. You know, making sure that people have like proper performance models built out so that they have, you know, clear targets, things that they're working towards. And I think the most interesting and I think the shocking part of it for me was when I was a place where, you know, you spend most of the time I spend most of your time with people just coaching. Right. So you're still doing the daily stuff, right? You're still doing the check ins on a daily basis. You're still following up on what our work is delivered or not and what whether the time is you're working people now who don't necessarily have the context of the last eight years. Right. And I'm trying to figure out how do you make themselves of the advantage of a business like ours that's continuing to grow? All right. So a lot of time was spent helping them understand the gold areas, the red areas, the gray areas and everything else in between right. I think another thing that has been interesting as well as a skill is you realize very quickly that, you know, companies grow faster than people. Yeah, right. So the question becomes, how do you as a founder, as an executive, scale up yourself to meet with the companies? That's right. So, you know, the founders would love to just they are software engineers are a good oldie. But I go work has completely changed and you're going to be doing that you're no longer considered in the work and nobody to do business at the level that you're at. So how do you continue to assist the attentive to what the business needs, what business is the head, and how do you continue to change and modify that still has a founder was an entrepreneur to meet those demands and to continue to push the bucket. Because I think the key thing is, you know, you put on a uniform every day to go to work [....] right now, when you come home from whatever it is may be, you know, recognizing that that uniform will change as well as just scaling is also super important. So I think for me, one of the most interesting and more challenging things is just, you know, I was just kind of assuming that things would get much easier. You know, I don't going through more of a reluctant mode because, you know, a business is some level of stable states. But the reality is that, I mean, stable status is very contextual, right? And the work does not get easier. I think that's the thing that's I find the most shocking about this at this particular point.

Chinny Ugoji: Thanks so much, Chinedu.

Richard Okello: Yeah, You know, just listening to you, Chinedu. I was just thinking about some of the other guests we have on the program. One of the similarities between you and them is that, you know, like most guests on the program, the two of you and other guests on the program have this deeply rooted mission in your work. It's not just a job or just something you want to do because you want to make a bunch of money, which is good. But there's obviously a mission beyond that. You know, in an article for Business Insider, you explained you all had a vision of a future where by empowering independent commercial drivers, you could transform the way Africa moves and unleash a wave of growth and prosperity on the continent. So stepping back a little bit from that, what led you to discovering that mission? And then part two of that question is what led you to that particular mission that you have that is embedded in the company?

Adetayo Bamiduro: You know, I mean, ultimately, organizations are made up of people and leaders. And obviously, you know, pioneers are the founders who decided to set up a community, build an organization for a reason. And those shows are, of course, you know, like it or not, driven by or shifts to a large extent by the objectives, the ambitions, the value systems of the leaders or the pioneers or the founders, as the case may be. So the implication of that is, you know, for Max, you know, the question that was what was driving the founders decisions and why did we have the company so for me and Chinedu that was always pretty straightforward. We are from Africa, we're from Nigeria. We're not happy about the general state of things around the economy, opportunity, poverty and so on. Right and right and, you know, complain and try to just, you know, build a nice life for ourselves, you know, in developed countries. We didn't just want to complain. Right. And hope. We wanted to do something about it. So fundamentally, the key driving force here is, you know, taking ownership and responsibility for the states of our continent instead of our nation and thinking, you know, what is the best way we can improve through our lifetimes? Hopefully, [.....] Of course, that leads towards, you know, prosperity and freedom and all the good things you know about every normal person wants out of life. So I think fundamentally was just a sense of ownership and responsibility and a sense of destiny for our country that we really can and should and must do something about it by leveraging technology. I think we also have a chance, a sense of destiny because of the incredible opportunity about technology [....] you know, 20, 30 years ago, impossible to build a platform that was built just because the platforms choose, you know, funding frameworks, etc., that are needed to execute on a mission like this just ran really, really bad. But here we are, you know, we were fortunate to be at a particular point in history where those tools were, you know, of course, still not easy, but those tools are there. And if we leverage those tools and the relationships that we had built right, we could actually really start addressing some of the big challenges on the continent and hopefully set the continent on a path towards opportunity, towards prosperity, towards freedom, towards sequence of access and things like that. So that really is the key driving force behind this.

Richard Okello: So as you I mean, you started this business, you know, several years ago. And as I think about our own experience, you know, investing in Nigeria and Ghana, you know, the last 6 to 7 years have not been particularly easy. Right. And so, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs like yourself who start out with a great mission. And life just sort of grates on you and can wear you down. So do you think about your mission? How have you stayed true to that mission? And more importantly, how have you kept your team actually rooted in that purpose, just given all the things going on around you?

Adetayo Bamiduro: Yeah, I mean, let me jump in and then Chinedu will also share his. I think for us really I mean, there's not like real secret sauce or. That's a very good perspective on why [....] I think it's more, you know, the proverbial explorer that arrived in the New World and the first thing that they did was to burn up their ships. Right. So pretty much a mind of, you know, we die here. So I think for us, the mission wasn't to try and see how this goes. Then, you know, depending on how things go, then we'll figure things out and then we move on to something else. But I think from the very beginning, you know, we can not do anything else right, you know, not like, you know, not complete. That's what I mean. What I mean is, for us, the fundamental commitment to creating on scaling adventure that unlocks opportunity is something that, you know, that's all we're going to do. That's all we know how to do, on the platform of Macs or, you know, similar products and services, but also ultimately, you know, create opportunities for people.

Adetayo Bamiduro: So I think it is that mindset that got to where we came on board the so burns of the ships behind us. And then, you know, we have to make this work.

Richard Okello: Fascinating. Chinedu Do you want to add anything else to that before we switch gears a little bit?

Chinedu Azodoh: I mean, you know, I am going to echo what Tayo said right, but we also, as a business or as a leadership invested in lots and also defining, you know, what our values are right and how we make decisions. And, you know, what we value as a team or as a person or whatnot. And what that has also helped us do is we use those things as also a frame of reference for helping guide decision making, helping guide about how we want to grow or do all other kinds of things. So we have what we define as a [....] Max values. You know what we value. So I think the thing that has been the core part of keeping us focused on the mission. All right. I think our investors also played a great role because we brought in investors early on who were aligned with us from a mission and vision standpoint. But obviously we can't discount the value they have added to the table, but in a very close relationship with our investors, actually. And, you know, they have worked with us obviously as a sounding board to help us to make the right decisions. And I think the thing is, you know, personally for Tayo and I, we're like he said, you know, we are ready to take this as far as it goes to whatever kind of storm that comes. And if you look at what we've done over the last couple years as well, you know, that will reinforce some of that mentality in terms of just, you know, being willing to just take it and just go through as far as we can.

Richard Okello: That's great. Let me ask you one other extension question. You know, so you'll have listeners on the program that might be hearing this or listening to this from North Africa or South Africa and so on. And one of their questions is going to be around scaling out of country, right? You know, Africa is interesting Continental, but gets executed on by country or by, you know, a subset of the country. Right. What can you share about your sort of observations and learnings as you built this business going outside Nigeria to Ghana and into other places and obviously now looking to expand into North Africa?

Chinedu Azodoh: That is a good question, I think scalling has been something at least multiple countries due to their geographic scaling has caused us to really learn a lot. Today, we don't take a country strategy prosecuting approach. We take a city strategy enforcement approach where we identify cities that we want to be in that value that makes sense, and then figure out, you know, how do we get into this particular cities to country expansion? Part of what we've learned is that, you know, across-border governments operate quite differently and have very different regulatory standpoints. So I think early on, what has been really helpful to us is understanding what that looks like and coming up with a global framework that allows us to assess cities and more importantly, assess how viable a country is. It would really like your city in that particular country. So we try to put frameworks out of decision making and obviously where they are across that framework and filling in where essentially filling those gaps in with ourselves and with people and what not. And then obviously working backwards towards building frameworks as well. So I think some of the has been really helpful to us to be able to, you know, manage that geographic expansion has been, you know, you know, proper organization and proper planning and proper research putting frameworks. And obviously we have the director of international expansion who has been fantastic for us as a business, he was a classmate of us as well and is a fantastic Christian and you know, has also come in and helped us really put a lot of structure around how we did that international expansion and, you know, physically entering into new markets. But really, it's what we do, what forces is really, you know, reviewing, putting together a plan and putting together a proper structure framework around these things, putting together a nice team. We have a fantastic leader who's driving that work, and we've been able to achieve what we've been able to achieve. Obviously, still early days as far as like, you know, scaling and expansion is concerned. So we're very excited about how that goes long term.

Chinny Ugoji: All right. Thanks, guys. You know, both Tayo and Chinedu have used the phrase We die here and Nigeria people naturally will know what that means. But just for the sake of anybody listening to us and not sure what they're talking about, that just speaks to having staying power, having grit and just, you know, staying on the course and stay until something happens and you break ground. So I thought it was important to just shed some light on that. But yeah, let's talk a little bit about faith. This is faith driven entrepreneur. We're talking about how Christian entrepreneurs are able to just merge what you know, they do with ultimate calling. And we'd love to hear a little bit about your stories. How did you both come to your faith? Was it from when you were a little child or did you come about faith later? Love to hear from both of you. So I guess I'll start with Tayo.

Adetayo Bamiduro: I think, you know, for me, I mean, I was for sure to be born into the Christian household with my parents, to be a [.....] and also, you know, [....] to have siblings. [.......]. And so, I mean, it just a lot of good example for me to do. Pretty hard to be rebel right [.....] great parents and also siblings, I am on the last one of a lot of good example, I think particularly my older sister who is [.....] early on, and [....] I remember back in the day before Christ in 8 to ten years old. So it was just very fortunate not to have done too much experimentation before coming to faith. But, you know, over the years, obviously, God, my faith has gone deeper to the experiences that I've been privileged to have had on the different places that I believe arose from other continental states and Europe and Asia as well. You know, meeting incredible people from around the world as well, you know, people of faith. But I also see how deep my own personal belief on my journey and also, you know, be connected to communities like this, you know, faith driven entrepreneur, you know, on an assembly program, we talked about, you know, people of faith, people there having needs was just something fascinating, [....] my own faith as well. But yeah, I think for me was primarily just been very fortunate to have been born into a household. You know, [....], my siblings, all to their faith very seriously. And there's just a lot of good example to all of us.that's from me.

Thanks Tayo, Chinedu, love to hear your story.

Chinedu Azodoh: As for me, I have a very similar background in the sense I guess when I was born at the time we were a Christian household, but we were more, I think on the Catholic side of the faith and have over time transitioned to where we are today. I'm fortunate to have my father be administered in the church and that was like, so faith has always been a pivotal part of my growing up, my family and all that. I haven't done any particular mission work that came down to it, but I've also spent a lot of time. I've played in, you know, choirs and church bands, you know, most of my teenage years and even into my early adulthood as well. I mean, whenever I get the chance, obviously the faith is something that I'd like to ensure, at least in my own way as well. For me, it's like, you know, faith and God is a very pivotal part of not just my life or my family lives and something I'm very, very proud to be a part of.

Chinny Ugoji: Well, that's awesome. One of the things that we really love to share on this podcast is how faith can actually play a role in your business and as you just live life as an entrepreneur. You know, sometimes people want to separate faith from business, but that's not the way it goes. And so I would really like to hear from you about how faith plays a role, you know, in your work in Mass. Maybe Tayo could speak to this.

Adetayo Bamiduro: Yeah. I mean, you know the word about the drawbacks, but also my personal motivation is driven by my personal by my faith. And really, you know, it becomes about, you know, the process of building Max. I and Chinedu have gone through a tremendous adversity. Tremendous, tremendous. Other very on site. In the beginning, we had to make really tough decisions. I was extremely nimble. We were extremely efficient with cash. We embraced, you know, very austere lifestyles. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know, we talk to, you know, children how to work on Wall Street. And, um, it was definitely something comfortable before college, I might say. So I think for me as well. Right. So, you know, going out to do the adventure, but at the same time, you know, taking decisions that required us to adopt, you know, very humble lifestyles, very low salaries, you know, we would go months, many, many months without paying ourselves just to make sure everyone else got paid. And, you know, our customers got paid. I mean, our partners got paid and everyone else was taking care of, you know, we would always be the last to be the last to give ourselves. At some point in our journey, we were living and working in the same building with our employees. But at some point we took a property. When I was with my family, my wife and my kids in, you know, go to college and I just have a small garage at the back of the building. And then she moved to one room in the main building. So like it's a big boom to one room. This room was literally beside what we call hostel for our engineers. Right. And obviously, you know, there are a lot of, no privacy and work life. Everything was one. Right. That's like a little bit of privacy cause my apartment was behind. Right. Augustine out of family. So she was very gracious to, you know, extend me that privilege. But it was hard. There were very challenging times as well, you know, fundraising, hiring people a lot of that, keep the team motivated, you know, doing all of that wasn't extremely hard from the beginning, primarily because of me personally, because of my faith, cause my faith is present. It's a given that you must endure suffering, must be able to endure suffering. And for the greater good, I had be able to, you know, to make sacrifices right on as much as possible. And also the faith also teaches us to put others before ourselves, put other first. So it was very easy for me and us to prioritize, you know, fulfilling our contracts, contractual agreements with our employees. A lot of the people that we partnered with before, you know, taking care of ourselves and doing that for extended periods of and I'm not talking about, you know, for two months, years upon years. And the last but not least also and I can go on and on also a sense of accountability and stewardship. Right. You know, we have partners, we have investors. You know who have a lot of faith in us, you know, committing, you know, tens of millions of dollars into our hands to manage and to oversee, right for building the very specific mission. Right. So the discipline, the focus, integrity that is required for all of that is also significantly underpinned by our Christian faith. So, you know, our faith, it really just permeated every single aspect of building this company, thinking about what is best for our customers, not just because we want to make some money from them, but because we genuinely care about them and we want their life to be enhanced, right? So, you know, every aspect of building this venture has been driven by our faith in Jesus. And, you know, I hope the greatest future for our customers, for everyone, right in this life, of course, of the next. But I think that sense of stewardship, right, that ultimately whatever we do at the company isn't just about serving our customers or serving our investors, our shareholders. Right. But ultimately what we see what we're doing is service to God himself and to the creator, right? Because work is worship in spite of how you worship expressed worship towards God. So for us, you know, work life, faith it's all integrated and, you know, it's not compartmentalized. That's all. It's all fully integrated. And is the driving force behind what I do and what would you.

Chinny Ugoji: Tayo. Thank you so much for sharing that. You know, you've said so many wonderful things. It's important for people who are just starting out or who might even be struggling in business to hear some of these stories and these testimonies because people might think oh Tayo, aren't you MIT alums. They had it easy. But hearing that, you know, you had to endure hardship and, you know, referencing your faith to that and seeing that as soldiers of Christ, sometimes hardship will come and you will have to, you know, hang in there. And you've spoken about integrity and accountability and stewardship and, you know, actually love, you know, loving your investors, loving your customers. And it's just so inspiring. And Chinedu. I'm sure you have something you would like to add to that as well.

Chinedu Azodoh: I mean, Absolutely. So Tayo spoke about our journey. It's and how you talk about some of the difficulty that we also have are in terms of, you know, settling down, managing ourselves financially and stuff like that. And, you know, as I think about that particular period as well was especially a difficult time because, you know, obviously, as you know, as such, some of this family were around building up the business. And I think for me, this was also the first time I had worked in Nigeria for an extended period of time internally I deal with a lot of personal conflict. man, was this really the right decision to make? This is such a tough thing to do. Are you sure you don't want to just quit and go back home? There's a Bible verse that was very important to me at the time. [....]. And that was something that I would always just want to know if you think about the promise of God is in your life and what faithfulness is and what the Bible says, you know, then this will only last period and you will keep moving. So that particular piece of like that particular word was something I held on to, especially when you wake up two, three, am in the middle of the night and there's no power, you want to go on a generator and all that's just dealing with the conflict and a difficulty are like just adapting to in your life. The word was very helpful for me, right? Worship was also very helpful for me. So, you know, I'm grateful for all we've been able to do so far and the opportunities that we've been able to tap into and get to this particular point, you know, and obviously recognize the value that the word has been. My God has been and the community has been in that process. And, you know, I'm just grateful for it. But yeah, I mean, for me, the key thing has been the word that for me I was able to hold on to it person I have to use that to launch into and direct myself.

Richard Okello: Chinedu, I think what both you and Tayo said is incredibly important because, you know, I actually know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that intersection of their faith and the like we do, because most of us, you know, for those that grew up with faith in the family, you know, usually that's attached to things other than work, like you're going to school and you live in your family. But you know, that sometimes gets disconnected from what we end up doing. So I can't emphasize enough how important what you just said is the both of you. We're almost out of time, but just before we close, we like to try to close each episode by, you know, hearing a little bit from each of you, about what God is teaching you right now. So let's start with you, Tayo. What have you found in God's word that you think stuck out for you recently? And then we've got to you Chinedu just before we wrap up.

Adetayo Bamiduro: All right. So for me, it's really just understanding that ultimately it's about the journey and not a specific destination. Right. You know, early on, those in Egypt thinking about all materials will be achievable at some point, as we should be. More we should I've done this, done that and all that. And then, you know, sometimes I look at you should some of those milestones, some of them you don't. But even when you do ship the milestones, right, you know, you're happy. You celebrate on the individual continents. So I think it's sort of like transitioning away from this sort of like futuristic, you know, destination on at least this side of life, you know, where everything will be done by shifting away from that mindset and that mindset of just, you know, taking each day at a time, continuing to be fruitful, to continue to build and also to rest in that same cross. [.....]. I'm also waiting for some, you know, five year, ten year period, after which I don't have kind of ongoing rest, recognizing that because ultimately it's a journey. So we breathe our very last on this planet. You know, it's important to also enjoy the journey, right? Because it's fundamentally about the journey and the journey doesn't stop. It's also been a little bit about figuring out ways to rest, you know, to be grateful, to be thankful, you know, to be in good relationships, to really consciously enjoy the process, get rest, build quality relationships. At the same time, I recognize that, you know, the fulfillment is really on a day to day basis. It's not some, you know, ultimate destination on the side of life. It's just learning, you know, to enjoy the job on a day to day basis [....].

Chinedu Azodoh: So piggybacking on what Tayo said, could I read a couple days ago, I think it was Tuesday last week that says that excellence is a habits, is not a definition. So people tend to assume that you excel at something, you do something once and it's over. Right. But if you look around like life, everything has to do with life. If you're working to lose weight, if you're looking to build muscle, if you're working to get better at soccer, if you're working to learn mathematics, if you're working to build a company and everything, it's less about the singular action we take once in a while are more about the everyday actions. Right? What habits are you building? And like what Tayo said as well, you know, the habits also include it's not just focused on what happens later concluded he misses out working, but even down to things like how much sleep are you getting? So I know I personally have struggled a bit with like, you know, getting enough sleep. I mean, it's ridiculous, but there's sometimes I feel, you know, a lot of guilt about sleeping because I'm like, oh, you know, [....] was having all these hours because of time to get some work done. And, you know, while the guilt makes sense, quote unquote, I want to take some time off if I need to. While the guilt there may technically make sense, it doesn't actually make any kind of sense because you know what is wrong with taking a few hours of sleep. Right. What does actually stop you, if anything? It helps promote good health and prosperity. Right. So the focus is one thing that I'm learning and only just what I've been teaching me as well is just focusing more on the right I'm building up on, you know, doing like really big things, which it's the small things that actually make a difference is those small things that need to do. So that makes a difference. And, you know, being a bit more balanced in terms of, you know, actually apportioning in time, I'm planning time to actually be able to do things like rest because you can only walk well if you're well-rested. If you're not well-rested, you'll be tired throughout the day consistently and just not do enough. So just making sure that you're not just doing work or taking care of yourself so that you can actually do better work is something that, you know, I've been learning recently, um, you know, doubling down on as long.

Chinny Ugoji: Thank you so much, Chinedu and Tayo for joining us today. For sharing your experiences, for sharing your wisdom and just for encouraging our listeners. God bless you. And we pray that, you know, things even get better and better at Max. Thank you also to Richard for joining me on this podcast and to everyone listening. We pray that God blesses you and blesses your business. Bye bye.