[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-category-money-stories":3},{"posts":4,"pagination":114},[5,18,27,36,46,55,63,72,81,90,99,107],{"title":6,"slug":7,"description":8,"body":9,"coverImage":10,"category":11,"author":12,"publishedAt":15,"readingTime":16,"featured":17},"How Adesuwa Omoruyi Went From Teaching To Building Accrue","how-adesuwa-omoruyi-went-from-teaching-to-building-accrue","I sat with Adesuwa to discuss how she built small businesses in university, career leaps, and building Accrue’s difficult early years","Adesuwa Omoruyi is the co-founder of Accrue, a cross-border payments startup helping Africans send and receive money across Africa and the US.\n\nPrior, she was a student entrepreneur selling cupcakes, later, she took up teaching after university before landing her first professional role at Helicarrier, where she eventually found her way into marketing and, later, startup building.\n\nI sat with Adesuwa to discuss her earliest money memories, how she built small businesses in university, career leaps, Accrue’s difficult early years, and how she thinks about money.\n\n### **What was the first thing you did for money?**\n\nThe first example that comes to mind is when I was in university. My mum bakes cakes and cooks for events, so I would ask her to bake cupcakes for me. At the 100 level, I would take those cupcakes from room to room in the hostel and sell each for about ₦200. My mum got a cut because she was the one baking and buying the ingredients, and I kept my own share. I think I kept around ₦50 per cupcake.\n\nIn a week, I could sell close to 100 cupcakes. That was about ₦5,000 weekly, and in a month, around ₦20,000. At the time, in 2016, that was good extra money for a student. However, the business ended after the school banned of selling food items because of concerns around food poisoning. I moved to another business.\n\n### **The entrepreneur in you is alive. What did you start selling after that?**\n\nI started selling secondhand clothes and perfume oils.\n\nDuring holidays, I would go to the Market in Lagos with my mum. We would go very early, around the time they were opening the bales, and I would pick clothes I knew ladies in school would like: shirts, trousers, skirts, things like that.\n\nSometimes I would buy a shirt for ₦200. After washing, ironing, folding, and making it presentable, I could sell it for ₦1,000 or ₦1,500 in school.\n\nThe margins were good, even though there were other costs like transport to the market, transport back, and the labour of washing and arranging the clothes.\n\nFor perfume oils, I bought them in bulk. The unit price could be around ₦500, and I would sell one for ₦1,000.\n\n### **How long did that business run?**\n\nI did the clothes and perfume oil business from around the 200 level second semester until my final year, and by the time I was leaving school, I had over ₦300,000 in my account. I remember feeling like that was a lot of money as a student. I used to save very well.\n\nIt wasn’t that my parents could not afford to send me money. They sent me a good monthly allowance. I think around 2015 to 2017, my allowance was about ₦40,000 monthly, and that was good money for a student. I could still buy food I liked, enjoy myself, and save.\n\nI think I just craved independence very early.\n\n### **How did you manage running a business while studying?**\n\nWhat worked for me academically was that after every lecture, I would do a quick revision of what was taught.\n\nTwo things helped me assimilate: taking notes during lectures and revising afterwards. Even now, I still write a lot because writing is the fastest way I learn and remember things.\n\nFor the business, I usually sold in the evenings. After class and dinner, I would carry my stock and go from room to room for maybe an hour. I had a rough timetable for the female hostels, so I knew which hall I had visited and which one I should go to next.\n\nIt wasn’t too tedious. Some days, if I was tired, I would not sell. I would just sell the next day.\n\n### **After Uni, what did you try your hand at?**\n\nThat was during COVID, so NYSC was delayed. I was at home for a while during lockdown, and even when things started opening up, NYSC was still not very clear.\n\nI also did not want to be part of the first batch because I wanted to be sure things were safer, but I didn’t want to stay at home doing nothing. When you’re at home as a young person, people just send you on errands, and I don’t like errands. I also didn’t want to start spending all the money I had saved.\n\nThere was a community school near our house, within walking distance, and they were looking for someone to teach subjects like business studies, CRK, and social studies. I applied and got the job.\n\nThey paid me ₦18,000 monthly.\n\n### **How did you feel moving from making more with your business in school to ₦18,000?**\n\nI was sad.\n\nI remember thinking, “I went to a good school. I have done business and made more than this. I should have a better opportunity,” but at the time, I also did not want to be idle. I didn’t want to wake up, sleep, and feel like I was wasting away. The most interesting part of the job is that at the end of the month, they would call the teachers to the principal’s office, count ₦18,000, put it in an envelope, and give it to me as salary.\n\n### **You left teaching. What happened?**\n\nI kept applying to jobs.\n\nWhen I was in university, I had applied for a role at Helicarrier, but I didn’t get it. I still liked the company because I followed the founders and some people who worked there on X (formerly Twitter). They seemed cool, and the company culture looked positive.\n\nLater, a family friend came over and asked what kind of companies I wanted to work at. I mentioned Helicarrier. He said he knew someone there and would ask if they were hiring.\n\nAbout a week later, he sent me the person’s email. I reached out and said I wanted to apply for a product management role because everyone was into it. At the time, it just seemed like the cool career path.\n\nThey got back to me and said there was no product manager role available, but they were hiring for customer support.\n\nFor me, it was an immediate yes. Customer support was still better than my ₦18,000 teaching job.\n\n### **How did the application process go?**\n\nI took it very seriously.\n\nMy brother reviewed my application. My dad reviewed it too. For me, it felt like do or die because I had already made plans in my head. If I got the job, I would move to Lagos and live with my brother. I would earn better. I would work at a company I really liked.\n\nAfter the assessments and interviews, I eventually had a culture-fit interview with the co-founders. About a week or two later, I got a phone call telling me I got the job.\n\nThe salary was ₦150,000.\n\nThey were also going to provide lunch, cover some work expenses like data, and give me a laptop. It felt like I had made it. I felt like I had escaped poverty.\n\nI called my dad, my mum, and my brother immediately to share the news.\n\n### **How did Accrue come into the picture?**\n\nI worked at Helicarrier for about a year. I started in May 2021.\n\nI was in customer success. Zino was my boss because he was the customer support lead, and Clinton was a software engineer. Sometimes, when there was an issue with a customer, I would reach out to engineers like Clinton to help resolve it.\n\nOver time, I became good friends with Zino.\n\nA few months into the job, I realised I actually did not like product management. I was thankful I did not get that role because I probably would not have enjoyed it, but I started to realise that I liked marketing. I liked the idea of growing a product from one number of users to another. I spoke to my employers at Helicarrier, and they were gracious enough to move me into marketing.\n\nIt didn’t come with a pay raise because I had never done marketing before. They were taking a chance on me.\n\nAround that time, Zino told me about an idea he had for a dollar-cost averaging app that would help beginners invest in crypto and stocks easily. Since I was getting interested in marketing, he asked if I would help with the marketing as a side hustle.\n\nI said yes immediately.\n\n### **Were you a co-founder from the beginning?**\n\nNo.\n\nAt first, I joined to help with marketing, but I was not a co-founder. I had been working in tech for less than six months, so I was not exactly what someone would call co-founder material if they were searching for a co-founder.\n\n### **LMAO**\n\nZino was looking for an engineering co-founder, so he reached out to Clinton to ask if he knew anyone who might be interested. Clinton said he would like to join as a co-founder.\n\nSo Zino and Clinton were the co-founders at first.\n\nA few months into figuring things out, Accrue became my baby. I felt very invested in it and wanted it to work. One day, I told Zino, “I feel like I’m just as invested in this as you and Clinton. I know I’m younger, and we are all figuring this out, but I think I should be a co-founder.”\n\nZino spoke to Clinton, and they agreed that I should be a co-founder. That was how I became a co-founder of Accrue.\n\n### **Wow! What were the early years of Accrue like?**\n\nThe first two years were a mix of things.\n\nAt the beginning, it was exciting, like any new venture. We had big dreams. We were saying things like, “We are going to revolutionise investing.”\n\nFor the first few months after launching, things were going well. Then the bear market hit.\n\nCustomers were not using the app as much as we hoped. Revenue nosedived. We were trying to raise money from investors, but if you are not growing, it is hard to convince investors. Nobody was really answering us.\n\nWe realised we needed to pivot if the company was going to survive.\n\n### **What did you pivot to?**\n\nWe thought, “Since people are worried about the bear market, what if we offer dollar savings?”\n\nSo we launched dollar savings, and people started saving, but we would see comments on Twitter like, “I love that Accrue app. The UI is fantastic. I wish I had money to put inside.”\n\nThat is a compliment, but nobody pays you because your app is beautiful. At some point, we had to be honest with ourselves. If people were not paying us for the product, we needed to figure something else out.\n\n### **Say hello to cross-border payments, right?**\n\nWhen we launched in Ghana, we started building cashramp because, at the time, the only way to deposit on Accrue in Ghana was through stablecoins, but Ghanaians were not as crypto-native as Nigerians, so people would ask how they were supposed to deposit if they did not have stablecoins.\n\nWe built cashramp so people in Ghana could deposit cedis. Since we were building it for Ghana, we also made it available in Nigeria.\n\nThen a woman used [Accrue](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F) to send money from Ghana to her aunt in Nigeria, and that felt like a eureka moment. We had not built the app for that type of payment, but the cashramp infrastructure made it possible.\n\nAt that point, we were grasping at straws. The business could not die. So we thought, “If this woman used it to send money from Ghana to Nigeria, maybe other people want to do the same thing.”\n\nWe leaned into it.\n\nCash grew from about 4% of our revenue to about 70% in seven months. That confirmed that there was something there.\n\n### **You said the first two years were the hardest. What was it like?**\n\nWe were still not able to raise funds from investors, and things got very difficult.\n\nAt one point, we had to take 35% pay cuts because there was not enough money to pay people. We were down to around seven or eight months of runway.\n\nEventually, we started engaging influencers in Ghana and marketing more aggressively there. Months later, we became ramen profitable, which meant we could cover our costs.\n\nWe didn't have extra funds to allocate, but we could cover our exact costs.\n\nI remember the first month we became profitable. I slept like a baby because it was the first time in a long time that I did not worry that the company was not self-sustaining or that we were going to die soon.\n\n### **Really nice. How did things change for the better?**\n\nWe kept applying for investor opportunities and kept getting rejections.\n\nThen we applied to Alliance, an accelerator. The first time, we got rejected. We applied again and got rejected again.\n\nI remember being very sad. Then Aleph suggested that we reach out to ask why we were rejected so we could improve our application next time.\n\nWe emailed one of the co-founders, and he told us the concerns they had. He also said we should keep him updated and apply again. We replied with a Google Doc clarifying the points he had raised and sent him a link to our investor dashboard on Metabase.\n\nHe got back to us and said he wished he had seen more of our numbers earlier because they were impressive. A few days later, he said they had discussed it internally and wanted to reverse their earlier decision.\n\nThey accepted us into the cohort.\n\nI remember exactly where I was when I got that email. I screamed. People around me thought I had received bad news, but I was just so excited.\n\nAlliance was going to invest $250,000, and we needed that money. We had to go to the US for the accelerator, and after the program and demo day, we were able to raise our seed round of $1.58 million.\n\nGetting into Alliance changed the trajectory of the business. We went from struggling to get investors to even look at us to having an opportunity that helped us grow and expand.\n\n### **What is your day-to-day like now as a co-founder?**\n\nNo two days are really the same.\n\nThat is the nature of working in a startup. There are always fires to put out. Every day or every week has a new flavour, and you just have to figure it out.\n\nOver time, I have adapted and built a stronger spine. Earlier, the work sometimes felt like a burden. I used to see the daily problems as obstructions to the work we actually wanted to do, and that made me feel defeated.\n\nNow my perspective has changed. The work is putting out the fire. The work is solving the problems.\n\nWhen a problem comes up now, I am more likely to think, “This is another problem. We will figure it out.”\n\n### **How do you manage the stress?**\n\nAt the end of every day, I ask myself one question: Did I do my best today?\n\nDoing my best does not mean I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve or reached every goal for the day. It means I moved in the direction I set for myself and gave it my honest effort.\n\nIf I did my best, I allow myself to rest. I do not let myself feel guilty for the work that remains undone. I go back the next day and continue.\n\nThe only time I tell myself to lock in more is when I assess my day and realise I did not really do my best.\n\nI also have a community of people I talk to when work is difficult. That includes investors I am close to and founder friends. Sometimes I am just ranting about what I am struggling with, and they remind me that everyone is dealing with some version of the same thing.\n\nWhen you talk to people, you realise you are not the only one with problems. Sometimes your own problem is not even as bad as you thought.\n\n### **What is one big lesson building Accrue has taught you?**\n\nOne day at a time. One foot in front of the other, because the big vision is so grand, being hyper-focused on it all the time can be paralysing. You start asking, “How will we ever achieve this?”\n\nThe big vision is important for direction, but sometimes I put it aside and ask, “What is in front of me now? What can I do today in that direction?”\n\nWhen we first started, acquiring users was hard. Some days, only one person signed up. Some days, two people signed up. Some days, nobody signed up.\n\nAt the time, hearing that some companies had 50,000 or 100,000 users felt like a dream. My reality was very different, but we kept going little by little. What can I do today to get more people to sign up tomorrow? What can I do tomorrow? What can I do the next day?\n\nNow, in a given month, we have about 10,000 people signing up to the app.\n\nThis is not something I knew how to do at the beginning. It came from taking it one day at a time.\n\n### **What do you look for when hiring?**\n\nI look for what I call a “figure-outer.”\n\nI don’t know if I coined the term or saw it somewhere and forgot, but I use it a lot.\n\nA figure-outer is someone who can figure things out. In your past experiences, I want to see a track record of figuring things out, especially scrappily and with little to no money.\n\nI want to see ownership. I want someone willing to do the dirty grunt work of figuring things out.\n\nIn startups, there are often no playbooks for the exact thing you are trying to do. People may have done similar things, but for your specific business model or solution, you often have to find your own way.\n\nSo I look for people who can think and move through unknowns.\n\nEven now, there are many things about building Accrue that I do not know. There are a lot of unknowns, but every day, we keep figuring it out.\n\n### **How do you think about money now?**\n\nFor me, money means options.\n\nMoney gives you options, both personally and in business. Having more money, whether that is becoming profitable or being able to raise funds from investors, gives you the ability to do things you may not have been able to do otherwise.\n\nIt means you are not limited to one path because you cannot afford an alternative.\n\nThat is how I think about money: as a tool that gives you options.\n\n[![Send and receive money across Africa and the US with Accrue](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575735\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F04\u002FSend-money-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F)\n\n*[If you want to share about your career journey and how money ties it together, anonymously or otherwise, reach out](https:\u002F\u002Fforms.gle\u002FJmXY5HK44bozGPNy7)*\n\n[I want to talk about my money story](https:\u002F\u002Fforms.gle\u002FJmXY5HK44bozGPNy7)","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575755\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F05\u002Fblog-cover-Adesuwa.png","money-stories",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"Alex","","2026-05-20T14:33:36Z",16,false,{"title":19,"slug":20,"description":21,"body":22,"coverImage":23,"category":11,"author":24,"publishedAt":25,"readingTime":26,"featured":17},"This Student Is Done Freelancing. She Wants To Build A Career Across Marketing And Architecture","this-student-is-done-freelancing-she-wants-to-build-a-career-across-marketing-and-architecture","Nimi Oyekunle is a writer, marketer, and architecture student whose career has moved through creative writing, content writing, and marketing.","Nimi Oyekunle is a writer, marketer, and architecture student whose career has moved through creative writing, content writing, social media management, UX writing, and marketing. She started earning while in school, took on multiple freelance gigs, used her savings to buy a laptop, and is now positioning herself for a product marketing role while completing her master’s in architecture.\n\nI sat with Nimi to discuss her first writing gigs, how she balanced school with work, the difficult transition into full-time employment, what she has learned about money, and what she is trying to build next. \n\n## **Tell us, what was the first thing you did for money?**\n\nThe first serious thing I did for money was creative writing.\n\nThis was in 2021, while I was still in school. I wrote a short story of about 10,000 words. Before then, I hadn’t really worked, so I wanted to try something new.\n\nAt the time, the money felt like a lot, even though looking back now, it wasn’t much. I think I was paid around ₦2,000 for that first story. After that, I started getting referrals. Someone would say, “This person paid me this amount,” and then the next person would offer something similar. The highest I got from that type of work was around ₦8,000, but it was a one-time thing.\n\nMost of what I wrote then was fiction — romance, adventure, and stories like that. I read a lot of fiction, so writing it came easily to me.\n\n## **What else were you doing around that time?**\n\nAround the same period, I got a social media management role.\n\nIt was in 2021, and they were looking for someone with little experience. I was earning about ₦50,000 per month, and I stayed there for around three months.\n\nThat was a lot of money for me at the time, especially because I was still in school. But I’ve always been a saver. I wasn’t necessarily saving for one specific thing; I just had the mindset that anything could happen at any time, so I needed money kept somewhere.\n\nMost of the time, I saved about half of whatever I earned. I also had pocket money from my dad, and he usually sent everything for the semester at once because he knew I wouldn’t spend it anyhow. So I would calculate what I needed and keep the rest.\n\nThe money I earned from work became a backup plan.\n\n## **What did those savings eventually help you do?**\n\nThey helped me buy my laptop.\n\nSome of the money stayed in PiggyVest and other savings platforms for a long time. I was jobless between 2022 and 2024, so those savings became my emergency fund. They also contributed to the money I eventually used to buy my laptop.\n\nThat laptop was important because by then, it was clear that prices were rising fast. I felt like I had to act quickly. It was either I suffered immediately by spending the money or I suffered later because the laptop had become too expensive.\n\n## **How did you move from creative writing into content writing?**\n\nAfter creative writing and social media management, I tried content writing.\n\nI worked with a writing agency where they assigned topics to different writers. The pay was not high, but it helped me build my portfolio because I was writing a lot. Sometimes I wrote up to three articles a day.\n\nThe process was straightforward: write, send to the editor, make changes, and move to the next article.\n\nThat was still in 2021, so at one point, I was doing multiple jobs at the same time. If I wanted to spoil myself, then I would buy shawarma. That was my reward system.\n\n## **How much were you earning from the writing agency?**\n\nThe agency paid about ₦1.50 per word.\n\nFor a 600-word article, that was around ₦750. If I wrote three articles in a day, I could make a little over ₦2,000. But I didn’t write every day because I was also studying architecture, and I didn’t always have the time.\n\nIn a good month, I could make around ₦15,000 from that work.\n\nThe topics were usually general topics — lifestyle, beauty, travel, and similar things. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me practice and helped me get better at writing consistently.\n\n## **You also mentioned crypto writing. How did that come in?**\n\nThat happened in 2022.\n\nSomeone from the writing agency reached out to ask if I could write crypto articles. At that point, I was open to trying almost anything. Crypto writing paid better than the general articles. I think I was earning around ₦2,000 per 600-word article.\n\nBut the process was long. You had to bid for articles, wait for them to be assigned to you, write them, and then wait for review. Because the review time took a while, you couldn’t move as fast as you wanted.\n\nI probably wrote about six articles before I got tired of the process.\n\nI also briefly worked with an Indian writing agency that paid around $10 per blog post, but that didn’t last because they were doing too much and I didn’t have the time.\n\n## **Why did you eventually stop content writing?**\n\nI got burnt out.\n\nThere was one place where I was expected to write three articles every single day. Each article was about 750 words, and the topics started to feel repetitive. You were basically writing the same points over and over again.\n\nThere’s only so much your brain can produce under those conditions.\n\nSo around September or October 2022, just before the strike ended, I stopped. I later tried content writing again, but that period made me realise I needed to rethink what I wanted to do.\n\n## **How did UX writing enter the picture?**\n\nI first heard about UX writing in 2022 through a friend who worked as a product designer.\n\nAt the time, I wanted something that felt more personal. Content writing felt like talking to everybody at once. Copywriting was more specific, but it still felt broad.\n\nBecause I’m an architecture student, I already think a lot about people and how they use spaces. UX writing felt connected to that. It was about helping people navigate a product, and that felt more purposeful to me.\n\nIt felt like an intersection of many things I cared about: writing, people, design, and usability.\n\nAlso, there weren’t that many UX writers around then, so it felt like a space where I could grow.\n\n## **How did you get your first UX writing opportunity?**\n\nIn 2023, Fullgap came to my school and sponsored an event.\n\nThere was a raffle draw, and the people picked had to pitch themselves to the speakers. The best pitches would win ₦100,000. I wasn’t very interested at first because I thought it was mainly for businesses, but I attended because I wanted to listen to the speakers.\n\nThen my number was called.\n\nWe had only about 10 to 15 seconds to explain what we did and why it mattered in the context of the event. That was hard because not many people knew what UX writing was, so I had to first explain it and then make it relevant quickly.\n\nI ended up being one of the people who won ₦100,000.\n\nI used part of the money to fix my glasses, but the bigger thing was the visibility. I leveraged that moment a lot. I posted about the event, shared pictures, and even started a 30-day writing challenge to build momentum.\n\nThat visibility eventually helped me get a UX writing contract.\n\n## **What was that first UX writing contract like?**\n\nI got the contract in July 2023.\n\nIt was supposed to be a three-month contract to work on a website and other UX writing-related things. I remember signing it on my way to a conference.\n\nAt first, things were going fine. Then exams came, and I wanted to take a break so I could focus on school. The founder told me to take a break and come back when the exams were done.\n\nBut when I returned, he said he no longer needed my services, and the contract didn’t continue after that, which forced me to rethink my next steps \n\n## **You also did ghostwriting around that period. How did that happen?**\n\nYes, I worked on ghostwriting for founders.\n\nI got on calls with founders, alongside my employer, listened to their ideas, reviewed notes, and turned those conversations into posts.\n\nIt wasn’t an everyday thing. I think I was paid around ₦50,000 per month.\n\nThe process was very conversational. We would speak with a founder, identify different angles from the conversation, and turn those into posts.\n\n## **How were you combining all of this with architecture school?**\n\nIt was crazy, and it still is.\n\nArchitecture is very demanding. Every semester, we have a design project, and at the end of the semester, you have to submit and defend it.\n\nWhat I used to do was work seriously from the beginning of the semester until about two or three weeks before exams. Once exams were close, I stopped working completely. After exams, I would return to work.\n\nThat was the only way I could give both school and work my best. I knew that if I tried to do everything at the same intensity at the same time, one of them would suffer.\n\n## **What was 2024 like for you?**\n\nHonestly, 2024 was very hard.\n\nIt was my final year, and I didn’t do much paid work. I got a few website copy projects through a friend who works as a brand designer. When he worked on projects and needed a writer, he would refer me.\n\nBut apart from that, not much happened financially. I was mostly trying to survive school, final-year pressure, and everything else going on at the time.\n\nIt was a year where I felt like I was fighting for my life.\n\n## **How did you enter 2025?**\n\nI entered 2025 just wanting to survive.\n\nBy then, I had started my master’s. The UX writing work from 2024 spilled into 2025, so I collected my full payment at the beginning of the year. But once that ended, I felt lost again.\n\nI started questioning whether I was built for the path I was trying to follow.\n\nAround that time, I had a call with someone in HR who gave me advice and helped me think through my options. I was also applying for roles.\n\nEventually, I got an offer from where I currently work.\n\n## **How did you get your current job?**\n\nI applied for the role, though I wondered if I was the right fit because it seemed like they wanted a graduate, but the role didn’t require NYSC.\n\nThe process had three stages. First, there was an assessment. Then there was a case study interview. Finally, there was an interview with HR.\n\nThe case study interview was intense. We had both individual and group tasks. For the group task, they put about five or six of us on one call, gave us a scenario, and asked us to research, create slides, and present everything within the call.\n\nI didn’t think I would get the job because there were many smart people in the process.\n\nBut I got the offer in June 2025 and started in July.\n\n## **What has it been like?**\n\nIt has been interesting, to say the least. I started out as a trainee in July, taking the role because I wanted corporate experience. I wanted to have an actual company on my CV, and I also hoped it would help me move into something more product-related.  \n  \nAnd then as time went on, the team structure changed and my responsibilities increased. The program was supposed to run for six months, from July to December. \n\n## **What happened after the six-month program ended?**\n\nAt the end of December, I got a renewal contract.\n\nI was offered a full-time role, and that kind of put my financial goals in perspective. Basically, I became much more realistic about what I could and could not do in 2026. Especially because I'm in the most financially intense year of my master's degree. \n\nBut so far, the role has given me a great idea of the kind of skills I need to become the kind of professional I want and the kind of money I can get by upskilling.\n\n## **What kind of roles are you trying to move into now?**\n\nI’m trying to position myself for product marketing or strategy-related roles.\n\nI recently had a conversation with a product marketer, and it helped me realise that what I really want is to be in the middle of marketing and product. That was also why UX writing appealed to me in the first place.\n\nI even interviewed recently for a product marketing associate role. The interviewer said I had a good portfolio, but I didn’t have the product experience they were looking for.\n\nSo now I know where the gap is. The challenge is figuring out how to build that experience while I’m still in my current role.\n\n## **What salary range are you looking for?**\n\nRealistically, if I get a role that pays around ₦500,000, I would take it.\n\nI know there are some numbers that may not be attainable yet, given my experience. But I’m at that point where I need to increase both my learning opportunities and my income. \n\n## **What lessons have you learned from freelancing and full-time work?**\n\nOne major lesson is that structure is sweet.\n\nThere’s something satisfying about knowing that, regardless of what happens, you’ll get paid at the end of the month. Freelancing money is not stable, so stability matters.\n\nBut working in a corporate environment has also taught me a lot about working with people. The stakes are higher. You have to communicate differently. Please avoid making statements without context, even when you disagree.\n\nI’ve also learned that it’s important to be proactive about finding my own learning opportunities. \n\n## **How has all of this affected the way you think about money?**\n\nIt has made me more careful.\n\nThe dry spell I experienced changed me. I don’t want to go back to feeling like I have no options. So now, even though I’m earning, I’m always thinking about backup plans.\n\nI save a lot. Sometimes I save half of my salary. But I also have things I want to do — buy things for myself, support people, improve my life. The only way I can do that without spending forever saving for everything is by earning more.\n\n[![](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575718\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F04\u002FCreate-a-Dollar-Bank-Account-1-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002Fusd-account)\n\n## **What’s next for you?**\n\nFirst, I want to finish my master’s before the end of the year.\n\nAfter that, I still need to complete the process to become a registered architect. To become registered, you need your degree, your master’s or exams, NYSC, and then work experience under a certified architect.\n\nBecause I completed my master’s before the NYSC, the NYSC can count toward the required work experience. That was part of why I chose that route.\n\nBut at the same time, I don’t want to leave marketing or tech completely. Tech moves fast, and leaving the space for two years doesn’t sound like a good idea.\n\nSo the big thing I’m trying to figure out now is how to do both: continue the architecture path while still building my marketing and product experience.\n\nIt sounds intense, but that’s where I am.","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575753\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F05\u002Fnimi-blog-cover.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-05-06T13:30:00Z",13,{"title":28,"slug":29,"description":30,"body":31,"coverImage":32,"category":11,"author":33,"publishedAt":34,"readingTime":35,"featured":17},"How This Ghanaian Content Creator Grew to 100K Followers","how-this-ghanaian-content-creator-grew-to-100k-followers","Clifford Borweh built a career in tech content creation, amassing a following of more than 100K across social media platforms.","Clifford Borweh, popularly known on social media as Lord Scott, started posting on YouTube in 2022 and built a career in tech content creation, amassing a following of more than 100K across social media platforms. \n\n### **The Beginning**\n\nClifford’s [content journey began on YouTube](https:\u002F\u002Fm.youtube.com\u002F@CliffordScott.\u002Fabout) in 2022, where he leaned fully into what he loved: tech.\n\n“Everything about my life was tech,” he says. “I wanted to know what was going on… what I could do with tech.”\n\nAt the time, he felt he had learned enough to stop keeping information to himself. So he started teaching. He made tutorials, shared tips, and began documenting the knowledge he was collecting.\n\nTwo years later, around 2024, he expanded into short-form platforms, starting a more aggressive posting run on [TikTok](http:\u002F\u002Ftiktok.com\u002F@lordscott999) and other social platforms. He has now been doing long-form for 4 years and short-form for 2.\n\n### **Building From The Ground Up (Again)**\n\nClifford’s biggest setback came from the very platform that helped him grow fastest.\n\nAfter building a TikTok account to 60,000+ followers over more than a year, the account was suddenly taken down.\n\n“No valid reason,” he says. “You know how TikTok works.”\n\nHe appealed. The appeal was rejected. Everything, videos, followers, progress, disappeared in a day. For many creators, that’s where motivation dies. For Clifford, it became fuel. He started again, launched a new TikTok account, and treated the comeback like a mission.\n\n“In six months, I was able to grow back to 100,000 followers,” he says.\n\nThe setback didn’t just test him; it proved to him that his growth wasn’t luck. It was a system.\n\n### **A Fulfilling Journey**\n\nAs his reach expanded, brand work followed. The first major brand partnership he had was with Binance, which began around 2023.\n\nUnlike one-off deals, this wasn’t a single campaign. It was structured over time, about a two-year period, with payment handled per video, though the exact per-video amounts varied.\n\nLord’s fulfilment isn’t only financial. It’s the human feedback loop that comes from teaching something useful, especially in a space he believes is still earning its respect in this part of the world.\n\n“Tech hasn’t gotten the flowers it needs here,” he says. “But we’re slowly getting into the spotlight.”\n\nHowever, he cherishes the moments when people tell him that his content has inspired them to start creating, or when his tips solve real-life problems.\n\nOne comment that he has always cherished was when someone told him he “saved my relationship.”\n\nThe video was a phone tip on how to prevent a caller from seeing that you’re already on another call, so they don’t misunderstand.\n\nThe reaction surprised him. “I was like, oh my days,” he says. “Moments like this… we feel so fulfilled.”\n\nHis favourite video was [a documentary-style video about losing his TikTok](https:\u002F\u002Fvt.tiktok.com\u002FZSHsEUQRX\u002F) channel and rebuilding from scratch, answering the question people always ask creators after a setback, which he posted on December 31, 2025. \n\n“If you lose it now, can you do it again?”\n\nThat video, he says, is one of the best he’s made—because it captured both pain and proof.\n\n### **Money Moves**\n\nDespite earning from content, Clifford’s lifestyle is still relatively simple. He’s [a student](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-make-money-online\u002F), still living with his parents, and they cover major expenses like school fees.\n\nSo most of his money goes toward:\n\n·   Personal projects and future goals\n\n·   Building for the next stage of life\n\n·   Saving, rather than spending heavily\n\n[![](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575721\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F04\u002FCrypto-banner-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F)\n\nHe saves in a diversified way: [crypto](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-receive-crypto-in-ghana-accrue\u002F), bank savings, and treasury bills and on spending, he jokes about “girlfriend duties,” but ends up with an average monthly personal spend of around $300, depending on the month and school demands.","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575740\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F04\u002FClifford.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-04-15T08:00:00Z",4,{"title":37,"slug":38,"description":39,"body":40,"coverImage":41,"category":11,"author":42,"publishedAt":44,"readingTime":45,"featured":17},"How This Student Turned Saving 90% of Her Income Into a Habit","how-this-student-turned-saving-90-of-her-income-into-a-habit","How Joyce Yetsa Amable, a biomedical engineering student in Ghana, saves over 90% of her income through disciplined financial habits.","## Meet Joyce Yetsa Amable\n\nJoyce is a final-year biomedical engineering student at KNUST in Ghana. But her entrepreneurial journey started long before university — in primary school, making and selling Shambala bracelets with her twin sister.\n\n## Early Entrepreneurial Spirit\n\nJoyce's grandmother, who collected and sold construction materials, inspired her entrepreneurial mindset. From a young age, she understood the value of creating something and turning it into income.\n\n## First Real Earnings\n\nDuring her gap year after secondary school, Joyce applied via Instagram for a remote content writing position. She earned approximately **$58 monthly** — later increased to **$80** after being advised by a mentor to negotiate her rate. She simultaneously taught at her former school for roughly $60-70 monthly.\n\n## Building a Business\n\nWith her sister, Joyce invested early savings into renting market canopies, operating roughly 12 units. Though university commitments forced closure of the venture after eleven months, the experience taught her valuable lessons about business operations and investment.\n\n## Digital Marketing Journey\n\nJoyce pursued digital marketing education through the Ingressive for Good scholarship, gaining hands-on experience through internships. She now manages social media for **Investment Friend**, a financial literacy platform.\n\n## The 90% Rule\n\nWith a Mastercard Foundation Scholarship covering tuition, accommodation, laptop, stipend, and meals, Joyce has minimal personal expenses. This allows her to direct **over 90% of the money she earns** into investments or savings, prioritizing long-term financial security.\n\n## Key Lessons\n\n- Start earning early, even in small amounts\n- Negotiate your rates — you are worth more than you think\n- Use scholarships and benefits strategically to maximize savings\n- Financial literacy changes how you think about money\n- Consistency in saving matters more than the amount","https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2026\u002F03\u002Fjoyce.png",{"name":13,"avatar":43,"bio":14},"https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2025\u002F08\u002FAlex-on-dreads.jpeg","2026-04-10T21:43:19Z",2,{"title":47,"slug":48,"description":49,"body":50,"coverImage":51,"category":11,"author":52,"publishedAt":53,"readingTime":45,"featured":54},"This Marketer Earned ₦50k Once. Now, He Nets Seven Figures In Dollars","this-marketer-earned-50k-once-now-he-nets-seven-figures-in-dollars","How Benjamin Shotala went from earning ₦50k in a sales role to netting seven figures in dollars through marketing and entrepreneurship.","## From Mechanical Engineering to Marketing\n\nBenjamin Shotala, known professionally as Technical Ben, represents a builder shaped by pressure, resourcefulness, and reinvention. Initially trained in mechanical engineering, he now operates at the convergence of marketing, business development, and product strategy while simultaneously launching a gamified productivity startup.\n\n## Origins in Marketing\n\nUpon graduating in 2023 with a mechanical engineering degree, Benjamin confronted disappointing employment prospects. Entry-level positions offered limited opportunities and minimal compensation. He made a deliberate choice to pursue a different trajectory.\n\nHis early years involved intensive self-directed learning with severe resource constraints. Living with his parents, he experimented across multiple disciplines: music production, songwriting, 3D design, data analytics, sales, product management, and basic coding.\n\n## Marketing as Solution\n\nMarketing ultimately attracted him because it integrated business fundamentals with scalable skill development. His technical background provided systems-thinking capability; marketing added business acumen covering growth strategies, consumer psychology, and value positioning.\n\nHe specialized in **email marketing, lifecycle marketing, and technical marketing** — combining analytical thinking with practical execution.\n\n## Income Development\n\nHis initial paid opportunity was a sales position offering approximately ₦50,000 monthly — insufficient and unsustainable. He departed after roughly one month.\n\nThe pivotal breakthrough arrived through an online referral connecting him with a US-based marketing agency, generating his first million naira. Currently, he maintains this position earning $15-$20 hourly with variable assignments.\n\nIn 2025, his combined earnings exceeded **$15,000**, with individual projects sometimes reaching $4,000 depending on scope and complexity.\n\n## Financial Philosophy\n\nBenjamin approaches money with measured pragmatism. Rather than traditional investment vehicles, he prioritizes saving and community investment. He credits investing in community support as one of the best decisions he made, building trust and personal brand recognition.\n\n## The Startup\n\nBenjamin is developing a gamified productivity application with over **8,000 waitlist registrations** before official launch. This project consolidates his diverse skill set across engineering, product design, marketing, and community engagement.","https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2026\u002F03\u002FBenjamin-Shotala.png",{"name":13,"avatar":43,"bio":14},"2026-04-10T21:43:18Z",true,{"title":56,"slug":57,"description":58,"body":59,"coverImage":60,"category":11,"author":61,"publishedAt":62,"readingTime":45,"featured":54},"How Stella Inabo Built a Marketing Career from Writing ₦3k\u002FMonth Articles","how-stella-inabo-built-a-marketing-career-from-writing-3k-month-articles","How Stella Inabo went from writing ₦3k articles to earning $9,000\u002Fmonth in content marketing through strategic career moves.","## From ₦3,000 Articles to $9,000 Monthly\n\nStella Inabo's trajectory illustrates how modest beginnings can lead to substantial professional growth. Starting with freelance articles at ₦3,000 each, she eventually reached monthly earnings of $9,000 at a B2B SaaS company and now operates her own content strategy consultancy.\n\n## Early Foundation\n\nAround 2018, Inabo began blogging independently. A connection led to her first paid opportunity — three articles at ₦3,000 per article. Though modest, this initial ₦9,000 payment proved pivotal, shifting her perspective on writing's commercial potential. She pursued additional opportunities through informal channels, accepting that learning experiences sometimes came with minimal or delayed compensation.\n\n## The Strategic Pivot\n\nA crucial realization emerged during cold outreach to international companies. Inabo recognized that all the writing she had been doing was part of something larger — content marketing. This insight prompted her to pursue formal learning in marketing strategy, customer psychology, and revenue-focused content development.\n\nDuring her national service, COVID disrupted her agency work. She invested in educational courses, refined her portfolio, and executed an aggressive outreach campaign, cold emailing over a hundred people. While most responses were rejections, approximately five connections yielded opportunities, two of which proved transformative.\n\n## Career Progression\n\n- **Freelance**: $150-200 per article\n- **US Content Marketing Agency**: $4,000-$4,500 monthly\n- **In-house at Float**: $7,000-$9,000 monthly over 3.5 years\n\n## Strategic Wealth Building\n\nRecognizing remote work's sustainability limitations, Inabo practiced deliberate financial conservatism. She maintained a modest lifestyle while directing 60-70% of income toward savings and investments across stocks, mutual funds, real estate, and startups.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Small starting points need not limit your trajectory\n- Relationship-building through communities generates the most significant opportunities\n- Marketing fundamentals endure despite technological evolution\n- Adaptability remains essential for sustained relevance","https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fwp-content\u002Fuploads\u002F2026\u002F04\u002FStella-Inabo.png",{"name":13,"avatar":43,"bio":14},"2026-04-10T21:43:17Z",{"title":64,"slug":65,"description":66,"body":67,"coverImage":68,"category":11,"author":69,"publishedAt":71,"readingTime":45,"featured":17},"How I Saved My First $1,000 on a Nigerian Salary","how-i-saved-my-first-1-000-on-a-nigerian-salary","A personal account of building dollar savings on a modest Nigerian income through discipline and smart habits.","## The Challenge\n\nWhen I got my first job in Lagos earning 250,000 naira per month, saving in dollars felt impossible. Between rent, transport, and family obligations, there was barely anything left. But I was determined.\n\n## Month 1-3: Finding the Leaks\n\nI started by tracking every single expense for three months. What I found shocked me:\n\n- **30% on food** — mostly eating out and ordering delivery\n- **15% on transport** — Uber rides I could replace with buses\n- **10% on subscriptions** — services I barely used\n\n> \"When you see where your money actually goes, the solution becomes obvious.\"\n\n## The Strategy\n\nI implemented three simple rules:\n\n1. **Cook at home 5 days a week** — saved about 40,000 naira monthly\n2. **Use public transport for routine trips** — saved 15,000 naira monthly\n3. **Cancel unused subscriptions** — saved 8,000 naira monthly\n\nThat freed up roughly **63,000 naira per month** — about $40 at the time.\n\n## The Dollar Savings Hack\n\nInstead of saving in naira and converting later, I set up automatic weekly conversions of 15,000 naira to dollars every Friday. This gave me two advantages:\n\n- **Dollar cost averaging** — I bought at different rates, smoothing out volatility\n- **Discipline** — automatic transfers removed the temptation to skip\n\n## The Result\n\nAfter 14 months, I hit **$1,047** in my dollar savings. But here is the interesting part: if I had saved the same amount in naira, currency depreciation would have eroded about 20% of my purchasing power.\n\n## My Advice\n\nStart before you feel ready. Your first $100 matters more than you think — not because of the amount, but because of the **habit** it builds.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1553729459-uj68eq2b5cpc?w=1200",{"name":70,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"Gabriel Owusu","2026-04-10T15:21:03Z",{"title":73,"slug":74,"description":75,"body":76,"coverImage":77,"category":11,"author":78,"publishedAt":80,"readingTime":45,"featured":17},"From Market Trader to Tech Entrepreneur: Amina's Financial Journey","from-market-trader-to-tech-entrepreneur-amina-s-financial-journey","How a market trader from Kumasi leveraged savings and technology to build a thriving fintech startup.","## A Humble Beginning\n\nAmina Osei grew up in Kumasi, helping her mother sell fabrics at Kejetia Market. By age 16, she was managing her own small stall, saving every cedi she could spare.\n\n## The Turning Point\n\nIn 2019, a friend introduced her to mobile money. **For the first time, Amina could save without carrying cash.** This small shift changed everything.\n\n> \"I realized that technology could solve so many of the problems I saw in the market every day. Payments were slow, record-keeping was manual, and nobody had access to credit.\"\n\n## Building Her First App\n\nWith no formal tech education, Amina enrolled in a free online coding bootcamp. She spent her evenings learning while running her stall during the day.\n\nWithin a year, she built a simple inventory management app for market traders. It tracked:\n\n- Daily sales and expenses\n- Stock levels and reorder points\n- Customer credit balances\n- Profit margins by product\n\n## Scaling Up\n\nToday, over **2,000 market traders** across Ghana use her platform. She has raised seed funding and employs a team of 12.\n\n## Lessons Learned\n\n1. Start with what you know — Amina's market experience gave her unique insights\n2. Save consistently — her early savings funded her first laptop\n3. Embrace technology — even small tech improvements compound over time\n4. Never stop learning — she still takes online courses weekly\n\n## What's Next\n\nAmina plans to expand across West Africa, bringing financial tools to underserved traders everywhere.","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1556742049-0cfed4f6a45d?w=1200",{"name":79,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"Adaeze Obi","2026-04-10T15:20:04Z",{"title":82,"slug":83,"description":84,"body":85,"coverImage":86,"category":11,"author":87,"publishedAt":88,"readingTime":89,"featured":17},"How Nathan Ojaokomo Built A B2B Writing Career From Scratch","how-nathan-ojaokomo-built-a-b2b-writing-career-from-scratch","Nathan Ojaokomo is a B2B SaaS writer. He speaks about how freelancing has changed in the age of generative AI.","*Nathan Ojaokomo is a B2B SaaS writer who built his career amid the pandemic's uncertainty, turning a side hustle into a freelance business that has included clients such as Vimeo and HubSpot.*\n\n*I sat with Nathan to discuss how he found B2B writing, the early gigs that barely paid, how freelancing has changed in the age of AI, and the systems he uses to stay visible and win work.*\n\n**Tell us, how did you start writing B2B SaaS?**\n\nI got into writing while I was in school. I used to write for a friend who got gigs from someone else on Upwork. So there was the person with the [Upwork account](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-get-paid-on-upwork-with-us-account-accrue\u002F), then my friend, then me.\n\nThe rates were very low. If someone got a $50 gig, it would pass through two people before it got to me, so I might end up with something like $10. Sometimes it was basically one kobo-per-word type of money. A 1,000-word article could earn me around $2 or about ₦1,000. At the time, because I was still in school, it felt manageable.\n\nAfter I graduated in 2018 and finished NYSC in early 2020, things changed. I came back home in March 2020, and about two weeks later, the COVID lockdown started. I had to find something I could do online, and I returned to writing, but this time with more intention. I knew I couldn’t keep doing very low-paying work, so I started asking myself what type of writing could actually become a serious career.\n\nAt the time, many of the writers I was seeing online, especially those talking openly about earning well, were B2B software writers, and I became curious about which niche they were in and how they were doing it. That pushed me to study the space more closely.\n\nI was reading websites like HubSpot, CoSchedule, Buffer, and other sales-and-marketing-focused platforms. I was also learning SEO from places like Backlinko and Ahrefs, and taking certifications along the way, and because I was already consuming a lot of content around sales, marketing, and software, B2B SaaS writing became the most natural lane for me.\n\n**So what did “getting serious” actually look like?**\n\nIt looked like building foundations. From around March 2020 until late that year, I was mostly learning, taking courses, creating samples, writing guest posts, revamping my LinkedIn, registering a domain, posting consistently, and connecting with people online. I didn’t just wake up and get clients immediately.\n\n**What was your first proper contract?**\n\nThe first one I’d call a proper contract was with Vimeo in late 2020. I had done a one-off paid trial piece for someone who paid me $150 through [PayPal](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-use-paypal-nigeria\u002F). I actually used my cousin’s PayPal account to receive that payment, but I don’t count it as my first real contract because it was just a trial piece, and we didn’t continue working together.\n\nI had responded to a call for writers in a Slack community that had founders, CMOs, and content leads. At the time, I was still new, so I pulled together the samples from my personal website and sent them over. I didn’t hear back immediately.\n\nMonths later, around November, someone else from their team reached out and said their boss had shared my details because I had responded earlier. They asked if I still had availability, and that led to the project.\n\n**How much did Vimeo pay you?**\n\nThey paid me $900, and at the time, that was the biggest amount of money I had ever earned from writing. I wrote a 3,000-word article for them and charged about 30 cents per word. I did the work in November 2020, and I think they paid in December.\n\nIt was a major moment for me because it was the first time writing really felt like it could become something serious.\n\n**What has been your highest-paying project so far?**\n\nIf we’re talking single projects, I’d say around $5,000.\n\nThat project involved writing three articles and a white paper. In terms of long-term clients, HubSpot has been my biggest and longest-running client. I still work with them.\n\n**You’ve built a strong freelance career. Why freelancing instead of full-time work?**\n\nI actually enjoy [freelancing](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-earn-your-first-dollars-freelancer\u002F) for the freedom. I have more control over my time. As long as I deliver my drafts and get the work done, I’m good.\n\nThe downside is stability. With freelancing, you are doing everything yourself. You are finding clients, doing the work, chasing testimonials, sending invoices, and managing all the admin around the business. In a full-time role, you mostly just focus on the work itself.\n\nSo while I like freelancing, I’m also applying for full-time roles because the market has become a lot less stable.\n\n**What changed?**\n\nAI changed a lot.\n\nSince generative AI became a major thing, especially through much of last year, things have been really bad for me. A lot of clients were reducing budgets or saying they could now use AI for part of the work. The market is correcting itself a bit now, and I’m getting some inbound interest again, but that period was rough.\n\n**What’s one of the best things you’ve bought with your earnings?**\n\nProbably my tech upgrades, especially my Mac.\n\nMy phone and my Mac are the purchases that make me feel the best because they’re direct reminders that the work paid off. There’s something satisfying about using something every day and knowing, “I worked for this.”\n\n[![](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575653\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F02\u002FDeclined-payments-2-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002Fvirtual-usd-card)\n\n**You mentioned LinkedIn. A lot of people find it cringeworthy, but it’s still important. For someone who wants to get into B2B SaaS writing, what’s the simplest useful thing they can do on LinkedIn?**\n\nThe first thing is to define what you want LinkedIn to do for you.\n\nIt’s very easy to get distracted by performative content, showing off, or trying to go viral. But what really matters is identifying a problem you solve and consistently talking about that problem and your solution.\n\nIf you do that long enough, people begin to associate you with that problem. You become the person they think of when they need help with it.\n\nThat’s actually what I’m doing right now. I still write broadly in B2B, but at the moment I’m focusing more on bottom-of-funnel content. So I’m spending this period sharing content I’ve written, explaining my process, and discussing how I approach bottom-funnel writing.\n\nI’m trying to do that consistently over a few months to build momentum and a stronger association with that niche.\n\n**What’s next for you?**\n\nRight now, I’m looking for more stability while still continuing to do strong freelance work.\n\nI still enjoy writing, and I’m still good at it. But I’m also trying to stay adaptable, stay visible, and keep building a career that can survive changes in the market.\n\nThat’s the real goal now: not just to keep getting work, but to keep positioning myself well for what comes next.\n\n**When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?**\n\nApart from the usual doomscrolling, I spend a lot of time upskilling.\n\nI’m usually on LinkedIn, taking courses, or watching training videos, and sometimes I’m on Twitter, mostly for football banter, reactions after matches, or seeing what people are saying after an episode of a show drops.\n\n[![a banner design for travel like a local with accrue](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575683\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F03\u002FSend-money-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F)\n\n*[If you want to share about your career journey and how money ties it together, anonymously or otherwise, reach out](https:\u002F\u002Fforms.gle\u002FJmXY5HK44bozGPNy7)*\n\n[I want to talk about my money story](https:\u002F\u002Fforms.gle\u002FJmXY5HK44bozGPNy7)","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575712\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F03\u002Fnathan.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-03-09T15:32:35Z",7,{"title":91,"slug":92,"description":93,"body":94,"coverImage":95,"category":11,"author":96,"publishedAt":97,"readingTime":98,"featured":17},"How Shaunn Turned Content Creation Into Brand Deals In Dollars","how-shaunn-turned-content-creation-into-brand-deals-in-dollars","Shaunn Armah, widely known as Shaunn, is a storyteller-first creator whose career is defined by curiosity, context, and craft.","Shaunn Armah, widely known as Shaunn, is a storyteller-first creator whose career is defined by curiosity, context, and craft. Many people know him for tech content, but his work has evolved into something deeper: helping audiences understand why things work the way they do. From inconsistent posting at school to going full-time in 2024, Shaunn’s path shows how value-led storytelling can grow into brand income, a creative team, and a business, without chasing money for its own sake.\n\n### **The Beginning**\n\nShaunn started creating content in phases. He experimented as early as 2022, but consistency was difficult due to school.\n\n“I started… but I wasn’t consistent,” he says. After finishing high school, he decided to take it seriously. On January 1, 2024**,** he committed to consistent publishing, and since then, content creation has been his full-time focus.\n\nIn the beginning, his interests shaped his niche. He consumed a lot of tech content, including iPhone tips and tools, so he created what he understood. As he matured, his taste in content changed. He began consuming more deeply and more diversely, and his creative ambition expanded with it.\n\n“That’s when it evolved,” he explains. “Now we’re in the storytelling phase… anything I’m interested in, I’ll go deep on it.”\n\nEven though the public still sees him as a tech creator, Shaunn’s true identity is clearer: a context-driven storyteller.\n\n“A lot of discourse today is one-sided,” he says. “So what I try to do is give context… so people can make decisions from a clearer mind.”\n\n> [](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDP62-6RjVk_\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDP62-6RjVk_\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)[](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDP62-6RjVk_\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [View this post on Instagram](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDP62-6RjVk_\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [A post shared by shaunn armah (@shaunnarmah)](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDP62-6RjVk_\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n\n### **The Business of Content Creation**\n\nShaunn didn’t start content with brand deals in mind—but money arrived quickly once the value became obvious.\n\nAbout three months into posting consistently, he published a video featuring MTN and a partnership they were involved in. The video performed well and reached decision-makers.\n\n“It reached executives,” he says. “And because of that, they wanted to work with me.”\n\nThat MTN deal became his first brand partnership, and it opened the door for more. As his pages grew and his output stayed consistent, brand work became easier to access.\n\n“At a point, I was reaching out to brands,” he says. “But now it’s not a thing.”\n\nShaunn’s early deals taught him what most creators learn eventually: your first rate is rarely your real rate.\n\n“In the beginning, I didn’t know my value,” he admits. “So I undercharged.”\n\nHe didn’t have many creative friends, so he lacked reference points for industry pricing. Over time, through experience and comparison, he realized he could have charged more for the service he delivered.\n\nStill, he sees it as part of the journey, tuition for growth.\n\nToday, when asked about his largest payout range, he estimates it is around ₵10,000–₵20,000**,** roughly $1,000–$2,000 depending on exchange rates.\n\n### **The Impact Moment**\n\nOne of Shaunn’s most important lessons was in 2025. He had made a video about the typewriter and why we don’t use them anymore, what replaced them, and what that shift tells us. The video landed around 190,000 views**,** which was lower than his tip-style videos that could hit a million, but something surprising happened: people remembered it.\n\nWhen he met people outside, they didn’t bring up the viral “tips” videos. They referenced the typewriter video, specific moments, specific ideas.\n\nThat became a turning point. “If I make a video that reaches a million views and people don’t remember the work… then what are we doing?” he says.\n\n> [](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDOVgSCrjbUc\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDOVgSCrjbUc\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)[](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDOVgSCrjbUc\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [View this post on Instagram](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDOVgSCrjbUc\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n> \n> [A post shared by shaunn armah (@shaunnarmah)](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Freel\u002FDOVgSCrjbUc\u002F?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading)\n\nThat was the moment he pivoted harder into research-heavy storytelling, content designed to stick*,* not just trend with the creative production team.\n\n### **What He Spends Money On**\n\nShaunn’s income largely goes back into the work. For months, much of his money went into building a studio, his warehouse project, plus recurring production costs. Today, his spending typically includes:\n\n·   Paying team members\n\n·   Equipment upgrades\n\n·   Courses and learning (investing in craft)\n\n·   Logistics for shoots (transport, locations)\n\n·   Props to bring stories to life (e.g., buying a typewriter for the typewriter video)\n\n·   Basics like internet and operational costs\n\nInterestingly, he doesn’t invest in crypto or equities yet, not because he’s against it, but because he refuses to invest in what he doesn’t understand.\n\n“I don’t like jumping into something I don’t know about,” he says.\n\nOne of his goals for 2026 is to study the space properly first, then invest from an informed position.\n\n### **Life Outside Content**\n\nWhen Shaunn isn’t working, his life is simple and aligned with his craft: YouTube (for inspiration), reading more fiction recently, and sleeping, his favorite reset\n\nHe wants to travel more after traveling to Germany in 2025 and plans to visit [Nigeria](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-send-money-from-nigeria-to-ghana\u002F)**,** South Africa**,** [Kenya](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002Fsend-money-to-kenya)**,** and Rwanda\n\n[![a banner design for travel like a local with accrue](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575683\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F03\u002FSend-money-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F)","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575682\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F03\u002FShaunn.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-03-04T12:50:34Z",5,{"title":100,"slug":101,"description":102,"body":103,"coverImage":104,"category":11,"author":105,"publishedAt":106,"readingTime":89,"featured":17},"Shater Tsavsar: The Product Designer Who Refuses To Be Comfortable","shater-tsavsar-the-product-designer-who-refuses-to-be-comfortable","Shater Tsavsar discusses how he found design, the projects that shaped his career, the reality of getting paid (and not getting paid)","Shater Tsavsar is a product designer who started out as a developer and has built a design career through a mix of studio work, startup roles, and selective freelance projects. In this episode of Money Story, I sat with Shater to discuss how he found design, the projects that shaped his career, the reality of getting paid (and not getting paid), and the money habits he’s building as his income grows.\n\n**Tell us, how did you end up in product design?**\n\nIt started earlier than I realized. In secondary school (JSS2), my school had a program in which schools presented student projects. That year, my school was presenting a website, and the ICT teacher, who was my friend, let me hang around. That was my first real exposure.\n\nI remember a friend and I were learning small bits of HTML, and we started building a website called Twig. It was supposed to be a music pirating site. That was my first web-based project. The problem was: I was in boarding school, so access was limited to the ICT lab, and the internet was almost nonexistent. So the interest was there, but it was hard to grow it properly.\n\nAfter secondary school, I studied Computer Science in uni, and funny enough, school made me hate code even more. I wasn’t doing well academically either, but then something happened: I had a carryover in a Java course and ended up in the same class with a guy who understood everything. Sitting with him made me feel like, “If someone else can get this, I can too.” That’s when the interest in building things came back.\n\nLater, during an internship, I met Kingston, a product designer and the head of Friends of Figma Abuja, for the first time. I didn’t even know what a product designer was at the time. I just knew “developer” and “designer,” but over time, I noticed something: my design instincts were stronger than my coding. Eventually, my head of software noticed too, and they let me take on more design work while I learned. That was the start.\n\n**So, your first real work experience, how did that begin?**\n\nI got my first proper work experience through a mentor. Summer was coming, and I needed to do my IT later, so he connected me to a company running a summer internship program, Legend by Suburban, an internet provider.\n\nI interned in the marketing team first. There was a stipend of about ₦15,000 and they also covered lunch in an interesting way. They had just launched a payments platform and used the interns to test it: we’d get daily funds (around ₦7,000) but could only spend them at places using their payment system. It was genuinely fun, but they still took tasks and deliverables seriously. One of my best early work experiences.\n\n**What was the first thing you did for money, ever?**\n\nDrawing comics in primary school is my oldest memory of making money outside of anything design-related. I was in primary 4, so around 2009\u002F2010, and I was drawing comic books and selling them.\n\n**Do you think you have to be artistic to be a product designer?**\n\nNot necessarily, but I understand why people assume that. For me, creativity takes different forms. I’m more naturally creative with music than design, but I do think there’s something about curiosity, like hearing something, seeing something, and wanting to recreate it. That’s what drove me when I was drawing comics, and it’s also what drives me in design.\n\nSome people think in shapes, color, and composition naturally. Others have that creativity elsewhere, writing, music, storytelling, and they bring it into product design differently. The outlet changes, but the “need to bring something in your head to life” is the same.\n\n**When did you start earning from design professionally?**\n\nMy first paid design job was in February 2023, a freelance website and web app project for a content writing platform. The agreement was ₦100,000 (₦60,000 upfront, ₦40,000 after), but the company was chaotic and kept expanding the scope. I eventually had to lock the Figma file until they paid the balance. Worse: they still haven’t fully paid the developer friend I brought in to help.\n\nThat experience was an early lesson. I also did a couple of projects for a major fintech company, and they paid late, so late it felt like begging.\n\n**When did you get your first stable job?**\n\nAround July 2023, I joined a design studio called Bave. I initially wanted ₦100,000, but they offered ₦75,000, and I took it for stability. They later raised it to about ₦90,000.\n\nWorking there helped me build structure and improve my portfolio. Around the same time, I was also working on a mobile app project called Volla. I took it even though they couldn’t pay properly because I wanted my first app to go live on the App Store.\n\n**When did international work and “dollar-paying” work start?**\n\nOctober 2023. A client (David) hired me to design PDF Lawyer, a web platform for law students and lawyers that allows users to upload a contract and receive analysis and suggested changes. I was paid around ₦250,000 (the naira equivalent) for that work.\n\nThe bigger shift was early 2024. In February 2024, someone reached out after seeing my design in their mood board. That project paid $1,200 for about six weeks. It was for a ticketing platform called CrowdCue (it never really launched), but it was impactful: it helped me prove to my parents that design could be a serious career.\n\n![](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575653\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F02\u002FDeclined-payments-2-1024x450.png)\n\nThe first things I spent that money on were a better workspace setup (monitor, chair), a new phone, and some basketball shoes.\n\n**I can see that your career has been a story. What has worked best for you, applications or networking?**\n\nHonestly? Not applications. Most of my opportunities came from: referrals, people seeing my work online, DMs, and conversations that turned into offers\n\nI’ve learned that a lot of hiring is… grace because whenever I apply the traditional way, it rarely works, but when someone sees my work and reaches out, things move faster.\n\nAt some point, I started tweeting more intentionally, sharing designs, what they were for, and how much a similar project costs. Those posts didn’t always go viral, but they did bring inbound leads.\n\nThe thing is, I don’t love the stress of freelancing and constantly marketing myself. I’d rather have a stable monthly income than chase clients.\n\n**Have your money habits changed as you started earning more?**\n\nYes, mostly in structure.\n\nI’m big on travel. I traveled a lot growing up, and making more money is partly so I can travel more intentionally. I already have a trip planned for later this year.\n\nOn money habits:\n\n-   I save aggressively. Once I get paid, about 50% leaves my account quickly\n-   10% goes to tithes\n-   about 30–35% goes into savings\u002Finvestments (depending on the month)\n-   I try to keep spending under ₦1,000,000\u002Fmonth, but real life happens (especially car expenses)\n\nI’m also impulsive, so I prefer systems that remove money from my sight. I don’t mind ending the month with ₦10,000 in my account if my savings are intact.\n\nFor investing, I use mutual funds. I have an account manager there because I’m not deeply technical with investing. Over the last couple of months, returns have been roughly ₦300,000, and I typically put in around ₦1.2m–₦1.3m monthly. I also have friends who are more aggressive, buying stocks regularly—so I learn from them, even if I’m not as hands-on.\n\n***[You should know about this rule for efficient savings and investing](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002F50-30-20-rule-is-it-practical-for-africans\u002F)***\n\n**What’s next for you?**\n\nI genuinely still love the work I’m doing at my current workplace. I’m not just clocking in and out. The work is meaningful, it stretches me, and I can see the impact of what I do. That’s important to me.\n\nI’m grateful for where I am, but I’m also ambitious about where I’m going. I want to keep sharpening my skills, build new projects, and position myself for bigger opportunities. I don’t just want to be comfortable; I want to be evolving, and yes, I haven’t bought my BMW yet.\n\n[![](https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575661\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F02\u002Ffaster-payments-1024x450.png)](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F)\n\n**Read also about:** [**The young Nigerian helping Nigerians invest in stocks**](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fgerry-oigiangbe-helping-young-nigerians-invest-in-stocks\u002F)","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575658\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F02\u002FShater.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-02-25T14:11:05Z",{"title":108,"slug":109,"description":14,"body":110,"coverImage":111,"category":11,"author":112,"publishedAt":113,"readingTime":98,"featured":17},"How Michael Built A Tech Career From Witty Replies","how-michael-built-a-tech-career-from-witty-replies","From posting witty replies on Snapchat, Michael, the brain behind Tech with areyouAgod has built a community that enjoys his tech content, which has been defined by platform strategy, resourcefulness, and obsessive consistency.\n\n### **The Beginning**\n\nIn 2023, during the long vacation between Level 200 and Level 300, Ghana’s “Fix The Country” protest in Ghana filled social media with debates, jokes, and viral clapbacks. Michael, a student of Information Technology at the University of Ghana, was just posting funny replies on Snapchat.\n\nThen something shifted. His views began to rise quickly, and he realized that attention could be redirected toward something meaningful. He noticed a gap: tech content in Ghana was everywhere on Instagram and TikTok, but almost no one was doing it seriously on Snapchat.\n\nSo he switched. “I don’t know… a sharp thought came,” he says. “Why don’t you turn that attention into something?”\n\nThat decision became the foundation of his brand.\n\n### **Starting Small and Learning in Public**\n\nThe beginning wasn’t glamorous. He didn’t have money for equipment, so he started with what he could afford: [writing](https:\u002F\u002Fblog.useaccrue.com\u002Fhow-to-make-money-online-in-ghana\u002F).\n\nHe created tutorials as text posts, simple write-ups, and flyers. He sent them around for people to repost and tag him. Slowly, his Snapchat numbers grew.\n\nHe understood early that scaling beyond Snapchat would be difficult. Moving to Instagram and TikTok meant entering saturated spaces where people already had strong audiences and where written posts wouldn’t perform as well as they did on Snapchat. Video required equipment, and the equipment required money.\n\nStill, Snapchat gave him something more valuable than reach: closeness.\n\nSnapchat is built around daily stories and repeated viewing; he was able to form what he calls “personal currency,” a strong connection with his audience. That bond later became a safety net for everything else he tried.\n\nIn 2024, Michael was still trying to “get it.” During that vacation, instead of going home, he stayed with a friend. In his house, he found a ring light and a good shooting space and used it as his first real studio.\n\nThe setup was rough. He and his friends improvised. They bought a budget microphone that sounded so bad he joked it was “better to shout” than use it. He didn’t even have a great camera, so he borrowed phones to shoot. Sometimes it was his friend’s iPhone 12, sometimes another friend’s 12 Pro Max.\n\nThey kept filming anyway. “I shot my first videos… it wasn’t moving, but we were still shooting,” he says. He then made a decision that changed his output: he created content in batches, five to ten videos at a time, so he could post consistently when school resumed.\n\nHe learned quickly that consistency isn’t optional on video platforms. You can’t drop once and disappear. So he worked toward posting three to four times a week while still keeping up with academics.\n\n### **Reinvesting Like a Business**\n\nMichael’s biggest growth season came from a [personal finance](https:\u002F\u002Fuseaccrue.com\u002F) move. He moved hostels. The new place was better than his old “four in a room” setup, and that difference created extra money. He took that margin and reinvested it into his content by buying better microphones, small gadgets, lights, and tools that made his work look more professional.\n\nHe also cut spending aggressively. “At that time, I was saving at least 60% of what my mom would give me,” he says.\n\nAt first, he didn’t even move to create content. He intended to keep the equipment at his sister’s house and shoot only on weekends, but he discovered his new room had enough space to create a mini studio beside his bed. This discovery increased his output.\n\n### **Losing Everything**\n\nIn September 2024, Michael lost his Snapchat account, which had 20,000 subscribers.\n\nFor many creators, that would be the end. For Michael, it became proof of skill.\n\nHe created a new account, and within eight months, he grew it to 100,000 followers. He now describes himself as having the largest tech-focused Snapchat following in Ghana, with engagement driven by daily audience interaction.\n\n“I’m very active,” he says. “If they ask questions, I pick it and use it to create content.”\n\n### **Money and Brand Deals**\n\nFor about a year, Michael earned nothing from [content creation](https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FContent_creation). Then brands started reaching out, but early offers didn’t match the work required.\n\nOne brand wanted mentions in 70% of his videos for three months. Total pay a few dollars wasn’t worth the effort. They also wanted him to commit to a fixed number of videos.\n\nHe nearly accepted, because the temptation of “first money” is real, but he paused, evaluated, and walked away.\n\n“It didn’t make sense,” he says.\n\nLater, stronger deals came. In 2025, he earned between ₵3,000 and ₵10,000 per video, working with both international and local brands. That same year, he won a major recognition: Tech Influencer of the Year.\n\n### **A Content Creation Career**\n\nMichael is now a full-time creator. His immediate goals are self-investment: bigger studios, higher-quality equipment, greater growth, and more opportunities (including future travel). The foundation stays the same: start small, build trust, reinvest, and keep showing up.","https:\u002F\u002Fres.cloudinary.com\u002Frockets-cdn\u002Fimage\u002Fupload\u002Fv1780575661\u002Faccrue-blog\u002F2026\u002F02\u002FMichael.png",{"name":13,"avatar":14,"bio":14},"2026-02-18T10:53:16Z",{"totalCount":115,"totalPages":116,"page":117,"perPage":118,"nextPage":45,"hasNextPage":54},62,6,1,12]