Tope Awotona is one of the top rising CEOs in the tech industry. His famous app Calendly is making sounds worldwide because it's very convenient to use for business.
In particular, this modern scheduling app has already helped millions of workers, recruiters, and other professionals to succeed in their tasks. At the moment, almost every employee needs it.
How did Awotona start building Calendly from scratch?
Calendly: The Early Beginnings
(Photo : Tope Awotona/LinkedIn)
The journey of Awotona wasn't easy, especially when he was just beginning his craft. According to his LinkedIn profile, he founded Calendy in 2013, which aims to simplify scheduling for every professional without any reliance on emails.
Awotona was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. He belongs to a middle-class family. His mother used to work in Lagos as an entrepreneur. Meanwhile, his father was a microbiologist.
Since his father's death when he was 12, the Nigerian-born kid inculcated in his mind that he needed to redeem him.
Fast forward to 1996, Awotona and his family moved to Atlanta, USA, to pursue a college education. He grew interested in computer science at the University of Georgia but transitioned to a business-related course later.
Since then, he sold his own app, such as EMC, which was obtained by Dell. He focused on creating a business in the form of a dating website. There was a time when he made a website for garden tools and another one for projects. He did not find any success in any of them.
He was a frustrated salesman to the point that he often failed in setting up meetings. It took him some time to learn how to handle emails without any delays, or at least at the right time.
Obviously, his perseverance in business led him to create Calendly. He gambled big time to bring this app, and he was aware of the risks that he could face as he went along.
"With my previous businesses, I hedged my bets a little bit and gave myself a way out. With Calendly I flew into a war zone and put in every cent I had. If you're going to do something, you have to go all in," Awotona said.
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How Calendly Shapes the Modern Business Cycle
As per Forbes, Calendly is an excellent tool for setting up route meetings and landing pages. A person can also incorporate this app into other applications.
Awotona admitted that their marketing took some time to think about how to attract a lot of users to use it. They had no proper plans to promote it back then.
The American immigrant decided to transition to remote work last summer. He also said that he wanted to add more features on Calendly, including attaching applicants' resumes to the calendar invitation and pre-meeting options.
The Calendly CEO believes that by going international for expansion, he could help other people who are dealing with scheduling problems worldwide.
Right now, Calendly is already worth $3 billion. The 40-year-old founder is now thinking of improving it further, surpassing its limits so it could bring better service to everyone.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joseph Henry
