Ademola Morebise is the Founder and CEO of gistcaster.com, a new robust real-time communication tool which has been described by many as Twitter-done-right and some went further to call it a Twitter-killer.
Ademola took the basic idea of status
updates and extended it into full conversations - No 140 character limit, Full commenting system, Geo location, Groups, and superb privacy settings which lets you decide who-sees-what on a per post basis!
This youngster is ready to take Africa to the center in today's global economy, with his unique product. In a recent chat with Ademola, he talked about the uniqueness of his social networking site and his vision. Enjoy......
Who is Ademola Morebise?
Ademola Morebise is a young man of many parts; I'm a writer, speaker,
physicist and web/mobile developer. I am founder/CEO Gistcaster LLC.
How old are you?
I am 20 years old.
Tell us your Background.
Fourth child in a nuclear family of eight, I was born and bred in
Lagos state, Nigeria. I read about the internet for the first time in
2000, little did I know I would help businesses establish presence on
it and even shapen its usage in Nigeria.
Could you tell us the inspiration behind your social networking site,
Gistcaster?
The idea for Gistcaster sprang up from a series of thought processes
that started early 2008, I wanted a quick and fast way to share and
discover information, and I wanted something made especially with the
Nigerian community in mind, we live here and we know what they want.
Gistcaster was initially been confused as a microblogging service,
however it’s not so, Gistcaster is not a microblogging service; it
allows up to 1024 characters (the exact value of 1kb) per gist and
allows upload of small media files (clips) like pictures from your
everyday experiences. Gistcaster is simply what we wanted it to be: a
robust communication tool.
We want Gistcaster to encourage Nigerians to generate more local
e-content and one of the central visions of Gistcaster is to become
"An instant reflection of what's happening in any specific location in
Nigeria" as more and more people joins the network.
The site is very unique, what is the secret behind its uniquesness?
Gistcaster is unique because it is fuelled by a specific vision and
that is what determines what features and products we offer.
What is your vision for the gistcaster?
Gistcaster's vision is to instantly connect people with the
information they need based on their interest or current location.
What problems did you encounter while trying to put-up the site and
how did you overcome them?
The challenges have been very much, the major challenge been funding
and then the publicity, properly differentiating Gistcaster from the
crowd of social/info networks we have around, infact once you start
describing your startup as "a social..." people will cut in to say
"Like Facebook?" and will expect it to work like Facebook!
Tell us how you raise start-up capital?
Gistcaster is funded 100% by personal funds, I fund it with money I
make by developing websites for people.
You now have thousands of visitors on your site, how did you do it?
We got users joining daily, thanks to satisfied users who passed the
word on to others and the coverage Gistcaster got from the media.
You now get adverts too?
Yeah, once your start-up starts to making sense, its only a matter of
time before the money follows.
You are a student and a CEO. How do you balance the two?
Combining both hasn't been easy, for instance if a meeting with VCs
coincides with exams, which do I honor?
What I do is I try to do proper time management, ensure I devout time
to both, because they are both important and so far God has been
helping me.
What make your site different from other sites?
What makes Gistcaster different from other websites is our driving
force, our mission. That's what makes us stand out.
What are the motivational forces behind your success?
The little success I have can be easily traced to Reading, Plenty of
research I carried out and networking with people much more
knowledgeable than I am; and of course: I WORK, WORK, WORK AND WORK my
heart out!
Any advice for the youth?
As Youths we should aspire to standout in our world, so many problems
around us need solutions, so rather than living our lives anyhow, we
should identify a problem we will solve and commit to it. Money is
merely a reward for solving problems.
You can learn more about Ademola Morebise by following him on
Gistcaster http://www.gistcaster.com/demola or
http://about.me/ademola.morebise
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