Black in technology, in technology, in technology? Why black in technology?
In technology? Technology? Welcome everyone to the Blacks and Technology Tech Talk Podcast,
a show where we talk to black people who are engineers, innovators,
educators, inventors, changemakers and entrepreneurs doing amazing things in the world of technology.
The Big Tech Talk podcast is where they show how they are stopping the
divide by sharing their stories, experiences, ideas, knowledge and perspective on tech
with the black in technology community. On this week's episode, I am proud
to introduce you to our guest, Boladulshu Tybo. Welcome. All right,
how are you doing to that? I am well, I'm so glad to
have you on our entrepreneurship podcast. I've heard great things about analog teams and
I just can't wait to dig in. So, without further Ado, can
you tell us more about yourself and where you are from. Yeah, so,
I am born and raised in the US, but I am Nigerian and
I also lived in Nigeria as a as a young man. Born in I
live in Maryland and have lived in Maryland d C. Have also traveled quite
a bit, lived in Kenya, lived in Nigeria as mentioned, and lived
in Ghana as well. Very cool, and we share that of my dad's
Nigerian I'm curious whereabouts in Nigeria when, Yeah, I grew up actually more
out, very far out of Legas and Obama Shaw, which is all your
state. But now my brother, who has a similar background to myself,
lives in Legas and is a cashew farmer. So most of the time I'm
in Legos, I am on the farm. Very cool, very cool.
Yes, so my dad's originally from been In but he eventually moved to River
State, portoct Court. People make fun of me when I pronounce it that
way, but but yeah, that's where I go home too when I visit.
But it's been several years. I'm due back and I'm really excited to
go hopefully next year with my family for the first time. So wonderful to
hear about that. Yes, yes, we have that in common. And
I'm really curious about your transition. Right, So you're working, and then
tell me about your desire and interest in starting your own company. How did
that come to me? Yeah, so I worked for General Dynamics IT right
out of college and I essentially was looking at my growth and my career growth
and noticed that the more I grew and the further I go as an engineer,
the less and less less likely people look like me. And that bothered
me a lot. And so I thought about leaving the job and going to
another job of course, and having that same experience, and or deciding to
do something on my own in order to give back to our community. And
I took the ladder and the process was. I actually sold computers first.
That was my first entrance into doing business internationally. I sold customized computers that
I would build myself and sell them in Nigeria and made quite a bit of
money in a short amount of time and use that to then invest in other
ventures. One was a natural hair care company that still exists, freer Tree
that's fro Tree dot us, which it focuses on women with four sea hair
and building delivering hair products for them. And then also I invested in two
other companies. One was an automotive company, as every a lot of people
would tell you when they're from our communities, when they first started business,
they try to sell cars. And then lastly was analog teams, which then
became the full focus and the understanding that we had an opportunity to do something
that really impacted the entire community and the entire daspora as well as the continent
itself. So I met up with my partners, Maisha Maisha Arroga, who
I worked with at gd I, and then also my other co founder,
Yahwa Dantur, who I actually went to university with and worked at KPMG at
the time, and we came together and said, we can build a culture.
We can build a company that actually is inclusive and is focused on black
people so much so that you know, I always say like, hey,
look, if if for the ladies, if you're having a bad hair day,
right, it's understandable. You know, you may not have to get
on camera early in the morning because we understand. Yeah, we love our
black women and so those type of things and things that make you feel like
you are actually at home where you're at a company that is built for you.
Um, that's what we set out to do from the beginning. That
is amazing. I love to hear that story and we have that in common
as well. I worked for General Dynamics Mission Systems, but I exclusively did
legal work in support of gd t S infrastructure engineering opportunities with the government for
a couple of years, and so it's where you're talking like wow, and
then just just your your guts right and your ability to to leave what would
someone say is like a secure job or secure career path and forgeab on your
own and work in partnership with friends who go into school with and on things
that, like you said, are high impact and create opportunities for our people
in particular. I just really admire that, and it's a lot of what
Blacks and Technology is about to right, is creating a space for us to
succeed and elevate in tech. And I like the premise of making sure that
our people are helping each other, lifting each other up. I think that's
really important. So I just love to hear how folks get started. That
is always focused on forming new partnerships and opportunities to assist the community and our
members with their continued professional growth and development. If you'd like to partner with
us, send an email inquiries at blacks and Technology dot net. I am
working. I'm also curious about the naming. How did you come up with
the name for analog teams? So funny enough are the initial name when the
idea just you know came about and we were thinking just of what it would
be. We were still in ideation phase. I called Afrotech and later that
year or a year after, Afrotech came out and launched, you know,
their first conference, and I was like, I was heartbroken because all everyone,
if anyone who knows me from back then, a lot of my friends
would tell you like, yeah, he was running with that name. But
then what happened. Um, you know, we were brainstorming and we we
do this thing where we don't care about names anymore. It's the fun thing
to do, but it doesn't so matter. I always mentioned that people still
say names like Google, right Uber, and if you think about it,
those are just not real words that you would ever utilize. So it's the
quality of the service behind it. But Yao actually came, yaw with Dantor
came and just I remember he sent me a message analog and I ran with
it. I was elated. I was like, this is it And the
concept is that people are analog and even though we are going to a digital
future, it's important to remember that the people matter the most, right,
and the people are human and their analog and they're not digital and so how
do you bridge that gap? And it's it's done well because it's also a
play on just the fact that it's contrary to where we're headed in a sense,
right. And we actually started off as analog Africa because a lot of
our work has been in Africa, in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South
Africa, Zimbabwe, DRC, So we've done a lot of work in Africa
and that was our initial focus. But we don't control the narrative on what
people think about Africa. And we acknowledge that when I say Africa to you,
you think of home, you think of happiness, you think of you
know, a continent that's growing and it's beautiful black people. But some other
people, including our black people, see Africa's um you know, poor lions.
People who literally have asked me with no malintent, you know, I
heard that they have lions in the street and the towns, Like why do
you think that's real? But just that concept. So over time we actually
changed to analog teams because we're about team building and that's that's kind of where
we've we've found our niche. We also went to a federal phase where we're
analog Federals, so We've gone through a lot of rebranding over the years.
Both this is where we've settled and really found what means to us excellent now
that that's really really interesting on like you said, the evolution and just the
meaning and intentionality behind behind it. Do you have a product or service that
you would like to share with a bit audience or maybe you'd like to support
the bit community and do your part in helping us with stomping the divide.
Start by sponsoring one of our podcasts. Please email us at contact us at
blacks and Technology dot net. I am curious going maybe a step backwards,
like when did you first become interested in tech? I know you said you
studied, you know, it sounds like a stem area when you're in school,
but what did it start even earlier than that before school or when did
you realize this is what an area you wanted to work in. Yeah,
so that's a good question. I've always loved computers since I was young,
loved playing video games on computers, etc. You know, working on them,
figuring out how to get around like systems, etc. And I guess
I assumed it should be like a natural course when I was going to university
I figured, why wouldn't I do something that taught me more about computers.
So initially I was a computer engineer student, but it just didn't mash with
the time because I also ran a d one track at UNBC, so I
switched to information systems, which was vastly different, but my focus was mainly
on sports until I kind of got a notion of how important technology is in
the way of the future. I started to put a lot of intentionality on
that, and that's kind of what spurred me taking it to the next level
instead of it just being a job, but being something that I embodied as
a whole. Wow. Yeah, I was the same way. I was
a gamer and I'd love to play Solitaire, anything on the computer, and
I wasn't sure how it would manifest itself. And at first I thought I
was pre med, and I quickly realized that was not for me. I
like to talk and argue, but I still love tech, and then eventually
I found my way after law school in the tech. But I love what
she said about just kind of like leaving yourself open to discovery too. I
think that's really important for some folks who are in tech or trying to get
into teche. What's up everyone? We hope that you're enjoying this episode of
the Blacks and Technology BIT tech Talk podcasts. Do you or someone you know
have a dope story that they want to share with our bit audience. Blocks
and Technology is seeking guests to be on our podcast. We're looking to highlight
the journeys and experiences of black women and men in the tech industry. So
if you know of someone, send them our way, shoot us an email
to contact us a Blacks and Technology dot net, or click on the link
in the show notes and fill out our form. We're looking to hear from
you. In my capacity leading the Charlotte chapter of Blacks and Tech, I
meet people all the time when we're looking to change careers or break into tech,
and they're always like, Oh, do I need to do a STEM
degree or what training do I need to have? And sometimes I tell them
it's just about curiosity and willingness to learn new terms and different things, So
it's not always like a cookie cutter to get into tech or to sustain yourself
in tech. I feel like some of my best moves in my career have
come from just like opportunities that kind of came out of some work that I
was doing, or my interests have changed and just created new interesting opportunities for
myself. And So to talk more about your work at Analog Teams, I'm
curious about the heavy lifting that goes into actually getting the job placement to occur,
right, because you may have a talent pool, you may have employers
who are interested in hiring, But how do you successfully bridge the two in
a way that is successful for everyone involved. That seems like a lot of
hard work, and I'm just curious what your strategy has been in that area.
Yeah, that's a great, great question. So for us, our
whole focus is about being the best at what we do. That's why we
lead with the fact that we're recruiters. It has nothing to do with us
being black or whatever the case may be. We're just the best at will
we do. And so when we're even looking to hire, we rarely get
out or look for opportunities where they're only looking for diverse candidates. So they
hire us to find diverse people. We care about you hiring Analog Teams to
build your your company. You want the best recruiters, you hire us and
we come and deliver the fact of the matter is that you are working with
black individuals. So your company may not have that perspective to even know how
to look for diverse candidates, how to get them into your pipeline. We
already do because our networks are like that, We are like that, etc.
So naturally, when we have a job a job rep we care most
about who the best candidate for the position. We don't care what you look
like. You know, black man, white man, white woman, Asian,
black woman, it doesn't matter. We care about the right person.
Naturally, we are able to identify and speak to adding candidates of color,
black candidates in particular, because we know where to look. We already have
a pipeline, We already have connections, and that is the value add of
working with analog teams. But our intentionality is being the best recruiters that we
can be and ensuring that in all that we do, what you get from
this black company is a high output, better than anything else you can get
anywhere else, that solves all of the issues. First right, that opens
your mind. And then when we've built a level of trust, we work
with organizations, specifically hiring managers to actually understand the mathematics behind hiring a diverse
candidate in specific roles, because you're looking for someone from Stanford or Berkeley where
I recently was talking. There's like five hundred or six hundred black students at
Berkeley or something of the sort. So you want someone from there who's also
worked at Amazon. So up this five hundred five of them went to Amazon,
right, And now you're basically saying I need to find a diverse candidate.
That's a needle in a haystack, versus opening up your metrics and looking
at Howard University and understanding that they have great students that are coming out of
their morehouse Spellman, etc. And being able to kind of change the way
they even look at the way they are hiring, because sometimes you just want
someone who's gonna come in here young and hungry or old and mature, right
ten yared experienced, and either way we can bring that to you. Sometimes
we just have to change your mind on what you're looking for. And that's
that's really where we excel high level of delivery. And then once we've built
a level of trust, we're able to get you to see and think outside
of the box. Awesome. Yeah, that's so critical to Yeah, just
having those conversations around the why for why us and being comfortable in your leadership
capacity to broke or those conversations, because sometimes I'll meet with recruiters and they
just don't have the language, frankly, and sometimes that's part of my role
is giving them some of the language to help them as they navigate conversations in
their relationships to make to create these opportunities. And I'm curious too about your
success rate with candidates from Africa in particular, because just putting my employment lawyer
had on when I used to do that type of work. Obviously, you
know, companies do have visa programs to sponsor and outsourced candidates abroad. But
did you find there any obstacles to any of that or how has recruiting specifically
candidates from Africa, where we know there's a wealth of talent, how has
that worked for you getting them here or getting them new roles. Actually,
most of our candidates that we hire are in the US, so we use
you know, we work with American based startups, so we are hiring people
in America for those startups where we utilize African talent. That African talent is
hired by Analog as recruiters or recruiters support. Yeah, so they are actually
hiring. There are people, we have people in our team in Africa that
are hiring Americans for jobs in America. So that is a lot of our
focus. We have done some staff augmentation. As I mentioned, we're a
software development company first, and so there are quite a few startups that we
work with where we actually host their team in Africa so they work directly with
ANALOG teams and we handle all the employment issues, the contractor issues, etc.
So that is created a you know, that alleviates some of that burden.
But ninety nine percent of our focus is actually in recruiting and recruiting Americans
for American companies. Understood. Yeah, no, that's good. I mean
there's still opportunity and they're woven into what she said, right, And that's
amazing that you found a framework that fits to still allow for that type of
engagement. So that's great. And I like to ask entrepreneurs like yourself who
are very successful, who inspires you or was their pivotal moment or time that
you met someone or you know, some people say it's their family or mentors
who came into their life. What have you that really inspired you or continue
to inspire you, inspire you with the work that you're doing. That's a
great question. The first thing that comes to mind is actually my family,
my brother, my mother, my sister, and my father. All all
of my family are built with entrepreneurs. My brother, as I mentioned,
is a cashew farmer, and working with him to see that that dream come
true called UPGS initiative Urban Planning for Growth and Sustainability and the ability to use
small scale farmers and train them on how to operate on large plots of land,
to change unused land into like profitable land, and to see the evolution
of planting acres and acres of cash shows hand by hand initially is something that
you know, you just don't see often in the world. My sister is
also a huge PR director of pr in Fashion for a Gara Group, which
does luxury brands with vehicles. Just the way I've seen her navigate rooms in
which she's the only black woman and completely change companies in the way people see
companies and handle big fires, things that you know, pr issues that you
know these companies go through when they're dealing especially with black folks, and being
able to handle that and navigate those waters and come to proper conclusions that benefit
both sides, right, which is important when brokering the deal. Seeing that
has been magnificent and masterful in her skill set and how she's grown that.
And then of course my mother just a hard working woman that anyone who meets
her can understands what she's a teacher and the amount of lives that she's changed
she's worked in Inner City, DC and in some other places, and the
amount of lives that she's altered and changed. The entire trajectory is, you
know, just teachers are under underappreciated in general. And my father, Um,
was an entrepreneur, and I've always seen entrepreneurs, you know, from
his perspective of being able to create from nothing, right Um being able to
create here in the States and also in Nigeria building businesses. Being around my
family alone just inspires me. And I'm the youngest, so you know,
I've got this this chip on my shoulder, right, I've got it.
I want to make everyone proud. So it drives me and it inspires me
to do more because I see, I see greatness on a daily basis.
And so no matter when you mentioned, you know, very successful entrepreneurs.
In my mind, I'm like I laughed, because there's so much more to
go that I often don't take the moment to even you know, count this
success because there's you know, we're driving, and I want my team to
constantly drive for this goal of greatness. We are trying to obtain the level
of greatness never seen before UM and specifically never seen from an all black company.
We're about. We're just under forty people globally, and so just to
get into the company and you meet the different cultures that Kenyan Knkuu, the
Nigerian, Ebo and Yuba working together, and the Zulu and then den Bile
and then we've got Black Americans, etc. All working together UM and delivering
at a high output what we're trying to create. UM. We want the
world to see it and then appreciate it in a way that it opens doors
for everyone else. And so that inspiration comes from being around my family and
seeing them grind and work and get it out the gutter right and build a
burgeoning empire. Yes, definitely can relate to that too, as far as
just absorbing some of those those lessons and hard winds and my family and the
entrepreneurs and my family too, definitely was influential for me and how I go
about doing some of my endeavors. So that's amazing to hear. And the
other thing to just two more questions for you. So one question I'd like
to ask is what's one thing you wish you had known before you launched your
business that if you could help an up and coming entrepreneur, you would let
them know two things. One one is one thing that I think I was
trying to understand early, which is make sure you have a team, do
not go it alone, and understanding how to work with the team. That's
number one. You cannot you should not let me say you should not,
because you can, but you should not want to take You should not take
this endeavor on a loan because there will be days that you're weak and it
feels so much greater when someone else is strong for you and carries the business
on your off days and vice versa. So learning how to share the ball,
how to make sure everyone wins, is something that our community needs to
learn. My first company was Tabo Tech under my last name, and I
realized, you know, I don't think it's hard to motivate and inspire people
to want to work for your last name right, And it's something I realize.
We do it because we want to own something right. We want to
have something in our name that stands the test of time so we can build
our legacy. But an analog, I've realized that the dream that we had
working with so many different individuals, it's so much bigger than myself. At
this point, I'm just a cog in the wheel, the representation of all
the wonderful things that my team is doing. So building a team and if
you can go to another startup that does something in the realm of what you
want to do and pick up some things, be a no matter how much
you make, be a big contributor, a large contributor in the company,
so you can sit at the high table and see what those see the moves
that they're making. Because there's a lot to learn and a lot of painful
lessons and if you can just have a framework, it can drastically change the
trajectory of your company. Where would you like to travel anywhere in the world.
The country that's all my tongue is Namibia. I don't know anything about
it. I had not done any studies about it. But I've been saying
that country for a while and i just want to see what's there, who's
there, and how the people are there so cool. I heard there's an
elephant walk that's a must experience, and that the coffee is pretty good,
but I've never been as well. I would love to go. Yeah,
I'm always looking for um. I always tell people I'm a big proponent of
just traveling to Africa. Um of you know, there are fifty four countries
in Africa and so if I if I have time to go visit, I'm
going to go visit the continent and try and see and learn something more about
myself there. Wonderful and I guess I lied. I did have one more
question for you. How can folks get in touch with you after this podcast?
Yeah, you can shoot me an email excuse me at tabo at gmail
dot com. It's te y I b o at a sorry at analog teams
dot com. Or you can reach out to me on Instagram analog dot tabo,
or you can reach me on LinkedIn o la doshu tabou anyway you want
to find me. I'm there, communicate reach out to me. I'm really
responsive, love to learn, even if it's just a shout out or you
want some advice or anything like that, reach out to me. I'm available.
Well, Aladosha, it's been a pleasure meeting you, my friends,
and hearing your story. And thank you so much for your time today on
the Blacks and Technology tech Talk podcast. Have a good one. Thank you
for having me. Blacks in Technology? Why whack? Watch in technology?
Watch in technology? Why watch in technology? Watch in technology? Why watch
in technology?