**A Journey from an Idea to an Empire**

This is an open letter to all TheCommunity users and yes, the hopefuls as well.

Attention passengers!!! This is your captain speaking... The past two years have been an unpredictable adventure. I saw a powerful quote once, "A man becomes what he thinks about". It made me wonder what I was thinking about when I started working on TheCommunity. I'll let you guys know when I remember, but now I'll tell a story of how it all began.

...

### December 2015: The idea

TheCommunity started as a basic PHP website, where my friends and I would post write-ups. I still remember moving from one friend's room to the other, encouraging them to sign up and post something on the site. Then it was not yet online but on a local server.

It soon went online as _[http://dcommunity.xyz](www.dcommunity.xyz)_. It did not seem professional, but that domain was precious to me at the time. The feedback was encouraging and any beginner-level programmer would have been as excited as I was.

### Fast forward to 13th of April, 2016: The BIG break

That was the day TheCommunity was going to blow! Before then, it barely had 200 users and a few (say 20-30) active ones. CONNEX was a popular group within and outside the campus and they wanted a voting platform. I thought a simple website with a few pictures would do, then my boss in the office, where I was interning, pointed out something that would kick-start TheCommunity’s (TC) journey.

“This is TC’s big break!”, I thought; A chance to share it with the rest of the world. I was going to integrate a voting service with the existing platform. I had to make a split decision that would take me four sleepless hours of coding to execute. I proceeded to build the voting service and to my amazement, the user-base grew like weed, or better still, it spread like wildfire. Even students from my Secondary School, Kings College all the way in Lagos had registered for something that was going on in Benin. As I expected, the voting came to an end and the buzz on TC slowed down, but it didn't stop.

### 2017: Positivity

Final exams were fast approaching, I was soon going to be a graduate. On two occasions did this website work bring down my grades, but God was still in control. I graduated with First Class Honours, made everyone proud (including myself) and I didn't have to give up too much to do so as I didn't have to let go of something that was very dear to me; TheCommunity.

Now I'm free from student hostel bed-checks, curfews, assignment submission deadlines and all the other things that make you hate school. I'm now able to focus on the important things.

I want to specially appreciate Etinosa Obaseki and Daniel Onyeka for their highly valued encouragement and support.

My most appreciation goes to my Dad, Engr. Francis Nosakhare Enabulele, TheCommunity's biggest investor. Even when the huge school&nbsp;fees of Benson Idahosa University were enough burden, he always managed to assist in paying TC's web hosting bills. You can call him the **grandfather** of TC 😏.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, both personal and for the future of the company. I've had many visions of the future and some of them are mind blowing. Some are also long term, expensive, or quite frightening when I see how much work is required. Either way, I am still grateful to be here, and to watch what once started out as an idea grow into an empire.

#### The End.

You were expecting more right? 😏 The title of this article was just to get your attention 😆. I still think this is good though, for a first real post, don't you? I'm not a writer like the rest of my people, and I never really imagined myself owning an original article of more than ten lines. Maybe that's why they say I'm a man of few words. Who knew TheCommunity could teach me something? You guys have all been amazing, from the beginning up until now. Now we have to set course for a new destination. Let's make new memories !!!

If you want the real surprise, download our new app for Android from the Google PlayStore.

For the iOS users, your app is almost ready, we'll be with you shortly.

Nosakhare Emmanuel Osarogie, or just **Nosa** 👍
CEO, TheCommunity



Emmanuel Nosakhare

How I started a company (by accident)