HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background. Hello! I am Johnpaul Nwobodo, Co-founder/CEO, Elesaro. I am serial in nature and have founded different companies across different sectors - from media to supply chain delivery to blockchain. What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do? Elesaro is a full suite crowdfunding protocol built on Binance smart chain. With Elesaro, users can invest in the seed rounds of different technology companies globally using our custom token -Elf token in order to receive equity. What is the origin story? I met my co-founders at a Major League Hacker Meetup in Jos, Nigeria. They were deep into blockchain, I was the business guy with a technical background though I tilt more towards business and management. I saw that they were working on a project they wanted to pitch - I made some corrections to their pitch and we clicked from there. We had a chat on WhatsApp over a few weeks and decided we should do something together. We explored different ideas from blockchain gaming to file storage and sharing with the aid of blockchain. So we decided to stick to crowdfunding as it will solve the funding issues that startups in Africa experience - Elesaro came to life. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? How we moved from being a team to a Gang. We became friends while doing business. I have over 5 years of management experience and I have been involved in different blockchain projects. My co-founders are top-notch technical guys who have built different solutions for real-world usage prior to this time. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? I would likely be in the management team of another startup or perhaps be in the hospital practicing with my Medical Physiology degree. I can’t imagine myself not doing what I am doing now. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? Community response, growth, and successful campaign carried out. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? 100x in community membership. Our initial campaign was funded in 24 hours. What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why? I’m most excited about Blockchain technology - it’s crowdfunding in disguise. Power to the masses. I’m most worried about AI - I love AI, however, I am worried that if it falls into the hands of the wrong hands, it will be disastrous. What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform? Real-life solutions for founders to implement in their startup is always dished out here for free. What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself? Be extremely focused on one thing and be intensively consistent. With consistency, water cuts through rock. What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing? Show Empathy. Most startup founders lose their emotions in the process of achieving their goals, it ought not to be so. it’s good to be rational, however, rationality at the expense of another person’s mental health is not worth it. Vote for Elesaro for Startup of The Year https://startups.hackernoon.com/africa/abuja-nigeria

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"Rationality at the expense of another person’s mental health is not worth it", says Elesaro CEO

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