Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Ogbeide and Dapo Oremade.
Ryan initially had a blog called NachoBirthday. The story behind it came from his previous job when he walked in one day and saw balloons, cakes and employees having a party. He wasn’t sure who’s birthday it was, so he asked. The response was nacho-birthday. Confused for a bit, but then it clicked “not-your-birthday”. He realized everyday is someone’s birthday and you can even celebrate when it’s not your birthday.
With this in mind, he started a blog to get any and every information on birthdays.
About 2 years later, Ryan and his longtime friend, and partner in other business endeavors Dapo figured out there were 3 major issues that needed to be addressed around birthdays. 1) People desired to do something more meaningful than the standard party 2) People got unwanted gifts, and wished they could tell others what they wanted instead and 3) People had friends spread around the country that don’t give gifts because of distance. So Dapo came on the NachoBirthday team as a cofounder to build a platform that addresses this issue.
NachoBirthday then went from a blog to a crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise funds for charity, themselves or split the funds between self and charity in honor of the user’s birthday.
Now people can use their birthday to help a charitable cause or a friend in need. Dapo’s first NachoBirthday campaign was for his friend and old student Jessica McClure who has cerebral palsy and dystonia. He dedicated his birthday to help her get a service dog. That has been the most memorable birthday for him till today. Our users can now tell family to donate towards a surf board they want instead of getting gifts they appreciate but don’t want. And of course, there is no more excuse of not being around for a friend or family member’s birthday. You can contribute to their campaign from anywhere in the world with internet access.
NachoBirthday continues to grow daily with more ideas and features to make NachoBirthday the new way to celebrate life. Seeing people help others, get what they want, and happy on their birthday gives us joy; and we love what we do.
Has it been a smooth road?
Not many start ups have smooth roads. Neither have we. To begin with, Dapo who is now a veteran, was an active duty member of the U.S Army when we launched NachoBirthday in 2014.
We are proud of his service to the country, but field training, and the likes, slowed things down in terms of meeting deadlines we set. We also had to learn a lot of things the hard way, which many times cost us more money than we would have loved to spend, especially since we don’t have any outside investment. We also had the challenge of overcoming the “brand obstacle”. People like the idea when they hear it, but then they have never heard the company name before. Luckily for us, some people loved the idea enough not to worry about a new company, and this helped make the others more at ease to start a campaign.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the NachoBirthday story. Tell us more about the business.
NachoBirthday is a crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise funds for charity, self or split funds between the charity and self on their birthday.
We are the company that is set to redefine how birthdays are celebrated.
Let’s use weddings for example. Diamond ring is a thing because someone made it so. Think of search engine, and you think of Google.
We are the company that years from now will be what you think of when you think of birthdays.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In the next 5-10 years we will like to have at least 10% of Americans doing a NachoBirthday campaign on a yearly basis.
Not so much a shift or change, but we will like to fully incorporate businesses that want to partner with us to have birthday celebrants do a campaign to purchase their product for a discounted price. And allow people with same birthdays and similar cause group fund raise for their favorite charity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nachobirthday.com
- Phone: 817-919-3261; 940-465-5042
- Email: ryan@nachobirthday.com; dapo@nachobirthday.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NachoBirthday
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/NachoBirthday
Image Credit:
Miles of Freedom
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