Few apps in Ghana specifically target tertiary students. Flippy Campus does that by providing an online marketplace to enhance student life. The app previously was helping students disseminate information on campus. We spoke to the new CEO, Ammishaddai Ofori, to get him talking about how it all started at Flippy!
Tell us a bit about yourself
Hello my name is Ammishaddai Ofori. I am co-founder and CEO of Flippy Campus.
How did you get into tech?
I grew up very interested in science and how things worked. I ended up studying Electrical Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and continued with a 2 year fully sponsored program at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST).
How did you get the idea for Flippy Campus?
Flippy Campus was the idea of our former CEO, David Mumuni. He had missed an exam while in the university because the time for the exam had been changed about a day to the exam and the only update for it had been on a notice board. So it became a problem he wanted to solve. He shared the idea with me and our two other co-founders Bright and Gideon when we were all at MEST and it was a problem we readily identified with even though we were from 3 different universities in Ghana. I had faced a similar problem on the other side of the fence as PRO and Editor-In-Chief of my college, where the students never saw or responded to posters and announcements I put up.
What was the biggest barrier to starting; how did you overcome it?
The biggest barrier was getting the solution known to the students. We had very limited budget so we went to the University of Ghana every day, knocking on doors, making announcements in classrooms and in their buses, the whole deal. Another major challenge we faced was making the app user friendly for the students on campus who were particular about internet data and had very poor reception. We had to figure out how to run a lot of processes in the background without consuming their storage space or using too much data.
What was your first sale, and how did it happen?
Our first sale would be our first download because we are a b2c app. It happened on the university of Ghana campus I think… It was after we “preached” to a group of students about Flippy Campus and the problem we were solving.
What’s your current work routine like?
We have pivoted from the original idea of a notice board app to a students’ discount app to generate revenue so we are consciously marketing the app in soft launch mode now.
Most of our work time now is spent optimizing the app to user feedback and keeping it relevant to our users.
Who have/what has inspired you the most?
Entrepreneurs all over the world solving real problems and making significant wealth from it and the burning desire to change the lives of the people around us.
Best advice you have received?
Don’t try to do everything at once. The best thing to do is to start and with time you will figure things out.
What’s a current problem you wish there was a tech solution to?
Nothing comes to mind at the moment.
Tell us something interesting about you few people know.
I love God more than technology and enjoy talking about existentialism 🙂
Which Ghanaian apps do you use often?
ExpressPay
Which part of the day do you enjoy the most?
Early mornings. Best time to be in Zen mode for me.
The How It Started series looks at tech entrepreneurs in Ghana and how they began working on their ideas. The series is aimed at encouraging our readers to start working on their ideas, and also to hear the untold stories about tech companies in Ghana. Enjoy!
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