37. Abraham Okusanya Finds The Truth About Money

Listen to this Real Money Stories episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Podbean by clicking the links and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

This week I speak to fintech entrepreneur Abraham Okusanya.

Growing up in relative poverty in rural Africa, 3am starts working in the family business while still at school, obtaining a scholarship to study in the UK, Abraham shows that where you start need not hold you back.

A dalliance with consumer debt, at the same time as he was made redundant at the height of the financial crisis, galvanised Abraham to recalibrate his life.

Honest money conversations with his new wife, learning new money skills and starting his own consultancy were all part of his money recovery plan.

An epiphany during his consultancy work led Abraham to start a financial software company, Timeline App. Today Abraham and his team help people answer the toughest question we all have, 'Am I going to be OK financially?'

This is a lovely conversation, full of humility, honesty and good humour, which touches on so many aspects of our relationship with money.

Episode Transcript

Jason Butler 0:08
Hello, and welcome to the Real Money Stories podcast. Real Money stories is the only UK podcast which shares personal money stories of everyday people. So their insights can help you to be better with money.

My name is Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out on your money, journey, or world on the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from the stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less and enjoy life more.

Hello there and thanks for joining us on another episode of Real Money Stories, the podcast where we talk to people from a wide range of backgrounds about their money story, their money journey. I'm your host Jason Butler, and this week, I'm joined by another very interesting guest. Now, this individual is very interesting because he he's got a really interesting journey of where he started from. So I want to get on the show. His name is Abraham, Okusanya, Is that right? If I said it right over you

now, just before we get into your go back to the backstory you have, do you want to just tell everyone what it is you actually do at the moment, kind of what your business is and what your current role is, and then we'll go back to the to the start.

Abraham O 1:34
So my name is abraham Okusanya. I am the founder and CEO of Timeline app, which is a software retirement planning software used by financial planners and enterprises across the world. So that that's my job. That's what I do.

Jason Butler 1:52
And I loved it so much. I love the product so much that I invested in your company.

Abraham O 1:56
You did you you. Yes, you are one of our early believers when no one believed in what we did? You were very kind and generous with your children's inheritance.

Jason Butler 2:10
Absolutely, that they're really they're really rooting for you. Don't worry, they will say Is he okay? Is he fit?

Don't worry. Anyway, let's crack on let's go back. Because one of the reasons I invested in your business wasn't just because it was a brilliant product, which is and it wasn't just a fantastic team to do, but it was also investing in you as a person and that's why I think your story is so interesting. So take us back to when you you grew up because you weren't born in the UK were you?

Abraham O 2:38
No, No, I wasn't. Yeah, I was born in a tiny little village in southwest Nigeria. But of my my parents were teachers well at the time they were and and you know, I grew up with you know, this this impression my my parents impressed upon My very young mind, you know that I basically had three career options. I could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a disgrace to the family. So invariably, I chose the third option, you know, but but they've always sort of impressed on us that, you know, even if you didn't have a lot of role models around you and things like that, that you could, you know, you could go out and do good things in the world and make a difference in the world. And yeah, that has always been kind of my deep seated motivation, so to speak. So yeah, so And yeah, I went to school with like every other child. I happen to have done okay in school and when I graduated University when I finished my first degree, I got given a scholarship, you know, so I I arrived the shores of this island some 15 years ago now.

Jason Butler 4:06
Because I don't want to leave Africa just yet. I want to go back to Africa.

Abraham O 4:09
Yes.

Jason Butler 4:12
Your mum and dad were what I would call sort of middle class in Nigeria. Were they?

Abraham O 4:19
working class, I would say Yeah.

Jason Butler 4:21
I'm just trying to understand where they fit in. I mean, was it What was your upbringing like in terms of opulence? Did you do you have a big house? Did you have servants? Or was it very modest? And just like, you know, you just did it in a normal sort of neighborhood. What was it like? Because it's different, obviously from the UK.

Abraham O 4:36
Yeah, yeah, he was. He was a very modest upbringing. I mean, you know, teachers when paid a lot and they probably still aren't today. You know, so for a great number of our childhood we lived on, you know, School, home, so the school at the time, so my dad taught in a secondary school and my mom Primary primary school and then in secondary school but we lived on the sort of the facilities provided for teachers by them. Now this added some lessons and and and you know coffee like they houses were so small the apartments they were houses actually there were so small, but one of the great blessings that we had was that we had a lot of British and you call them exchange teachers I can't remember the word they give them now, but but these teachers were sent by, you know, from Britain to Nigeria at the time to teach people to teach students English and, and sciences and things like that. And we had a couple of these people, just amazing, amazing people, Mr. Roy, I can never forget this Roy, who essentially taught us a lot of stuff about about England and the culture and You know, but but, you know, so in that regard, you could say that we had that blessing but you know, teachers weren't paid a lot. You know, they went for several months without getting paid. And we didn't move from, you know, from houses to houses. We went back to my grandparents house at a time when when teachers when paid but also there you know, there was a point where we we actually had you know, one of the houses that we lived in, actually was was was given to my dad, not not given but the house was led to my dad free of free of charge. I'm not sure the words you use, but but ultimately, you know, we had a massive massive garden we had a poetry by the side, so we kept chicken, a lot of chicken for sale. So So, you know, because teachers were unpaid so well. My parents were, you know, if you like they had to do other things, too. You know, to survive. And one of the things we did was we kept the poetry. We grew our chicken and we sold the eggs and the market and then we sold the chicken. And ultimately, you know, he just wasn't, you know, if you like sustainable so my dad left and founded his own brick bakery. So we added bakery added time, and you know, this was by the time I was in secondary school

Jason Butler 7:26
at 12 13, then.

Abraham O 7:27
I was 13 Yeah, I was I was 13 14. You know, he founded his bakery.

Jason Butler 7:34
So your dad became an entrepreneur, business person branched out to business. So So was this your first foray into understanding about sort of building a business and did you work with your dad?

Abraham O 7:44
I did look my dad, not that you had a choice.

Know that you had a choice at the time, every one of us to work in the bakery. You know, everyone you know, you got woken up the process and the time was that you know, you got woken up At either no 3am in the morning to yeah essentially to go out and you know put the put the loves in the the bread take them out of the oven he wasn't by the way he was in a modern open it was a mod open it was a big giant mod open so we had to have them ready for because you have to have the brand ready for you know for the next month and then my dad would jump in his car essentially working from three or 4am in the morning and then go off and distribute the staff so it was it was a hard life but a you know one that you learned a lot you you you learned a lot about an awful lot about about you know manufacturing about my shins but also about selling you know. Yeah, so that that would you couldn't say that was my one of my variables. His Introduction to Business Yeah,

Jason Butler 9:02
so then you you were at school so at school, you seem to do Okay, did you? But I'm just thinking about your peers? Did they? Did their parents also run businesses? Or were they professional? And how were you? Were you aware of a difference in wealth and consumption and how people use money and how people learnt stuff?

Abraham O 9:18
Yeah, so I mean, in terms of friends, my friends were no better as far as I can, I can recollect, you know, so their parents, for the most part, yeah, with a valid similar path to my parents in the sense that they would have probably have a some kind of job. And but they were people were always doing stuff aside, you know, by the side. And so, you know, today when I, when I see people talking about, you know, the gig economy and the hustle and things like that, I'm kind of thinking what my parents, my dad's, it's like, forever, you know, the The common practice or you know, way of life at the time was that you if you, you know, our parents had a job. And then they still had to do other things by the side to survive, but you know, we have people who are worse off, you know, so, typically you'd have people who work in, you know, family and and things like that, you know, they fared even worse, you know, that my parents but also you would, you know, we had people who did very well, you know, we had cousins, one of my very early sort of impressions about money was essentially remembering that we didn't have enough we never had enough and, and, and, you know, we had we lived in an environment where occasionally you would see someone you know, you may well be an uncle or, or, you know, cousins they come around And they've left, they left the village that we were in, and they've gone to the city, usually Lagos at the time. And they've, you know, probably done okay for themselves. And, you know, whenever they came back, I was just amazed, especially during festive period, Christmas was a big time, you know, a great time when people came back home, and you will see people with a lot of, you know, well, what I now know as, you know, stuff right, you know, they add a lot of stuff. materialism. Yeah. The materials. Yeah, the interpretation at the time that when I was growing up was this is well, you know, outcomes they have so much how come they they had all the material wealth, so to speak, and, and I didn't, and, and I think that sort of formed, you know, stared something in me to say, well look, I'm going to You know, I'm going to do whatever I can within, within, within the law to, you know, to do well myself and to put my myself my family in a position that

we, we never want the good things of life. So,

Jason Butler 12:18
there's an interesting juxtaposition between first of all those two, two stories, two messages there. One was that your family never had enough and that's the difference between not having enough and then versus relatives coming back and having material possessions and you equating that with, with happiness or well being right. So, two separate things, but what are you saying that both of those things can sort of conspired together to sort of form an early impression on you that you wanted a bit more than just get, you know, scratching by

Abraham O 12:46
is that is that such a yes, you know, I think I think you know, they say these things about you know, I don't know there's a story about you know, I think a man the story is about a man with two sons and, you know, one of the sons turned out to be very successful and the other one turned out to be not so successful and they asked Both songs, well, why how, you know, how did you turn out to be who you are and both of them said, you know, Dad, you know, so my, my, my, it's always been my thinking that, you know, poverty can actually be considered for you to go on to do good things or great things in life, but also he does have the power to crush your soul. A lot of these is within your control, some aren't I accept, but but a lot of this is within the individual control. You can either let your experience you know deter you in life or you can use it as a as a springboard to to to greater things. In in life,

Jason Butler 14:02
what we call the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset. So growth mindset says, you know, just because you don't know how to do it means you can't learn it. And even if you make mistakes, well, it's just just a learning thing, right? It's not it doesn't define you. You just got to keep on finding another way and you got to pick yourself up. Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. So tell us about she went through school. Did you have jobs other than working? Did you keep working in the bakery? Or did you get other jobs and other ways of earning money? Or did you just work for dad?

Abraham O 14:25
Yeah, I know from my secondary school I worked for my dad for the most part and the big Korean then yeah, you know what went off to university I'd say I was I was I was glad as many

Jason Butler 14:37
start start stopped at uni today.

Abraham O 14:41
Yes, absolutely. You know, so I, I escaped if you like,

Jason Butler 14:48
the city, you went to city for the SI Yeah,

Abraham O 14:51
well, yeah, he was. I went to uni in the city. So I went to the Capitol. So I don't know how much you know about our audience. listeners know about Nigeria. So, you know, one of the states in Nigeria is Ogun state. And so I went to the capital of, of the states, I went to the city and yeah, you know, I went to university there. Yeah.

Jason Butler 15:15
Huh. So, and now sort of, you know, don't know how it's all funded. How do you fund union in Nigeria? Is there any kind of state help? Or is it just you got to somehow come up with the money? I mean, how did you fund it?

Abraham O 15:26
Well, you know, so So at the time, I went to Federal University, and so Federal University were known for being essentially subsidized, hugely subsidized by the government. So for the most part, what you had to pay for was essentially your your upkeep, you know, so your living costs. Yeah. So So, you know, and it was a combination, you know, throw it was still very challenging my parents, you know, but it was a combination. have parents and we had, you know, we had cousins and Uncle we had a particularly very, very successful uncle who helped quite a bit. Actually, more than one. Yeah. So it was everyone pitched in to help you through at the time, which which is, you know, one of the great things about that environment that people people helped each other out when they could. And yeah, so I was fortunate to have, you know, parents and uncles and family members who could, who could help.

Jason Butler 16:39
Yes. And it's interesting because when other people particular parents are struggling to help you, What impact did that have on you, when you when you did you take any more seriously or did you feel a sense of obligation or did you just think, Well, you know, I'm in touch with this because I'm great, you know, I

Abraham O 16:54
know you, you again, in African culture you you have seen Huge, huge respect for your, for your parents, and especially when they go over and above, you know, if you like the call of duty to help you through and remember, I have five other siblings, right, you know, and all of us graduated from junior. Do you, you know, so, so all of us went to university, you know, so it wasn't if this is the thing if you were, if you grew up in a family of teachers, right, the only option you add education was education, because he was saying, as your way out of, you know, misery and poverty, and so we all we all went to uni. And and so, you know, often our parents will be supporting more than one of us at a time when we were at uni. Um, so, yeah, you know, he just made us appreciative of the hard work the blood tears and, and all the effort that your parents put in. I remember one of the occasions I uni when my mom came to uni, and she came in to the, to the, to the auditorium, right? It was a huge class it must have been, I don't know 200 people in the in the in the auditorium and my mom walked down and came to the lecturer. You know, to ask for me, we're in the middle of the in the middle of the session. And, you know, I stood up because I saw I stood up and went to mom. Now usually when people saw their parents in that sort of environment, they will argue their parents, well, I just I just prostrated on the floor literally in front of large audience. Now this is how you greeted elders In in Africa, but you were supposed to do that at uni, right? You know, just because, you know, you know, to me, the thinking was, you know, these people are putting me through uni and she's left whatever she had to do, you know, just to come and see me. And so people started calling me mommy's boy at the time, I think, for a number of years at uni. But yeah, that just gives you a sense of how much I hold to, you know, to my parents.

Jason Butler 19:34
Interesting. I just before we move on the parallels with you know, we get a lot of young people for the hard done by with, you know, sort of uni and I understand we're in very challenging times for people graduating as my daughter is this year, but but that's one side. I've been around the world, you know, Australia, us, India, particularly. And, and actually our system here is kind of what I call a fake loan system. It's not really it's kind of like contingent tax, isn't it? And although you've got to pay for it, you only pay it if you actually earn it. But in Nigeria, as in many other countries, you know, the actual money that you incur if you do take on loans is money you got to pay back. Right?

Abraham O 20:10
Well, so first of all in Nigeria today, obviously, education is way more expensive. And there are no loans, right? Just they just aren't available. So you had to play through your nose, you know, during uni, and remember, I have the fortune of having gone to uni in Nigeria, and then, you know, here, having the experience to do my master's degree here, you know, I can't understand and again, this is gonna sound silly, but I can't understand why British people who go to, you know, do this and so on. We have friends. So we are friends and family members now whose children are going to uni, and sometimes they moan about the fees. I'm like, No, just take as much loose as you can. You know, the government. No, no, no other wants to take as much loans as you can, you know, if you succeed, which I hope you would, you will pay back. But you know, that's great. If you don't you never have to pay anything back. And international students who come here have to pay twice in some cases three times. You know what all students Yeah. So I don't understand what the morning is all about. So yeah, no,

Jason Butler 21:26
I think is important because it's not it's not alone. It was called alone by the Labour government, because at the time, they didn't want to be seen to be taxing people, but it's actually tax. So that's, that's one side. So you invested in yourself and then and then what brought you to the UK? What what, how did you how did that happen? Because that's a big step. Right?

Abraham O 21:40
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So I mean, I was, you know, I did okay, in school. I graduated with a first class in school. And I remember the time you know, so the state government was, you know, was given scholarships out to people who did well, and my dad went To get the scholarship, and I was just, you know, he gave it to me and said, you know, can you feel this form? And I was like, What is this? You know, they, you know, you never, I would, I never believed that this could be me or that they could give it to me you hear all these things, but I wasn't prepared to, you know, to, you know, hang my homework or anything like that on the government, you know, because I have seen so many letdowns throughout my life at the time, and so I didn't feel the form. My dad fill the form, submitted it and, and I got a call. So I was, I was in another state, I was in Niger state. So I was up north in different parts of Nigeria. So I was doing the National Youth Service at the time, and I got a call from, you know, from my uncle, my uncle was, you know, was in was in government at the time. Again, not only Political it was a it was a what you call them? Yeah. Right. And he said, you know, you've been invited for this interview and your dad has told me that you never really did that you didn't feel the form that he had to finally get your box down here and come attend the interview. And so I did. And and yeah, I ultimately got offered the scholarship. And

Jason Butler 23:26
yeah, that was to do the Masters in the UK.

Abraham O 23:29
Yeah, that was to do the Masters in UK So yeah, I arrived the shores of this island as I say, you know, some 15 years ago with a scholarship degree 300 pounds spending money from my dad. That was his entire life savings. And it isn't command of English language. Here we are.

Jason Butler 23:48
Yeah. So you arrived with you've got your degree. You've got the scholarship for the for the Masters, you don't get to 300 pound which is sounds like a lot of money 50 years ago for somebody in Africa, right? Yes, sir. How did you navigate like living costs and all that stuff? I mean how would you How would you coping with yourself and did you not spend a lot you got used to living quite frugal life or what?

Abraham O 24:09
Yeah, I mean it's a combination of things. So you guys depends depends from from the government so they paid your your school fees and they paid i didn't know i think it was several hundred pounds a month at the time and and yeah you know so you I got a job I got a job at Marks and Spencers got a part time job at the time you could I don't know it's probably changed now. You could walk 20 hours a week and and and continue your studies so that's what I did get a job at max and yeah, we didn't you know, we didn't spend it. I didn't spend a lot I lived in the university dorm throughout the in the dorm rooms throughout the period. He was in a lot of money if I can remember. I don't know. Maybe 300 pounds a month for the rent. And then you just have to feed yourself and get yourself to classes.

Jason Butler 25:07
And how did you change as a person when it came to because you're then mixing with people from all different walks of life? I mean, obviously lots of British but lots of people from all walks of life. How did that change your perspective on money success spending lifestyle did did that have an impact on you?

Abraham O 25:21
My year during the master's degree, change my perspective about money I was I was actually already, you know, if you like, bent on, you know, trying to do as much as I could do to succeed. I remember I you know, I remember that my, my, you know, again, forgive me, but I remember that my university professors didn't seem to have a lot of money either, you know, again, I know they got paid well, you know, because one of the paths that was before me at the time Was that I could go on and do a PhD and become a university lecturer. And so some sort of research or whatever, you know, but, you know, I remember going through this thought pattern and one of my professors at the time very great guy, you know, his name was Phil, really brilliant chap worked very hard, you know, but just looking at fire, you know, it's his lifestyle, you know, instead of say, Well, you know, the best I could do was to become feel which was to you know, essentially you know, get a job at a you at uni I don't know what they paid, you know, university recipe, but I remember thinking to myself, I don't want to do that. And I, you know, you still have, you know, at the time I had a lot of pressure from back home, not not not anyone pressuring you, but you felt, you know, I felt that I owed so much to my parents and My siblings and things like that. And there is no way in hell being a university lecturer would have helped me to fulfill that obligation in the way that I wanted to. And so I one of the decision that I made, you know, during the master's degree was that now I'm not going to go off and spend another three years doing a PhD, and, and ultimately to become a lecturer. I remember that was around the time that I made the decision to go, you know, to go into financial services. And I'd read a book very early earlier on in life in Nigeria at the time by Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and all of that was playing at the back of my mind. And so when I got here, one of the first things I did was to order the financial report, and by the way, I couldn't believe this was free of footsie 100 company and I remember this shift from free of charge. I don't know. I mean, that'd be too powerful shipping or something they shipped the financial statements of all the all the footsie 100 companies to to my, you know, university room at the time, and I spend nights poring through these reports you know, so that that was, you know, that was that would be probably the thing I took out of uni from a financial, financial literacy or perspective during that time.

Jason Butler 28:39
but what were you reading all these financial reports for these footsie 100 companies for what was the

Abraham O 28:43
because the Robert Kiyosaki told me to easily he said that essentially in his book that you know, rich people or rich dad taught their parents they taught their their kids about money, and they taught them to read financial statements. And, you know, so I just saw financial statements and started reading, you know,

Jason Butler 29:07
the balance sheet and profit and loss and cash

Abraham O 29:09
yeah balance sheet. But also, you know, that though, you know, you would have usually you would have a section by the company Chairman, and they will tell you what's going on in the business and things like that, and then maybe another session by the, by the CEO, and then the financial statements. So yeah, you know, I, you know, that was, I have to say, very, very useful introduction to, you know, the capital markets and capitalism and all that stuff.

Jason Butler 29:41
So you're obviously interested in this generally, and there was the weight of expectation and you didn't fancy doing Phil's job. Even though Phil may have been perfectly happy. It's important to say that you might see someone else does his role. They may not be unhappy or not unsuccessful in their own way because they'd love what they do and they've got enough there, they've hit the big time, but it may not be for you. So you think found your truth was not for a mixture of reasons wasn't following Phil. So you've got all these reports and then what happened? Did you after you left uni, did you have a job to go to or what?

Abraham O 30:10
Well, before I left uni, obviously I'd read all that stuff. And, you know, so I started researching how do you get into financial services? And, you know, one of the things that popped up was, you know, the, the, I think is called the Chartered Institute of Insurance Institute and, and various financial, you know, financial services organization, one thing led to the other I ordered while I was doing my master's degree, I ordered the first couple of, you know, financial exam, I think, is the certificate to financial services, something like that, you know, so yeah, I just, you know, I just started taking the exams you know, so I, by the time I had finished my Deanna remember my degree was, I think in the end took 18 months, because it was a research degree as opposed to the Masters was 18 months Indian because it was the research one rather than if you like, what's the other one academic was the word. But But ultimately, yeah, so by the time at the end of 18 months I had gone I had written, I had written you know, I must be five exams to get my certificates in financial financial service, I can't remember, you know, it was a long time ago, but that ultimately got me a part time job but, you know, with with Barclays and so I left my you know, I left my Marks and Spencers job after a couple of months. And yeah, moved on to work for Barclays, you know, so yeah. So what are you doing for Barclays then? He was just essentially customer service, you know, so we We're on the phone in Coventry and it's because I went to Coventry uni. And you know, you picked up the phone you talk to people about everything from credit cards to loans to, you know, business accounts, all these things

Jason Butler 32:14
around the front line, what did you say? I was gonna say what did you learn about money from having those conversations with

Abraham O 32:21
your customers, your mounts talking to people about money about you know, because you've got a variety of things here you got, you got to speak to people who had money problems, but also you got to understand the financial system quite a bit, you know, the credit, you know, the credit system, how, you know, we were, for lack of better words to to use, we were incentivized to sell loans and credit cards to people and you would see within the banking system how, how some people got approved for credit and not the others, and also equally when people have large amounts of money in their bank accounts. You will And spies to introduce them to, you know, to financial estates a financial advisors for financial sellers within the the business who will sell them investments. And so that was a huge you know, way of learning about a great way of learning about, you know, financial products and you know people's relationship with money and, frankly, that the banks treated people with money very, very different than they treated people without, you know, without money, you know, credit was easily available if you didn't need it, whereas, maybe not so much if you did, you know, or if you didn't at a very high cost. So, yeah, and you know, I mean, we can go on and talk about my perspective perspective about how some parts of financial financial aid This essentially credit cost you money when you need it. It's not so much. So

Jason Butler 34:04
how did that how did that influence your attitude to spending debt? investing cash? How did he influence your own feelings about money?

Abraham O 34:13
Well, I wouldn't say positively because one of the one of the things that one of the big, big, biggest mistakes in life that I made, was essentially thinking that, well, I understood the credit system, and that I could use that as a way to, you know, as a way to borrow money. And so, I went through a period where I borrowed more than my share of, of debt. You know, I just, you know, went crazy at a time because I felt Well look, I understand the credit system, I understand how, you know, how banks are printed. PhD loans and credit cards and things like that. And, you know, fairly into that era, and yet that borrowed too much money. I think I did point I was sitting on 1000 pounds worth of, of credit, and that was it

Jason Butler 35:16
what was that for to fund your lifestyle or buy something.

Abraham O 35:18
no I wish he was to fund the lifestyle. Yeah, looking back, essentially, I'd built my parents house in Nigeria, you know, so I borrowed so much money to do it more than I should have to do it. And that got me into really, really bad. Bad position financially.

Jason Butler 35:44
And that was because you felt a sense of obligation to pay them back.

Abraham O 35:47
Again, it wasn't it wasn't that it wasn't that they were asking me it was just that I felt I owe them to me so much and I do you know, and I just thought money to

Jason Butler 36:03
a slightly different you borrowed money to build an asset for your mum and dad so that's a bit different from just borrowing it to consume and go and parties and holidays but nevertheless you still you still borrowed more than technically you could afford really or you should have borrowed. Yeah. Okay, so let's tell us how long we thought his name What happened you because you didn't sort of

Abraham O 36:21
well when are we so I was at a backlist for free only month I don't know nine months or so. And by the time I graduated uni finished my master's degree I got a job at RBS you know so I moved back to RPS obviously on a on a better pay much much better pay and I felt I could have fought these looms when I did and you know so yeah, so I you know, I was essentially worked with with with RBS and the retail Investment Services and things like that. And yeah, do For a number of years, and then financial crisis came. So this was, I don't know, 2008 I was I was at RBS during the financial crisis 2009 2009 10 probably 11 as well. But, you know, ultimately, you know, one thing led to another and I lost my job. And that was when my folly in borrowing so much money became apparent because here was in 2000 was what 2013 2000 Yeah, 2011 I lost my job, I think, end of 2011 and I had this huge amount of debt that I add to that I had to find a way to service with no income. I just got in married at the time and I'm trying to think did we have a child at the time? No, we didn't. We haven't. Yeah, we didn't have a first child sign but

Jason Butler 38:11
so really what you what you have the issue there is people do start car finance and to bigger mortgage and all sorts of things that people don't realize if I'm going after savings, like a safety net if you lose your income through universal redundancy as people are finding now through COVID you're very exposed when you're you've got high payments, right?

Abraham O 38:28
Absolutely. Yeah. So I didn't have I didn't have car finance or anything like that, but he was essentially credit cards and loans and you're absolutely spot on. I didn't have emergency funds even though I you know, when I was at the bank, you know, you you know you I could have all I taught people to I said that the other people should I just I just didn't follow my own advice. And so yeah, that was Yeah, that was a premium bad and the economy wasn't a terrible situation, I couldn't really easily get a job.

Jason Butler 39:08
And how did you feel? Sorry? And how did you feel about you? How did you feel at that stage about yourself and your role?

Abraham O 39:15
Terrible? Yeah, he was, you know, you, you just, I felt like, I felt terrible. I felt like a failure. You know, the sense of, you know, accomplishment just became, you know, just went away, you know, the sense of accomplishment that I had to add, you know, for the, for the few years prior, just disappeared. He was a terrible, terrible time and I, I, you know, I made a decision, you know, to, you know, at the time that if I ever got out of that I never borrowed any money. I never bought a penny from Bank and so obviously I went on to pay back all of the debt. And I will never borrow a penny from the bank other than for a mortgage, which comes with the territory. But you know, things like car loans, credit cards, I've never used a credit card, you know, several years, maybe longer. I don't have a credit card. I don't have an overdraft. I just we, you know, we, we don't finance our cars, you know, we, you know, we just don't

Jason Butler 40:32
you've been reading my blog, I know, you've been reading my blog.

Abraham O 40:36
I I learned my lesson from that experience. Maybe you might argue, maybe even lend the wrong lesson because even in business, you know, I shied away so much from, you know, borrowing money and using overdrafts and I just don't. And so even recently when the COVID loans and things came out and people say well, you know My staff members, my team members said, Look, this is if you like, bounce back, and it's free money if you pay the baby back within a year and I'm like, No, Abraham's philosophy is never to borrow money from anyone. Yeah. So yeah, so,

Jason Butler 41:16
so it really colored your I mean, at that stage, you've probably felt some strong emotions you felt exposed, you probably felt a bit embarrassed or think and did that have an impact? Or how did that affect cuz you were newly married? And one of the things that happens in relationships is that when the wheels come off the bus metaphorically speaking financially, that can cause tension in a relationship, particularly in the early days. But did your wife just sort of have total faith in you? Or did you just did you sit down and figure out a plan or did you just handle it yourself? Or what because some people are still a bit embarrassed to share that, don't they? Because they feel a sense of failure and it affects their identity.

Abraham O 41:50
Yeah, no. So I mean, yeah, absolutely. So this the story for us was that you know, My wife joined me so came from from Nigeria and joined just about a few months before I lost my job. You know, so our, our perspective was, you know, these guys doing okay and things like that, only for how to come to the reality that no is not doing okay. I because I lost my job a few months after. And yeah, one of the biggest arguments that we've we've ever had as a couple was around that time it was about the money was essentially because my wife was pushing for transparency and for me to essentially let her know what the problem was or the depth of the problem. And I was resisting ultimately we got there obviously so we got to a point where, you know, I was you know, I was able to open up to her and she saw how bad things really were. And, you know, and we just walked together, you know, we just, you know, decided to we went through financial education program. I don't know if you know this guy called David Ramsey. David Ramsey is a financial. He is an American. So yes. Right. So he has a financial piece you cos program thing. I wish there's something like that in the UK. I know you've been doing a lot of work around this. You know, so we we went through that course. You know, we went through the program we wept together we cried and then we built a plan we said hey, we're gonna pay off the debt. We're going to work very hard. You know and and build our lives and you know, that's what we did. So did that bring you closer together by by being transparent and it made you feel that hang on I don't have to do this on my own. You're not an island did that did that that that was a the actual Absolutely, but not not before we that our own shall have. Yeah.

Jason Butler 44:07
But you know what? It's very, it's fair. I mean, really, thank you for sharing that because it is difficult to show vulnerability in these things, but but I know from my own struggles when I was younger, there's only you know, when I was straight with my wife, she just said, Look, we can get through anything, okay? But when you're trying to fight on your own, because you've got this sense of obligation, you don't let people down and you don't want them to think you're a loser and all that stuff. That's when it's hard, but it's not a lot easier if you're just straight with each other. This is where it is, this is the reality is now put a plan together, let's work together and then you can work as a team as opposed to fighting each other then you won't get the request for exotic holidays or a new car and all that stuff because your partner knows. Yes, indeed. And what were you doing work wise here? This is when you just started a new business, right?

Abraham O 44:50
Yeah, so he was around the time that I that I started my business so I started trying to lytic which is the consultancy firm. That But I founded in 2010 2012, I think, yeah. So as I initially and when I said I started, I mean, I put up a blog post, essentially just commenting about what's going on in the industry, but essentially I offered my services to, you know, IFA firms and, and product providers and platforms to to to do consultancy work of, of all shapes and forms.

Jason Butler 45:33
What did that mean? Oh, consultancy. It all sounds great. But I mean, you know, you were working at RBS before. And it's I mean, you just, you just rocked up and, you know,

Abraham O 45:42
yeah, I mean, yeah, it was a number of things. So for instance, for for financial advisors. The wall could range from anything to do with investment analyses. Product comparison advisors have to do Due diligence on products and you know involves you getting your feet into the details of our investment product walk and read in terms and conditions and trying to figure out if those products are fit for purposes and then fit fit for purpose and then writing a report about it for the most part so that's what I did mostly for financial advisors and then on the on the other side you've got product providers themselves they might want to benchmark their products against others in the industry you know compare and contrast how the seats compared to you know, their competitors okay.

Jason Butler 46:44
I get it so interesting for the purposes of our of our listeners is why quick to to do that. I mean, did you just you didn't do some great big analysis and spent 15 years training you just got to work right? You just you just turned up I thought, let's get cracking.

Abraham O 46:59
Absolutely. You know, at the end of the day, you know, a lot of this thing boiled down to English language and basic arithmetic, you know and so as long as you can do basic maths and you've got a lot of time in your hands which I had you know you can and of course obviously I had the you know, I had the Financial Services Training I think at the time I must be you know, be already chartered or close to being charted don't loads of exams.

Jason Butler 47:34
That's an important point. So you were continuing to take qualifications before this you were investing in yourself even though you didn't know exactly why you were always trying to get yourself the better version of you, right?

Abraham O 47:44
Oh, yes, absolutely. Yes. So during during my time at RBS, one of the things I did was to carry on the you know, the examination and, and qualifications and training. And so all of that became really Who and even after I left the organization that that continued that's a lot life long thing,

Jason Butler 48:07
but it's a bit like Gary Blair, the brilliant pro golfer, someone said to me was Gary you have a lot of luck he said you know what, the more I practice the luckier I get. And really that was you you were practicing before you needed it. So okay, so did that business go in a straight line and did you get shot of your personal debt really quickly did it or did it or did it take a lot of grinding work for two or three years?

Abraham O 48:28
It took a lot of grinding work as as with everything I think the first two years was only the first three years was essentially means creamy and and shouting on Twitter about everything that went on in the industry. I wrote an article on a blog and about me I think there was a time I was writing three blogs a week about anything and everything to do with you know, financial services or products or investments.

Jason Butler 48:59
opinion you may think Other people knew who you

Abraham O 49:01
absolutely, you know, I, you know, and you, you know, you build you build some credibility, obviously, while you're saying that to make sense, but, you know, you build some credibility I'm following through, you know, in the process and yeah, that that it took me It must have been, I don't know, two maybe three years to get to the point where actually the business was was making enough progress for me to hire, you know, hire my first my first staff member so

Jason Butler 49:35
when I remember you actually come in to interview me about seven years ago and I thought Who is this lunatic but heard that you be opinionated rent some blogs so this is an interesting takeaway for some of you out there who might be feeling imposter syndrome or feeling Oh, you're not ready or you're too young. You know, this guy was just a punk. I've never you know, I've heard it. He was a bit opinionated written some bugs, but he was a bit of a character and he approached me and said, Look, I'm doing this series of insights from people To tell you a little bit about how they got where they were a bit like we're doing now, right, but you did it as a filmed interview, and you turned up with all these cameras and a couple of feathers and all sorts of stuff. And it was a half the day, um, it was unbelievable. And I do remember I thought, well, this guy's got some front end, and you use those, you called them sort of insight videos, or if you use them to build your profile even more money, I never paid me a penny.

Abraham O 50:26
This is the thing, Jason, you see, what I realized is that, you know, you can go to any successful individual, right, you know, leaders of businesses, leaders of industry, if you go to them and ask them to, you know, spend some time with you to teach you something or to help you out. They might not respond, right. But if you went to them and I said yeah, and you say like I did to you and then to several orders and say look, I've got these podcasts or these, you know Do program thing that I am doing? I like to interview you talk about your success and your failure. I have never, ever once been turned down, nobody turns down No, I don't know, no successful person that I know. Tons down, I put an opportunity to share their knowledge to share their story or to to demonstrate their expertise in some sense. You know, they always always say it's a it's everyone including I went, I mean, I interviewed CEOs of, of platforms, big advice firms, even people that I don't you know, from a, you know, from his standpoint in the industry that I don't necessarily agree with with them and how they run their businesses. So what

Jason Butler 51:50
Katie Hopkins financial services My name is being proactive and reaching out and not feeling that you're not worthy. So So you built that business, you started that business tell us then, you know, what sort of bumps or highs and lows, you're out there as you're building that. And then and then what led you to the next fork in the road?

Abraham O 52:10
Yeah, I mean, obviously, the the challenge you had me, you know, you have with a consultancy business, in my view is that it's not very scalable. You know, you can't, I don't know, um, you know, maybe there are there are businesses out there that are doing consultancy, and it's in a very scalable way. But, you know, the thing ultimately, for me was that, you know, you you, you know, you get work by, you know, by creating a big content machine, a marketing machine. So you get work, what keeps coming back to you come in to you, you get to a point where a lot of work was coming back to you, but you have to, again, spend the time and do the work and you can't really Copy yourself. There are many people out there who, who, in my view, certainly want to, you know, do the kind of work that you're doing but but get paid significantly less. And so it was it was very finding incredibly hard to scale. It consultancy. I think at the peak of it we might got we got to, I don't know maybe 444 or five staff members, but he was incredibly hard to scale. And I'll def continued mode I've carried on. If, you know the idea for for timeline didn't didn't, you know didn't come up. And he did you know so in 2000 and I believe in 2015 the government introduced the UK government introduced the patient freedoms which was A new rule entirely on how people can access their their retirement savings and and, you know, essentially the the rule relaxed the procedures and, and give people access to their money at age, age 55 and I remember essentially writing an article again, everything always goes back to an article I remember writing an article about something called sequence risk, which is a type of investment risk, you know, that you have when you're making withdrawals from a from a patient port, and the article just went ballistic. I mean, you know, he started on my blog, and and he, you know, some of the industry publication, picked it up and they started, you know, reprinting it, and Aviva Aviva paid me 10,000 pounds to write a to write a website. paper on this, you know, which is essentially making my blog nicer. And introducing more visuals to it. I mean, this was something that I thought everybody in financial services will be familiar with these, you know, essentially we will move into a world where people for the most part, but an annuity when they go to retirement to an environment where they had to depend on their investments, and they needed that money to last a lifetime. So,

Jason Butler 55:32
essentially, sorry to interrupt just so everyone understands. So essentially, what happened is huge, huge spotted this opportunity where they change the rules meant people would just take their money out their pension pot, but you wrote a piece of thought leadership and you thought everyone knew about that highlighted actually, if you're going to take money out on a regular basis from your pension pot or an investment or if you've got stock market crashes like we've had now. This can be a really bad thing when you're taking regular money can actually cause you to run out of money and then you suddenly your world went berserk. ballistic because you pointed out the emperor has no clothes all right?

Abraham O 56:04
Indeed, I didn't, I hadn't stopped I hadn't spotted the unisport spotted the opportunity at the time, I was just writing what I thought everyone knew about. As as days and months went on, it became apparent to me that a well everyone didn't know about it because I got invited to every single conference to speak about this thing. And, and more importantly, that the software products that were available, still are available to financial advisors at a time when fit for purpose, they just cannot deal with this type of risk in any meaningful way. So the journey began to to create a software that dealt with this risk and and help financial advisors you know, manage that process. Have spending down retirement money more sustainably.

Jason Butler 57:05
So you basically as a result of writing about what you sort of seeing, you struck a chord with people, and then suddenly essentially, you you stumbled across actually and an unmet or, or call the market places or opportunity there that just sort of almost sort of fell into your lap ready, right.

Abraham O 57:23
Indeed, you know, so I mean, you know, the thinking was, you know, I would the process was, I would write this article, I'll put it out there. And then financial advisors reading, it will come back men will say, Well, what if you did this? What if you did that? Will that solve the problem? Will the problem go away? You know, and I would go back to my Excel which was becoming really, really big, you know, and I will tweak, make the tweaks that they've suggested, and I will go back and publish the results, and I would say, Well, you know, what, This idea worked. No, this didn't work. But every single advisor had their own sort of different ways that they did things. And so I thought to myself, well, what if I what I mean, you know, what if I put this Excel essentially, on a on a website, you know, for advisors to us, and somehow we find a way to charge for it. And that's how I found my, you know, my chief technology officer that go became my chief technology officer. So natural Z's software developers got introduced to me and I said, Not sure if I give you this Excel, can you build it into software that I can charge money for unnatural sets me Well, yeah, this will cost you 30 grand to build and I wagered at the time and I said, Well, if I sold this to, you know, at 300 pounds a year or something like that some ridiculous amount, a year, how many advisors can I sell it? And I thought, well, you know, maybe you could sell it to 100. And so I said tonight yeah, go ahead and build it. And and yeah, we build the very what you would call the minimum value, you know, minimum viable proposition or minimum viable product for what is now timeline and we put it out there sometimes in I think it was 2017 2000 you know, 2000 Yeah, middle of 2017 we

Jason Butler 59:32
there was a big leap of faith there to spend 30,000 pounds on a product that you weren't sure if people wanted even though you knew it was good, and you knew that there was a gap in the market. I mean, how did you just find out from your own earnings from your consultancy, right?

Abraham O 59:44
Oh, yeah, I funded the entire for my consultancy, but but it was it was a punt, right? You know, you say, Well, you know, how many people can I sell this to, if I sold it for 300 pounds, you know, only need to sell 100 and I will recoup recoup my money back within. Within a year he was his son, it was very silly, and very small way of thinking. But he worked, right. Except that, you know, as you know, with software, we got we got meaningful demand. Within a few months, I think we got to 200 subscribers. But then software requires more investment and more money to make it better, you get better ideas. And so he got to a point where I said to myself, Well, look, I have to, you know, look to, you know, for external, external funding. And I remember that I had some rich friends, including Jim cymbala, who could write a check for the, for the seed. So we went ahead and raised the seed, which you You let you let the round.

Jason Butler 1:00:56
I'll take over the story here for listeners because I think perspective What actually happened was, was Abraham you built this minimum product? And you proven? I mean, you had, I don't know, 80 hundred people were using firms and use. This is important, right? Because it's not, it's not how many initially is that the people were paying you for the product. So it wasn't hope value they were using, they loved it. They loved it. This is the basic product. Okay. And Abraham, you approached me, didn't you? And you, you said, Look, I I'm not sure what I need to do here. How about to take it to the next level? You didn't ask me for any money. And this is an important thing. If you are trying to take your business to the next level you you reached out to me and said, Look, can I attack your Can I just get your thoughts and ideas on how I could take this to the next level? And I think I need this sort of money and blah, blah, blah. You didn't ask me You asked my opinion before you ask for money. And of course, that was interesting because it enabled me to so luckily, objectively, I was just honestly trying to be friendly with you and help you because I love people to create value and build their futures and stuff. And that's great. And I knew you anyway, so. So for me it was about you. Let me Let me buy into the idea as opposed to you selling it to me. And there's a difference there letting people decide if it's for them or not. And then we we carried on negotiate and discussing. And then eventually we did do the seed round and we got you, you know, we got things tidy up. But again, the point was that you had the, you've got it moving, and you've taken the initial risk. And, you know, you know, the rest they say, is history, and you know, how many countries you're in now with that about six or seven? Sarah?

Abraham O 1:02:27
Yeah, the software is being used in seven countries right now. Yeah. You know, and he did it big parts of this, you know, so about 15% of our users are based in the US and again, you know, part of this came from connections that I had made in my in my blogging days, colleagues that we only Microsoft, you know, so I, you know, like, I didn't meet you I met a chap called Michael kitsis. And Michael z, you know, is a thought leader in the US. Oh, yeah. He said charisma. Yeah, yeah. And again, when we, you know, when when we put the software, you know, first initially for UK advisors, Michael saw it and they said to me, Abraham, I think there's a demand for something like this in the US as well. And so we say, Well, why don't we create us vashon of the of the of the software, but you know, things have evolved massively from those early days. And we now have 20 people at a timeline, we've now built what is a very powerful, you know, retirement platform being used by some of the best and the brightest financial advisors out there. And

Jason Butler 1:03:42
I'm interested to know how your mom and dad view you currently because you are an entrepreneur, and your story is not finished journey, man, your late 30s, aren't you? I mean, you know, you're not finished, and you just keep started. So how do your mom and dad take that little boy from the religion wherever it goes? northern Nigeria, but how do they How do They see you now.

Abraham O 1:04:02
I don't know how to answer that question. I mean, you know, I think that the, the, they've always, you know, seen me, as you know, as someone who wouldn't take no for an answer would also to get, you know, to try to accomplish things in life. And I don't think that has changed that much. Obviously. The pressure to that there's a lot of pressure, you know, to in the early days to, you know, to go into the professions, right, doctors, lawyers, these are people that tend to be very to be held in very high regard. Professionals tend to be held in high regard by by sadly my my parents, I think a lot of that's just disappeared, you know, they've they've come to the to The, to the ashim acceptance that, you know, is trying to find a different path. And I suppose that's a good thing.

Jason Butler 1:05:13
Notice this list this little boy from Northern Africa, you know, who didn't become a doctor or a lawyer, and he's trying to change the world, you know, one financial planner time, which is great to know you, you are successfully making sure that you're a seven figure investment in your business, which is now taking it to new heights. So I think you know, I think the boys don't quite good, but there's still, you're still still plenty more to see. So before we wind up, bearing in mind, you were very gracious and open about your struggles some years ago and you got yourself into a bit of hot water financially to help your mom or dad out but what's your sort of final things you want to leave people with is just just little bits of wisdom or nuggets about your journey of money that you want to share with with the audience.

Abraham O 1:05:57
I mean, I see money As you know, a if you like call it a reward for insights in your opinion and your point of view in the world and the way I think, you know to do that is through entrepreneurship is through creating businesses and trying to deliver the best service or the best product that you that you can. And for me money is just really something that comes as a byproduct of that. I think if you you know, work hard, never take no for an answer. Ask for help when you you know from people, when where you need help and look to give back. I think, I think money you know, money will will follow suit, you know, I hope he does, I think Money Follows that, that that process you know, so That's essentially how I think about money. I try as much as I can, again, people, I think from a wealth creation point of view, I think generation suddenly the younger generation, I don't know whether I'm young, but my generation focus too much on things like, you know, the stock market is not by far, the biggest thing that you can do as far as making money is concerned is to know how to earn it by, you know, creating businesses or, or finding a career niche where you could be of service to other people, as opposed to spending huge amounts of time just worrying about you know, the stock market and things like that. That's how I think about, yeah, that's how I think about money.

Jason Butler 1:07:49
When you are in the top 10 richest people in the world just remember your own friends.

On that note Abraham, it's been great, Abraham Okusanya the CEO founder of Timeline app, which is an amazing piece of kit. And entrepreneur extraordinaire. Thank you very much for your thoughts and your time.

Abraham O 1:08:11
Oh, thank you. Thank you for your time, Jason, you're very kind.

Jason Butler 1:08:19
Thanks for listening to Real Money Stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai