Interview with Ugochi Owo - CEO of Flindel

Ugochi Owo talks about the importance of building friendships instead of transactional business relationships.

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Guest - Ugochi Owo
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Episode Transcript

Carl Grant (00:00):
Welcome to Rainmakers. I'm here with Ugochi
Owo, CEO of Flindel, welcomeUgochi

Ugochi Owo (00:15):
Hi, it's good to meet you.

Carl Grant (00:16):
Yeah, well, you're not just meeting me we met last
week. And boy, did you make animpression on me. So Ugochi is
not your typical guest. Most ofour guests are, you know,
professional services, businessdevelopment, people rainmakers,
but the Ugochi is anentrepreneur, a young
entrepreneur, who's, what areyour three years int o this

(00:37):
business? Ugochi.

Ugochi Owo (00:39):
Yeah,

Carl Grant (00:40):
Yeah. Alright, so first, I want to, I want you to
talk a little bit about yourstartup, and then I'm going to
talk about why we're featuringyou on rainmakers. So if you
could tell us what it is thatFlindel does,

Ugochi Owo (00:53):
for sure, Flinto were a prop tech startup focused
on automating commerce returns.
Basically what that means isthat we make it possible for you
to return anything from anystore, whether it's a brick and
mortar store, like a Walmart orTarget or an online store hosted
by Shopify, right from yourhome, free of charge and get
your money back within 24 hours.

Carl Grant (01:12):
All right, alright, something I definitely want here
where I live. So hopefully, I'llbe on your shortlist. So, so the
reason Ugochi is on here is wemet last Wednesday. And to be
honest with you, I had I had aphone call with her put on my
calendar, I didn't really knowhow it got on my calendar, who
got GE, and I'm coming back froma lunch late, I've got too many

(01:35):
things scheduled as usual. And,and so I'm like, I'll just call
in, and I'll do an audio zoomcall and, and you came prepared.
I mean, you, you you, you madean impression. And you had me
hurrying back to my likecomputer screen to get online
with you to see who this personwas who was impressing me on the
phone. So it gottschee comes offvery impressive, obviously knows

(01:58):
what she wants to get done,knows who she wants to get it
done with and then you don'ttake no for an answer. So you
started talking to me aboutpeople from Uber and Facebook
that you had involved with yourcompany. And I hope you'll share
with us about how you go aboutgetting these, these prominent
people involved with yourcompany.

Ugochi Owo (02:21):
For sure, I think like for every entrepreneur, or
even human, like you justshouldn't be scared to reach out
to people. Because you neverknow, like, everyone's looking
to share their stories. Andeveryone's open to talk assuming
that you're human, and you'renormal, and you're not a
transactional person. So for me,growing up, you know, my family

(02:42):
was really, really big ondeveloping friendships versus,
you know, developing these likeodd transactional, you do this
for me and expect something inreturn type of thing. And when I
was building Flindel, like inthe very, very, very beginning,
when it was just like a littlebit of any idea, I wrote down
the skills that I like we'regoing to I was going to develop

(03:03):
along the journey, but I didn'texactly have in the capacity
that I wanted to have at thattime. And I wrote down the
different companies that I'dlike want those people to come
from. So for example, withlogistics, I'd written down Uber
with, you know, like marketingand e commerce space, I've
written down Facebook, and so onand so forth. So I really just

(03:24):
reached out to these people andkind of like ping them until
they responded. And they did andthen we chatted and it works.
But I think like a really bigthing is that a lot of people
now are generally just hesitantabout like just reaching out to
people because you never knoweveryone's doors open. And
you'll never know until youactually knock and try. I mean,

(03:45):
there's haven't been a situationwhere I've asked somebody to you
know, whether it's to have acoffee or to just like chats,
learn about their experiences,I've been turned down to learn
about someone else's experience.
So I think it's helpful forpeople to just be super
shameless in the way that theyapproach people.

Carl Grant (04:02):
Alright, but I gotta get you to talk about some of
your shamelessness. Because youraverage entrepreneur, I don't
think we do this, they send anemail, the email doesn't get
replied to you say, Oh, well, hemust not be interested or she
must not be interested. And thenyou go, you move on, right? Is
that what you do?

Ugochi Owo (04:18):
No, heck, no, heck, no, I will. I will email you
again. If you didn't respond,because like even with me now as
the company's grown to this likepoint, you know, if someone
emails me, I might see it in myinbox. But then by the time you
know, the whole day hashappened. I just forget about

(04:39):
it. And if you email me again,I'll for sure see it again and I
feel bad, and then I'll respondor if it happens a third time,
I'll feel bad and I'll do thecall. So like, having that
understanding and understandingthat. You know, like in the
beginning of my sort of journey,I yeah, I used to take a lot of
things personally so meaningbecause I I'm younger in my 20s.

(05:01):
And then at that time, I waseven younger. And I, I take
everything personally because Ithink like, oh, man, this was
thinking because they think I'mlike, you know, uncool or I'm
lame, or I'm this or that, butreally the person might just
mister email, and they mightjust be busy. And there's no
harm in asking you again orsaying like, Hey, I sent you
this note 10 times, what do youthink? And you know, as long as

(05:25):
you're not being annoying, I wasnever annoying, but I was pretty
persistent. So if I wantedsomeone and they were on my hit
list, not like not that kind ofhit list, but to target and so
hopefully be able to spend sometime with us. And I will be
really persistent around it.
Because, you know, again, youhave to, there's a place in the
Bible talks about like, ask andyou'll receive, but it literally

(05:47):
says, keep asking, and thenyou'll receive because if
somebody is coming to yourhouse, and then they knock on
the door and say, hey, you'relike, Hey, can you can I borrow
a cup of sugar? At like twoo'clock in the morning? I'm
gonna answer the door. But thenif they keep knocking, you'll
just you'll open the door and belike, Dude, what do you want?
Like, how do I make you go away?
And it just kind of goes on fromthere. So that's what I was

(06:10):
really big on was just, youknow, like, if I really, really
want to get to know someone, Iwould make sure that at least I
had the opportunity to be turneddown versus never, there's never
been a circle back.

Carl Grant (06:22):
What what are some of the things you might say, to
get that meeting as you get tothe third email?

Ugochi Owo (06:29):
I'm just like, I It depends, because for me, it
never really got to a scenarioof super, super, super, like
persistence wasn't getting tolike the 10th email. But if it
got to a third email, and Ididn't get a single response, I
mean, I might send it atdifferent points in the day.
Because I mean, there's periodsI know like on Mondays, for

(06:52):
example, my inbox gets crazy.
And people email me all theserandom weird things. And then
the real emails that are theremay just get lost in the
inbound. So I might email themon a Saturday, I might email
them on a Sunday, because he'sgoing to email you on Sunday, no
one where may email them, I getup really, really early in the
morning. So I might email themin the morning so that it's like
what they see in their inbox.

(07:14):
Because I've also noticed thatother people get up around not
the same time because they getup around three, but they other
people get up around like six orso. So they will see it and also
just not being not writing anessay, I find it was helpful. So
for me with myself now ifsomeone writes me like their
whole life story, I probablyread like the first two three

(07:37):
sentences to see what they'resaying. And then if nothing has
been made, then I might justsay, Okay, I'm gonna catalog
this into my brain for later andI'll respond back like weeks or
months later. For me, like Iusually keep my emails down to
like five or four or threesentences, so that when I do the
follow up, it's easy for you toskim through the email
understand exactly what thisperson is reaching out for. So

(08:01):
it's not like the life story oflike, Yes, I was born and raised
in Houston. And and thishappened and that happened all
all leading me down the road. Sotalking to you know,

Carl Grant (08:12):
Well, I know you do wake up at 3am I tested it the
day after I met you. I textedyou 3:30 and he texted me right
back. I'm like, oh my gosh. Solook, you didn't tell me this,
but somebody else you talked toyou told me that that your
upbringing played a big part inwho you are today and how you do
things. So how were youchallenged growing up and tell

(08:34):
me a little bit I know nothingabout your upbringing. Except
that you I think you said youyour family's originally from
Nigeria and then you move toCanada, I then you move to
Houston. But other than that, Idon't know anything about what
you learned. But I know you'redoing something right. So tell
me

Ugochi Owo (08:51):
for sure. I was wondering for Houston, and a
town called Sugarland. I didlive in Canada for a couple of
years on Toronto, before comingback to Texas. But growing up my
dad was pretty senior a shell.
So he did all like their HR forShell, Nigeria. And my mom was a
pharmacist. And you know, theyhad a really, really strong work

(09:11):
ethic because it came fromliterally nothing. So for them,
they had like strong drive thatenabled them to be able to live
the lives that they live today.
And when raising us, you know, Ihave four younger siblings, and
we're like a family of seven andtotal five kids, and sold and
I'm the oldest and raising allof us. My parents were really

(09:34):
really really big on creatingsomething for yourself. So
meeting my dad would say like,if we've given you a silver
spoon, you need to turn it intogold like this. You guys this
house all this, this is mydream. You are living my dream
by virtue of being my kids, butyou need to create your own path
and find your own selves. So asa kid, my dad would drag me to
his meetings, and I hated itbecause when nine year old wants

(09:57):
to sit with a bunch of frumpyadults and take notes And it
taught me a lot because I got tosee him like negotiate in real
life and see kind of like thatbe exposed to that business or
from a really early age. Butthen like growing up, the way
that my parents ran, our familywas very similar, very
unconventional, and super, I'mprobably gonna replicate this in

(10:18):
the future when I have kids, butmy family and my dad would like
hold annual New Year's meetings.
So my mom and my dad, every NewYear's, as long as I can
remember, on, you know, January1 off of the Happy New Year's
like in the evening, we all haveto get together and put down our
plans and our goals, like ourresolutions for the year. But
the difference between my familyand other families is that my

(10:38):
dad will hold quarterlyquarterly meetings to see how
far we were with our goals. Soif your goal, for example, was
to get like, I don't know,straight A's, but he says this,
and you'd say be specific, you'dhave to say what percentage you
want to get. And then you know,quarter one comes, what are your
grades? Like, oh, it's notthere, why aren't they there?

(10:59):
How are we going to be betterfor next quarters, that's how my
dad would run the family. And mymom will make a sign like
contracts, you know, aroundgetting things. So for example,
if we wanted to get like a newlaptop, or a new TV or anything,
we're never really denied of anyopportunities growing up,
because our parents expose us toso much, but they make us pitch

(11:19):
like we'd have to put togetherlike, a presentation around why
we want this laptop, or why wewant this like new phone or
blackberry at the time, or youknow, and then we'd have to sign
a thing that's like, I'm goingto clean my room, I'm going to
do this, and my grades aren'tgoing to suck, in order to be
able to sustain that. So growingup, I did not get it. But as I
got older, I did understand youknow why they did that I'm

(11:43):
super, super thankful for andthankful for the exposure at
such a young age, because it ledme to being super disciplined
with the way that I live mylife. And from getting up in the
morning, people think that Ijust randomly happen to get up
at three. But really, my momwoke us up at five every single
morning, growing up, so to beable to have family devotions.

(12:03):
And so just kind of spend sometime together before school and
everything and touch base. Soour family and the upbringing
that I had, and the exposurethat I had, from an early age
definitely did help to instillin me, a confidence that I find
is missing in a lot ofentrepreneurs, because you have
to be confident about yourselfand about your business and

(12:25):
knowing who you are, but thenalso helps you. It helps to put
life in perspective for me at anearly age. So for me, growing up
having been exposed to thoseenvironments, I know that I
don't get intimidated by people,like ever. And then I also know
that, like, even if things seemsticky, or like they're not
going to work out, I remember myparents story and how they

(12:46):
literally came from nothing. Andthey knew what it took to be
able to have that determinationin life that says I'm going to
get out of this situation, I'mgoing to do better for myself,
I'm going to do better for mylike future generation and
everything. And for me, they didall of those things to be able
to give me the opportunities andaccess and everything that I
have at this particular point inmy life. So why not? You know,

(13:07):
why not be greater? So that'skind of how I see it,

Carl Grant (13:12):
You exude confidence. And I knew from the
moment I heard you, and then Isaw you that you would be
successful. And I spotted you,you know, I and you never know,
is it? Is it this particularstartup, I hope. But if not
this, I know you have somethingright? Like you are somebody
that's on my list of risingstars. And I want to be not only

(13:33):
do I want to be your friend, Iwant to be in business with you.
I want to be associated withyou, because I know you're going
places. And so that's exciting.
And I don't say that abouteverybody. I mean, I meet 1000s
of people, right? And you know,so it's funny that you tell me
the stories about yourupbringing. I wasn't quite as
regimented as your dad. Andmaybe I've slacked off as I've
gotten five kids as well, youknow, but the first one, when he

(13:54):
wanted to buy, he wanted to buya truck. I wasn't really down
with the truck. But but but I heneeded to borrow some money to
do it. So I wrote out a loandocument for him and he had to
work and make payments. And hestarted this at a very young
age. He started working at theage of 12 at a job, you know, so
and then then he he was a hunterand he wanted to own guns, you

(14:15):
know, well, if he could ownguns, his rules, right. I was an
army officer. So we had astandard operating procedure
that was based upon what they doin the military. And I'm sure
that stuff drove him crazy. ButI look at him today. And he is
somebody who would do those samethings in more probably with his
with his kids. So, look, youknow, the apple doesn't fall far

(14:36):
from the tree. And well, Ididn't do five in the morning. I
didn't do five in the morning.
devotionals I did do do mydevotionals at dinnertime. So
yeah, yeah. Well look, what 15minutes is flown by with you for
a young person who maybe doesn'thave all of the you know, not
everybody comes from a twoparent family that needs it.

(14:57):
Five somebody hears this andthey say, Well, I want what she
has, what advice you have toget, give them, you know,
starting from where they arenow.

Ugochi Owo (15:08):
Um, what I would tell people is just to believe
in yourself, like literally justyou have to believe in yourself
and you have to believe insomething like you need to be
confident in what you're doing.
And I'm confident in yourability because in this
industry, especially people willtry to, you know, put you down
and make and make you secondguess yourself and everything,

(15:29):
but if you know who you are, andif you have the confidence and
believe in faith that everythingwill ultimately end up working
out even during the suckymoments, like you'll be okay.
And if you believe in yourself,because confidence is really the
key to everything. Anddiscipline is also really,
really important because thenyou start to send that email and
you won't be nervous for thatmeeting. Because you know, that

(15:51):
even if it's not this meeting,that'll work out there's a
meeting down the line that'llend up working out so that's
what I would tell people just beconfident. And you know, email
people.

Carl Grant (16:03):
Ugochi Owo, CEO at Flindel, you're an inspiration
marker named down, she's goingplaces. Thank you for joining us
and Rainmakers. Like what youhear please subscribe. Please
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