Clooper is a web-based property management app that simplifies and improves the experience of owning, managing, and living in a rental property, as you’re probably aware.
Clooper was founded by Toks Adebiyi. The idea was to alleviate the hassle of going back and forth to complete the end-to-end journey of renting or managing a property by connecting landlords, tenants, homeowners, and tradespeople to make their lives easier.
This isn’t to say it hasn’t been a bumpy ride, but with Co-founder Matt Wilson and Nagawa Lule also at the helm, creating this home-centric platform has been a roller coaster ride with lessons that are evident in everything this brand is creating.
If you ever have the opportunity to work at Clooper (and everyone deserves the opportunity to work in a company like Clooper, btw), you will notice that it is first and foremost a healthy environment of professional people from various ethnicities, cultures, and genders. This is intentional.
This startup is rapidly growing, but there are intentional elements put in place by our top gladiators that are assisting growth and may help you in your quest to launch your own startup.
Toks Adebiyi — Founder, Clooper
- (Laser) Focus
It goes without saying that entrepreneurs should be focused on specific goals (which includes raising capital, developing a good product, and scaling). As a founder, I had and still have to juggle many competing priorities and everything always feels urgent! However, nothing is as urgent as meeting the needs of your customers. This is the core purpose of your business and should be treated as such.
2. Team Spirit and Culture
Nobody can do it all by themselves. I value collective achievement over individual achievement. I’ll give you an example: everyone on the team played an important role in our fundraising campaign, and we went above and beyond to meet our goal. When we needed to make a campaign pitch video but didn’t have the funds to do so. Everyone on the team put their heads together, shared tasks, and created a brilliant video that I would not have been able to create on my own.
3. Employee Satisfaction
This is important to me because I am always interested in companies that have high employee satisfaction. I advocate for a healthy work-life balance. I want to see employees thrive both inside and outside of Clooper, and if they go on to become something great outside of our company, we will be very proud to have played a role in their success.
We are one of the few companies that actively encourage our employees to pursue interests outside of their regular work, i.e side gigs.
4. Flexibility
I would also encourage flexible working hours and locations. Because of individual circumstances, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Covid-19 has demonstrated that remote working can be just as productive. I have worked at many large and medium-sized organisations and now realise everyone is much more motivated and passionate when they are given the flexibility to thrive.
Matt Wilson — Co-Founder, Clooper
5. Don’t Panic
With such a rollercoaster ride, it taught me that it is absolutely necessary to keep your emotions under control. It’s all too easy to panic, to get off track, and to fail to accomplish what you set out to do.
6. Adapt
It is necessary to learn and to learn quickly. You must be able to adapt your skillset in order to fill gaps in the team and produce things that are unfamiliar to you, but to the best of your ability.
7. Give It Your All
It is necessary to work hard and give it your all, or else it will fail. Every member of the small team must give it their all, and rely on one another to accomplish a lot with a little.
8. Motivation
Team members must constantly motivate one another and keep the banter going!
Nagawa — Head of Marketing Strategy & CSR
I started assisting Clooper with marketing after Matt joined.
9. Collaboration
Clooper has taught me that when resources are limited, collaboration is even more important. Working as a team allows you to come up with better solutions than working alone. We collaborated to improve the website before bringing on our brilliant UX/UI Designer Sara to take it to the next level.
10. Thinking outside the box
You can overcome major challenges by thinking outside the box. Constantly learning new skills and staying abreast of the latest developments in other fields allow you to think outside the box. This is how, with the help of our wonderful intern Becca, we were able to create the video required for the crowdfunding campaign ourselves.
In the short video below, Toks shares even more tips on how to successfully ride the emotional highs and lows of being an entrepreneur:
