My business success story began with Microsoft – game developer
Introduction
Abiola Olaniran is my name and I am the chief executive officer of Gamsole, a mobile game apps development company that currently develops games for Windows phone mobile and Windows 8 PC. Our games has over 9 million downloads around the world.
Success story
My success story will not be complete without acknowledging the support and mentorship of Microsoft Nigeria and I am amazed at what the right support and mentorship given to the younger generation can do.
I started coding at age 15 and later went to university to study Computer Science. With my mentorship through one of Microsoft’s finest developer platform evangelists, I became part of Microsoft Student Partners. In 2010, together with my team, we won the Imagine Cup national finals in Nigeria and went on to represent Nigeria at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Finals in Poland. From then, I have been able to develop myself to become an entrepreneur to reckon with in the technology space.
Inspiration
While growing up in Nigeria, I was always going to the Microsoft office to get support from the evangelist. This is something you don’t see on other platforms. I got involved with Microsoft when a couple of technology evangelists came to my school, and the interaction with them led me into taking technology and software programming seriously.
First of all, Microsoft developer tools have the best support and online developer community. Hence, learning any of these tools is very easy compared to other platforms. As a student, I was very surprised at how fast I was able to learn frameworks like XNA game studio and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). In this age of rapid innovations, a developer must go with a technology that is not just fantastic but also easy to learn in order to move ahead of competition.
Upon graduation from the university, I founded Gamsole and I have been developing games solely for the Windows Phone store since April, 2013. Recently, Gamsole added 19 games from creativity to casual games to its inventions and has on its stable, 36 apps.
About Gamsole
Gamsole is a leading gaming company in Africa. We create fun mobile games for smart phones and distribute them to users all over the world. Our goal is to make games that are fun to play, plain and simple. Each game offers a wildly imaginative and irresistibly fun game-play experience that appeals to gamers of all age groups.
The company also develops feature phones and has in its employ close to 20 employees. Today, I am an inspiring story of a young entrepreneur of African descent from Nigeria to the rest world.
Milestone
Abiola’s company has been able to reach a milestone of over one million downloads on their games, barely three months after launch. He has won several recognitions, with some of them being the 2010 winner of the Microsoft Imagine Cup software competition in Nigeria.
Kabelo Makwane, managing director, Microsoft Nigeria, elated by this celebrated Nigerian entrepreneur enthused that, “In Abiola’s case, if we can inspire, if we can enable, if we can support more of this kind, I see we can begin to make meaningful impact.”
His mentor at Microsoft Nigeria, Shina Oyetosho, now director, Developer Platform, who is passionate about start-ups, has this to say: “I discovered Abiola and his innovation at a very early stage and I figured that this is someone I can help grow. With good mentorship, I imagined what he would be in two years. The two years is now.”
Dele Akinsade, Server & Tool BG Lead, Microsoft WECA, Microsoft Nigeria, explained that “the fact that a story like this could come out very quickly from a student to a business owner is something that we are proud of collectively as a company. I am also very proud of the fact that he is now seen as a mentor to others as well.”
Ali Faramawy, corporate vice-president, Microsoft MEA, said: “Abiola is an amazing example of the Africa that we want the world to know about. He is young, he is creative, he is ambitious and he is very, very hardworking. Abiola is Africa.”
In an interview, Abiola has this to say to upcoming developers: “Have a good understanding of what gaming is about. Master the code properly, master data sketching, then everything will be in place because, as soon as you imagine a particular scenario, it makes it very easy for you to tackle the problem and then solve it.”
OLUYINKA ALAWODE