Tope Awotona: The Journey of A Nigerian Billionaire Tech In America

Nigerian-American Tope Awotona, one of the two black tech billionaires in the US, created the scheduling app calendly. An app created out of exasperation when trying to arrange meetings with numerous people.

Awotona’s solution has since gained millions of users world wide and is valued at a massive $3 billion. However, Awotona’s success did not come overnight. He sold his home and car to create calendly. And he accredits his achievements to the lessons learned from previous failed establishments including a dating website and a home and yard equipment platform.

Before founding Calendly, Awotona tried his hand at several entrepreneurial ventures, including selling projectors, garden tools, and other online products. However, these efforts didn’t bring him the success he sought. His experiences in these ventures taught him valuable lessons about failure, persistence, and the importance of focusing on problems

Despite contacting over 100 investors before receiving his first round of funding, he carried on, and his grit paid off when when OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq capital invested $350 million in calendly in 2020.

His Background

  Born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1982, Tope Awotona was raised in a middle-class family. His early life was marked by tragedy when his father was killed during a carjacking in Nigeria. Despite this life-altering event, Awotona found strength and motivation to succeed, which fueled his ambition to move to the United States when he was a teenager. He attended the University of Georgia, where he studied management information systems, combining his passion for technology and business.