Are these evidences good enough for a promise?

Stage 1
1

Hello Everyone,

I really must confess that this forum ticks all of the boxes for what an ideal community should be. A big shoutout to everyone who has been contributing selflessly to help other people.

I currently work as a product manager for 2 companies in Nigeria: I’ve been at the first company for 4 years and the second for 10 months. Now I’m looking to apply as a promise.

My first company raised over 300k seed funding in 2017 and was named among the companies to inspire Africa by the British stock exchange in 2019
My second company raised $1m in seed funding in 2020

I’m about to start my application and would like your honest feedback regarding my application pieces of evidence:

  1. I have my personal statement already drafted
  2. I have my CV updated
  3. For the 3 recommendation letters, I have the following options:
  • The current CEO of my first company
  • The current CTO of my second company
  • The COO of a fintech company that raised 150k seed in 2020
  • The former CEO of my first company who’s now joined the board and founded a new startup
  1. My criteria pieces of evidence are as follow:

Mandatory criteria

  • You have held or hold a significant expert role participating on panels …: I was part of the panel of judges at the 2018 and 2019 editions of Naija Hacks, a hackathon that tries to provide solutions for Healthcare, Agriculture, Business Development, and Employment. It had over 1000 participants. I have the certificate and email snapshots from the organizers.

  • Letter from the CEO of my second company mentioning the impact of my contributions to the company’s growth.

Optional criteria (I’m going for 1&3)

For OC1 (demonstrate that I have a proven track record or examples of innovation in the digital technology sector)

  • A news clipping by Disrupt Africa, announcing the launch of a product I managed for my first company
  • A letter from my first company’s CTO attesting to the contributions I made managing this product

OC3 (demonstrate that I have made significant technical, commercial, or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as an employee)

  • I led the marketing of the first company as the product marketing manager in 2018&2019 which helped increase revenue by over 25%. I have screenshots of Facebook ads and the company’s total revenue for the year
  • My employment contract detailing salary
  • A document detailing my employee equity option

I really would appreciate your feedback on:

i. Which 3 among the 4 people would you suggest I pick as my references
ii. Do you think my criteria are strong enough for a promise? If not, please help suggest possible ammendments.

Thank you as I look forward to your usually helpful comments!

2

Your profile look good for promise. However, you need to present your case well. First your recommendation letters are mostly from companies you have worked, I think you should add external recommenders. Your immediate employers are best for work references.

For optional criteria I, did the news clippings mention your contribution or its just about the company? I also don’t see how the news clipping and just reference letter is enough to prove innovative.

3

Thanks for your detailed feedback, @Francisca_Chiedu

Regarding the recommendation letter, I’ve reached out to a potential replacement.

And for the OC1, No, the news didn’t mention me. Therefore, I’d substitute the evidence for the wireframe and product requirement document I created for a new product we just launched since innovation is the focus here and not necessarily impact.

What do you think?

4

I think that’s still not sufficient to prove innovation, have you compared your evidence with examples shared by Tech Nation? What’s innovative about your product, is it a new field or concept?

5

For the product mentioned inside the news clipping, did you build the product? the the news mention how innovative or impacts the products made? You will need to explain your role and what you did on the product and how innovative it was.