Finally Have My Evidences, Kindly Review

Hi guys, it took me six months to get to this stage, and I’m super excited to move to the next stage.
I have up to 11 pieces of evidence, 3 recommendation letters and my personal statement.

Back story: I started my journey in tech as a web developer in 2012, then I went on to found a web hosting company in 2015 which I later transformed into a infrastructure-as-a-service platform in 2019. After managing the business for three more years, I pivoted to product management, and co-founded a Crypto technology that lets users trade coins using a peer-to-peer system.

Outside of my daily work, I founded a social-enterprise to mentor developers and business owners via Meetup events. Since it started in 2020, more than 200 mentors have benefited from it. I have spoken at tech conferences, had interviews and am currently mentoring developers.

My skills include: Product management | Linux server admin | WordPress Dev | Digital Marketing | Database Admin & PHP Programming.

Application category: Exceptional Talent

Here’s the order of my documents, kindly review them;

Recommendation Letters
RL 1 is from the C.E.O & Co-founder of a Fintech (payment gateway) platform in Nigeria. He has years of technical (programming) and business experience before co-founding the fintech platform.

RL 2 is from the Head of Innovation of a a Fortune 500, S&P 500, and Forbes Global 2000 that provides wireless communication services, fibre and data centre hosting.

RL 3 is from the growth manager of a unicorn fintech platform in Nigeria with over ten years in digital product management

Personal Statement
Up to 999 words; 60% of which talked about my 10 years background, 30% talk about my plans for coming to the UK and 10% talked about my contributions to the UK’s digital economy and future plans.

Mandatory Criteria
MC 1 - I led the growth of a product-led digital technology company; an infrastructure-as-a service platform. I used my technical, business development and digital marketing skills to chart and execute a five year plan.

Evidence includes: screenshots of revenue, bank statements, customer reviews, Google analytics, photos of brand ambassadors used for campaigns, Trello board (KPI & team management), Facebook Ads results, news clippings from industry-related blogs about the company, and a reference letter from the new C.E.O talking about my impact on the company’s success.

MC 2 - I led the growth of a social enterprise; I built a platform that was used to raise millions of Naira to provide palliatives to the poor during COVID-19 lock-down.

Evidence includes: A screenshot of the platform showing my work, news clipping of the platform and its impact, search clipping showing my work, and Asana tasks.

MC3 - Expert role participating on panel & mentoring; I participated in a panel session for a Microsoft sponsored social-enterprise demo day, and mentored their interns afterwards.

Evidence includes: Reference letter from the social-enterprise C.E.O., photos of me at the event, news clipping acknowledging my contributions and interns placement letters

MC 4 - share ownership of the company I co-founded as evidenced by Incorporation certificate and prospectus

Optional Criteria

OC 1 - Evidence of innovation/product development; Crypto exchange platform I co-founded and product managed its development phases. I described how I used design thinking and research to innovate how traders using the platform can deposit and withdraw without direct bank transfer/card to the platform.

Evidence includes: news clipping from industry-related blogs, screenshots of the platform showing user traction and design interface, and PRD I created for product development.

OC 3 - I led in the development of high-impact digital products; I used my technical and product owner skill sets to lead a team to build an eCommerce app.

Evidence includes: screenshots of the PRD i created, the group team i manage, bug reviews I found, my wire-frame design adopted in the app, the app launch roadmap I created and app store links, and a reference letter from the product manager.

OC 2 - My work outside of my immediate occupation that contributed to the advancement of the sector
i. I founded a social enterprise in 2020 to mentor developers and business owners through Meetup events. So far, 15 events have been organised in different sectors including A.I. Robotics, Cybersecurity and Digital marketing with over 500 collective attendees.

Evidence includes: Facebook link to live stream with 1.8k views, flyers for events, photo ops and news clippings for events organised.

ii. I spoke at a tech and leadership summit, manage a Facebook community where I teach WordPress Development and I was interviewed by a social-enterprise to speak on tech for nation building.

Evidence includes: Video clipping from YouTube, Screenshots of the community Facebook group, letter of invitation and links to recorded sessions.

Kindly share your opinion please.

1 Like

:muscle: :muscle:
I can perceive endorsement already

But you’re to pick 2 OC

In the OC3, you need to specifically state the impact of the things you did.
Please take note

OC1 needs to show you (not team) specific contributions to the innovation

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Same here. You are already on the right path. Just go for it

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Thank you @Dare_Ayanwale and @Yusuf_Adebanjo for the comments.

I have aligned what I have from OC3 to OC1. I reworked it to showcase my innovations during the product development phase.

I have also added one more project under OC1 - a Blockchain & IPFS powered web hosting platform I founded in 2018. Though the ICO didn’t go as planned. I included it in the evidence.
I also included the tokens I minted on Waves Blockchain, Whitepaper and Newsclipping.

That’s three pieces of evidence for OC1.
I hope this solidifies things?

I suggest you let your evidences be able to answer the following explicitly

MC

  • Keywords leadership is important in your letter. If you led, let it be unambiguously stated. Those are likely keywords they’ll be looking for
  • How you led (not just contributions but leadership)

OC 1

  • How is it an innovation
  • What specific role you played (not team) in the innovation
  • evidence of product development/product in market

OC 3

  • What you did
  • How it impacted
  • Metrics of the impact

Or how you meet the details in the evidence example in the criteria examples

However, on the other hand, I’d recommend you read the TN guidelines multiple times more to compare the context of your evidences.

How many evidences and what ratio are you using

PS: this is just my opinion, don’t take it too seriously

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@Yusuf_Adebanjo…this is a good observation.

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@akinolaking I suggest you include pictures and graphs with a reliable data source as part of your evidence.

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I think focusing more on your background doesn’t help as it simply means you will be repeating things they can already find on your CV. You need to dwell more on what you plan to do for work, outside work and why you have chosen the UK. What informed your decision to come to the UK or the region you plan to live in the UK. As for your evidence i still think you have some missing piece. If you are choosing innovation, what is your proof? For impact, what metric are you using to demonstrate impact and do you have reference from a cofounder, partner or customer to affirm your impact?

3 Likes

recommendation letters does not count as your number of evidences so you can add up to 10 evidences but supporting letter counts as part of evidence.

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Hello everyone, thank you for your responses and guide.
I realized I’d missed out some pointers from TN website.
Here are the adjustments I made;

@Francisca_Chiedu Here I adopted a storytelling approach, narrowed my background to 28%, why, what I’d be doing, and my contributions to UK’s digital economy to 58%, and 17% are focused on where I’d live and why, and what I’d be doing outside work.

I added a Jira board link and an Excel document of products I’d develop in the UK, and it’s linked to the WHY in my personal statement.

For this, I added more evidence; this time, I focused on tractions; Article of association, Revenue projection, Financial transaction (which wasn’t much since the platform is in beta), and Google Analytics. I also tied it to the WHY in my personal statement.

@Yusuf_Adebanjo Here I repurposed the evidence to OC1 and specified my role as a product owner.
Since the product is still in beta, I included Apple Test Flight screenshots and customer test feedback and emphasized my contributions such as PRD, my design sketch, debugging & QA Testing.

Additional OC1 evidence. This was a Web 3.0 initiative I founded in 2018, similar to fleek.co.
Proof of product includes an exchange link to where the project crypto token was trading, White paper, Reddit & LinkedIn announcements, and evidence of ICO listing on Coingecko.com.
Due to financial and technical reasons, the project was discontinued in 2019.
What do you think guys?
@Shola_Solomon @Dare_Ayanwale @Susan_Ikegwu

With the adjustment and approach, you have used and all the relevant supporting documents you have made TN’s decision easy and straightforward in your favor.

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Well done Mr Akin.
Above, I’d advise you let the letter above be about leadership, not impact. MC is about leadership,not just impact

  • If you were the co-founder here, why not let the page of shareholders and their shares be there too, this may then make your showing of fb ads relevant (as I don’t think FB ads is the work of a tech person), showing proof as a major stakeholder may put it in better context

  • And overall, pls be mindful that the evidences should point to you, not the company (eg you stated the news clip is about the company)

  • I will also advise you leave a space in the 3 pages for context explanations, in order to explain the evidence better

MC 2: does the social enterprise has anything to do with tech?
Even I used social enterprise in my application, and I’m hoping that TN don’t have issues with that, cos the social enterprise is tech product led, but the benefits are not tech focused (like humanitarian services)
Hope the social enterprise you referenced has something to do with tech (whether the product, or the objective)

OC1: really can’t recall how the guide put it. But hope you provide a context of why what you did is actually an innovation, does the news clipping acknowledge the concept as innovative.

And it will be good if you clearly state your role in the innovation clearly

Please let the letter talk about impact with the metrics of the impact.
OC3 is majorly about showing the impact and it’s metrics (not really about leadership)
Good that you stated the things you did (the bug review, app you created…) The letter should be lavish about metrics of the impacts of the things you did

Conclusively
My observations so far on the various applications feedbacks I’ve seen and TN guidelines are:

  • In MC, focus on proving leadership record with your evidences (don’t confuse it with impact and innovation) and letters in this category should not assume impact means leadership

  • In OC1: focus on the innovation (proof how it is innovative, and show your specific role in the innovation)

  • In OC3: focus on impact (impact may be related to leadership but is not necessarily leadership) let evidences show the metrics of the impact.
    Saying the things you did without it’s metrics may not be solid enough.

I am not endorsed yet, I may be incorrect in the points I stated, it’s just my thoughts having seen various cases and based on my understanding of the guide

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Hello everyone,
Thank you for your contributions, I have gotten my endorsement as Global talent.
My Visa was also approved.
Thank you :cowboy_hat_face:

5 Likes

Wow… Great news…
So happy for you
All the best in the subsequent stages :muscle:

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Congratulations! How long did the stage 2 take after your biometrics? I’m assuming you applied from Nigeria, do correct me if I’m wrong.

@Yusuf_Adebanjo thank you.
@Olubunmi_Fajuyigbe Thank you. Yes, I applied from Nigeria.

Stage 2 took me 7 working days (I didn’t apply for priority)

Interesting! Thanks for your response. I did my biometrics on Tuesday in VI. Fingers crossed then.

Nice, I’m wishing a speedy response.

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Thank you very much.