It is just about time: “Calendly, a scheduling automation platform that eliminates the hassle of back-and-forth emails for finding the perfect time, has recently acquired Prelude, a technology company that offers a better hiring process.” There is a reason for that: Calendly is on the path to IPO and needs to ramp up revenue from other verticals besides scheduling. Founded by Nigeria-born Tope Awotona, Calendly is the world’s largest scheduling ecosystem with a market cap of at least $3 billion. 

Speaking on the company’s latest acquisition which happens to be the first acquisition ever, CEO of calendly Tope Awotona said “As the market leader in scheduling automation, Calendly already sees millions of interviews and recruiting-related meetings scheduled via Calendly every month. Together, Calendly and Prelude will enable organizations of all sizes to streamline the coordination of every interview scenario.

“More comprehensive recruiting scheduling is just one piece of the puzzle that Calendly solves. We’ll commonly see a few individuals in an organization begin to use Calendly for specific and sometimes more complex use cases (such as shortening time to hire), then much more usage of the product begins to spread throughout the organization as various teams recognize the value of automated scheduling.

“Organizations that implement Calendly throughout multiple departments within the organization — e.g., sales, customer success, marketing, and recruiting — realize the greatest value, since they can scale quicker by benefitting from a single scheduling platform with the ability to standardize it across teams,”

Watch out – there is a major disintermediation here: why use Calendly to schedule a meeting for Indeed, Zoom, etc when those things can happen in Calendly? By next year, I expect Calendly to add a fintech solution. Why? “Fintechnolization”  which I posited that “every digital platform must have a maturity state of offering a fintech solution”. Yes, it is a prediction and it will happen. Congrats to Tope.

Looking at Chinese digital platforms (Tencent, Alibaba) and US counterparts (Google, Facebook), my conclusion is this: every platform will become a fintech company at the end. So, I do want to see how Tekedia would become an investment club, a lending ecosystem, etc, at the lowest marginal cost, to members and readers in the ecosystem.  This construct tracks the recent trajectories of Facebook and Google. Alibaba and Tencent have validated my thesis as I have studied their evolutions and revolutions in the markets.

Let me wish Senator Tinubu a quick recovery if indeed he is sick and flown to London. As he recovers, I want to use this moment to challenge the presidential candidates to commit to upgrade at least six teaching hospitals (one per geopolitical zone) to the standards they have seen in London and Baltimore. 

Many years ago, I met a Nigerian president in the hallways of an American hospital in Baltimore.  I was spending time in the medical school as part of a course titled “Surgery for Engineers”’ where they were teaching us what doctors do in operating rooms, and how we could learn from those experiences, to design future medical devices. We did thoracic, abdominal, etc surgeries on pigs – and tried some devices on them.

People, a huge president was normalized. He was just like everyone! And that was the intriguing part. What could have prevented him from upgrading the Aso Rock clinic or the general hospital in Abuja? 

President Buhari missed the opportunity to use his London hospital journeys to do something in the broad healthcare sector by uplifting at least one clinic to serve his immediate needs, even if the common man and woman may not register in the policy document.

Our journalists must draw attention to Nigeria’s healthcare system and make it part of the core pillars of this election season; health is wealth.  Many Nigerians in the diaspora want to return home but the fear of living in a country with a sub-par healthcare system scares! To Senator Tinubu, wishing you a quick recovery.

Comment on Social Media Feed

Comment: I think the wish isn’t well-meant but rather a mockery. I thought professors believed in evidence. Tinubu never told you he is sick; his doctors never said the same. So why the pettiness and mischievousness. Focus on issues Prof.

My Response: If we wait for everything written on the pages of newspapers to be certified by doctors, engineers, presidents, etc, we will not have any press. When the news broke, I did not write it hoping that his men will fight the news. But since they did not, it is fair game to give credence to the news. 

If you travel to London, no one cares.  If I travel to Turkey, no one cares. But if you want to run over 210 million, you expose yourself to this scrutiny. Politics is a contact force; do not join if you do not want to be hit. Tinubu is a citizen and we want him to recover if he is sick. But Tinubu the politician has zero right to control what people write about him as he seeks high office. I have never written about his health. But I will continue to write about going to London, New York, etc by politicians for medical.

When VP Osinbajo went for surgery in Lagos, I did not write because it was not news. He is a human. But if he had gone to New York, you would have read a piece on it. I have no time for Tinubu’s health but I have an issue on this London thing politicians do.

If he goes to National Stadium right now to hold an impromptu rally, the news will move. There is no sentiment on this.