Hello! Who are you and what product are you building?
My name is Rachael Aiyke, and I am a freelance expert and research writer. I am also the founder of Ariesphere Inc., a platform dedicated to bridging the gap between talent and opportunity.
My product focuses on providing experienced freelancers with remote job opportunities that pay well in dollars. Living in Nigeria and being able to earn hugely in dollars are literal goals, and that is my commitment to freelancers.
How did you come up with the idea for this product, and what problem were you aiming to solve?
As I said, the problem is simple. There is a lack of jobs in the country, especially remote jobs. Think about trying to transition into freelancing. They need good jobs to make it work their way—jobs that pay well in dollars, not naira, which we all know is devalued.
In 2023, I started working on Upwork 2021, and I was constantly getting myself jobs. Then, in late 2023, a friend reached out to me. He needed me to help him get jobs on Upwork. He was like, "Okay, you're getting jobs for yourself, and I don't have time to do it myself. Can you help?" That was the first time I helped someone, and I got them a gig in three weeks. Although it was just for $300, their Upwork account had been dormant for about two years.
But that was not when the idea clicked for me. I had to replicate it up to five times with five different people. The first person was a software engineer. The second person was a real estate Airbnb co-host. The third person was a writer. The fourth person was a customer service rep.
So I had to ensure that the results that I said were going to be the backbone of my company were replicable. When I did it, I kept doing it until late July 2024. By then, I had up to five people whose Upwork accounts I was managing. They were making money off it. I was making a lot of money off it also. I also had research papers to write because I'm a research writer.
Before I started managing Upwork accounts, I was a research writer and a data analyst. I had research papers. I had other jobs that I was doing. Mind you, managing people's Upwork accounts was something I was doing as a side hustle. But it was paying me more than what I was doing full-time. By the time I spent all of my day managing people's Upwork accounts, I didn't have the time to write research papers. I love writing research papers. I also love managing people's Upwork accounts. That was where the conflict started.
How do I sustain this in a way that I am able to keep generating revenue for myself and solve a problem for other people while I'm at it?
The problem that I noticed was that the people coming to me to help them manage their accounts either didn't have the time to do it or didn't know the best strategies to get results. That was the beginning of seeing that problem.
Then I reached out to some of my colleagues who get jobs on Upwork. I asked them, based on their experience, "What do you think about Upwork? Do you think it's a platform that freelancers can get really good jobs from?" I listened to a couple of their responses and then decided to give it a shot.
Then I set up the company. I knew that if I wanted to employ more people, I needed them to be serious about the product I was building. So I decided to formalize everything, print the services, and as I brought more people in, I made sure they understood their roles.
For the first two weeks, I took time to properly onboard them. Yes, I still supervise them.
Give us a step-by-step process on how your service can be accessed.
First, send us an email ([email protected]) or reach us on any of our social media platforms. Our services are available on all our social media platforms, right down to WhatsApp.
When they reach out, they receive an automated response that says: "Thank you for contacting Ariesphere Inc. Please go through our catalogue to familiarize yourself with our services and let us know how we can help you."
Once they review our services, they let us know how we can assist them. If necessary, we get on a call to clarify their needs. That's how they can access our services.
How did you land your first customers?
The day we launched, we got a client referred to us by someone whose Upwork account I was already managing before the launch.
In the space of 10 days, we secured a $900 gig for that client. They started with us on the 13th, and by the 23rd of September, they had their first gig.
How have you grown your business so far?
I have been self-funding. I don't have any investors, not because people aren't interested, but because I want to do it myself. When I started, I was working other jobs and using that income to fund the company—to pay salaries and handle all expenses.
The plan was always to build something sustainable. I gave it three months to start funding itself. If the business couldn't cover salaries and other expenses without bleeding, I knew I needed to reassess.
That doesn't mean I haven't had to invest some of my personal money from time to time. I document every loan I give the company. I separate business money from personal money. Since the first month, the business has been able to sustain itself, and we've made consistent profits every month.
I eventually had to leave those jobs because I wasn't able to pull it off as efficiently as I could. And a lot of people told me it was a bad idea. Luckily for me, I made it work. Have there been bad months? Yes. One month last year, we barely made enough to get by. But that was the only month like that.
For marketing, we started with educational content to build a community first. We wanted people to come to us because they trusted our knowledge. Then we shifted to showcasing client success stories. We also run Facebook and Instagram ads and host free monthly webinars on freelancing tips.
Through these efforts—emails, webinars, social media, and referrals—we've grown significantly.
Give us a breakdown of your revenue and financials.
In the past five months since launch, we have generated over $7,000 in revenue. The first month, we made about $1,000, and since then, some months have been higher, some lower. We've been able to get jobs for freelancers worth thousands of dollars.
What does the future look like?
As a business, the future looks like creating a product like Upwork, right, that people and freelancers can get jobs. It's a product that has a section for the community; we are building a freelancing community. So, yeah, that's the future for Ariesphere.
I can't go into details on the app and the components, but that's what the future looks like for us. We want to ensure that there is a seamless experience for every freelancer, with no hassle at all.
Financially, I guess something desirable, like, you know, when they say, what does the future look like? You want to give an estimate, like something desirable in the future, right?
Yeah, like 1 million dollars. For this early stage, something desirable would be $5K to $10K a month.
Three most important things you have learned that have been helpful to you since launching this product?
The first thing is the most expensive, which is marketing. Marketing is the most important and the most expensive because it matters how people perceive your brand. It might not matter right now in the first month or second month, but in a year, it's going to matter. In two years, it's going to matter.
I also learned about managing people. When I was starting out, hiring people was easy. You tell them to do their job and they do it, but actually managing people—if you want to do a welcoming organizational culture in my company, which I try to do—you actually have to manage people.
The management aspect of people is very tricky, but it has given me a much wider insight into people: how they respond, not just people being my staff but people being my clients, how they respond, and how to speak to them and all of that.
I have also learned that you do not do something as a business if there is not a solid plan for how that thing is going to make money for itself. It's something I knew theoretically before starting out, but starting out has put it more into practice for me.
If it's not something that is going to make you money, then it shouldn't be a business in the first place. I mean, it's funny, but a lot of people do that a lot, and I don't know why they do it. You start a business and two, three, four, five months in, there is no single profit, and you can’t keep funding it all along. I know that the beginning is difficult. It's supposed to be difficult and maybe a bit slow, but not stagnant, not stuck.
So:
Marketing—very important.
Don't start something that doesn't make sense.
Managing people.
Those are the three things that I have learned so far that have been very helpful.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to build their product or already started building?
“Just start.” Yeah, it's very motivational advice, I know. But if you keep waiting for the perfect time, the perfect thing, it's not going to come.
If you've seen other businesses and they're doing really well, or you see other people who are doing really well, you don't have to dwell on it. So if you have an idea, you can do it. Don't wait for the perfect thing.
I had an incident when I was trying to fix my logo. There were some issues with the design. The design was not perfect. It was good enough, but it wasn't perfect. And I'm a perfectionist. So I kept stressing about it for days. I kept stressing about it, trying to fix it. But it still wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be. And I just went ahead and fixed it along the way.
Yes, looking back now, I go through my social media company’s pages—like when we just started—I see some of the designs and I can see the growth between then and now.
I can see what we could have improved then. But we wouldn't have known what we could have improved then if we hadn't just started. So if you have a product or a business, you can just start. Good enough is good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you want to learn about me, you go on Rachel Aiyke on all platforms: