By Ian Ortega
How We Built an Online Community, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly.
It was our vacation, we had a lot of free time to us, we tried to apply for jobs, and we were turned down. Perhaps we were more of liabilities to the companies. But we needed some things, we needed to attend house parties during our vacations, we wanted airtime money, we wanted to buy many things on our own. I could not ask mum for money to call Sarah, money to take out Lorna and money to buy Bridget a birthday gift. And with this, we decided to build a community.
General Sweetman as he was, and is still called became that popular guy who joined his own family with mine. Because I naturally become friends with smart guys, I found myself befriending this guy that I had never met. Together, we decided to never disagree, we had a strategy, we had goals in my mind and we also hinged mystery to it.
We joined Facebook groups but we also created them. We had accounts for specific purposes but we also had our own lives on specific accounts. We just wanted to own social media and build communities (wonder when we shall ever begin our own social media network as we had promised).
But the real turning point began off with creating the first relationship groups on Facebook. When our relationship group went up, relationship groups cropped up all-over. I don’t want to go further about relationship groups because we are not proud of the routes we paved at the start that today have gone into unimaginable things.
Then we joined a certain ‘Hackers’ group known as TechWeKnowit. The main people over here included senior hackers like Joseph Ott and Mohammed Escobar (one of the baddest blackhat hackers I have known to date). There was the cult leader―Wills Jojo. He even organized awards for the most active group members (the awards never happened), Escobar came in all the way from Kenya only to realize that Wills Jojo had played on our minds.
Because Sweetman and I were not ready to keep quiet, because we had a strategy to lead and build communities, we began speaking out. We complained about the massive lies going on in these groups, about the so-called programmers who were not helping us have better lives online, we complained about the hypocrisies and for the group, those days, No one could attack the god and be spared. We were booted out, permanently banned from the group.
In the next few days, Sweetman and I were the attacked members of the online world. We were isolated, we even regretted why we had attacked this god aka Jojo. We even apologized and we were never forgiven.
Soon after, Escobar was fired from the same group, he began another group and we joined thinking we would have freedom of speech over here. When we began opposing Escobar, once again, we were banned.
Dictatorship was eating up these groups. We could not stomach it. Why did some want to have a god-like nature, a cult-like group?
From then on, I swore to Sweetman that never again shall we ever join a technology facebook group. We decided, that we were to build our own group (mind you, I was only 17, Sweetman, about 18 at the time).
We began “Technology wizards” and we committed to being the most liberal but also, the biggest technology group on Facebook (of course we were in 2011-2012), I am not certain of the current year. We were about improving lives using technology. We had plans for a technology supermarket, aka Technoid (beginning this before Jan 2015), we had plans for a technology wizards academy (where hackers would be trained from), we had plans for all sorts of apps, e.g an app to show whether your girlfriend/boyfriend really loves you, we even had our own inventions, a bluetooth charger and a share-charge app, where someone could share battery via wireless to top our your own battery (until physics proved us wrong, but we were young, we were growing).
Then, the biggest turn-around happened.
There was a certain guy we had to deal with immediately. As far as our intelligence reports showed, he was responsible for blocking all the free internet tricks we kept on discovering. Because we were so obsessed with making lives easier, we had discovered proxies, VPNs and many other ways to get free internet.
In fact, our next project was a free airtime and free DSTV. For airtime, we had begun designing the airtime pin-code generator specifically for MTN. All that was left was about analyzing these MTN scratch cards and knowing the sequence MTN followed and we would have been good to go.
But like Sweetman said, we had a spy among us. He worked for MTN. He never used to post any trick in the group but he seemed to be the one responsible for having our loopholes blocked by these telecom companies.
And the culprit was one devil, “King Brian”.
Our mission was to hack into his account, hack into his company email address and use this loophole to disorganize MTN.
Back then, we used to take revenge so far. So Sweetman began warning King Brian in advance. The battle lines were set.
Well, we blocked King Brian from the group, he kept pleading (according to reports), was allowed back. But this guy is cunning, he came up with a big idea to cool our egos, we could work on projects together and one of this would be a website.
That’s how BigEye.ug was born, credit me for suggesting the name, credit Sweetman for choosing the name and credit Brian for the real idea. But credit Ian and Brian for all the struggle, hardwork, sleepless nights in the past one year and a half of running BigEye.ug.
Oh, credit that guy, Salim Segawa for working tirelessly like a Japanese horse (do they exist?) and sharing in the vision. He’s now off with his own blast online.
And as such, for King Brian who had been one of the people in our black-books, he became the best business partner. He was that guy who Ian delegated all his worries when the website went off, he was the guy who had all the sleepless nights during the many times we kept on being hacked, and for this case, he became kind of robotic so, the creativity was heaped on Ian.
Ian was to come up with not less than 10 articles a day. He had to write, he had to market.
But from the start, beginning BigEye.ug was not about us, it was about the online family. It was about building a community. That explains why, within 2 months of beginning, we became the first Ugandan website to be ranked among the top-ten in the history of Ugandan websites.
We did not employ any hidden tricks, we did not buy traffic, we just did it for the people. We let the people own bigeye.ug. It was never about us, it was about them. Everywhere, people would be recommending BigEye.ug to friends by word-of-mouth. We never spent a penny on marketing. We were building a community. That explains why we don’t call them fans on our pages, we call them the Big Eye family.
And 2 weeks back, when we began BigEye Rwanda, we knew the community had been born. Our eyes opened, and we began seeing BigEye Kenya, BigEye Nigeria, BigEye South Africa. And with the major countries of Africa getting covered, we also began seeing the Big Eye awards and the Big Eye Group having companies like the BigEye clothing line, BigEye bikini bars, BigEye records, BigEye Institute of online entrepreneurs. It was now no-longer a community, it was a movement, it was a revolution, a dawn of a new era.
Having begun BigEye.ug when I was a mere 19 years, I probably became the youngest Managing Editor in the history of Uganda ( at least, Charles Onyango Obbo agreed with me).
Today, I want to let you know, that we never did it for the money. If it was the money, we would have quit in the first 3 months. It was about passion, it was about creating and delivering value (ohhhh, even calls from female musicians).
And since the advent of BigEye.ug, Brian’s glasses have gotten smaller, his head has gotten bigger and his eyes have gone on to emulate the Big Eyes. We have since then, gone on to join illuminati (at least that’s what inboxes say to me basing on our logo and name).
Well, if illuminati means light, then we have shone. We have gone on to take the Ugandan entertainment industry to another level as we promised and the influence has spread to Rwanda with BigEye.rw.
The secret was in building a community, letting people own the whole project, making noise about the name, choosing the right name for the business and getting off our butts and actually taking action to look for adverts, to fire and hire.
It was passion, a burning desire, being excited by ventures in the unknown and going to bed every single day knowing we had done something, we had written an article that made the Ugandan Information Minister rush to comment (remember Facebook being banned in Uganda rumour, remember the Juliana marriage rumour, yes these were all factual stories which went so viral, though I am glad my Juliana is still waiting for me).
And to the great team at BigEye.ug, always emulate Salim Segawa (not his rat-beating skills) but his passion, emulate Stuart G-Khast (not his dreads) but his hardwork, emulate Brian (not his fake name) but his leadership skills, emulate Ian (not his pick-up skills) but his creative outlook and his dream-big, act-big and one thing, “Keep your friends in business close and your business enemies closer, you need to be able to monitor their steps, don’t ask why Hipipo owners are my good friends, we need to monitor them closely, they may misbehave).
To the great writers; Hood Lighta, Ian Nkera Ford, Joab, Isaac Mites and to the number one fan, Gloria Drake (one day I will kiss you for being there for us right from day one).
The visionary staff like Edwin Jr. (wonder what his son will be called, Edwin nursery?)
And to Salim Segawa (as long as you let me take your sister, I don’t mind about what you do, just keep succeeding, it makes me happy).
And to the community, to the family, to the revolutionaries, to those crazy misfits, the ones who abuse us, hate and love us in equal measure, to the followers, to the commenters, to the surfers, to the pigeon pegs in square holes, to the BigEye.ug that’s our story in summary.
My book: “The Virgin of Online Business” has the full story, begin saving to buy it. And to God, I don’t care whether you exist or not to some people, all I care about is that I pray to you and I see mountains moving.
To mum, thanks for liking the page after a long struggle. And to my Brother, you inspired me, to my two little sisters, if you behave well, you may get a chance to write for BigEye.ug To Rwanda (we have come), to Nigeria, kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and Ghana, prepare for this new Big Eye wave, it’s sweeping all-over Africa.
And to some crazy guy called Joash Yose (you are silly), thanks for being the Ugandan version of Richard Branson and steering the Joashian Group.
To my great friend, Francisco, you deserve a special long-note of thanks. That was my story, that was our story! Don’t believe King Brian’s story, he copied mine.
On a serious note, King Brian aka Brian Mugisha, you are the bestest CEO ever (but please drop your glasses, girls don’t date nerds in glasses). And like my profile pic shows, we are taking a leap to the sky, going where no one has gone before.
“Ortega Group, Big Eye Group, Frian Group, Joashian Group” defines everything about me. And to those who think we are quitting, count that out. We are through this till our death-beds. We shall not stop till the world begins talking of the King Brians of America, the Ian Ortegas of Brazil.
All we ask of the big eye family, tighten the belts and let’s take the greatest ride of ‘wows’.
To get in touch with Ian Ortega
Email: Ortian@gmail.com
Twitter: @lnot
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ianort
Mobile: 0788551121