If you’re dead set on bringing a new concept into the world, you have to know when to listen to experts, and when to follow your intuition. 

I’m not suggesting you build in a vacuum. What I am saying is that not all feedback is worth your time, particularly if it’s laced with narrowmindedness, biases, or straight-up bigotry. 

Today, I’m sharing Deka Dike’s path to building a startup helping elders safely age in place. Her path is equal parts innovation, self-reliance, curiosity, care, and the willingness to reject “authorities” who didn’t have the capacity to see her brilliance. 

Some playbooks and perspectives need to be punted—that’s how disruption happens.

With love, 

Dave

“You don’t fit the profile of someone in this industry. You should make your service more ethnic.” 

Until that moment, Deka Dike held her tongue around industry leaders offering unsolicited advice. That day, she stopped kowtowing and took a stand. That day, she took her rightful place as an industry disruptor.   

But let’s rewind. At 28, Deka moved to Tracy, California, from Nigeria, with $30 and a lottery green card to her name. 

She took a job as a bank teller and he swiftly rose through the ranks, becoming a VP in 18 months. 

In 2018, she went on to get her MBA. While earning her degree, she went on an immersion trip to China, where she had a life-changing realization: Due to China’s one-child policy, taking care of seniors was a major challenge, especially for people who were also raising their own kids. 

Having had to help her father remotely from the US during the end of his life in Nigeria in 2011, she knew the pain of caring for an elder family member acutely, with the added challenge of doing it from a distance. A fire was lit. She would solve this problem in the US.

While continuing her work as a banker, Deka started building Omatochi (a portmanteau of her two daughters’ names) to provide “peace of mind and social engagement to seniors and their families.” 

She quickly realized that the ideal solution was not a tech company but a combination of tech and human care: “Facebook plus Kaiser.” 

She put everything she had into building the business and joined an accelerator program during the pandemic. She did this while raising two kids under six who had to be schooled from home and keeping her day job as a banker. She worked harder than she ever had. 

Of 1,300 accelerator applicants, 24 graduated. She was one of them.

In 2022, Omatochi had twelve clients and was honing its model. Then something big happened: California launched a framework to transform Medi-Cal with the goal of improving lives while reducing costs. With the recognition that 10% of the population represented 80% of the costs, a service like Omatochi would have a profound impact. The state was spending money to address a problem that Deka was already solving.

Deka’s company was now being asked to support 1500 clients….to start. 

She left her banking job to work on Omatochi full time. As the business grew, she encountered her fair share of naysayers who said things like, “This is a terrible idea. Too much liability,” “This hasn’t worked in the past,” and “You should just focus on the tech so you can raise money.”

In each case, she listened politely and tried to take something of value from the feedback, even though she knew in her heart that it was often misguided. 

That was until the “ethnic” comment. She finally lashed out with the earned fury of someone who came to this country with pocket change and more drive than most people will ever understand. “How dare you!” was the short version. 

“I’ll try to get something from the feedback. But I will not abide dream-killers,” she said. 

Deka stopped thinking of herself as small and started building the future. And she’s doing it, not only financially but according to her principles, which include a culture of individuality and self-expression. No one who works with her will take abuse either. 

Every day, she is “blessed with” emotional stories of families connecting with (and saying goodbye to) their elders. She is fueled by love and purpose, creates through curiosity and drive, and channels the fierceness of a warrior when it’s needed. And along the way, she went from industry outsider to industry disruptor. 

She took what she needed from the “system” and left the rest. 

That’s what it means to be a founder. 

Listen to Reignition 

The audio version of Reignition just dropped! Recording the book was a labor of love and a lesson in voiceover production.

Word to the wise: avoid trail mix. 

Listen here!

Thanks so much for reading. If you know someone who would benefit from this content, please send it their way with this link.

With Love,

Dave