An entrepreneur rising

It's Chidiebere "Chidi" Iwuoha's senior prom and he's standing on the stage, waiting with bated breath with his prom royalty peers for the announcement of who will be crowned prom king. For a moment, time stands still as he looks out into the audience at his well-dressed classmates he's spent the last four years of his life with. He looks to his left and then his right, surrounded by the most popular kids in school and thinks, "Wow, how am I up here?"

The UAA senior, double majoring in business management and marketing, said it was a pivotal moment because as the announcer read his name aloud and the crowd erupted into a cheer, all he could think about was the 11-year-old boy in fifth grade, who was 300-plus pounds, and just how far he'd come from that boy.

Chidi graduated this past weekend, and is athletic, trim and fit. Chidi's weight-loss journey is a small piece of his story and represents so much more. Now that he's earned his college degree, he finds himself at another pivotal point in his life.

"I can't remember a time in my childhood when I was actually at a healthy weight," said Chidi, who said he was heavy his entire childhood until he entered high school, where he felt he had a clean slate to reinvent himself to be the person he wanted to be. "I decided to join football and was a catalyst for starting the journey of who I wanted to be."

Reinventing oneself is not a new concept, and certainly, as a young person, it's a way to travel new paths and discover new passions, but what sets Chidi apart is his ability to harness "the hustle" when reinventing himself to explore new entrepreneurial ventures. 

Inch by inch

It just takes one person to believe in you, to instill the confidence you need to push forward in life, and for Chidi, that person was a coach who helped push his physical fitness the summer between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. It was the boost he needed, and by the time he was a high school senior he was playing varsity football and soccer. He'd shed around 100 pounds over the course of four years and continued to lose weight going into his freshman year at UAA, losing another 60 pounds.

"It was around that time that I started an Instagram channel," said Chidi. "It was ChidiChidiGainzGainz - this girl at the gym who had a similar weight-loss journey gave me that name. I ran with that and started posting inspirational content to try and help other people."

It began as just something he thought would be a way to share his journey and insights on how to achieve the same results he'd experienced, but whether he knew it or not, it was the first step he took as an entrepreneur. He started a YouTube channel and it was around the same time he started his first online retail company.

Chidi would scour local thrift stores, summer garage sales and the clearance racks from Walmart and "flipped" those items on Amazon and eBay.

"I was actually making pretty good money," he said. "The problem with that is that I'd never know what I was going to find, so it just wasn't consistent income."

So he decided to create his own product.

Rise and fall

He worked with a manufacturer in China to produce wireless earpods. He created the branding and marketing for his business and then sold them on Amazon, all before Apple and Samsung launched their own versions of earpods.

"I was super ahead of the curve of the technology," he said. "But that inevitably was the downfall. The technology was new. They were decent, but there were so many defective units and the bad reviews were ruining sales."

He wasn't prepared for that, and part of him wishes he'd stuck it out because within a year or two the technology vastly improved. He'd poured so much time and effort into creating the brand and the marketing strategy - including a community on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram - and his fledgling business was starting to gain some real traction. But it was a big risk and one that ultimately didn't pay out, so he moved on to the next.

This was all while Chidi was a full-time business student at UAA - and trying to keep up with his fitness.

"Overall it was an awesome experience and I learned a lot," said Chidi of chalking up his first real business to a real-world learning opportunity.

All or nothing

In the world of YouTube, views are as good as gold. Although Chidi's YouTube channels were small, he'd gained enough videography skills and views to turn heads in the local community.

"I had a friend come who told me about a DJ event and asked me if I wanted to film it for free," said Chidi. "I said 'sure,' filmed it and was super pumped that I went home and edited that night. The DJ actually reached out and offered to pay me."

That was the first time he was paid for creating a video and the launching point for his second business venture. From there, he hit the ground running, securing his first official work for a local daycare where he earned $150 to produce a marketing video for them. For just starting out, he was psyched, but he's come a long way since.

"I invested all the money I'd gotten from the earbuds project, pretty much all of my savings, I put into buying video equipment," said Chidi, recalling that was a steep price tag in the $8,ooo to $10,000 range. "I remember the first year that I started, I was negative. But it was an all-or-nothing kind of thing for me and I was just going to see how far this thing could take me."

Better hustle

By now, Chidi had started making a name for himself, but he'd invested so much that it was imperative that he start making some return on his investment. He spent hours self-educating himself on the art of film, producing and editing, whatever he could squeeze in between studying, going to class and the gym. He hit the pavement attending networking events, including Anchorage Chamber of Commerce professional meetups. It was the first time he ever felt nervous as he realized he was in a room full of serious business professionals whose names he recognized but who had no clue who he was.

"I was shaking hands and didn't know a whole lot, but I was out there just meeting people," Chidi said, who was willing to take whatever project someone was willing to give him. It didn't matter if it was paid or he was doing the work for free, he was getting his name out in the community. "I was getting as much video experience as possible and just hustling."

In the end it all paid off - his willingness to hustle, put in excruciatingly long hours and genuinely caring about the people he collaborated with. He said approaching his business from a relationship point of view, rather than monetarily, is what he feels really set him apart.

"I have clients that met me two years ago that remember that and said that's why they chose to work with me," he said. "I had a client the other day tell me that made a big impact on him, that I was willing to work for free when starting out."

Although Chidi said he wanted his new video production business, Move Media, to succeed, he also craved being a part of the community and contributing to the local business culture. He said he's also learned to enjoy the hustle, because in the end if you don't enjoy what you're doing, what is the point?

"It's been a wild two years - I'm not exactly sure how things just take off - I guess you just continue to be a good person, do good work and the world will kind of pay you back," he said. "At least that's how I see it."

Written by Catalina Myers, UAA Office of University Advancement