We were lucky to catch up with Nana Kwadwo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nana, thanks for joining us today. What’s one of the most important lessons you learned in school?

Hello, I am the creator of Factionary, and I’d like to share my story with you and well… shed light on why I created Factionary.

My name is Nana Kwadwo and I am the founder and CEO of Factionary Limited. I’m an entrepreneur today not because I decided to be an entrepreneur but it is because of a certain happenstance.

You might easily wonder that the man behind The Factionary is incredibly brilliant and might even be an academic prodigy. Spoiler alert: Not really!

I’m not an academic prodigy. I must confess… I don’t even have a university degree, neither did I attend university. Yeah! Wondering why? That’s one of the most unfortunate stories of my life.

I was so unfortunate not to have the best of luck with schooling because I never liked it. The school was an environment I never liked. And you might agree with the fact that, of course, SCHOOL SUCKS (excuse my word).

The harshness in school made me not fall in love with it and I simply failed altogether. I never did well academically and it eventually affected my life and well… my teachers kept complaining about my lifestyle.

I still remember when my teacher told me that my weird behavior might not pass a job interview. And that’s the most “gut-wrenching” sentiment I ever heard.

After that incident, I decided to be the boss of my own company as vengeance for that sentiment. I just couldn’t believe such words were uttered against me.

Whatever you see about The Factionary is carefully designed for vengeance on the school system for making me feel like I’m not good enough.

Factionary has almost all categories for learning available than courses offered in school. Check! The logo was even designed with one of my experiences back in school.

Here’s the backstory: during my senior year in high school, our project work was for us to design a crest logo, and lo and behold, I chose certain colors for my design. Guess what my teachers said? It’s not good enough. Kinda!

So when I decided to design the Factionary logo, I chose the very same colors my teachers rejected. And I think it’s now good enough. Double check!

I guess you’ve noticed the ‘F’ in the Factionary logo, well… that was my grade(s) in school. Yikes!

I was never academically good enough, and it really affected the course of my life. But with all the lessons from school, I believe that this was my purpose, to be exceptional in what I was designed to achieve.

So I created Factionary as my revenge and for every victim of the unfortunate reality of the school system that all is not lost. You can fulfill your purpose and make yourself proud!

Nana, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Well… I’ve introduced myself already. So let me  go straight to business.

I’ve always loved to be an entrepreneur. It has been something I have always wanted to do, even if I know I’m going to fail, I’ll still do it anyway.

And starting The Factionary has been the most beautiful thing I’ve done with my life. I’m really happy about that.

I started The Factionary just as a Facebook page, and for years that was all, I thought it was going to be.

But over the years it has evolved into a blog site and a startup company as we speak. And I must confess it was not an easy journey. So many ups and downs, I had to even give up at some point.

But I knew my promise to myself. So I didn’t give up.

Here’s the backstory: It all started one night when I had little to do, as I was scrolling through my social media feed reading facts on Facebook or Twitter, I had that stroke of genius.

Although I was not aware I was going to create The Factionary, it happened inadvertently. I initially planned on creating a page just to post fun facts. Period!

This was going to be like a book of all facts, like an encyclopedia or dictionary. Kinda! So I named it “Factbook,” but it seems it wasn’t a catch. I later thought of “Factopedia,” which sounds more like “Wikipedia.” No way!

That was when I realized that I could coin the name out of “Dictionary.” A book of all facts is like a dictionary, so why don’t I take away the ‘dic’ and put it in the ‘fac,’ lexically!

And that was how I created “Factionary.” Ta-da! As a matter of fact, I never thought I’d ever be interviewed.

Today, I’m a startup entrepreneur thanks to an idea I barely conceived, but it is an amazing story. I even plan on sharing my experience with many of the youth. And this interview is one of such opportunities coming soon.

Currently, as we speak, I am about to launch a book on startup entrepreneurship that seeks to educate everyone on how to start a business in just a few days. Stay tuned to The Factionary!

Entrepreneurship is not for the “easy-to-achieve” ones. It requires a lot of effort and dedication to achieve anything. That’s not easy! Obviously!

We have a purpose to fulfill in our lives, and finding out what it is and fulfilling it isn’t an easy feat to accomplish. It is a journey to undertake and not a destination.

No one truly knows their purpose unless you’ve decided to take on the never-ending challenge in search of it.

In my life’s challenges, my purpose has always been with me and I’ve always worked on my purpose ever since I realized that I exist. Strange to say, but of course, that is how you find your purpose.

Your purpose is simply you and what you love doing. And we must confess that we all love something so much that we’ll never give up on it. That’s your purpose.

But to tell you more about myself, there are three things I strongly believe about myself. I call this my C.I.D.

The ‘C’ stands for my CREATIVITY, the ‘I’ stands for my INTELLIGENCE, and the ‘D’ stands for my DISCIPLINE. I combine all these three and I’m simply unsurpassable.

Imagine whoever created Factionary and you’d instantly picture someone with all these qualities in mind. Well, that’s me. Not to brag about myself but I think I am all that I said I am.

My creativity is even beyond my wildest imagination. I’m super intelligent, and how to start and run a blog site like Factionary like a professional media company all by yourself is the hallmark of a very disciplined mindset. Nonetheless!

This is who I am and what has set me apart from my competitors. To really achieve massive success you have to become all these three things.

Creativity is making a new idea out of old ideas. And there are a ton of old ideas out there. It is not as difficult as you think it is. Everyone is even creative, you just have to find yourself in the right place at the best time to realize that.

Intelligence is simply understanding that your understanding might be wrong so you always need clarity to be certain with what you think you know that you don’t know.

Discipline is just deciding to do what you want to do and doing exactly as you said without hesitating. Just be a person of your own words!

I realized that I was to become an entrepreneur and turn my passion into my career — a business. I’m elated that you want to share my story with the world. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This one is a tough one… but here it goes… This is when I launched Factionary as a blog site. And guess when I did so.

It was no other time than March 2020. Yeah! Right at the beginning of a global pandemic such as COVID-19. This was a major setback for my business. I thought the world was going to end, as I was just getting started.

Everyone thought the end was nigh. But we all made it, actually, some of us did. And I must confess that the pandemic taught us great life lessons that we might have never learned had it not been as challenging as it was or even is.

Through it all, I managed to start my business and made it this far. It has been a journey I will never forget.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The pandemic story was a challenge, and raising startup capital for every business is another. And Factionary isn’t exceptional from this challenge.

This was my clever plan to raise some money. What if you save a dollar every day for the whole year, how much money will you rack up with? You guessed it — $365.

This money at hand is enough to set up a business plan blog site on WordPress and monetize it. Furthermore, social media is free, Google services are free, and the internet is free. What is your excuse?

That’s how I built The Factionary, y’all!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tfactionary.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/factionary/
• Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/TFactionary/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/factionary/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TFactionary
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCed-CgibBU_KrD9DZEprYjA?view_as=subscriber

Image Credits
Image credits: Factionary Limited / Nana Kwadwo