Hi, I'm Mayowa.

I've never been particularly good at seeing an interesting idea and just leaving it alone.

What if I tried this business? What if I built something that does that? What if this entire process could be automated?

Next thing you know, it's 1:43 a.m., I've got seventeen tabs open, a terminal full of errors, and I'm Googling something I was very confident about two hours earlier.

Lovely.

Beyond photography, I've experimented with software for public-sector business opportunities, sports research and analytics, and other creative and technology projects.

Not every idea became a successful business. And I don't think that's embarrassing.

I think the real education happens between "this could be brilliant" and "why on earth isn't this working?"

I've also worked in mental health support and studied project management. Two experiences that might sound unrelated to photography or software, but have influenced how I approach both.

Working with people teaches you to listen. Managing projects teaches you that a beautiful plan means absolutely nothing if nobody knows what happens next.

And technology?

Technology has taught me humility.

Repeatedly.

Photography is one of the things I genuinely love.

At The First Studios, I photograph weddings, portraits, properties and brands. I love the creativity, the details, the lighting, and those moments when you look at an image and think, yeah, that's exactly what I was going for.

There's something special about creating work that people actually care about.

A wedding photograph might become something a family keeps for generations. A portrait can make someone see themselves differently. A good brand image can completely change how a business presents itself.

That's the rewarding side.

Then there's the business side.

Omo.

Nobody tells you that being a photographer also means becoming your own accountant, customer service department, project manager, marketing team, IT support and occasional therapist for a printer that has decided not to cooperate.

One minute you're planning beautiful images. The next, you're trying to remember whether a client paid their deposit, which email contains the final brief, and why an invoice is still sitting in Drafts.

Meanwhile, Lightroom is open in the background, begging for attention.

And the client?

"Hi, just checking when the pictures will be ready 😊"

My brother, I'm checking too.

I learnt something important running the studio: being good at your craft and being good at running the business are two entirely different skills.

And creative people deserve help with the second one.

Because apparently, running a photography business wasn't keeping me busy enough.

Veyra didn't begin with some grand Silicon Valley speech about revolutionising the creative economy.

It came from running The First Studios and noticing how unnecessarily complicated the business side of creating had become.

An enquiry arrives on Instagram. The client's details go into one place. The quote gets prepared somewhere else. The invoice lives in another app. The photographs are delivered through a gallery platform. Then you need yet another tool for your portfolio, marketing or follow-ups.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, you're supposed to actually do the creative work.

Abeg.

I started thinking: why can't these things just work together?

That question became Veyra.

What started as a way to solve problems I understood as a photographer grew into something bigger: a connected workspace for photographers, filmmakers, content creators, designers and other people running creative businesses.

Projects, galleries, invoices, payments, portfolios, marketing and the everyday work behind the work.

All closer together.

Of course, saying "I'll just build a simple tool" is how you end up learning about databases, servers, subscriptions, failed uploads and approximately 900 different ways software can disappoint you.

I remember testing a gallery upload with 449 photographs. The upload counter said everything was complete, but some images were still showing as processing.

Imagine telling a photographer their wedding gallery is ready while the photographs are still deciding whether to attend.

That sort of thing matters to me.

Because I'm not building Veyra from a spreadsheet full of hypothetical customer problems. I use the kind of tools I'm creating. I encounter the frustrations. I test the workflows. And when something doesn't work properly, I know exactly why a creator would be annoyed.

I'm one of them.

I don't want to make this sound like one of those founder stories where everything was destiny.

You know the ones.

"At age seven, I knew I wanted to transform the global technology landscape."

At age seven, please. I was probably thinking about what was for dinner.

My journey has involved changing direction, learning unfamiliar things, revisiting ideas, making mistakes, and occasionally spending an unreasonable amount of time fixing something that should have worked in the first place.

I've learnt that being curious is useful, but curiosity without execution is just a very entertaining imagination.

I've learnt that you can put tremendous effort into something and still need to rethink it.

And I've learnt that building something people genuinely find useful is far more satisfying than building something that simply looks impressive.

I'm still learning.

The First Studios is growing. Veyra is evolving. I'm experimenting, testing, listening to users and trying to make each version better than the last.

Some days, everything comes together beautifully.

Other days, the server has other plans.

We move.

I didn't create Founder's Notes to become an internet business guru.

The internet has enough people standing beside rented sports cars telling us to wake up at 4 a.m.

I'm good, thanks.

I write because I know what it's like to love making things and then realise you also have to sell them, price them, organise them, deliver them and somehow make a living from them.

I write about clients, money, creativity, mistakes, tools, experiments and the things nobody really prepares you for when you decide to work for yourself.

Sometimes I'll share something I've learnt through photography. Sometimes it'll come from building Veyra. Sometimes it'll be a situation so ridiculous that we might as well laugh and learn something from it.

And yes, there will be memes.

Life is already serious enough.

If something I've written saves you from an awkward client conversation, a badly priced job, three unnecessary subscriptions or one of those midnight admin sessions, then it's done its job.

And if you laugh somewhere along the way?

Even better.

I'm Mayowa. I make things, I build things, and I'm still figuring out how to do both a little better.

Welcome to my corner of the internet.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've probably got something that needs fixing.