Is Entrepreneurship For Everybody?

Business, business, business, choking everywhere. Facebook, twitter, whatsapp, instagram, even on LinkedIn. There’s online vendors everywhere, graduates, undergraduates, doctors, lawyers, librarians, accountants, etc. Literally on everybody’s whatsapp status now, there’s about 2-3(If not more) people selling something. Some started by choice and passion, some due to unemployment, some due to influence, some due to “wanna be CEO” everybody with their “behind the story”.

You see its absolutely fine if you do not want to do business or be an entrepreneur, there’s no compulsion in it. Just find your path and work towards it. Entrepreneurship is an amazing journey, doing business is good but requires a lot of hard work and consistency. My mom is a nurse and has never done business before. Recently, she was saying she could’ve opened a pharmacy a long time ago. She was pissed at herself that her friends that had that initiative are doing great now and are not working under anyone anymore. You see, that’s her major reason for wanting a business now. Anyways, I cheered her on and told her it’s not too late. Go get it mommy! 👍👍

My cousin Hasmau, during the corona&lockdown in 2020 started a popcorn business which at the beginning was good, she use to buy a bag of maize then for #9000. It was like that for about two months and she made her profit. Gained her machine and generator capital back at least. All of a sudden, bag of maize increased to 11k, not only that, butter increased, milk increased, and oil too. All of that resulted to her reducing the size of her popcorn. 😂 😂 Lagosians that prefer quantity. Her customer base reduced drastically. There was non-stop complaints about the quantity. She managed to finish that bag of maize but made little profit. As a business enthusiast that she is, she went to the market to buy another bag of corn and boom! Corn was now 14k!!!!!She was discouraged, she came back home sad. She calculated that if she should buy that 14k corn and every other ingredients like that, she won’t only not make gain but also loose. Therefore, she stopped the Business. Sold her machine and generator. Told you she loves business. Her daddy told her to go and start her masters degree. My sister has written exam but she’s praying Unilag won’t grant her admission. She’s determined to do business, she has recently started mini importation. She said: You see this business, we go do am together,na person wey give up fuck up. 😂 I wish you the very best Sister!

Morenkeji on the other hand, has always been struggling with her business. She has been into mini importation for over two years now. Struggling but consistent about it. She has never for once stopped, even though she complains about shipping fee being too high here in Nigeria. But she’s still in the game keeping her head up. One unique quality from her is her Consistency.

Well, like I said in the second paragraph. It is okay not to want to do business. I never wanted to do business in my early life at all. I just want to graduate and work in the corporate world and invest in real estate /agriculture. The “start small business” was never in my thoughts. Have always dreamt of that work in the corporate world for a while, gather up capital and open up a massive supermarket. 😂 It doesn’t work like that all the time. I have come to realize that starting small is great, and not a bad idea at all. If you have an idea, start small and be consistent.

Because I can relate well with Lagos, I tend to use it a lot. Some people are just going out everyday and comes back with nothing, some with little, some it’s a daily bread thing( A lot of Lagos business owners were affected during the lock down, you know why? They don’t have savings, not shaming them, it’s just their business. They don’t get to save, there’s no much gain in what they are selling, there’s hoodlums collecting “Owo Ile” from how much?) It’s hard. Likewise, in this same Lagos. You will see rich and fast selling business owners. Go and ask them, they didn’t accumulate the wealth in a day. Some have been in the business for 20years upward.

Conclusion

If you want or are passionate about business. Do it, start now, source for capital and start small. If you don’t have the passion or interest at all. Please don’t do it, find your path and follow your career. If you have a business, work on your digital marketing, try facebook ads, whatsapp, twitter ads and Instagram. Be aggressive with your marketing. Business isn’t for everyone!