The Lagos State Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment has commenced its training programme for the unemployed youths. The programme is meant to develop employability skills and job opportunities among youths. Receiving members of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) Lagos State Chapter in his office, the Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment Mr. […]
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A 300 Level Computer Science student of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Abia State and founder of Hoursspent.com, Miss Blessing Ijoma, 24, has emerged winner of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Award (GSEA) competition. Ijoma, whose company, makes at least 10 per cent commission from every job handled by freelancers on her platform, will represent the […]
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Religious bodies are keying into small business empowerment initiatives, not only as a means of evangelism, but to empower the less privileged. At an event by The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Praise Sanctuary, Ikeja, Lagos, young entreprenuers shared their success stories and challenges to inspire youths, DANIEL ESSIET reports. IN Nigeria, women of various […]
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Some business accelerators are helping entrepreneurs to get their businesses off the ground. DANIEL ESSIET reports the activities of one of them – Co-Creation Hub Nigeria – based in Yaba, Lagos. For many entrepreneurs in the tech space, being part of something larger has helped them get their businesses off the ground more quickly and […]
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Bolstering rural economies, Africa Rice Centre Nigeria believes is not just a matter of helping existing agro businesses, but also encouraging new ones. This is what it is seeking to achieve by raising a new generation of rice entrepreneurs that are technology savvy and making money, DANIEL ESSIET reports. Young agro entrepreneurs will soon pad […]
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Networking is a socio-economic activity by which business people and entrepreneurs meet to form business relationships and to recognise, create or act upon business opportunities.They also share information and seek potential partners for ventures. International business networking and referral organisations are emerging for entrepreneurs and small business owners who are interested in starting or growing […]
The post Business networking, referrals as money making ventures appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, in this interview, outlines measures by the state to push its job and wealth creation agenda with measurable strategies. He spoke with a group of Business Editors. SIMEON EBULU was there. What is the role of the Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment? The primary […]
The post ‘We’re creating conditions for wealth, job enhancement’ appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Richmond Omoaka, the CEO of Ray Agro, a consumable packaging and branding venture, is a graduate of Economics from the Lead City University, Ibadan. The Abuja based entrepreneur, who is into packaging and designs of agro products and stationeries for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), spoke with HANNAH OJO on his staying power and motivation for […]
The post ‘Branding is lucrative aspect of agro businesses’ appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
The Founder and Group Managing Director of Courteville Business Solutions Plc, Bola Akindele is a shining light for young entrepreneurs. He gave young entrepreneurs and prospective start-ups success tips at a forum organised by Lagos chapter of Startup Grind, a start-up community designed to educate, inspire and connect entrepreneurs in Lagos, DANIEL ESSIET reports. Founder […]
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MANY Nigerians and Africans in the United Kingdom are returning home to invest, an international expert, Evadney Campbell has said.
Campbell, who was in Lagos to conduct training for small and medium enterprises under the auspices of Sterling Business Network(SBN), told The Nation that situation in Nigeria is welcoming for those in the diapora, adding that Nigeria has prospect for rapid growth, with increasing business opportunities and a thriving consumer market.
According to her, Nigerian entrepreneurs living in the United Kingdom are coming to set up small multinational companies to establish their presence and explore opportunities across the continent.
She explained that investment by the returnees was very important, adding that the local economies need them to bring knowledge, technology and create jobs.
She added that SBN is focused on making sure more Nigerians in the Diaspora participate in the nation’s economic growth.
During the training workshop, delegates will learn how to maximise their brand potentials and media presence.The interactive training workshop will give participants tips and practical exercises on how to develop their own PR campaigns, including how to create an effective press releases, using social media platforms to promote brand, products or services, as well as innovative techniques for gaining increased media attention for their businesses.
Evadney Campbell was the first black female presenter on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
Evadney spent 17 years presenting and producing an African Caribbean radio magazine programme, ‘Black Echo’, for the BBC South West region -covering Gloucestershire, Bristol and Wiltshire.
In 1994, she was awarded an MBE for services to the African and Caribbean Communities in Gloucester following her dedication to charity work.
The post More Nigerian entrepreneurs in UK coming home to invest appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Mr. Babatunde Durosinmi –Etti has said the government is determined to build more wealth and job creating activities that would lead to a more successful, sustainable and fairer economy.
Durosimi-Etti told reporters that there is a plan to explore more talents and resources to build the state’s potential to become a hub for the industries of the future. To this end, the ministry is strengthening collaborative approaches to drive and raise productivity.
According to him, the government is resolved to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and innovation to boost economic performance.
He said the state is encouraging more apprenticeship training courses, with a refocused skills training plan.
Durosinmi –Etti said this will boost job prospects across the local government areas. There is an action to create openings for artisans, build resource projects and reform the education system to prepare a workforce for the future .
According to him, the government has the objectives to maximise the school-to-jobs plan, including focusing on early hands-on learning in schools, shifting education to match jobs in demand and entering partnerships with industry and labour to deliver training.
The government, he stated, would be asking institutions to focus their training programmes and courses on what it calls high-demand occupations.
On job registration/ labour exchange centres, he said there will be one in each of the five divisions of the state.
Consequently, each local government / local council development area is to establish annexes of the centres in their various domains.
He said the ministry has so far commissioned the Badagry Division Centre in Ojo Local Government Secretariat, Ojo and the Lagos Division Centre at Igbo Efon, Eti-Osa Local Government Secretariat, Eti-Osa.
The Ikorodu Division Centre, according to him, is being renovated while office spaces have been secured at Epe and Mushin Local government secretariats to accommodate Epe Division and Ikeja Division respectively.
He stated also that the ministry was able to get five guidance counselors re-deployed from the Ministry of Education to work at the centres on career guidance, in addition to other IT personnel.
The job registration /labour exchange centres (LECs), are meant to provide wealth creation and employment services with the state government giving focus on career counseling, he added.
The post Lagos to create wealth, jobs for residents appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
This year’s Change Leadership Roundtable is billed to hold from July 6 to 8 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Toronto, Canada.
The annual Pan African leadership series event will bring together 50 executive and business leaders to explore business opportunities, innovation and diversification. Global leadership expert, John Maxwell is one of the speakers.
The organiser of Change Leadership Roundtable, Yvonne Ruke Akpoveta, said the programme aims at empowering leaders, entrepreneurs and organisations to become change agents.
She said: “This roundtable is an opportunity to bolster our effectiveness in leading change to drive higher returns on investment and collectively move the Nigerian economy forward. And one of the ways this can be done is through effective change leadership.”
The Change Leadership Executive Roundtable,’ she added, would provide a forum to equip leaders to lead change in times of economic uncertainties, and achieve higher levels of success, growth and market leadership in their respective sectors.
The post Roundtable to hold in Toronto appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Tomato is a very valuable resource as many homes rely on it to improve the quality of their dishes. Lagos based entrepreneur Jide Adedeji has introduced a preservation method to make it last for a long time. This preservation technology has turned a money spinner for him. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
There’s no telling where a food entrepreneur will find inspiration to launch a business. These days, entrepreneurs are braving the financial risks to gather their own rewards by creating and marketing new products from cheese to nuts.
One of them is Managing Director/CEO, Easy Sauces Nigeria Limited,Dr Jide Adedeji. He is a busy man. A dynamic serial investor. Adedeji is among professionals in the vanguard of entrepreneurial revolution. He was the pioneer Chief Executive Officer of Teragro, the agribusiness subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, which produced commercial orange, pineapple and mango juice concentrates for the first time in Nigeria. He is an expert in creating and developing natural flavour ingredients from farm produce.
Adedeji has several ideas about food processing; these ideas cover the huge desk in his office in Lekki, Lagos. But top of crops for processing is tomatoes. This, according to him, is because of the rate tomatoes spoil and waste. So processing tomato is what is occupying his time now. He did enough market research and found there was a huge gap in packaging fresh tomato product. As tomatoes have a short shelf life, they have to be properly processed if they must last long.
Due to lack of storage and processing facilities, bad roads and poor access to markets, about half of the tomatoes harvested every year get rotten, wasted and never get sold. As a result, many farmers suffer serious losses after all the money, time and effort invested in farming tomato during the year.
Tomatos are not available all year round; they become very cheap during harvest time and expensive in the dry season. He decided to implement a business project out of this. When fresh tomatoes are in season and flooding the markets, he tries to process them into sauce. Today, the project has brought him tremendous success. He is proud of making tomato sauce for a living. His company also processes fresh pepper and tomato sauces packaged in sachets. ESNL creates fully cooked easy delicious authentic sauces for stews, soups, pasta, jollof rice, moi-moi, beans porridges, casserole and all cooking where tomatoes, peppers and onions are needed. The sauce is African in its concept, preparation and texture. It is formulated with authentic sauce ingredients and it is free of added sugar, honey, corn syrups, and starches and dairy.
Adedeji said it is cost-effective and readily available at different pack sizes. He said: “Families can now enjoy the benefit of readily available sauce at affordable price.” The other thing is that it has a shelf life of 12 to 18 months without refrigeration.
Offering this and lots more is opening up a subsector , which he sees as one of the most untapped areas, with many restaurants and eateries opening across the country.
Having operated in the United States before coming back to Nigeria, Adedeji knew he had to adopt international best practices, the highest standards of service quality and operational excellence to all its valued customers. The inclusion of value-adding processes in the business is what has given him some advantages.
Today, the result is tremendous. Besides creating a means of livelihood for himself, he hires 30 people on full time basis apart from 30 casual workers.
Despite the use of technology, he explained that the business is still labour-intensive. His regular workers is 30, but he engages another 30 casual workers, depending on the volume of purchase orders he receives from his buyers. He expressed a lot of grit and determination to break into the local market, and is unfazed by stiff competition from the larger and more established brands.
His path has not always been easy. He has encountered problems. Even now, he has to understand how to adapt and how to modify his project. One is that infrastructure is poor.
Further constraints are high cost of accessing foreign exchange and little information on prices. Safeguarding the input supplies and the product quality are additional limitations that have to be overcome. To overcome this, the team makes efforts evaluating the quality of the produce and the farmers’ compliance with international safety standards.
He has learnt a lot of lessons. One is that the initial struggles and despair of launching a start-up to many successful entrepreneurs, is not to seek immediate returns. He is happy to play an important role in employment generation and provision of affordable food products for large numbers of households.
The post Entrepreneur savours sweet sauce of success appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
This year’s Change Leadership Roundtable is billed to hold from July 6 to 8 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Toronto, Canada.
The annual Pan African leadership series event will bring together 50 executive and business leaders to explore business opportunities, innovation and diversification. Global leadership expert, John Maxwell is one of the speakers.
The organiser of Change Leadership Roundtable, Yvonne Ruke Akpoveta, said the programme aims at empowering leaders, entrepreneurs and organisations to become change agents.
She said: “This roundtable is an opportunity to bolster our effectiveness in leading change to drive higher returns on investment and collectively move the Nigerian economy forward. And one of the ways this can be done is through effective change leadership.”
The Change Leadership Executive Roundtable,’ she added, would provide a forum to equip leaders to lead change in times of economic uncertainties, and achieve higher levels of success, growth and market leadership in their respective sectors.
The post Roundtable to hold in Toronto appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
MANY Nigerians and Africans in the United Kingdom are returning home to invest, an international expert, Evadney Campbell has said.
Campbell, who was in Lagos to conduct training for small and medium enterprises under the auspices of Sterling Business Network(SBN), told The Nation that situation in Nigeria is welcoming for those in the diapora, adding that Nigeria has prospect for rapid growth, with increasing business opportunities and a thriving consumer market.
According to her, Nigerian entrepreneurs living in the United Kingdom are coming to set up small multinational companies to establish their presence and explore opportunities across the continent.
She explained that investment by the returnees was very important, adding that the local economies need them to bring knowledge, technology and create jobs.
She added that SBN is focused on making sure more Nigerians in the Diaspora participate in the nation’s economic growth.
During the training workshop, delegates will learn how to maximise their brand potentials and media presence.The interactive training workshop will give participants tips and practical exercises on how to develop their own PR campaigns, including how to create an effective press releases, using social media platforms to promote brand, products or services, as well as innovative techniques for gaining increased media attention for their businesses.
Evadney Campbell was the first black female presenter on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
Evadney spent 17 years presenting and producing an African Caribbean radio magazine programme, ‘Black Echo’, for the BBC South West region -covering Gloucestershire, Bristol and Wiltshire.
In 1994, she was awarded an MBE for services to the African and Caribbean Communities in Gloucester following her dedication to charity work.
The post More Nigerian businessmen in UK coming home to invest appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Lagos State Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Mr. Babatunde Durosinmi –Etti has said the government is determined to build more wealth and job creating activities that would lead to a more successful, sustainable and fairer economy.
Durosimi-Etti told reporters that there is a plan to explore more talents and resources to build the state’s potential to become a hub for the industries of the future. To this end, the ministry is strengthening collaborative approaches to drive and raise productivity.
According to him, the government is resolved to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurship and innovation to boost economic performance.
He said the state is encouraging more apprenticeship training courses, with a refocused skills training plan.
Durosinmi –Etti said this will boost job prospects across the local government areas. There is an action to create openings for artisans, build resource projects and reform the education system to prepare a workforce for the future .
According to him, the government has the objectives to maximise the school-to-jobs plan, including focusing on early hands-on learning in schools, shifting education to match jobs in demand and entering partnerships with industry and labour to deliver training.
The government, he stated, would be asking institutions to focus their training programmes and courses on what it calls high-demand occupations.
On job registration/ labour exchange centres, he said there will be one in each of the five divisions of the state.
Consequently, each local government / local council development area is to establish annexes of the centres in their various domains.
He said the ministry has so far commissioned the Badagry Division Centre in Ojo Local Government Secretariat, Ojo and the Lagos Division Centre at Igbo Efon, Eti-Osa Local Government Secretariat, Eti-Osa.
The Ikorodu Division Centre, according to him, is being renovated while office spaces have been secured at Epe and Mushin Local government secretariats to accommodate Epe Division and Ikeja Division respectively.
He stated also that the ministry was able to get five guidance counselors re-deployed from the Ministry of Education to work at the centres on career guidance, in addition to other IT personnel.
The job registration /labour exchange centres (LECs), are meant to provide wealth creation and employment services with the state government giving focus on career counseling, he added.
The post Lagos to create wealth, jobs for residents appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Tomato is a very valuable resource as many homes rely on it to improve the quality of their dishes. Lagos based entrepreneur Jide Adedeji has introduced a preservation method to make it last for a long time. This preservation technology has turned a money spinner for him. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
There’s no telling where a food entrepreneur will find inspiration to launch a business. These days, entrepreneurs are braving the financial risks to gather their own rewards by creating and marketing new products from cheese to nuts.
One of them is Managing Director/CEO, Easy Sauces Nigeria Limited,Dr Jide Adedeji. He is a busy man. A dynamic serial investor. Adedeji is among professionals in the vanguard of entrepreneurial revolution. He was the pioneer Chief Executive Officer of Teragro, the agribusiness subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, which produced commercial orange, pineapple and mango juice concentrates for the first time in Nigeria. He is an expert in creating and developing natural flavour ingredients from farm produce.
Adedeji has several ideas about food processing; these ideas cover the huge desk in his office in Lekki, Lagos. But top of crops for processing is tomatoes. This, according to him, is because of the rate tomatoes spoil and waste. So processing tomato is what is occupying his time now. He did enough market research and found there was a huge gap in packaging fresh tomato product. As tomatoes have a short shelf life, they have to be properly processed if they must last long.
Due to lack of storage and processing facilities, bad roads and poor access to markets, about half of the tomatoes harvested every year get rotten, wasted and never get sold. As a result, many farmers suffer serious losses after all the money, time and effort invested in farming tomato during the year.
Tomatos are not available all year round; they become very cheap during harvest time and expensive in the dry season. He decided to implement a business project out of this. When fresh tomatoes are in season and flooding the markets, he tries to process them into sauce. Today, the project has brought him tremendous success. He is proud of making tomato sauce for a living. His company also processes fresh pepper and tomato sauces packaged in sachets. ESNL creates fully cooked easy delicious authentic sauces for stews, soups, pasta, jollof rice, moi-moi, beans porridges, casserole and all cooking where tomatoes, peppers and onions are needed. The sauce is African in its concept, preparation and texture. It is formulated with authentic sauce ingredients and it is free of added sugar, honey, corn syrups, and starches and dairy.
Adedeji said it is cost-effective and readily available at different pack sizes. He said: “Families can now enjoy the benefit of readily available sauce at affordable price.” The other thing is that it has a shelf life of 12 to 18 months without refrigeration.
Offering this and lots more is opening up a subsector , which he sees as one of the most untapped areas, with many restaurants and eateries opening across the country.
Having operated in the United States before coming back to Nigeria, Adedeji knew he had to adopt international best practices, the highest standards of service quality and operational excellence to all its valued customers. The inclusion of value-adding processes in the business is what has given him some advantages.
Today, the result is tremendous. Besides creating a means of livelihood for himself, he hires 30 people on full time basis apart from 30 casual workers.
Despite the use of technology, he explained that the business is still labour-intensive. His regular workers is 30, but he engages another 30 casual workers, depending on the volume of purchase orders he receives from his buyers. He expressed a lot of grit and determination to break into the local market, and is unfazed by stiff competition from the larger and more established brands.
His path has not always been easy. He has encountered problems. Even now, he has to understand how to adapt and how to modify his project. One is that infrastructure is poor.
Further constraints are high cost of accessing foreign exchange and little information on prices. Safeguarding the input supplies and the product quality are additional limitations that have to be overcome. To overcome this, the team makes efforts evaluating the quality of the produce and the farmers’ compliance with international safety standards.
He has learnt a lot of lessons. One is that the initial struggles and despair of launching a start-up to many successful entrepreneurs, is not to seek immediate returns. He is happy to play an important role in employment generation and provision of affordable food products for large numbers of households.
The post Entrepreneur savours sweet sauce of success appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
The Global Leader, Clients and Markets, Grant Thornton International Limited (GTIL), United Kingdom, Mr. Gernot Hebestreit, has urged the Federal Government to introduce stricter measures and corporate transparency to prevent companies from collapsing.
He also wants the government to increase the audit threshold to reduce companies’ exposure to fraud.
Hebestreit, who is an international expert in busines development, while speaking in Lagos recently, noted that it was not in the interest of the country’s economy that companies falsify their financial records in order to impress the public or prospective investors.
He regretted that auditing companies are associated with firms that deliberately manipulate their revenues.
He observed that lack of transparency and accountability was presenting a major risk to the efficiency of capital markets, financial stability, and long term sustainability.
He stressed the importance of good public financial management to improve service delivery and robust governance.
He said this would improve the fiscal position of governments and aid both economic and social progress.
He explained that Nigeria was missing out on potential economic growth and social wellbeing as a result of weak regulation, stressing that high quality regulation would lead to better productivity and more inclusive growth.
For Nigeria to be great, he stressed the importance of financial reporting in the public sector and for Nigerians to be prepared to take responsibility for effective management of public sector resources.
Hebestreit explained that Nigeria is the biggest destination for companies in Europe but that it needs to put in place structures that support accountability and transparency to make it the cornerstone of the next phase of Africa’s robust and job-creating growth.
He explained that the purpose of the organisation is to help countries and organisations build a vibrant economy, based on trust and integrity in markets, dynamic businesses, and communities where businesses and people thrive.
The post Govt urged to take stricter measures to prevent companies’ collapse appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State, has enjoyed success as an entrepreneurial university. A lot has been done to promote entrepreneurship development through agricultural and allied programmes. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State is educating students and faculty to become successful innovators and entrepreneurs.
To achieve this, the university is investing millions of naira in researches and programmes which students and faculty can turn into jobs, technologies and economically competitive advantages for the nation.
One of the vehicles with which the university is achieving this is Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (CAVA II), a research project sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project , is promoting value addition to cassava.
CAVA II is led by FUNAAB, working closely with the Natural Resources Institute of University of Greenwich, United Kingdom; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria, Food Research Institute, Ghana; Food and Nutrition Centre, Tanzania; Africa Innovations Institute, Uganda; Chancellor College, University of Malawi and other partners.
FUNAAB’s Director of Grants Management, Professor Kolawole Adebayo, is the Project Director.
The project is implemented in five African countries namely: Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi, with the aim of improving the livelihoods and incomes of at least 200,000 value chain actors, especially smallholder farmers and processors, by at least $177 million in five years. This is achieved through stimulating the sale of more than two million tonnes of cassava into high quality cassava flour (HQCF), starch, ethanol and other cassava product value chains.
Other ventures established by the university include the Cassava Production Unit, the bakery, palm oil unit, cashew nut unit, pineapple plantation, College of Animal Science and Livestock Production (COLANIM), cattle production venture farm and the Institute of Food Security, Environment Resources and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR) Farm.
To enable the university community have access to agricultural products at affordable prices and to showcase research findings, the Directorate of University Farms (DUFARMS) has commissioned its agro mart shed.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Olusola Oyewole, said the agricultural products displayed were made possible due to the experience gained by DUFARMS staff that were sponsored by the university to the Songhai Farms, Republic of Benin , to understudy and replicate a prototype of the farm in FUNAAB.
The Acting Director, DUFARMS, Mr. Michael Jaiyeola, appreciated the level of support given by management to the farm, noting that the construction of the agro mart shed was done using various products from the farm with the intention to generate more income for the university and enhance the production process at zero wastage level.
He said the various end products from the farm would include cashew nut, palm oil, garri, cassava flour, yam, cucumber, moringa tree products, pinapple, maize, bush-meat, snail, plantain, banana, tomatoes, palmwine, among others.
The Gender Issues and Youth Development (GIYD) arm of the Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre (AMREC) of university was awarded a Certificate of Merit for its impressive performance during the just-concluded 7th Gateway Trade Fair, held at the M K O Abiola Trade Fair Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
The AMREC team, led by Dr. Elizabeth Oluwalana, was awarded for the display of various herbal products that are useful for healthy living and also for conducting a vocational training for participants alongside the Industrial Park Unit (IPU) of the University, led by Mr. Ayodele Elijah, who led the IPU team to display FUNAAB products such as garri, honey, fufu and cashew nuts among others. The trade fair with the theme: Promoting Trade for Sustainable Economic Growth, was organised by the Ogun State Council of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, in collaboration with Tacoms International Limited.
In a related development, women farmers from the FUNAAB Extension Areas as well as the Community-Based Farming Scheme (COBFAS) communities, were trained by GIYD) in snail farming and the production of disinfectants.
The Project Co-ordinator, GIYD, Dr. Olufunmilayo Oluwalana, appreciated the Vice-Chancellor for his support and interest in the empowerment of women as well as the resource person, Mrs. Aderele Gbemisola, for giving back to the society.
The co-ordinator noted that the knowledge gained from the training would boost their economic status and contribute to making their environment bacteria-free.
Dr. Oluwalana has also developed and patented products in collaboration with Professor Sam Oluwalana of the same university.
The products are shea butter balm, herbal soap and UNAAB Twin Beehive (UTB). Other value-added products are herbal skin care (a moisturising and skin nourishing body lotion for anti-aging treatment); ginger, turmeric and moringa powder (immunity booster for variety of dishes as well as preparing fruit preservation); garlic powder (a natural antibiotic that combats hypertension and lowers cholesterol); 100% coconut oil (a natural oil care that promotes long healthy and beautiful hair); cayenee/chili pepper powder (this is used as condiment or taken with tea and pap in the morning, afternoon, evening or anytime); herbal soap mouth wash.
The post Entrepreneurship through agriculture appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.
Continuing in the family tradition of entrepreneurship, the National Secretary, Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN), Frederick Nwokeleme, says the constant challenges of business ownership should propel an entrepreneur to be more innovative, with a greater mindset to succeed. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
A graduate of Federal Polytechnic, Oko in Anambra State, Frederick Nwokeleme, is the founder of Jubilant Family Industries Limited- a Lagos based manufacturer of personal and body care products.
The business, which started in 2010 with less than N20,000, is today worth N20 million in assets and turnover. From the factory of this firm comes shea butter cream, fythol herbal soap and herbal liquid bath and toilet cleaner.
The success story of Nwokeleme depicts the resilience of a focused and passion-driven entrepreneur. Convinced of his belief in the business, Nwokeleme said he had to sell his car to raise funds to start the new business. Today, there are 15 people on the payroll of the firm across its two outlets in Ikorodu and at the Industrial Development Centre (IDC), Aba,Abia State.
Nwokeleme, who is also the National Secretary of the Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN), cut his entrepreneurial teeth while selling cement for his father. After saving enough money, he left for school.
When he graduated, he worked in an auditing firm for a while, before taking up teaching appointment in a private institution as a teacher.
While teaching, he had what could be described as ‘entrepreneurial seizure’. Under pressure, he decided he was quitting to start a business producing and packaging household and body care products.
To start the business and grow it fast, he knew he would need a significant amount of startup capital.
He had no choice but to sell his car to enable him to actualise his dream. With the proceeds, he bought his first materials to produce. Though it was challenging, he was convinced the idea was a winning one.
He was aware that he would have many competitors and for this reason he decided to adopt a low-cost strategy at the very beginning. He sought funding advice from a few different sources, but the best source of advice came from friends who have gone through the same ups and downs when trying to raise start-up finance.
He kept a tight rein on his costs and built in a contingency plan in case he was faced with unexpected costs.
He started producing in his office and was marketing the product one-on-one to his friends and in the shops. The products sold like hot cake. His big risk 10 years ago has paid off. He now drives a better car.
With tenacity, luck and drive, he has been able to create a successful production company in Ikorodu, Lagos State. Today, Nwokeleme’s entrepreneurial flair is not in question, neither his business acumen.
His crowning achievement would be conquering the market by providing products with a high quality and responding to the customer needs.
He is open-minded; ready to face variety of challenges and to take advantage of the opportunities. Nwokeleme is looking for ways to create growth and value, drive value from the right transactions and where to compete. At the moment, most of his efforts are focused on bringing his products to as many people as possible. He intends to expand the range, creating more products.
Three of his outstanding characteristics as an entrepreneur are fast working, paying attention to details and treating customers well.
But he is angry at the exploitation of young entrepreneurs who are desperate to borrow money to finance their businesses at all cost.
The post ‘I sold my car to start my businesses’ appeared first on The Nation Nigeria.