Starting a new business can very challenging. Below is an article of how young Nigerian man who owns a flushing business he started with just N200.
There is no need to complain about lack of capital,If he can start a business with that little amount, I believe you too can
If you live in Lagos or visit Lagos frequently, you might have heard or visited Paradise Hotel and Bars or tested its fresh fish pepper soup popularly known as ‘point and kill’.
Men-in-business-picsAmbassador Sunday Kayode Arowele, is the CEO of Paradise Hotels and bars.
In this interview, the Ondo state born UN Ambassador for Peace ; and also a Universal Peace Foundation ambassador talked about starting from nowhere to becoming a business guru; his humble beginnings and the challenges he encountered while trying to build his multimillion naira hotel business.
Excerpts: How did you start?
Mine is a long story of suffering and you may not appreciate it if I don’t tell my story from the beginning.
I was not born a millionaire or with a silver spoon. It’s a long way for me to get to where I am today. For starters, I am a native of Owoh in Ondo state. I did my primary and secondary school in Owoh.
I attended Methodist Primary School Owoh, while my secondary education was at Imade college in Owoh.
After my School Certificate, I came to Lagos to stay with my elder brothers but they told me that I should have written to notify them before coming to stay with them, that I couldn’t just wake up and decide to come and visit someone. By then, I have made up my mind to stay in Lagos.
This happened in 1983 and I told myself that going back to the village would be a very big shame for me since I had told them in the village that I was going to Lagos to stay. I moved out of my brother’s house and became a labourer to be able to feed myself while still searching for job.
I had no money to get an accommodation and had to stay in an uncompleted building while I worked to survive. I used old planks to make a bed to sleep at night and in the day time, I went about searching for jobs.
While I was staying in the uncompleted building, some people went and told the landlord that it appeared someone had taken over his house.
This was after I cleared the bush surrounding the house. So, one afternoon, the landlord of the building drove into the house in a Volkswagen. When he came down, he asked who I was and I told him my name. He asked where I came from which I told him. He asked if I was not scared of staying in that house and I told him I was not.
He asked if I did not have a family and I told him that I have but they told me that I should go back to the village which I did not want to do.
He told me that some people informed him that someone had cleared all the bushes surrounding the house, that it seemed the person wanted to take over the property and that was why he came.
He also said that he didn’t think I could do that but he took a precautionary measure and gave me a receipt as a tenant living in the house. I did not pay any rent for the receipt and he even gave me money for feeding saying that, he has been spending money to clear the bush but, I had done that free for him.
He encouraged me to be doing that and also promised to help me secure a job in any nearby company. Meanwhile, I planted many things in the house to support my feeding.
While I was there, I found it very difficult to buy cooking pots. So, my first cooking pot was an old Bourvita tin which I washed. I used to cook four times in a month. I depended fully on ‘smoking’ garri at that time.
At times when it rained, because of the leaking roof, the water would spoil my garri which made feeding very difficult at the period. Sometimes, I had to cover myself with polythene to be able to go outside to find what to eat. Some of the people staying in the area at that time took time to study me. They found out that I was not a thief, that in the morning I would go out to hustle for food and come back in the night.
So, when some people said that they should send me out of the area, some other landlords disagreed. They said, ‘why must we send him away? He was not a thief but only hustled to make ends meet; in the morning, he would go around to look for work’. Some suggested that they should find a way to get me a job since I have never been arrested for any crime in the area.
Were you able to get a job eventually?
Yes. I got job in one company then as a clerical staff. The American who owned the company liked my punctuality to work and asked me to come and live with him in GRA Ikeja. I started living with him and he was providing me with some money for my upkeep.
I lived with him until the end of my job with them and I now asked myself, what else should I do, bearing in mind that I have always loved trading right from childhood. I decided to gather some money and started trading on garri.
I would travel to Benin and bring garri down to Lagos. I was supplying it to some market women around. I did that for some time before I decided to go further with the business.
That was how I started traveling to some neighboring countries like, Benin Republic, Togo and some other African countries to supply them the garri. And on returning to Lagos, I would buy under wears for ladies from these countries to sell in Nigeria. I didn’t have a store then. They used to come and buy in my apartment then.
I later went into property business, that is, selling and buying of estates and property. I went for the training to know the ethics of the business. When I knew I was competent enough to do it , I established my own as SKYPOWER PROPERTIES . When people knew I was very honest in the job, I started having a lot of customers. After that, when I was opportuned to get a land of my own, I started using it as a car wash.
But I soon realised that all the land in the area where I bought the land was in dispute until the sellers assured us that the land belonged to them, that we should not worry or panic. We eventually won the dispute at the high court, the appeal court and the supreme before they gave us our land back.
During that period, I had financial setback. When they finally released the land, I had no money to develop it. I had used all I had to purchase the land so, there was no money with me then. We spent the rest of the money on the land dispute.
I never had any intention to run a bar or hotel business. There was a time I had only N200 and my wife said that I should give her the money to buy nylon. When I gave her the money, she bought nylon and started selling ice blocks.
We had a deep freezer at home. She did that for three months. Later, I started selling drinks on that land with little or no seat for customers to sit on.
The first drinks I bought were a crate of beer and a crate of soft drinks. But when people kept coming and demanding that we add other things to the beer and soft drinks, we decided to do that.
We started first with a bar where I was the bar man while my wife was in the kitchen preparing fresh fish pepper soup for customers. We popularised the fresh fish pepper-soup called ‘point and kill’ and when we saw that customers were too many, we employed workers. So, I started with a bar before going fully into hotel business.
How much did you use to start the bar business then?
I cannot really say the exact amount. All I know was that I brought my deep freezer which I was using in the house and I gave my wife N200 for nylon which we used in selling ice block for three months. It was from the money we realized from selling the ice blocks that I purchased one carton of Gulder which we sold then. That was how we started.
When the customers started coming, all these people who are selling cigarettes gave me umbrella which I used then as a shade for my customers.
Culled from Vanguard Newspapers Nigeria
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