3 Life-Changing Tips On How To Juggle Your Side Hustle And Full-Time Job From Dios Dlite Founder, Adebimpe Osanyintuyi
This feature article on Adebimpe Osanyintuyi is sponsored by the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) SheVentures proposition. FCMB SheVentures is empowering female entrepreneurs, helping them build their businesses, and improving the overall success rate of businesses owned or run by women. Please click here to learn more about how FCMB SheVentures can support you and your business. If there is anything Adebimpe cares about intensely, it is business- talking about it, running it and growing it. The normally introverted business founder comes to life when she is asked about her experience as a business owner or about healthy mouth-watering treats. Adebimpe Osanyintuyi is the founder and CEO of Dios Dlite– a healthy food company with outlets in Lagos, Nigeria. Dios Dlite’s products include healthy yogurts, salads, sandwiches, fresh juices, and so much more. Before leaving the corporate world in 2018, she worked in marketing and branding for companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Nutricima Limited. In this article, she shares her wealth of experience with Dios Dlite and gives valuable tips on how to manage a demanding business and a full-time job amongst other things. Hungry? Check out these delicious treats from Dios Dlite, sis! What inspired you to start your Dios Dlite? Starting the business was not out of a financial need because when I started Dios Dlite in 2015 I had a great corporate job. I ran the business for three years before I decided to resign in July 2018. I have a sweet tooth so I wanted to have healthy alternatives for all the sweet things I enjoy. Most times, when we think of healthy food, what comes to mind is boring food- food that doesn’t look or taste nice. I wasn’t going to settle for that. Frozen yogurt appealed to me because it is a healthy alternative for ice cream which is delicious but has way too many calories. So I started with frozen yogurt and we kept to that for over a year. It was going well but along the line, our customers started requesting fresh yogurt. They wanted to be able to take it to their homes and not have it melt or spoil. So we decided to cater to this and along the way, we were getting helpful feedback from our customers. You mentioned that you were working a corporate job when you started Dios Dlite, how were you able to manage both commitments? The processes I put in place made it easy for me to manage both. On some days I was too tired from work to stop by the store and see what was going on. Other times, the outlet may have closed before I am done with my work for the day. Some of the major things I did to manage this was: Invest in software– One major thing that helped was sales-tracking software. With this software, my staff would punch in their sales and I could easily look at the numbers. I could see which products were slow and which products were doing well. That software helped me to have a hold on what was going on in the store without necessarily being there. To learn more about Adebimpe’s journey, read the rest of this article on the FCMB Business Zone.
SHEAMOISTURE SPOTLIGHT ON HEALTHY LIVING QUEEN: LYNDA ODOH – CEO HEALTHIFY AFRICA
SheaMoisture is the enduring and beautiful legacy of Sofi Tucker. Widowed with five children at 19, Grandma Sofi supported her family by selling handcrafted shea butter soaps and other creations in the village market in Sierra Leone. Sofi became known as a healer who shared the power of shea and African black soap with families throughout the countryside. She handed down her recipes to grandson Richelieu Dennis, who founded SheaMoisture and incorporated her wisdom into the brand’s hair and skincare innovations. SheaMoisture products and collections are formulated with natural, certified organic and fair trade ingredients, with the shea butter ethically-sourced from 15 co-ops in Northern Ghana as part of the company’s purpose-driven Community Commerce business model. SheaMoisture has partnered with She Leads Africa to support and showcase Nigerian women who support their communities. Meet Lynda Odoh Lynda Odoh-Anikwe is the CEO and founder of Healthify Africa. She is a Medical Doctor from the University of Nigeria and started Healthify Africa. Healthify Africa is an enterprise that strives to tackle the dietary risk factors for non-communicable diseases. In the course of her daily interactions with patients, she realized that people were most driven by convenience and availability when making healthy lifestyle choices. Lynda decided to start a fruit delivery service. She hopes this will create an enabling system for busy urban dwellers, to conveniently meet the World Health Organization’s daily fruit recommendation for a healthy life. Her vision is to see an African continent where adopting a healthy lifestyle is easy, practical and sustainable. You can connect with Lynda and her business on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Tell us how you started Healthify Africa. When I began to practice as a medical doctor, I saw that there were so many instances of non-communicable diseases that could have been avoided by a simple dietary change. I started Healthify Africa because I wanted to create a solution to the problem of non-communicable diseases. My goal with Healthify Africa is to address dietary risk factors. I do this by providing a service that helps busy people adopt healthy eating habits. This is done through a simplified system and healthy lifestyle advocacy. At Healthify Africa our focus is on increasing the consumption of fruits for busy urban dwellers through a delivery platform. By providing affordable fruit boxes, fruit cups, fruit and dip platter to school children, homes and offices, we’re building a healthier Africa one person at a time. What was your motivation for finally starting your business? For me, it was because I had been in similar situations and I understood the challenges people face in trying to adopt and sustain healthy dietary habits. I grew up in a health-conscious family and I grew accustomed to having a very healthy diet. However, when I became a young adult and my schedule became tighter especially during my internship, it became extremely difficult to eat the right things. It was a situation of knowing the right thing to do, but being unable to do it. I knew then that there must be other busy young people like me, men, women and even mothers who wanted their children eating fruits but were pressed for time as I was. That for me was a huge community need that I passionately wanted to see addressed. So I made the decision to become the change I desired by creating an enabling platform. A platform that supports healthy food choices so as to help myself and others with the same challenge. What makes your brand stand out? Healthify Africa is not just another food company, that caters to only satisfying hunger. Instead, my brand is particularly focused on ensuring that everyone has access to the daily consumption of 400g of fruits, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The vision is to create a world where healthy eating is most practical and the dietary risks of non-communicable diseases reduced to the barest minimum. That, as well as our commitment to healthy lifestyle advocacy, has been a huge attraction for our clients because they can see it. What are three things you struggled with when your business kicked off and how did you overcome them? When I first started my business, a lot of people did not understand what we were trying to do and that equated to zero orders. We had to create a lot of awareness about the health benefits of patronizing our convenience-based service. Also, through our follow-up and feedback system, we tried to encourage our clients to make referrals and this has continued to help our brand. Secondly, being a fruit delivery service, food hygiene, presentation and safety during transit were some of my topmost priorities. It was a challenge finding the ideal packaging that met all the criteria and would still fit into our production cost. I did my online research and eventually was able to find a reliable supplier that we now work with. Finally, it was important that our fruit packs get delivered in a cold temperature range for a great client experience. This was a challenge when we had to deliver long-distance orders. This was an issue because there is currently no thermostat equipped delivery services operating in Abuja where we operate from. To overcome this, we currently partner with a reliable express delivery service and improvise with ice packs in the chillers for long-distance deliveries. Hopefully, in the near future, we can have our very own thermostat equipped delivery bikes. How do you stay above the noise in your industry? We made sure to implement a system of receiving and acting on feedback, from early on in the business so that we know what exactly our clients want and tweak our approach to offer them that. This has been really helpful in building a business that our clients love and customer retention as well. Did you have any personal experience that taught you a business lesson? Before I started my business, I had a few unpleasant experiences with logistics. On one occasion, I
Juka Ceesay on partnering with Walmart: “I wanted to bring Africa to mainstream by contributing to its Economy”
Juka Ceesay was born and raised in The Gambia, Africa. She initially moved to the U.S to pursue accounting, modeling and acting. She was signed to one of the largest agencies for several years before she decided to fully focus on building a company that would help individuals, families, and villages throughout Africa. Therefore, she launched Juka’s Organic and partnered with female farmers to produce and cultivate the finest quality of Coconut Oil and Babao powder. Juka’s Organic is most popularly known for their Red Palm Oil, which the company offers pure and unrefined in a jar, in pill form for easier consumption and in their latest and popular Red Palm Oil sauce. Juka recently visited the women she partners with, in Africa and got to witness the long-term and growing impact her brand has been making in the Gambia, Mali amongst other villages throughout the continent. The company consists of her, her mother and a small team running daily operations from both Africa and in the U.S. She recently launched a deal with Walmart and her products are now available via Walmart’s website and in super region locations in the U.S. In this article, Juka speaks to SLA about how she’s taken her products from Africa to the world. About Juka’s Organic… Juka’s Organic Co. is Something invigorating, innovative, inspiring and wants to make a huge difference in the lives of people across the globe. We offer natural, healthy foods and beauty products to the American consumers from the continent of Africa that are not customarily accessible in the U.S market. All our products are 100% sustainable and ethically harvested. Our focal point is to also help the African farmers, particularly women, to supply their natural healthy products to the U.S market and around the world. My Inspiration to create Juka’s Organic… I owned and managed an African food market in Inglewood, Califonia, for several years. I realized there weren’t many African stores that opened their doors to the American consumers, everything was segregated and only African customers find themselves shopping in our stores. But seldom, the U.S customers we had were often fascinated by our products. This is when I knew something had to be done to bridge this gap. Also, we offered many of our products in the store amongst which we sold red palm oil. Most of our products were imported from the villages, including the red palm oil, hence the quality was superior to many brands in the market. People were really amazed by the authenticity of the oil and the consistency. This is around the same time Dr. Oz talked about the importance of adding red palm oil to your diet. But also, he has talked about many tips on his show that included products that were indigenous to Africa. It all came full circle, I always wanted to bring Africa to mainstream to contribute to its Economy. This is when the magic started unfolding, I soon made the decision to cynosure my attention to importing natural food and beauty products from Africa, harvested by women farmers. Knowing that this will not only benefit the African framers but it will also be of great service to health-conscious consumers that do not have access to some of these essential foods in the west. This is how Juka’s Organic Co. came to fruition. [bctt tweet=”The passion I have keeps me going – @Jukasorganic” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] How the company is benefitting women in Africa… Juka’s Organic Co. plays a tremendous role in the lives of women we work within the villages and in Africa at large. We help them secure their own source of income throughout the year and grow their businesses. When we partner with these women, they know they can harvest products in large quantities and we are there to work with them through the process, as they often have issues with capital. Most of them used to produce just a small amount because if not, they would have a surplus in the market. Although most of these products grow in the wild, it still costs them money to obtain the products. They pay up front for the labor that they can’t do themselves and other logistics to get the products from point A to B. When we partner with them we fund them upfront to take care of the whole process including the cost of labor and their profit. They can also sustainably and comfortably harvest as much as possible without having the fare of surplus in the market which can lead to a loss. Most of these women in the villages have no other ways to maintain a decent income to pay for their children’s education or to simply put food on the table, so it is quite fulfilling to see them grow together with us. As we expand our consumer base this also means expansion for them in farming, business, and for a better livelihood. [bctt tweet=”Want to take your business from Africa to the US market? Learn from @Jukasorganic” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Tips for aspiring female entrepreneurs coming to tackle the U.S market… Find something you’re are passionate about, believe, and know that it takes a process. Don’t just do something for the drive of money. There will be times you might need something else to motivate you in the right direction and that the money might not be there right away. The only way to sustain that mission will be the passion you have for what you are doing. Do your homework. This will help you balance the passion to know that there is indeed consumer base for what you are passionate about. You also don’t want to do things just because you are passionate about it. Make sure not to get in a market base that is already saturated, and harder to penetrate as a startup. Don’t beat yourself up if things don’t work out as planned. Know that sometimes you might have the intention for a business
Desire Isiguzo: School fanned my flame for farming
We do not find a lot of young people who are eager to take up farming as a career but this is what Desire Isiguzo loves to do and she’s making a business out of it. She started growing oyster mushroom indoors which produced a good yield. After graduating from the University, she began to grow plants and study their growth behavior. Now, she has acquired plots of lands to move her business to another level. Desire helps to strengthen the local market by purchasing crops from the women traders. She then processes it into high-quality bean flour. She’s now is growing her agricultural brand- D’Yucca to be one of the prominent agricultural brands in Africa meeting both local and international standards. [bctt tweet=” Farming is what I think about daily. I can’t stay a day without learning something new about it – Desire Isiguzo” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] How was growing up for you? Growing up was everything for me, I was happy and I got all that I wanted from my family. My mom was a farmer and a civil servant. Back then, I hated following her to the farm because I hated working in the blistering sun but I was made to follow them still. I was given seeds of corn to plant and I would dig up the soil. I was lazy about it, I felt it was stressful and it would make my hands dirty. When I saw my seeds sprout for the first time, I was excited to see that I had created something. When did you realize that Agriculture was something you wanted to do? In 2010, I started out planting plantain which I did to earn some money for myself in school. Later on, it began to turn into more than just an avenue for money. I realize that farming was something I thought about daily and I couldn’t stay a day without learning something about it. Why did you study Plant Science and Biotechnology? Did it influence your farming business? Initially, I wanted to study Agriculture, which did not work out. Non-traditional agriculture opened my eyes to different aspects of farming. During our industrial training, we were taken to large farms, where we saw the practicability of what we were taught. We were also able to practice what we saw even though we were not paid. Biotechnology teaches you how to stay in business in agriculture. I think school fanned my flame for farming. What is the role technology plays in innovation and planting? It solves a lot of problems. In storing cassava the conventional way, it can only last a day or two before it gets bad. But with Biotechnology, you can bury them in sawdust and sprinkle water on them and like they were never harvested, this keeps them preserved. This is a post-harvest management technique. Other methods include seed bank preservation, which is preserving seeds by freezing. We also do seed multiplication with mushroom. In hydroponics, you get to regulate the environment of your farm: temperature, pest, sunlight, and water thereby deciding what gets in and out of your plant. This gives you a better yield for business. Where did your distinct brand name – D’Yucca come from? In school, I was battling with a name for my brand. While I was thinking about it, I stumbled on a plant that is always green. I started reading about it and I found out that it is called Yucca. This plant can survive fire, drought, and flood. Its tenacious characteristics made me name my brand after it. After my internship, I started making bean flour. I got an excellent grade for my project and begin to think that maybe this was credible and doable. Did you experience challenges as a young Agropreneur? Yes, I did. After my first mushroom project yielded a result, I put in all of my money into the second project and I did not harvest a thing. I made a mistake in culturing the sawdust used for growing the mushroom and all the plants died. It was a painful loss but I learned not to skip on my precaution process again. Capital too is a constant challenge for me. Where did your business capital and funding come from? My mom! She believed in me and encouraged me. A lot of people tried to discourage me when I asked for funding. They said I won’t go through with it, that I was too young and I was a girl. Why do you choose to specialize in growing Mushroom indoors? Growing up we would gather mushroom from fallen trees in the farm. We would cover them in cocoyam leaves. My mom had a special way of roasting it and I loved it. Growing mushroom at home reminds me of old times and of course, gives me the chance to eat it whenever I want to. Mushroom is also very healthy and it can easily replace red meat in the diet of diabetic people. How did you find people to support you and join your team? Every member of our team has their strength and I leave them where they are the strongest. They are all part-time now. Everyone has been part of the process, sharing ideas and critiquing my ideas. I also have friends who are good in business whom I seek help and advice from. Where do you see D’Yucca in 5 years? Our logo typifies what D’Yucca is all about. The thirteen leaves signify the various aspects we want to branch into in future. In five years we would have used up three of these leaves: tomato production, processing, and edible oil production For young entrepreneurs venturing into Agriculture, what do you say to them? Start small. I already talked about my experience of losing my entire savings in a haste to do something big. Don’t pause because consistency is key. Keep getting your
Ogechi Okelu: Making traditional Nigerian snacks sexy
Ogechi Okelu’s love for food creativity led her from a career as a pharmacist to a desire to recreate indigenous Nigerian snacks. Many Nigerians grew up eating snacks which were only largely available in rural areas but Ogechi is repackaging local snacks in healthy and hygienic ways through her small scale food factory to help reach more people. She shared her thoughts with SLA on where traditional foods fit in with weight loss and on her journey so far. Why start a business with indigenous snacks? Nigeria has a wide variety of healthy and creative snacks and meals. These have been lost over time and are not in high demand among the urban and elite groups. This is mainly because of the preparation process and packaging but also due to Westernisation. I’m working on recreating some of these snacks in a healthier and more appealing way for the world to enjoy. Tell us a bit about Kozee My brand has been registered as a trademark and it’s called Kozee. My first product is my brand of kulikuli. Kulikuli is an indigenous snack made from groundnut paste that is quite popular in the northern part of Nigeria. I grew up eating this lovely snack. It is really versatile and can be eaten alone or in combination with other meals. Typically, people eat it broken into soaked garri but modern foodies use kulikuli as salad or parfait toppings, blended into smoothies and also to spice roasted beef or chicken. I am currently at the last stage of registration with NAFDAC, the Nigerian body that is responsible for the registration and quality control of food, drugs and cosmetics in Nigeria. They ensure that standard quality is maintained at all times and that standard operating procedures are adhered to by carrying out site inspections at factories and also running quality control tests on products at their labs. Where do indigenous and traditional foods fit in weight loss and healthy living? The main challenge with weight loss is portion control. We have a wide variety of traditional foods that are rich in fibre and minerals and are not over processed. A lot of our local foods however, have not been scientifically analysed, so we can’t be certain as to how many calories they contain or their nutritional value. This drives a lot of people who are particular about weight loss and healthy living to buy the imported products that have clear nutritional facts written on them. Researching on and repackaging our traditional foods will encourage more people to patronise Nigerian products and therefore boost the economy. How has your background as a pharmacist helped your hustle? As a pharmacist, I have learnt a lot about the importance of quality control and microbial contamination and this has helped me set high standards for myself, my factory and my product. Kulikuli has been made for centuries in the rural areas by hard working women who use a lot of manual processes from start to finish. This makes it difficult to produce large quantities of kulikuli in a healthy and hygienic way. I have been able to substitute a large part of the manual process using food grade machinery. I am also a pharmaceutical sales person, this has taught me a lot about sales, marketing and running a business. Where do you see Kozee in the next year? I currently deliver only in Abuja but am in talks to supply other major cities in Nigeria. I want my products to be available for purchase across Nigeria and hopefully abroad in the nearest future. What is your passion and how do you sustain it? I am a foodie who is also very passionate about healthy living. My passion for healthy food keeps me focused on coming up with creative ideas that I believe can help redefine our traditional and indigenous foods. If you’d like to share your story with She Leads Africa, let us know more about you and your story here.
Smoothie Express: Bringing healthy food to the people
SLA quickly caught up with Tracy and Omowunmi the founders of fast growing fresh food startup Smoothie Express. They shared with us how they developed the idea for the company, how they get around volatile currencies and the best piece of feedback they’ve ever received from a customer. Where did the idea of Smoothie Express come from and how did you get it started? I was trying to do a smoothie detox and my biggest challenge was finding the right time to blend my smoothies as I was still working a 9-5 then. That’s where the idea came up, I had seen a problem that was not peculiar to me alone and I wanted to solve it. So I contacted Omowunmi and we both developed a solution for the problem hence, Smoothie Express. We first of all picked a name, Smoothie Express because we wanted to make fresh smoothies available to customers with minutes. Then we registered the company. We used our savings in starting up the company. We had to prioritize our capital expenditure because funds were limited. Why is healthy food so important to you? As adults, we have the tendency to go by our lives eating any piece of unhealthy food just to keep body and soul going. With lots of diseases coming up and ill health associated with being overweight, the best and easiest way to keep your health in check is to eat healthy. Healthy food plays an important role in our health and it’s important for me to indulge as much as possible. What is the most challenging element of running a food startup? I would say quality control for a food start up. Customers expect nothing less than perfect food/beverage not withstanding anything, all the time. So as a food company, you have to make sure there is quality control checks all day everyday. How has currency fluctuation affected your business and what are you doing to creatively manage it and keep your products affordable? We have always been a company that believes in patronizing Nigerian products. It’s been a struggle everywhere, but we have been able to manage the currency situation because of that. Although, we are struggling with increased prices for a few items. It’s such a shame how dollar still controls our economy this much. What is the best thing and the worst thing about having a business partner? The best thing about having a business partner is that, there is always someone to cover your weaknesses and loops. The worst thing about having a business partner is that you guys get to disagree a lot of times but the ability to push past it makes it worthwhile. What is the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received from a customer? Oh well. A couple of customers say we make the best smoothies in the world. If you’d like to share your story with She Leads Africa, let us know more about you and your story here.