“Don’t go into any business just because of money” – How Ifeyinwa Ojekwe built the brilliant AJALI skincare
[bctt tweet=”Ifeyinwa Ojekwe: If I didn’t give it my all I’d never know how big it could be” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] With businesses I admire I always wonder, how did they start? How did they figure out the right products and how the heck did they get a storefront so early? Catching up with Ifeyinwa Ojekwe, founder of AJALI answered these questions. AJALI is an all-natural, completely handmade cosmetics brand established in 2013 to promote local industry and create awareness for living a healthy life. I tried their products at She Hive London and fell in love, I’ve not looked back since. How did AJALI start? AJALI was founded in 2013. I got really sick when I moved back to Nigeria and made the decision to live a cleaner life. I went natural and started doing research into natural cosmetics. At the time, there was body shop in Nigeria, and when I did more research it wasn’t as natural as I expected, so I kept looking for an alternative but didn’t find something I liked, so I did some DIY. The first thing I tried to make was my body souffles, and my family started to ask about it. So I began making it for friends and family, and then my church had an exhibition and the rest was history. It started off really organic (no pun intended!), it started as a hobby and four years later here we are. How did you make the transition from employee to entrepreneur? I worked at Chevron and Ernst & Young when I moved back to Nigeria, and then I landed my dream job at Today’s Woman. I only quit my job in 2015 – 2 years after AJALI started. Throughout all those job changes, I found that AJALI was the only constant, the only passion throughout that time. If felt like if I didn’t give it my all I’d never know how big it could be. It got to a point where I couldn’t manage both, I couldn’t handle the business coming in. I was a one-person operation at that time, I was doing absolutely everything myself and I needed to give it 100%. Several times along the journey, I was frustrated and wanted to quit but I was surrounded by so many good people to encourage me and give me pep talks when I needed one. A major turning point for me was when I was on holiday in London and EbonyLife reached out and said they wanted to give me an award. I thought it was a scam – so I sent them to my mom’s office and a whole camera crew turned up! That was in 2014, I won the Best Nigeria Made Product of the Year and something told me to keep pushing on, to give it my best and keep on keeping on. At first, my family was sceptical, they questioned whether I really thought it through, especially with the recession in Nigeria. But I resolved that this was what I truly wanted to do, and I’d give it my best shot. What were your biggest investments in AJALI? When I decided to be full time, I decided that I needed a physical store to take me where I wanted to go. I had success with my online store and going to trade shows, but people really wanted to come and pick up our products. So I started looking for a space to make things look more professional. Luckily from my job at Today’s Woman, I had some media and press contacts so was able to get buzz around my the launch of my store on 1 November 2015. At the time, it was a 2 bedroom BQ (boy’s quarters) where I did everything – the office, production, and the selling. I hired a beautician to do treatments as I had some extra space and we were off. On the launch day, we had nearly 200 people and I sold more that night that I had sold in the two years prior. That was the first time I believe it could actually work. I hired my first sales assistant around December 2016. I’ve taken my time, it’s all privately funded by myself, family and friends along the way, so I have to be very careful with resources. Everything goes back to be being invested in the business. I also focused on improving the quality of the business, the logistics, the operations for shipping, and delivery. I’ve also expanded my product range as time went on and invested in serious marketing to legitimise the brand. Before I started, I took a year to educate myself on various ingredients and test products with real users, friends, and family. I’m always looking for new things we could do, and because my passion is living a naturally healthy life, it is second nature. [bctt tweet=”Do something that you are passionate about but make sure it makes business sense” via=”no”] What advice would you give to help someone build a successful business? 1. Do something that you are passionate about but make sure it makes business sense. You need to test whether you’re actually going to make money – is this something you’re going to live off of? If you’re going to have a sustainable business you need to have that research. 2. You don’t have to do everything yourself, though. I use freelance websites to make logos, improve my website and do other graphic design. Make sure you have mentors around you, people who can support you – someone you look up to who you can pick their brain and get their advice from. So try to build up your network, if you don’t know where to start, start in places like SLA and educate yourself 3. Be ready for the journey. Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur, be a risk taker, willing to work later, and pay less until you reach that sweet-spot in your enterprise. 4. Have a
Nkechi Adimora: 5 things that kept my business running during the recession
Nkechi Adimora is the CEO of Ozi Express, a logistics business she started with her husband a little over a year ago. This startup is focused on local delivery of food, parcels, and errands within the city of Abuja, Nigeria. Prior to this, Nkechi has run businesses ranging from retailing authentic human hair, a mobile clothes and accessories boutique, and a food vending stall. Although Nkechi’s educational background in International Relations and Development gained from Sussex University and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) London seems a little different from her savvy and quest for business, she has successfully integrated these skills to ensure she runs her logistics business with class and excellence. The young CEO shares with us some key things to note while keeping your startup running during the recession. [bctt tweet=”I adopt the ‘customer is always right principle’ because my main goal is not money” via=”no”] My employees Let us be honest while it is somewhat fulfilling to become an employer of labor, it is getting increasingly difficult to find good employees. Somehow it seems like everybody wants to earn money but nobody wants to work. My employees are not the best but they all have one thing in common -they are very hardworking. The business needed a lot more effort to keep customers which meant that we had no room to mock about especially since we now have an almost saturated market for delivery business. But they wake up every day and self-motivate themselves to work – and this helped us through the recession. [bctt tweet=”My employees self-motivate themselves to work – this helped us through the recession” via=”no”] Loyal Customers I began the business handling the customer relations myself – this meant that despite my regular day job, I spend an enormous amount of personal and family time responding to customers and ensuring that they were satisfied with the service I am providing. Now I love speaking to customers – and sadly I feel that nobody can handle my customers like I do. This is because I can instantaneously take decisions in order to ensure customer satisfaction such as offer discounts, deal with complaints immediately and appease customers whenever my employees have delayed a delivery/errand. I also always adopt the good old ”customer is always right principle” because my main goal is not the money but rather to keep them coming back to me. I had years of customer service related training and work experience right from when I was in University – from being an International Student Ambassador to call centre jobs in corporate companies where I sharpened my Customer Service Relations (CSR) skills to the core. Accounting Now, this is one area where I am still not an expert in but I realize you do not need to be an expert to do simple numbers. I am very strict with monitoring the accounts (which I do myself). I keep a simple spreadsheet which helps me track my daily income and expenditure. And this year when the recession really hit, I administered cost-saving strategies so as to keep our costs as low as possible in order to maximise profits. Pricing When I initially started I offered very low prices for even far distances. In the new year, we announced a price increase to our customers which was between 100 – 200 naira. Unbelievably, we lost a lot of customers even though the majority of them understood the reasons for our decision. But of course when you lose some you gain new ones and this was our case. We had to ensure the price was right so that we do not end up running a charity business. Supporting Small Businesses Every small business or start-up in Nigeria already understands that the environment is very unfriendly to our business. With this in mind, I consider small businesses when I want to offer discounts to my loyal customers. It’s simple. If food company A has a product for 5 naira and my delivery cost is normally 5 naira, it does not make sense to me to charge him or her 5 naira for delivery. In such cases, I am usually willing to charge 2 naira for delivery. In my opinion, I am also contributing to support small businesses to achieve their dreams. A lot of my customers now are startups/small businesses who have negotiated affordable prices for delivery that they feel their customers will be happy to pay (although not in all cases). Generally, in business, people only think of how much they can make out of it. While this is not in itself a bad thing, I think that money should be the second thought – crazy as this sounds. The first thought could be passion, filling a gap or meeting a need…then comes the money. Ozi Express is on Instagram as we continue to leverage on innovative ways to support businesses and grow our clientele.