For a lot of entrepreneurs, hitting gold with their first business doesn’t happen and that’s perfectly normal. Learning that failure is normal is integral to growth and success and the earlier you realize this, the better you’ll be
We spoke to a few young Nigerians about their first businesses and why it failed.
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Ono -23
My earliest memory of owning a business was when I was in JSS3. My classmates liked my lip-gloss and used to ‘borrow’ it. It came in a cute pink and red container and smelled very fruity. So, I would collect money from the boarders who were unable to go outside school, buy it and then sell it at a slightly marked up price. After a while, I had made some gain, saved my allowances too so I was able to buy wholesale, make an even bigger profit and expand my client base.
After a while, I added body mist perfumes and even though it didn’t sell like the lip-gloss did, it was still good money. Unfortunately, I ended up losing the business after I spent all of my profit and capital on buying a phone which got stolen.
George – 28 & Chuka – 26
The first business we ever ventured into was owning a fish farm. We had gone for a skills acquisition seminar and signed up to learn about fish farming on a small scale. We rented a small piece of land where we would rear the fish, equipped ourselves with knowledge and got to work.
After a few months, we were ready to take our business onto the market. Chuka designed flyers and we paste them all over school and our hostel. Unknown to us, our feasibility studies were all wrong. Bigger fish farms were selling at cheaper prices than we did. We also weren’t in the ideal location because students would rather have the fish gutted and cleaned from the market and we didn’t know how to do that. Also, we had a case of theft with the farm supervisor. At the end of the day, we recorded our losses, closed it down and ended up using the rest for pepper soup
Kayode – 30
I’ve always been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. But the very first business I started was in clothes and shoes. I had a capital of N50,000 so I went to Balogun market and bought goods.
I relied on family and friends being my first customers but a lot of them bought the goods on credit and never paid. Even though we’re cool now, I know better never to sell on credit anymore
Tumi – 24
My first business was selling hair. I observed that hair selling was lucrative so I contacted a vendor through an e-commerce platform abroad and we had agreed on price and shipping. He sent an initial sample and I was pleased with it so I went on social media and promoted the content I received from the supplier so that people could pre-order the hairs.
A couple of weeks after, the hairs finally got to me and I was excited to start selling. When I dispatched it to the customers, they were angry that the hairs were not authentic and wasn’t what they ordered. It was a case of “what I ordered vs what I got”. I was really embarrassed and closed down the business, refunded the customers who asked for a refund and counted my losses.
Do you also have a first business story? Share with us in the comments.
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