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One thing we never mess with in our country is our side hustle; leave the main hustle first. The money might not come faster or quicker, like the side hustle.
I recall back then, when I was still in college, college was the main hustle; waking up by 6 to attend a lecture by 8 wasn't easy, and textbooks and handouts were draining me, both financially, mentally, and physically.
Then my friend introduced me to selling donuts. Back then, donuts were just sold for 100 naira. The business was kicking so well, and why wouldn't it? The donuts were soft and had a very different favor and package from other regular donuts. Everyone in my class used to rush the donuts after lectures. I was happy that I could make people happy, and they made my wallet happy too.
Unfortunately, the business wasn't meant to last. As the producers of the donuts automatically stopped business, it affected me because every day after school I would rush to go get the amount of donuts I had ordered only to find out later on that there were no more in business. I tried asking what the reason was, but nobody gave me a concrete answer. I used to place orders of 50 to 100 pieces of donuts. My money was refunded back to me, and that's how that business died. I tried another donut, but instead of making a profile, I was making a lost one. Nobody liked it; they all wanted the first donut, so I introduced them too. Even in the hostel, I was known as that soft donut girl in room 8😂.
I was so sad about my loss; I kept thinking it was bad luck or that my village people were after me. It turns out that was my first time getting into the world of business, and I couldn't handle the failure afterwards. I was seriously devastated. This was a business I was getting most of my livelihood from, and it just crushed like that. I started having thoughts like “if I could make this kind of donuts or have learned maybe such a thing won't have happened to my small side hustle," but I also realized that if I gave so much time and effort to making those types of donuts and selling them at the same time, I wouldn't have as much time for my books as I had time just getting them from the bakery and coming to school to sell them.
Being the strong African girl I was, I didn't allow the loss of my first business to get me down. I went into developing my skill of making hair. The moment I started to invest my free time into hair braids, I started getting more customers. I couldn't sit idle in my room without making 3 to 5 people's hair in a day. It started with making my roommate's hair for free. Before you know it, people who saw the hair wanted the same style on their hair, and I took the opportunity the moment I saw it. I made a small poster on my room door, using a marketing strategy to get more customers by first reusing the price of the braids, making it as affordable as possible, and students would always like affordable things.
From getting one person per day, I started getting 5. Sometimes I would be so tired, but I had to finish up because I enjoyed what I was doing, and another was that the money was calling out to me💃, that was one passion or skill I could wake up in the middle of the night to do without a problem. I was happy that I could actually make use of what I knew and was good at to get money from it. It was like an open door for m., I was able to pay for a lot of stuff back then in college. And this made me feel lucky because I wasn't doing what most girls were doing to get mone— going to clubs and seeing men just to afford a living—no, o I wasn't.
I was more than happy and content with the money I made through what I was good at (making hair), and I was proud of it. So I learned from both sides of the of the hustle. And till today, I have made my own money, at least without feeling indebted to someone's money.