Business, they say, is not for the faint-hearted.
I took the liberty to read about some notable business people and entrepreneurs in Nigeria and discovered they all have some few things in common, which are; Family riches, wealth and name, otherwise known as affluence.
Thus, for you to succeed in business and become a household name in the likes of Dangote, Otedola and Alakidja, you need to have a strong financial root or backing otherwise, most often, you will be in business to survive and not to thrive.
What does this statement mean, some of you might want to wonder? Well, I will tell you.
Like a human being, business is an investment. For your business to yield and take care of you, you have to first invest your time, resources, and finance. Otherwise, you are starting a business to fail.
One reason people fail out in the pursuit of building a financial empire from an existing business is lack of discipline. In the time of Ovaioza the Facebook Nigerian Agricultural investor, she started so well and blew overnight with lies and deceit.
People bought her cock-and-bull Agricultural storage story and started trusting her with their tens of millions in Naira, of which accumulated to billions of Naira in her care.
She could have been an honest businesswoman and actually started off the said business with all that money at her disposal, but no, she squandered it all on an unsustainable luxurious lifestyle.
For starters, it should be worthy to note that she had no existing knowledge of the business she has been showing off.
She also did not have the discipline to turn to the experts in the field, and partner with them for a sustainable future in Agriculture business. Hence, she already started a business to fail, and in no distant time, whatever she had built on a falsified foundation, came crashing down like a pack of cards.
It is very common in our clime Nigeria that the moment the rich and wealthy dies, the first thing most of their children would do is not to carry on with their business legacy.
Most of the children's interest would be channeled towards selling off their deceased parent or parents assets and shares. This is due to the fact that their parents failed to key them into the business while they were alive and well.
They have also failed to groom their children to be resourceful and self-sustaining.
It is for these reasons, that there are struggles in the sustainability of the Nigeria business world.
Personally, I have had my own fair share of business failure when I ventured into restaurant business. I started well, but with time I began to fail because there was not enough capital to pump back into the business when it sloped downwards.
It was even worse at the time because it was the business my family and I were feeding from.
More so, the location also had a lot to do with me hitting rock bottom because at the time, I was doing very well. Initially, there was an ongoing filling station construction close to me and the people working on site were basically coming to eat at my restaurant, so I was raking money.
But by the time the filing station was established and the people all returned to base, business dropped drastically and there was no money to add back together with the existing capital to keep it afloat.
I was devastated, heartbroken and almost got my fingers burnt as I was literally struggling to sustain the business. Luckily, the job I had applied for pre-COVID-19 clicked, and I got a call to start work. That was how I quit that business, with lessons learned.
Nevertheless, that was my second attempt at business. The first attempt I had at business was bead selling during my NYSC days, and it was really lucrative for me.
At a point, I started going to various schools to teach the students bead making, and they will in turn buy beads from me. Business was booming then, and I was happy to be empowering the students of the community I was serving in.
But sadly, I had to quit that too when service year came to an end.
For now, let business rest first because I do not have the heart for the rough sea of business.
ALL IMAGES ARE MINE
This post is a response to the Hive Naija weekly prompt and the Aprilinleo prompt. To participate, kindlyclick here