I don’t know if I have ever shared this story with you before.

 

But all I know is that I rarely talk about this issue.

 

It’s a business I owned in late 2018.

 

And why don’t I talk about it?

 

Well, it’s simple.

 

I was brutally hurt by what happened to the business but I moved over it already.

 

And when I got to understand direct response marketing…

 

I realized there were some mistakes we made that we were supposed to correct.

 

Those mistakes killed the business for life.

 

And sit tight because I want to summarize a very long story for you now…

 

So late 2018, I ran a restaurant solely owned by me.

 

I had a kitchen assistant and a delivery man.

 

And should in case you don’t know, you need to know that I cook well.

 

I started cooking when I was 9 because my mum won’t even spare you even if you are a male.

 

So I know how to cook almost all local foods but the bad part is that I am lazy.

 

But this 2018, I was all energetic and I love cooking.

 

So I decided to go after cooking since this is something I love.

 

I had something around N110,000 saved up then.

 

I got to discuss with the kitchen assistant because we will be using her house kitchen.

 

It’s more like order and delivery thingy.

 

Food always served hot and it was fire.

 

We printed banners…

 

Printed flyers and even went on a rally with a few of my friends to share flyers…

 

We bought equipment like pots, gas cooker, etc.

 

And foodstuffs?

 

All in abundance.

 

So we had varieties on the menu.

 

And funny enough, the aim was to give item7 a run for their money.

 

If you are a student of Unilorin, you will know item7. 

 

The largest restaurant and bestseller in Unilorin I guess.

 

But unfortunately, we came and left unnoticed.

 

And that’s not even where things got messy.

 

Because after sharing the flyers and all…

 

We got few customers always ordering.

 

I cook and the woman assists.

 

Sometimes, she cooks and I assist her.

 

It was all a roller coaster…

 

Immediately we are back from school, we got into cooking and delivering pending orders.

 

You know the excitement now…

 

As a starting business, we get nothing short of 10 to 25 orders daily.

 

And this went on for about 2 weeks before we noticed sales dropping.

 

And we also noticed we were running into debts even with all these daily sales.

 

How Nah?

 

Wetin dey occur?

 

Okay, what’s happening?

 

We couldn’t determine what happened and we had to go under from January 2019 till around July 2019.

 

All money spent and broken because tbh, we can’t account for a single Naira.

 

We even thought it was village people.

 

Because then, I was superstitious and religious.

 

In fact, my assistant took us to church and they prayed for us because…

 

Where’s our money going and why is sales dropping?

 

And by the time we came back around August, we were pumped up. 

 

I saved around 70k and we poured that into the business again.

 

We got a place where we can stay.

 

More like a shop where we cook and display for people to see and buy.

 

And fortunately, we were on holiday at that time even though we had SWEP.

 

We would go to SWEP and come back to shop ASAP. 

 

And one thing is…

 

Our food is delicious, damnit.

 

And during this period, my friend Emma joined the company.

 

We were 3 and I promised them a profit-sharing ratio.

 

Lmao.

 

We ran into the same problem again.

 

And this time, we thought one woman was behind our failure.

 

She was selling food behind our shop too.

 

And we were selling better than her.

 

Because our food is sweeter obviously. 

 

So the same cycle…

 

Running into debts even though this time, the influx of customers never stopped.

 

People are coming to buy food.

 

But no money to keep up the restaurant.

 

We were broke.

 

This is the second time. 

 

Are we going under again?

 

Hell NO.

 

I told these guys (Emma and my assistant) that since you guys are also excos here…

 

We should all contribute money together.

 

And we will return it after a certain period because I can’t even cope no more.

 

This was also the period forex was swallowing my money.

 

So I don’t have savings neither is business going fine.

 

While going through all these things and also collecting foodstuff on credit…

 

The landlord of our shop came…

 

His younger aunty sister husband (gibberish) is coming from the village.

She wants to use the space we are using.

 

So we should move out (since we pay monthly) by month-end.

 

And this was the last stroke for me.

 

I decided to quit.

 

I am not doing shit again.

 

And all equipment? I gave it all to the lady.

 

Use them because I don’t want to be a part of this debt again.

 

And we struggled to pay off the debts and boom.

 

I stopped being a part of the company. 

 

Emma also followed me and the woman decided to collect another shop yada yada.

 

Which I don’t care about anymore.

 

And now that I looked back into the years, I realized we made a lot of mistakes. 

 

But two mistakes were so glaring that I almost slapped myself that why didn’t I know this then?

 

The first mistake is…

 

We lacked money management and that was why we kept running into debts.

 

We make money.

 

Eat out of food anyhow.

 

In fact, do friends with business by giving free food to friends.

 

And we also spent carelessly a bit.

 

Which pushed us into debt but the mumu us thought it was village people.

 

I was really foolish because why would I go kneel for a pastor on a problem I caused?

 

Damn.

 

The second mistake is…

 

We neglected sales and marketing.

 

We never did any advert except the one time we shared flyers. 

 

So that was why we had a shortage of customers.

 

The ones eating with us kept eating but at some point felt they needed a new taste.

 

And they got a new taste out there. 

 

Because I as a person, no matter how well I love your food.

 

I will get tired at some point.

 

So I think that was what happened.

 

We didn’t run ads.

We didn’t get new people into our pipeline 

 

We believe God will bring customers and yeah…

 

He brought some but we still went under.

 

And that was how my 170k plus went under the ground.

 

Swallowed by a business I had the energy to run then.

 

But as you know everything is a lesson.

 

I learned a great deal and if at all I develop the passion for cooking again.

 

I will do better.

 

And I hope you learned one or two things today?

 

To your success

 

Dolapo Hamzat. 

 

 

P.S:

 

And today is a good day to get a copy of the layman guide for yourself.

 

In case you don’t know what I am talking about.

 

Go here to learn more about it: Layman Guide.

 

Get a copy for yourself and your business.

 

Or else, your business might end up like my restaurant. 

 

Or not 

 

Who knows?