The Nation Newspaper

Category: Small Business

  • Lifting entrepreneurship through microfinance

    Can microcredit help poor entrepreneurs free themselves from poverty? This is what The Microfinance Association United Kingdom, Nigeria chapter, is seeking to achieve, reports DANIEL ESSIET

     

    For  The Microfinance Association United kingdom, Nigeria  chapter, a global body for Microfinance practitioners, the perfect solution to poverty in developing countries appears to have been found: microcredit!

    To this end, the association is pushing for practitioners  that empower microfinance institutions to provide entrepreneurs with small loans to start a business. This, the association believes will facilitate their escape from poverty.

    Speaking in Lagos, Country Representative, The Microfinance Association, United kingdom, Mrs. Ololade Adesola, said microfinance has taken various forms throughout the world and remains an important tool for economic development providing the financial means to stimulate enterprise growth that brings the much needed income and employment for individuals.

    She said limited access to finance, with low penetration of the micro-finance and banking sectors, hinders economic development.

    She said micro-finance institutions have  to increase access to finance for the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people, many of them women living in rural areas.

    She said the association seeks to expand micro-finance in Nigeria to stimulate entrepreneurship and improve access to finance for micro and small entrepreneurs, many of whom, really access the formal financial sector.

    One of the activities of the association is to train practitioners to help institutions to increase and diversify lending activities and expand the microfinance network.

    Read Also: Firm holds mentorship challenge for entrepreneurs 

    Mrs. Adesola said the association is helping micro-finance institutions develop their management capacity, to meet the demand for financial services.

    Mrs. Adesola said Nigeria needed functional micro-finance institutions that can provide individuals microcredit and financial resources to start, maintain and grow their own ventures.

    According to her, the association is supporting innovation in the sector, using developments in technology, to help financial institutions reach a greater number of people in a more cost-effective way.

    With the growing emphasis on entrepreneurship, Mrs Adesola stressed the need for the microfinance industry to respond to this by developing innovative ways to extend integrated microfinance services, such as savings, loans and cash transfers and non-financial services to the entrepreneurs in an attractive and cost-effective manner.

    On the induction of new members, she said 35 professionals have been inducted into the industry as micro-finance practitioners.

    She said the association is committed to financial inclusion.

    The Dean, Centre for Research in Enterprise and action in Management  (CREM), Dr Noel Ihebuzor,  said there is need for micro-finance institutions  to provide , business management consulting, monitoring and support services adapted to the needs of entrepreneurs wishing to start or strengthen their micro-enterprises.

  • Buhari calls Jonathan over insurgency

  • Strive Masiyiwa: If I started again I’d do agriculture, says telecoms tycoon

    Strive Masiyiwa: If I started again I’d do agriculture, says telecoms tycoon

    Zimbabwean tycoon, Strive Masiyiwa, made his money in the mobile telecoms business, but if he were to start all over again, he would bet on agriculture.

    Speaking at the opening of this year’s African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, Masiyiwa made a case for the opportunities in the agriculture industry.

    The Zimbabwean billionaire is chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an organisation set up in 2006 to support smallholder farmers with the goal of reducing poverty and hunger.

    Masiyiwa noted that Africa’s food market would be worth US$1tr in just 15 years, citing a 2013 report by the World Bank.

    According to a report launched at the forum, Africa currently spends more than $60b on food imports each year, thereby benefiting producers outside the continent.

    “Oh I wish I was starting again. I wouldn’t do telephones. I would go into agriculture,” he said.

    Masiyiwa founded Econet, a diversified telecommunications company with operations and investments in Africa, Europe, South America and Asia. His other business interests include financial services, insurance, renewable energy, bottling for Coca-Cola and hospitality ventures – all of which have made him one of the most wealthy and respected business people in Africa.

    “Twenty years ago, the idea that people could have their own (mobile) phone was almost as ludicrous as the idea that Africa will feed the world. But 20 years from now, this continent will feed the world,” Masiyiwa predicted.

    A decade ago, Masiyiwa noted, it was almost impossible to talk about agriculture in Africa beyond simply food security. Millions of people across the continent were facing hunger on a daily basis, even starvation.

    “When you mentioned the words food and agriculture, often we spoke about hunger. I cannot say to you the hunger has gone away – but what I can say to you today is that we are beginning to address this issue. We are beginning to move agriculture forward.The green revolution of Africa… has indeed, started.”

     

    Involving the youth

    Masiyiwa urged stakeholders to connect the bulging youth population with the continent’s vast agricultural resources.

    This year’s Africa Agriculture Status Report: Youth in Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, launched at the forum, noted that young people can be the engine behind the development of new agricultural enterprises in farming research, processing, packaging, and retailing of food. However, it warns most of Africa’s under-25 population are pessimistic about farming due to a lack of land, credit, quality farm inputs and machinery.

    “Africa has the largest, most vibrant group of young people – yet we have a need to create jobs even today for over 250 million (of them). Yet we have over 60 per cent of the world’s unutilised arable land. There must be a way to connect these two dots,” said Masiyiwa.

    “African youths have the energy of the world. We have to equip them with the right skill… with the tools… with the markets. They are smart, and they are not just going to go out and work the land for nothing – as we did in yesteryears •Culled from www.howwemadeithappeninafrica.com

     

  • ‘I started my business with N1,250’

    ‘I started my business with N1,250’

    Growing a business is not easy in Nigeria, especially for start-ups. The challenges are many, ranging from seed fund to production, power supply, marketing and stabilisation. A young man, Ocheni Onuche Simon, a graduate of Computer Science from the University of Abuja, has gone through the harrowing experience of a Nigerian producer. But today, he is standing tall to tell his story. OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE met him producing “Kasso Flakes-Soaking Wakkis”in Lagos.

    He is a success story. Recounting his long walk to success, Ocheni Onuche Simon spoke of  how the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was instrumental to what his business has grown to be.  Today, his brand of garri with suya, milk and sugar has grown in popularity that the Nigerian Army purchase in large quantity to feed her troops in the North East.

    “I was sponsored by the NYSC to participate in the USAID Market 11 Programme on entrepreneurship. After the programme, I was also sponsored by the Association of  Entrepreneurs and Technologists of Nigeria (ASET.Nig) for a  a training.

    “My business kicked off on June 7, 2013, with an initial capital of only N1, 250.00 during my service year at the Nigerian Army, Abuja, where I served. At the Headquarters of the Nigerian Army, I had a lot of customers and that made the business to spread to other arms of the Armed Forces,” he said.

    Ocheni told The Nation that as his business progressed, the Bank of Industry (BoI) through the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Department (SAED), an arm of the NYSC, supported him with a loan of N 3,821,659.15 that gave him a turn around. He said the life line from BoI gave rise to a factory, which has enabled him to put his product in the public domain.

    He plans to ensure that his products are available in major cities of the country and become a household name. “We would also like to embark on the exportation of our products to overseas so as to prove to the world that Nigeria has all it takes to feed the whole world because Nigeria is ranked the highest producer of cassava tubers followed by Brazil and to take home to Nigerians in  the Diaspora.”

    On the products, Ocheni said they are indigenous and found virtually in every home. “Every Nigerian knows it as garri, but my company gave it the name “Kasso Flakes-Soaking Wakkis” which simply means cassava only flakes. According to him, the name ‘soaking wakkis’ simply means “soak and eat” with varieties such as meat (i.e Kilish), milk, sugar and groundnut. Others are garri with groundnut only, garri with groundnut and sugar, garri with Kulikuli better known as ground nut cake.  This is also in addition to our premium product “Sollo ‘G’, derived from swallow garri. This category is best for dough i.e Eba,” he explained.

    Commending the Director-General of NYSC, Brig. Gen. Johnson Bamidele Olawunmi, who encouraged him by buying up a large percentage of his products for the soldiers combating insurgency in the Northeast, he advised that youth empowerment through job creation is very crucial as an ‘idle hand is a devil’s workshop

    He said: “In the NYSC DG’s bid to counter terrorism, he’s been patronising us and making our products available for the Nigerian Army troops in the Northeast combating terrorism. This is part of his contribution to the military as the package can serve an appetiser before the regular meal.” Simon also appealed to NYSC state coordinators to patronise them by making the products a part of the diet regime in the orientation camps.

    “We ask that the coordinators make our products “Kasso Flakes-Soaking Wakkis” available for each corps member in their respective state for the mandatory one year service. This will encourage corps members to take the entrepreneurship training seriously in order to have more entrepreneurs among the youth than job seekers.”

    As an encouragement to youths, he urged them to believe in themselves and de-emphasise God fatherism, insisting that the only difference between impossibility and possibility lies in determination and persistence.

     

  • Empowering women entrepreneurs

    With a large number of women becoming entrepreneurs,  industrial organisations are being made to see that women are taking up more positive roles in developing the economy. They have, however, realised that women do not  have the funds and they lack the technical know-how to run a business. This is why the Federation of Business Women Entrepreneurs (FEBWE) and Uplift Development Foundation are organising the 6th edition of Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Exhibition, tagged: NIWEX 2015 in Abeokuta, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    NO time or age is too late to start a business venture and no qualification is required for a woman to be in  business. This  is one message NACCIMA    Business Women Group in collaboration with ECOWAS  Federation of Business Women Entrepreneurs (FEBWE)  and wife of the governor of Ogun State, Mrs Olufunso Amosun, are drumming into women ears trying to ensure opportunities for women entrepreneurs. To them, fostering entrepreneurship is a key policy goal for a government, which share the expectation that high rates of entrepreneurial activity will bring sustained job creation.

    According to them, there is a clear need to provide  better information about entrepreneurship as an attractive option  for young women in school and for women outside the labour force.

    To NACCIMA Business Women Group, it is time to empower women to make an income; accumulate assets; increase their economic security; improve industrial capacity and spur economic growth by creating new jobs, and expanding the pool of human resources and talents available in a country.

    The  entrepreneurs programme  is designed to empower women around the country  to end poverty by liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good. One  of the leading  lights  of the movement  is  the deputy national president of the Nigeria Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Chief Alaba Oluwaseun Lawson, a successful businesswoman. She  is  determined  to  help more  women  to become entrepreneurs .

    According to the chairperson, Nigerian Women Entrepreneurs Exhibition, Mrs Cynthnia Saka,   Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s administration has launched the state on the path of industrial base, adding that the state is rich in natural resources to make it competitive nationally, but needed the government’s efforts to develop into an industrial giant.

    To achieve the developmental strides, she said, the government was providing incentives, building up business skills and encouraging firms to look beyond the borders. In addition, she said the government is boosting its services to meet the needs of small and medium-sized export firms.

    One strategy which she maintained would help the government achieve its goal is the partnership with the chamber of commerce as evidenced in the  increased business activities.

    According to her, investors believe in the state, and that is why it is having  the largest concentration of industries.

    Besides, Mrs Saka said the state’s investment is not only in infrastructure, but also in designing and implementing projects. These according to her, would secure lives and properties and protect future legacies.

    She said women entrepreneurs need a little help along their entrepreneurial journey.

    “The need of the hour is for a mentor, a hand holder to walk beside them on their path to success,” she said.

    Being a fledgling entrepreneur herself, Mrs  Saka  CEO, T. Cynthia Nigeria Ltd,    found her self needing guidance and advice on various aspects. For her, the experience of starting her own business had its own share of roadblocks. She  said women entrepreneurs find banks as the most difficult source for obtaining funds.  While women find it easier to start up, they find it equally difficult to grow and access capital as a result of which most of their businesses do not grow.

    For  her, Ogun State  has emerged as the best place for women entrepreneurs to start business with high level of optimism on various factors that are important to judge business growth. To address women challenges, she  said  the  Federation of Business Women Entrepreneurs (FEBWE) and Uplift Development Foundation of Mrs  Amosun, is organising the 6th edition of Nigeria Women Entrepreneurs Exhibition tagged: (NIWEX 2015). The event, which will last seven days, has been scheduled to take place from December 7 to 16 at  the MKO Abiola Trade Fair,

    She  said the fair is the dream of like minded women entrepreneurs, who wanted to train, guide, support and enhance the lives of ladies. “The Federation of Business Women Entrepreneurs (FEBWE) is a branch of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) dedicated to promoting economic development for women entrepreneurs in Africa,” she said.

    FEBWE Nigeria , according to her, is  a national organisation  with members spread throughout the country.

    The organisation, she  said,  provides women wishing to start their own ventures, business counselling, networking opportunities and bring businesswomen on a common forum to ensure that their visions are collectively and effectively taken up with policy makers and other agencies. The  goal, she said, remains to ensure development of opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

    “Uplift Development Foundation is  already working  to  empower  police officers’ wives, market men and women, community leaders, hunters, artisans, religious bodies, farmers, widows and others have benefited from the state community empowerment programme,” she said.

    The programme, which was initiated by  Mrs. Amosun, creates opportunities for the less privileged to participate in the economy and improve their earning potentials in order to assist their families fight their way out of poverty.

     

     

    Mrs. Amosun explained that the programme was aimed at maximising growth opportunities among the less privileged in Ogun State and support them to reach their full potentials.

    She noted that the Community Empowerment Programme was borne out of the needs assessment carried out before embarking on the programme where various community leaders and associations were consulted to ensure that the needs of these communities were met to enable them to be self-employed and self-sufficient.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The young entrepreneur who is hungry for success

    The young entrepreneur who is hungry for success

    This is a story of a woman, who against all odds, has become a success. She shows the power of grit and determination to succeed in business, despite the many hurdles encountered. She is building  a highly respected foodstuff business, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Lagos-based Wandy Foods Limited, Ms. Gbonju Awojuyigbe,  is  one of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial success stories. However, her entrepreneurial journey was not an easy one, but she remains an inspirational example of triumph over adversity.  The 1992 law graduate from the Nigerian Law School, an alumnus of Fate Foundation and a 2005 Fate Foundation Alumnus Award winner, first worked with First African Trust Bank before fully going into business, leaving the banking industry for food processing business. As a woman, she wanted to show that she could be a successful business person, hence, she  left the bank in 1997. In January 1998, she  started  with plantain flour  business with N5000.

    But before she left banking, she had shown interest in production and the attraction defined what she wanted to do.

    Her late grandmother advised her to try plantain flour production, which was one of the options she had before her.  The reason behind the plantain flour was because of its health benefits. She first started with rice flour and later added plantain flour, bean flour and chili pepper.

    Her first set of customers were  her colleagues, who were buying everything she produced and their patronage encouraged her to supply supermarkets.

    Eventually, she  bought a warehouse in Maryland but when the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)  came for inspection, they said it was too small. So with some help, she got another place at the Technology Incubation Centre (TIC), Lagos under the National Board for Technology Incubation.

    She is involved in the processing of plantain flour, ground rice, bean flour, chili pepper, whole wheat flour, pounded yam flour and pure natural honey. Her products are all over the place.

    To boost her skills, she underwent  various  training in  food  processing  techniques at  the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Success Digest  and London South Bank University.  She is one of the first to package plantain  flour in Lagos.  The experience was pretty interesting. “People wanted to get it, they wanted to test it, wanted to try it and see what it could do,” she said.

    To produce the flour, the plantain is peeled, dried and ground. The flour is almost tasteless because the  green, unripe plantain are being used.

    A sense of achievement with taste of success propelled her to undertake the production of ground rice, bean flour candy on a trial  basis.  The experience gave her  the confidence  to move   ahead   towards   her   goal   of   establishing a   full-fledged value – added  enterprise and since then it has been forward ever. She has taken  up  various types  of  products,  using traditional   recipes   and   innovative   ideas aimed at  getting special  commercial clientele. While quality  processed  products  are  in  high demand  in  market,  her strategy  was to have diversified  quality and  value- added products.  She  has been very busy  with her food processing business, growing  her production capacity and employee base since she started the business.  She recalled that she started with  one employee, but today, she has  10 persons working with her,  processing raw ingredients into finished food products.

    Her value statement concentrates on utilising the local agricultural capacity for finished  products , and creating food sources, which can be preserved long enough to be transported to viable markets, especially given the limited logistics available in the country.

    She learned packaging and production techniques that will benefit her business for years to come in her industry.  In addition, she  is  exploring  partnership  in processing finished products.

    Not only is she providing the  much needed employment, she is creating means to getting fresh  produce to market.  She is accomplishing all of these by applying the skills and knowledge she learnt to create a value chain and market delivery system to Lagos  and other markets, making agribusiness more viable, profitable and sustainable.

    According to her, starting a business is not easy under the nation’s present circumstances. She painted a fairly bleak picture of the current situation, but was optimistic about the future.

    Startups, she said, have to keep even more balls in the air including power outages, funding and the like. Roads from the farms are bad, resulting in long delivery times. Credit, according to her, is a huge problem. Despite this, she is passionate about agriculture and wants to make it big in the sector.

    The Lagos State government offered her and  five  other  entrepreneurs  hectares of land at a reasonable price to grow food crops.  Huge investments are also needed. However, success would make her one of the largest food producers in a few years. Her passion to become a food producer of high scale is her driving force.

    Realising that she may not be able to compete for long in the local market, Awojuyigbe  has  taken the bold step  to  prepare her products for the export market.  The company was looking to diversify and was already operating a small honey   processing unit.

    Her story is an inspiration to many, demonstrating that entrepreneurs are high on imagination even if low on resources. At present, her firm does not have the capabilities to execute large  scale  expansion. But she finds it essential to map the needed capabilities in terms of assets, processes and knowledge.

     

  • What it takes to be successful catfish farmer

    Catfish is the largest aquaculture industry today. But a few are making  money  from it. Phil Onuoha shares his  tips with  entrepreneurs in Lagos. DANIEL ESSIET was there. 

    Since the 1990s, the catfish industry has grown rapidly and now has an economic impact in the hundreds of millions of naira produced every year in the country. While a few  Nigerians are reporting success stories, others give tales of losses and discourage people from going into it.

    But Chief  Executive, Youth Liberation Foundation, Mr Phil Onuoha, said  people are failing because  they are  implementing  the  wrong blue print. This, he  explained,  starts  from  the  operational  environment.

    He explained that commercial cat fish farming is time-consuming, expensive, high-risk business that requires careful planning, a good understanding of fish biology, and sound business management skills.

    Without a careful study of the economic considerations, especially product demand, financing, production costs and marketing, one should not  invest in a commercial fish farm.

    He advised fish farmers to  start small by growing a few fish and expanding  to large-scale commercial operations only after they gain the necessary skills and experience.

    Generally, he  explained  that  the    prospect for catfish farming depends on the economic and water resources available, and the type of fish selected for growing.

    Growing  catfish, he  said,  is  ideally suited to a pond environment.  Two fundamental requirements for starting a successful fish farm, he  mentioned,  are sufficient  land and a good supply of high- quality water. The amount of land and water available limit the type of rearing facilities and number of fish that can be reared.

    In choosing  a catfish specie , Onuoha said it  should  be capable of reproducing in captivity; producing  numerous and hardy eggs and larvae (young); have well-known culture requirements; be adaptable to many types of culture systems; be easy to handle, harvests and transport; be readily available as eggs, fingerlings, and adults; have a high market demand and exhibit high feed conversion rates;

    According  to him, fish farming consists of nursery and the grow-out pond operation. The nursery operation is the basis for the grow-out operation and as such, it cannot be operated without the nursery.

    The nursery involves the inducement of the female fish to lay eggs, which are then fertilised, incubated and hatched. The ones are known as fries. These fries are then nurtured from between three and four weeks into fingerlings which is the size suitable for use in the fish grow-out operation.

    For one to get the most profit for a catfish harvest, he  said,  it is necessary to determine buyer requirements when planning the season’s production.

    A huge percentage of fish deaths have been related to water management issues. Pond design should take into consideration the pH of water (acidic water kills fish real fast, basic water is suitable for fingerlings and neutral water is required for fries (really tiny fishes)

    It is also important to stimulate the growth of plankton by introducing manure into the pond before stocking with fingerlings. Oxygen requirement for fishes is dependent on an effective water management system as too much plankton growth results in competition for oxygen among plankton and catfish.

    Water should be replaced from time to time ,though this can be a challenge in places where water availability is a problem.

    One problem the producers face is  catfish feed. The largest operating cost also is feed. Catfish producers, he  said,  sometimes buy  feed from many different suppliers, often with disastrous results because feed companies did not know the nutritional requirements for catfish.

    He  said  farmers must make sure they buy feeds with the correct protein, carbohydrate, energy, vitamin, and amino acid requirements to  develop a well-balanced feed formula for catfish.

    According to him, the  number and size of fish stocked in a pond are important.This is because the management level, stocking date and initial size determine the time required for fish to reach market size.

    The preferred stocking rate in commercial ponds, he  explained,   should be based on the maximum safe and economical feeding rate, the desired size of fish at harvest and the food consumption rate reached at the maximum feeding rate.

    Onuoha  mentioned  too that  the  manner and time of feeding, as well as the amount and type of feed, can have a profound effect on the growth and size variation and the quality of the catfish produced.

    In  most  cases, he   said  a large variation in the size of catfish produced usually is the result of underfeeding. In underfeeding, the larger, more aggressive catfish eat a larger share of the feed and become bigger at the expense of the smaller catfish. This also happens when feed is offered in only  small areas of the pond since the larger, more aggressive catfish quickly learn where the feed will be put in the pond and are there waiting for it. Thus, to produce catfish uniform in size, and to maximise profits, he  said,  it is important that catfish are fed  with the proper amount of feed daily and the food is distributed as evenly over the pond as possible.

    Stressing the importance of  record keeping, Onuoha said  the farmers should  be able to estimate the number of fish and the weight in every pond at any given time if he  wants to be successful at raising fish. If the weight of fish in a pond is under estimated, not enough food will be fed, resulting in poor growth, poor-feed conversions, and increased time required to get the fish to harvestable size. If the weight of fish in a pond is over-estimated, the result will be overfeeding, poor feed conversions, and verylikely, severe water quality problems.

    He  explained  that  healthy catfish convert quality feed efficiently when fed properly under good water quality conditions.

    The food conversion ratio (FCR) is the total pound of feed given the  fish divided by the weight gained for any period of time. The feed conversion ratio increases as fishes grow.

  • Making profit from beekeeping

    Making profit from beekeeping

    Beekeepers make profit producing more than just honey and beeswax. Money  comes from bee pollen, pedigree queen bees, propolis, royal jelly and more.This is the campaign Mr Bidemi Ojeleye, Chief Executive, Centre for Bee Research and Development, Igbeti, Oyo State, is mounting to get more Nigerians involved in the  money spinning  business. DANIEL ESSIET writes.

    If one doesn’t mind the occasional stings, beekeeping as a home business could become a pleasurable and profitable enterprise, Chief Executive, Centre for Bee Research and Development, Igbeti, Oyo State, Bidemi Ojeleye, has said.

    Beekeeping is a good way for someone to get some money out a hobby, said Ojeleye , who has already recouped his  investment in  bee keeping , including his  own honey extractor, by selling at local farmer’s markets.

    With a single hive and some equipment of  N20,000, a home beekeeper could harvest about 100 pounds of honey, or 36 quarts, every six months. At the going price of up to N1000 for litre  of honey in today’s market, that’s more than enough to recoup the initial investment.

    Ojeleye has over 4000 hives in different places in Igbeti. He owns commercial hives consisting of wooden boxes, each containing 10 wooden frames around a plastic sheet with hundreds of small hexagonal cells, similar to the wax cells in a natural hive. The cells become breeding chambers for the next generation of bees and to store honey for food.

    To make it, he said one  needs  some level of expertise and there’s a lot to learn. There are  opportunities for bee keepers to make money. This is because  honey isn’t the only commercial product from a commercial beehive.

    One can make money from extracting wax which bees create to cover the honey and brood cells, though it  is a laborious process.

    For example, bees wax is used in candle making, shoe polish, vehicle and floor polishes, varnish, gum, carbon paper, electrical appliances, fabric industry, cosmetics, wax crayons, metal casting and food processing and packaging. In beekeeping industry,he  said  it is used for the preparation of comb foundations.

    However, in addition to honey, production of bees wax,  propolis, pollen, royal jelly, pedigree queen bees, package bees, and renting out honey bee colonies for crop pollination are some of the potential areas of apicultural diversification, he said.

    He explained that the challenge however is that  government has not  supported the  production of   other bee products that  can provide the beekeepers with additional wealth and increase the productivity of the colonies.

    Ojeleye said everything produced by bees can be turned into cash. While most farmers harvest honey twice a year, he harvests four times a year, attributing his higher harvests ratio to proper maintenance.

    Using money from honey, the enterprising beekeeper  has built a house and  bought  a car. This has motivated him to encourage people to go into agriculture-related professions in rural areas, while  hosting a mega honey bee-keeping conference  in Igbeti for  farmers and researchers.

    For those who don’t have  enough  money, Ojeleye said they can  start with N15,000. They can start with two wooden hives, but with more,  they will make more money, he said. With his  experience, Ojeleye said beekeeping is a veritable means of livelihood.

    He  said school fees is  not  a problem for a thriving farmer, as income  generated from  a few number of hives situated within a good forest area,  can help him  send his  children to school and buy other basic necessities with money made from the sale of honey.

    Having  spent over 30 years  in  the  business  which  he  learnt  while  on a visit to  Kenya, Ojeleye  is  so versed  and well  equipped  to  teach everything_ from beekeeping to product development, to marketing  essential skills that help people earn money. He  trains farmers on  budgeting and costing issues.

    His success shows that when done the right way, bee farming can be better paying than many white collar jobs. The veteran beekeeper has no kind words for the current education system which prepares students for white collar jobs and portrays farming as a career for failures.

    Where other people see danger in the vicinity of a colony of bees, Ojeleye sees friends that provide huge dosages of elixir during his lean moments.

    Because of his love for bees, he has been able to study their ways such that he can easily understand them and ensure that there is no enmity. His love affair with his bees is not unique, as almost every other beekeeper in the area seems to have an affinity with their bees.

    He has a huge vision for his project as he wants to produce high quality, branded honey.

    Another beekeeper, Jimoh Hammed,  said   he has been in apiculture as a side business from  farming and trying to establish strong bond with his bees.

    Trained  by  Ojeleye, Hammed, believes beekeeping is a viable business and there is money to be made through it.

    He said a lot of suspicion and traditional myths surrounding the use of honey has seen people paying scant regard to its true value.

    One area people fear is the bee sting. Although it hurts, Hammed explained that the venom extracted from bees is used to heal bee bites.  Besides, he  is now  used to the bites and has developed that much resistance to their stings.

    He says if someone is bitten by a bee, a signal is sent to the other bees and they will come to attack the same person, but they have learnt to break the signal between the bees and their communication with the queen bee by rubbing the bitten spot with green leaves or shrubs.

     

     

  • Hospitality: Leveraging on technology

    The hospitality business, especially in the hotel segment, is on an upward swing. This is because of the ease with which people can now book and access hotels right from th corner of their homes. Besides, with the emphasis now on generating revenue from other sources apart from oil, the sector offers good avenue for investment and also good return on investment.

    Now, with an increased awareness on information technology, and the ease with which businesses can be done online, the sector has been further opened up.

    One of the early entreprenuers that have keyed into this regime is Mark Essien, Founder, Hotels.ng. With 6000 hotels in the fold and counting, Essien has been experiencing phenomenal growth and kicking butt.  Today, he  is  a market leader in emerging hospitality industry. Essien is taking  advantage of travellers  increasing  frustration with hotel booking.

    For him, after a careful research , he discovered that there was no Nigerian hotel online. Thus, in 2012, he launhcedhis online portal for the industry players.

    Initially, when  they  started in Calabar the first few months, it was self funded. Later, they got  an  investor who  gave them $75,000. Subsequently, they  got  another $100,000.The first product actually focused on a single sector – hotels – and the platform took off from there.

    According  to him, Hotels.ng has   transformed the hospitality industry and  is  seen  as the biggest online hotel booking portal for Nigeria.

    With ongoing development of computer reservation systems, the online hotel  booking  has  taken  a natural leap,  with   every part of the booking process coming   closer to the user.

    Launching  hotels.ng, Essien  put  travellers in control of their travel plans, contributing  to making  online booking one of biggest revenue streams for the hotel and travel industry.

    His background  as a software  developer  has  assisted  him  to build  a portal that  creates a smooth booking process that satisfies users and supports business objectives. There are many different ways that a user will arrive at a hotel site. hotels.ng is just one of many travel aggregators that have become almost ubiquitous with the booking process. The booking portal attention to detail has already created a much more organised and trustworthy portfolio of the great hotels on offer.

    Eeach local hotel is thoroughly vetted by staff to ensure that all details are accurate and to ensure the quality of the hotel’s services.

    He  noted  that  there is a growing hotel industry in Nigeria  and the company is   to be part of the growth and their success.

    Essien has   always wanted to become a mechanical engineer. Along the way, he  diverted into software, and not wanting to let his  education waste, also added mechanical to it by studying robotics. Before founding Hotels.ng,he  was   a software developer. At a certain point, he   used to be the #2 rated coder on rentacoder.com . he   made money through contract jobs.

    To  Mark,the  journey has been long, hard and exciting. To build it to the point it is today, he has had to be willing to think outside the box, work around every constraint, and work with a team that supported itself through up and down.

    Currently, the company  has  about 30 people, and based off the offers they  have received, the  portal is  worth between $5m and $10m.

    He  sourced  the seed fund of N5million to startup hotels.ng from my sister and my mother. They have always been his  key investors for any idea he  did not have enough cash to do.

    Along  the line,he   started chatting with Jason Njoku (Founder ofSpark) on Facebook, and he told me about his SPARK fund. They invested a total of $225,000. which is the money that has taken the  company  this far.

    Following a solid consolidation phase, the  company  is  commencing  an International expansion phase that  would result  in booking possibilities for Ghana.

    The hotel market requires that prices and availability be continually adjusted to reflect daily variances. The majority of bookings through the system come from guests requiring hotel rooms, 1-2 days ahead of the booking date. Direct contact can be made directly with the hotel and confirmation may be received within minutes of the request being made.

    Hotels.ng  breadth of hotel supply have contributed to its phenomenal growth and success. There is no doubt that Mark  Essien, the  founder  of  hotels.ng  has been a success story for mobile hotel bookings. He  has   seen phenomenal growth in recent years with  watchers describing  the journey of the company as “remarkable. Right  now, the  portal  has  contributed to over 60 per cent  of total hotel booking transactions with  mobile becoming the key booking platform . The portal allow clients to book hotel rooms online, provide comprehensive help and support to our clients and make the hotel booking process smooth and easy.

    He has an active role as the Managing Director of the organization, overseeing operations. The company employs 30 full-time staff, 5 contract staff and more than 70 ad-hoc staff, with an estimated 6000 hotels on the site.

    According  to him, when  he  launched the company,he  ran it for about a year before raising capital.

    He   knew it was a great business because of how excited the customers were in finding out that a site like theirs  existed. The first 100 customers came because they  were the first people to list the number of hotels they  listed in Nigeria. So people looking for hotels would stumble across Hotels.ng and make a booking from there. He  is  happy  they  have  explored  opportunity   within  a sector that  was  ignored.However, building the traction so quickly in such a busy space has been a huge challenge and an amazing achievement for the whole team.

    The  hotel portal  is not Essien’s first business.He   started his  first business when he was 19 years old. He had just left Nigeria to go study in Germany, and saw a computer there for the first time. He  instantly decided  he  would build a piece of software, and started working on a competitor to Napster. It was called Gnumm. One year later, he  sold it to Bertelsmann.  He did not raise any capital for this – just worked out of his  room.

    They  intends to remain within the industry. The success of the  product is all about being about  to  expand the  listing  of  hotels from  400 to 6000. They were able  to achieve  this some really smart technology that looks at, hotel location and personalised data to make the right decision every time. Getting that right, and making it fast, has had the biggest impact on the customer experience.

    The strategy is that they have  learned then not be afraid to make bold changes when things aren’t going to plan. They  have  made  mistakes but learn from them rather than dwell on them.

  • ‘Embrace farming for food sufficiency, revenue’

    With the advancement in technology and changes in user behaviour, hotel industry dynamics are also changing.  Many customers pre-book their trip online rather than going to a certified travel agent. This has influenced an exponential growth in the hospitality industry, especially as consumers have become ‘smarter’ with smart devices. Now, entreprenuers are leveraging on technology for better efficiency and higher returns, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    Young Nigerians do not want to dirty their hands anymore, and it just shocks me.

    “Now if the average Nigerian spends N100 ($0.6) per meal, and we are a population of 170 million people, my question to you is this: why have we neglected an industry that has the potential of generating N51billion ($300million) on a daily basis? Those are numbers you should begin to think about.”

    These were the posers to Nigerian youths by Cynthia Mosunmola Umoru, an entreprenuer who has spent the last 10 years building her career in agriculture.

    She started Honeysuckles PTL Ventures straight out of college, and today the business is engaged in farming, food processing and distribution. The company runs its flagship retail outlet “Farm shopper” in Ikeja, Lagos, offering a wide range of farm produce, including poultry products, eggs, snails, catfish and vegetables.

    At a recent TEDxIfe event in Nigeria, Umoru told the audience that country’s agricultural sector has been severely neglected.

    She said:“Today Nigeria is the current dumping ground for food produce from all over the world. We have grown a palate for food we don’t produce. We have developed a lifestyle we can’t sustain… We bring in tomatoes from Chad. We bring in beans from Burkina Faso,”she said.

    “We spend over N200billion ($1.1billion) importing rice on an annual basis in Nigeria… and only in Nigeria will people prefer strawberry over mango and watermelon that is locally grown. A kilo of strawberries costs an average of N4,500 – somebody’s salary for a whole week.”

    She said that it is up to young people to revolutionise agriculture in Nigeria and solve its problems.

    “We did a survey and realised the average age of our farmers today is 55 to 60. This means in another 10 years these guys will age and not be able to work. What is going to happen to food production? We have left that sector; we have ignored it completely. It’s about time we begin to think of a revolution in [agriculture] and begin to effect change.

    “And you and I are the people who will effect that change, and the time to act is now,” she said, adding that food production is where the money is.

    Cynthia noted young people often aspire to be doctors and lawyers rather than farmers because they see agriculture as less glamorous, and do not think they can accumulate wealth. However, she emphasised entrepreneurs can be successful in farming, and that she is living proof of this.

    But it has not always been easy sailing for her, and success has come after learning some hard lessons. For example, after the first five years of running her company, and at just age 27, she was bankrupt.

    The 27-year-old lady had lost $150,000. “I had gone bankrupt, and interest was still piling up on some of the funds I’d borrowed from the bank. And then people said I was a failure,” she recalled.

    However, within three years, she had managed to turn the business around and owes this to persistence, hard work, and learning from mistakes. “It has been 10 years of hard work, 10 years of discipline, 10 years of learning and 10 years of preparation,”  she said.

    In spite of her success, she is surprised that not many young people want to enter into farming and agribusiness, adding the sector holds so much potential as everyone needs to eat.

    “Now if the average Nigerian spends N100 ($0.6) per meal, and we are a population of 170million people, my question to you is: Why have we neglected an industry that has the potential of generating N51billion ($300million) on a daily basis? These are numbers you should begin to think about,” she said, adding that opportunities abound across the entire supply and value chain.

    “Nigeria currently sits on over 85 million square hectares of arable land. Guess what, we have barely cultivated 40 per cent of that land mass. It means the potential for engagement is still huge,” said Cynthia.

    However, outside of crop cultivation, she added that there are also other opportunities young entrepreneurs and university graduates should look into, such as distribution and food processing.

    One opportunity is in agricultural machinery and equipment supply. For example, she noted that a minimum of between 50 and 60 tractors are usually needed for every 1,000 hectares of farmland. But in Nigeria there are only about two per 1,000 hectares.

    “So opportunities across the value chain in that sector are so enormous. As young Nigerians it’s time for us to begin to think ‘out of the box’ and see how we can strategically position ourselves across the agricultural value chain.”

    •Culled from www.howwemadeitinafrica.com