Finding Your Entrepreneurial Sweet Spot: Passion, Profit, or Purpose

Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, the usual apologies because I'm in a noisy environment now. Today I'd like to look at the question if there's a difference between a passion project and a business. Now, in my own opinion, I'd say there is a difference. So a passion project is something that we're doing out of love, out of enthusiasm, or because we gained some spiritual benefits. Now when I say spiritual, I I

don't mean it's helping to get you to heaven. I just mean spiritual in the sense of, should I say opposed to, or rather the opposite of physical benefits. So those people have been listening to the show for a while. You know that I started off my business journey as a wedding photographer over a decade and a half ago. So before I got my first paying client, you could say what I had was a passion project because I loved taking photographs,

especially candid photographs, not stage. I was enthusiastic about it. You know, I just grabbed my camera and jump at any opportunity, whether I was a wedding, a birthday party, you know, whatever, because it made me happy. And that's what I mean by the spiritual benefits and me seeing the joy that other people got from looking at my photos that also made me very happy, you know, lots of pride, things like that. So that's what I mean when I say I'm a spiritual benefits.

So if you have some sort of a hustle and it's purely about the love, the enthusiasm, the joy, the feeling of usefulness, magnanimity, whatever it is, I'll just classify all those things as spiritual benefits. If those are the benefits that you're getting out of it, then yeah, I'll say what you have is a passion project. Some people just call it a hobby. Now, what is a profitable business? A profitable business, on the other hand, is one that has business systems built around an idea or a problem or a vision.

It also has marketing structures that are laid over your passions, your idea, your opportunity, your whatever it is. So that is the main difference. Essentially, for the passion project, it's all about you and the benefits, the spiritual benefits and the love and the passion and the everything. But if you're talking profitable businesses, then we're looking at the presence of business systems, we're looking at the presence of marketing structures.

And most importantly, we're looking at a financially, financially motivated profit system. Let me put it that way. So passion projects, yeah, the benefits are spiritual but profitable business. The benefits are called hard cash. So which is not to say that they're opposed to each other, but we will look into more of that in a few minutes. I just want to tease out a distinction now that lots of folks, I think particularly Nigerian folks, don't quite get,

especially when people are talking about, you know, be your best boss, become an entrepreneur, be the best you, you know, whatever. And then we throw around all kinds of terms. So if you're trying to build a profitable business, you're trying to put systems and structures around what it is that you're doing around your, your passion. So take someone like me who just loves shooting photos, and then now you want to put some business systems behind it.

You want to put some marketing structures behind it and you're hoping to get some cold hard moolah, you're getting some cash behind it. So if you're trying to do all of this, but the way you set things up is you're still required to be there from the day-to-day or else things are not going to function, then what you have is not necessarily a profitable business per SE, but rather you are self-employed because you have to be in the daily mix for the thing to pop off, for the thing to work.

So coming from my home constituency as a former wedding photographer, there are lots of us who are running around happy with our cameras, making some cheddar, making some cheese and we think we're business owners. But actually you are not a business owner because if you have to take a break and disappear for a month or two, things are going to suffer. So you are not a business owner, you are self-employed. The difference between you and your cousin who works at Zenith Bank or you know who works for the civil service.

It's just that for your cousin who works in Zenith Bank, her boss is the MD. For the person who works in the civil service, the boss is the HOD and head of the department. But for you, the boss is you, the self-employed person. So you still have to show up to work in order to collect your pay to make sure that everything is running OK. So that's the distinction I want we Nigerian folks to get because a lot of you are running around thinking that you know you're you're business owners, but it's not actually the case.

Don't get me wrong, what you're doing is commendable because it's not easy to take a passion, whether it's photography, knitting, taking, care of children, love for, I don't know, agriculture or whatever. It's not easy to take these passions and then build systems and marketing structures around it, and to do so profitably. So if you're doing that, all kudos to you, but just know they're not really a business owner. You can't take a break.

You have to be there now for someone who has built these systems. You have business systems, you have marketing structures, everything all laid out. But this system can run without you, as you can take a break and disappear to the village because they have to attend a burial or something. And you're gone for two months. You come back, things are doing good. In fact, for some people, you come back, you find out that things are doing better.

And yeah, now you are a business owner. You don't have to be there for everything to run. You can disappear with your wife or with your husband for two weeks, six months, whatever. All you have to do is just call up from time to time. They say, hey, how are things can how are things running? Abdul Salam, have you guys checked on this? Have you guys checked on that? You know, just normal supervisory stuff, and everything is still turning a profit.

You're still receiving your, your your credit alert in the bank and then all of that. Now that person is the business owner. In fact, there's one of the reasons why I recommend what's his book again? Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki. What's it called? Rich dad? Poor dad? One of the reasons why I recommend that book, and I'm glad that my father gave it to me back when I was young, before I was starting secondary school. Because once you start thinking in these terms, are you an employer?

An employee? Are you an investor? Are you self-employed? Are you a business owner? Once you start thinking clearly in these terms, you can start mapping the trajectory of you know how you want things to run. So if you want to be an investor, these and these and these are the sorts of things you should be paying attention to in your day-to-day life. If you want to be a business owner, this is how you're supposed to be setting stuff up in your day-to-day.

If you want to be self-employed because not everybody wants to be a Jeff Bezos, you know some people are OK like this is me, this is the work of my hand. God is blessing the work of my hand. I'm making millions every month or millions every year. I can pay school fees. I'm not begging from anybody. I'm not borrowing anybody, borrowing from anybody. Nobody can insult me. It's just me and my handiwork. I'm fine and that's not a problem.

So for people who those are the aspirations, you know, we shouldn't belittle them because it is, it is also valid. I think that is what the Americans mean when they talk about lifestyle. Yeah, I think Americans called it lifestyle business. That's how I've heard about it on some podcast, although I'm not a fan of mixing all those terms. I think let's just think clearly. So all these people who are saying they want to build lifestyle businesses, it's not really a lifestyle business.

So yes, you're running around, you're saying that what you have is a lifestyle business. But The thing is, if you want to flex because you have some millions, you want to flex. You want to take the family and Wifey and you know, disappear for a holiday for one month. You do that, you come back, somebody has stolen something, business profits are down, you know, blah, blah, blah. That's not really a business. So in my own opinion, I think let's just keep the terms clear.

Let's stop saying that we have lifestyle business. Let's just say you're self-employed and you know that you have to be around because you're self-employed. And yeah, so that's it. So that's the difference. Profitable business, love spiritual, spiritual benefits, passion, profitable business. We're talking about systems and structures, and there's a profit motive at the end of the day. But if you have to be around every day, every week for things to function.

In other words, if you leave for one day and things fall apart, you leave for one week, things fall apart, you leave for one month, things fall apart, then you're not a business owner. What you are is yourself employed, You just have another job. It's just that you are in charge of determining the scope of the job, your salary and then things like that. Now, is there a mix of the two? That's for people who are considering, you know, who have a passion project and who are kind of thinking about profitable business.

Now the reason why I'm doing this is because there's a friend of mine who is business motivated, but she is well aware of the plight of the people in the northeastern part of the country who have been displaced by the violence that is going on in Nigeria. So she's not running an NGO. You know, she's going to put some money in her pocket at the end of the day. But she wants to do business and she wants to take care of these other folks because she thinks,

she thinks it's not a good idea that that people who are doing fine, people who are making money. And then you have a class of these Nigerians and other people in society who are who things are not doing too good for them. Let me just put it that way. Now, her thesis and a couple of other people's thesis is this. If the environment is unstable, we have people like this, children who are out of school, men who are not gainfully employed, things like that, then the social consequences in the future are going to be a lot higher.

So I'm not saying her thesis is correct, but that's the way a lot of some of these folks are thinking. So is there a mix between the two, between passion projects and then profitable businesses? And the answer is yes. And this is a kind of like a a modern thing and it's called social enterprise. Now a social enterprise is not an NGO because an NGO of a non governmental organization or a charity, if they make any money,

if they get any proceeds, they're supposed to take those proceeds and plow it back into the business. So if you run an orphanage as an NGO, the goal is if the orphanage raises 12 million, you take that 12 million and you put it back into the orphanage. You can't take that 12 million and then put 10 in your pocket and then put two back in the orphanage. That's an NGO. But for a social enterprise, the business is expected to make a profit and it's understandable that you're going to put some of those profits in your pocket.

You're just going to take some of those proceeds and plough it towards certain impact oriented things or towards different charitable ends. Now this is where things get a little dicey. In Nigeria, there is no legal framework for regulating social enterprises. As of the date of this recording in 2024, there is no legal framework in Nigeria yet to regulate social enterprises. If you're listening to this podcast episode 10 years from now and things have changed then no other you just comply with whatever the ambit of the law is.

But in the United Kingdom, there are already legislative frameworks that are being developed to guide social enterprises. So if you're looking towards this, doing this sort of thing business in Nigeria this way, unfortunately right now you have to pick a link, either register an NGO or a charity or register for profit business. But if you're looking for some guidance and principles about how these sorts of things are to be run and then look towards the United Kingdom, well, that's the reason why we have Google.

So you can start your research with Google and eventually you're going to find all the organizations that you can get information from. In fact, I attended, OK well I didn't attend because I was there providing media coverage services for the British Council. But it was a long time ago, maybe like 2 years back, two or three years back, there was a session on social enterprise in the UKI think in America and in Nigeria.

So some of those roundtable sorts of things, you know, people talking about what is social enterprise, What's the best way to go about it? Does it apply in Nigeria? How can it apply in Nigeria? What are the principles and practice all those sorts of things? So yeah, research using Google or if you're on Instagram, just follow the British Council handle. And I'm sure if you hit them up in the DMS, whoever is manning the DM should be able to point you to teams that are responsible or hopefully give you some information as if they're not swamped.

So yeah, that is the mix between the two for now. But in Nigeria, you're either an NGO, you're a charity, or you're for profit. So for me, I'm a for profit. I'm not an NGO, so I expect to be paid for the services that I provide. And when I provide services, consulting services, speaking engagements, I am allowed by law to take the money and put the money in my pocket. You know, I don't have to put it towards any charitable, towards any charitable end, but there are people who are trying to start up social enterprises and this friend of mine is starting up a social enterprise.

In fact, as her work goes on more and more, I'm going to share about it on the podcast in the future, especially since she's also starting a podcast as well. There's only one episode that is up now. By the time she gains some more traction, I will talk about her work more and more. Because for those of us who don't have a stomach for these sorts of things, it's really important that the other people who are, you know, pushing the gauntlet are trying to take take care of these sorts of things.

Because charity, love of love of God, love of neighbour, these things help create a more equitable and justiciable world that we live in. So these things are important. So we should support whenever we can. So why is all this talk important? Social enterprise. Passion project. Profitable business. It's important because you need to know what you're doing so that you know what to expect, so that you don't have frustration and you don't have burnout.

If you want a passion project, then know that your reward is going to be in heaven or the personal fulfillment that you get here on earth. So stop running a passion project and then wondering why it's not bringing you money. If you want money, you want the reward here on earth because you want to live the life of a baby boy or a big girl, or you want to live that soft life here on earth 2024 and beyond, then you should be looking at profitable businesses.

If you want to do both, you want a mix of reward in heaven, but you also want to get some cheddar on earth, you know, and you're based in the UK, then you are looking at social enterprise. If you do not know what you are doing and what to expect, then you're going to experience frustration or you're going to experience burnout. That's one of the reasons why when I see people coming up about my passion is this. My passion is that I tell them straight up like, you know, it's good that you want to do this wedding photography thing or you want to do this irrigation project or whatever because it's your passion.

It's your passion. It's your passion. But if you're going to pursue this passion on this kind of scale is going to require this level of financial commitment. You're going to have to run after investors. You're going to have to put down money from your pocket. Is going to involve this, is going to involve that and these things that we do out of love. When we start at the beginning out of love, but then later on money starts getting into the picture.

You have to spend money or you need to look for money or things like this. It now becomes just like a slave master or something, which is not a problem so long as you are clear about that that that's what you're doing from the beginning. So we need to know right from the Git what we're doing. Is this a passion project? Am I going to run the charity? Am I going to run the business? Do I want money in my pocket or do I want to put money in my pocket?

And do I want to also try and remedy some of the social ills that are out there? So let's be really clear before we start. We start on our, our business journey because either way it's going to be a business journey, except if it's one of those hobbies that you can do from your house, like, I don't know, knitting or maybe painting or something. OK, well, you can still sell those when you get the gist of what it is that I'm trying to say.

So for those of you who are interested, study up on social enterprises, but know that for now in Nigeria, there's no legal framework for regulating that. You'll be getting your resources and principles from the UK, but you will either have to register an NGO or you have to register for profit. Remember, if you register an NGO, don't get into trouble with the law. If you register an NGO, you're not allowed to put any money in your pocket.

The money is supposed to go back into that enterprise. So you're also thinking internally displaced people, the North Central part of the country or you're trying to beef up the practice of agriculture in the Niger Delta region because of, you know, environmental pollution there. Or in the middle belt part of the country, you know, farmers being displaced, things like that. If you register it as an NGO, you cannot say that you raised 200 M Maybe US aid gives you,

you know, five MA. Japanese International Cooperation Agency gives you 100 M, British Council gives you 5 M You can't say that you reached 200 M and you now took 150 M and you put that in your pocket. You're going to get into trouble with the law. You're going to get into trouble with the people who are throwing up money for that enterprise if it's an NGO and erase 200 M at 200 M as supposed to go back into that charitable course.

So nowhere from the get go then. If you are going to have a passion project then don't frustrated. Don't get frustrated if you don't have profits because it's a passion project, it's a hobby. So don't be angry is what you signed up for. If you have profits, then you know what to do. You take your hobby, become a subject matter expertise. You get serious, Start learning about business systems, Start learning about sales and selling.

Start learning about marketing processes. Because you're going to have to build all of that around this passion that you have. Whether it's knitting, whether it's aquaculture, whether it's photography like in my own case. Or whatever it is. You love children and you want to start the crash. You know that this is how this is how the whole thing works. So business systems, marketing systems, selling systems, and we're trying to make sure that there's a profit at the end of the day.

Input goes in money and time and then there's output and we look at it and we'll see if it's profitable. So that's all for today folks. Remember to connect with me on WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. In case you're hitting me up outside the shores of Nigeria. Again, the phone number is 08064662140. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayedeh. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from the link where you're currently listening to this episode.

Thank you for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.