From Betrayal to Breakthrough: Navigating Partner Disputes & Scaling Smart

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Aide. I saw sales and marketing challenges and I'm making today's podcast recording in my living room. The kids are home practising piano, so expect to hear some interruptions in the background. Now, the goal of this podcast is not to talk about my family. Actually, we're here to talk about business education. So spread the word so that your friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle.

They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you in particular, dear listener, have any sales and marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the podcast, I want us to look at 2 questions. Or rather, we're going to be answering 2 questions that were sent in by listeners. So the first question is from Williams Amaze.

And I will just paraphrase his question. And basically, it's on what to do when your partner steals your business idea. And then there's another question from Uche on how to scale your business. And Uche is in logistics. So let's go straight on to Williams Amaze. So this is situation now. Williams Amaze was the promoter of the business. Now when we say promoter, you know, as per you know, those of us who schooled in Niger, when you're doing business studies back in junior secondary school,

you know the promoter is the person who has the idea, the person who's trying to facilitate it, you know that's the promoter. So Williams now is the promoter of the idea and it was tech related and of course he doesn't have the skills. So you know, now you have the brilliant idea, you don't have the skills You now bring in tech Co founder or you bring in tech employee or you bring in tech. You know, basically you bring in someone to beef up the skills that you lack to get this business going.

So Williams is the promoter and he brought somebody in who had web, web development skills, coding skills, you know, stuff like that. And from what Williams says, you know, both of them, they were cool as as per they were guys. So they're not friends like 5:00 and 6:00, but shadow friendly. So Williams, he called in on the radio show, and I wanted him to send me a message afterwards so that we'll talk some more. Because The thing is, since this is something that might have legal ramifications, we actually need to discuss and find out a whole lot more details before I

can start giving some kind of advice. And also, since I haven't been a practicing lawyer for like, I don't know, like 15 or so years, I wasn't sure if it was the right thing for me to do or the ethical thing for me to do to be giving legal advice over on the air. So I wanted him to talk with me one-on-one, but he didn't get in touch anyway. So I'm just going to assume a whole bunch of stuff and tackle the question that way.

So one of the reasons why I wanted him to call in, I mean, to send me what's happening. So we'll talk one-on-one. Is this Now in these sorts of situations, there are a couple of questions that we need to ask ourselves. So let's say you're the promoter of the idea and you bring somebody in. Before somebody can give you legal advice, we need to know what the arrangement was. We need to know how that person was brought in in the 1st place.

Was the person brought in as a partner? That one has a different set of legal ramifications. Was the person brought in as an employee? That one has a different set of ramifications or was the person brought in as a contractor? That one has a different set of ramifications. So partner is you and me with a run this thing 5050 or any which way, like we're partners employees. You know, I'm the boss, I'm in charge. You know, you're my employee.

I pay you salary, you do what I say. Then contractor levels is, you know, I'm here, I'm on my own, you are there, you're on your own. When I need your service, I call you and then I sort your money and then once I sort you, you go, but you make the thing that I want. So these things are really, really important. And when I first got into wedding photography in Lagos and then later on in Abuja, these are some of the issues that used to come up.

Some people will say, hey, I'm the one that handled the camera, therefore I'm the one that has the right to the image. And then somebody else would say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The job was my own job. I brought you in as contractor. Every single thing you snapped is me that owns it. I'll put you under my business. And so these quarrels, I've always existed and they will always exist. But The thing is we need to be clear this other person that we're bringing them in, is it partnership?

Is this person employee or is this person contractor? Those are the things that are now determine the output, the ideas, the things that we produce. Who owns it. This is these are the things that will determine. So the reason why there was a problem is Williams bodies for that guy in and then he said the other guy ran off and executed the idea and then left him hanging. Now the example that I gave was Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins.

So Zuckerberg currently is in charge. Facebook, the court say he's one that owned everything but the Winklevoss boys were saying I know that nobody like that to like we called Zuckerberg. The idea was our own, and then next thing he abandoned our own. Whatever. He now started doing his own. Anyway, the courts have already settled on that matter a long time ago. So the Winklevoss twins, you know nothing for you, Zuckerberg, you own everything.

But if you were to talk to a lawyer or if you'll go to a court, these are the kind of things that we'll be talking about. Who was the promoter who initiated the idea? When you brought this other person in? Was this person a partner? Was this person an employee? Was this person a contractor? So these sorts of things, we need to know what's up. But I did say one thing that I want to repeat over here. Most people assume that when there is no written contract, it means like you're your own,

there's nothing you can do. That a contract is All in all, unfortunately, or rather fortunately for you guys, that is not the case. Because you guys did not sign anything doesn't mean that every single time there's busy like you've lost out. Still, speak to your lawyer. If you don't have a lawyer or a younger brother finished law school or younger sister finished law school like last year, no problem. Talk to her. She'll be able to guide you accordingly.

She'll be able to open your eye because the fact that there's no paper contract, you guys didn't sign anything is not that much of a problem. The paper contract is very important when it comes to proving what it is that went down, but the court has other ways of figuring out what is it that went down. And the court is going to be asking yourselves a couple of questions is going #1 is going to ask did these people intend to create legal relations?

That's because some people get together and they just do stuff like, you know, we're boys. So no one Hala, because there are situations where someone like Williams can say, OK, I'm starting this business. Hey, bro, come in, come and do this thing. I'll sort you. And then the other person says, Williams are my guy now. No, no problem. I'll do it now. Like we're boys now. Forget, forget acting. Everything works. I know you'll bless me.

Everything doesn't work. No holler, no problem. So in situations like that, it's clear that, you know, it's just boys like helping themselves out. I'm in a bind. I call you in, you say I no problem, I'll help you out. Everything clicks, You know, you sort me down. Is is not, there's no intention to create legal relations there. It's just, you know, let me bless you, let me help you, that kind of thing. And of course, the court wants to know, is it a matter of let me bless you, let me help you?

Or is it a matter of from day one we knew that this thing we're doing, like this is business and we're going to hold ourselves to certain kinds of standards, certain kinds of expectations, certain kinds of deliverables, you know, things like that. So when they start calling witnesses or when they start looking at text messages or WhatsApp messages, that is what the court is going to try and figure out. Was there an intention to create legal relations?

And the court is going to do is using different kinds of memoranda or different kinds of proofs of evidence. So the fact that there is no written contract where you sign something, it does not mean all is lost. Now there are some things where you just look at it like no more. If I pay lawyer and everything is not worth the hassle. If that's one of those cases now anyway, well, you know, it happens. We lose some things like that.

But if he's a very big something and it's worth the cost of getting a lawyer involved, don't worry. The fact that there's no written paper contract that was signed, it doesn't mean there's no remedy for you. There's a remedy. It just means you have to do some extra work when it comes to proving exactly what it is that went down. Now, there is one exception that I want to point out in Nigeria and a lot of Commonwealth countries, America, Canada,

Australia, India, you know, all we Commonwealth countries, people, countries that were, what's the word that were colonized by the United Kingdom. So colonies and protectorates of the United Kingdom in these countries, anything that has to do with land, gas to be black and white written on paper. In fact, in Commonwealth countries you'll find that there's a statutory way for doing these things. Statutory just means prescribed by law.

The law has said exactly what it is they are supposed to do. Deed of assignment. This is how you create it. The thing must be there. Deed of this, it must be there, a contract for sale of land must be written like this in Nigeria, governor's consent before you get COO blah blah blah, everything is prescribed there. So if you're in a business that has something related with land, so let's say you have a laundry, you want to go and buy land so you build your laundry on it.

Better make sure that not only is there something in writing, the thing that is in writing is exactly the way that the law says it is supposed to be. Because if you don't, then that one is serious complication. So outside of things like land where the law says this thing must be in writing, if you didn't write anything down, you still, you still, you still have a shot. So what I recommended to him, since my assumption was that Williams is, is Catholic, my assumption to him was, you know,

a cost effective way would be to approach the JDPC, that's the Justice Development and Peace Commission. That is one of the ministries within the Catholic Church that is concerned about advocacy, human rights, justice, reconciliation, all those sorts of things. So JDPCI tried doing some work with them when I was like secondary school before university anyway. So these are the sorts of things that JDPC, these are the sort of things that they that they like to do.

They wouldn't mind helping you out. You know, you go there, you have a meeting, they might call the other guy. You guys sit down and you you begin to resolve the matter or if there's a need to go to court and they will advise you, advise you appropriately. So that was my own recommendation to him, the Justice Development and Peace Commission. All he had to do was go visit his parish priest and the parish priest will let him know what the, whether they have a JDPC or whether you have to go to another parish or another local government or whatever.

But sure, that's the, that's, that's just the way forward on this one. But in the future, sure, for those of you, you're starting a business, you're a promoter, whether you write something down in black and white or not, you just want to be very clear on how you're bringing this person in. Are you coming in as partnership or like how, what role is it? What am I expecting? You know, blah, blah, blah. You need to have all those conversations, whether something is written in black or white or not.

So summary, this is just one perspective of what to do when you're former partner, you're former boy, you're former 5 and 6, your best friend, your guy from the hood. When the guy steals your business idea, that is just one perspective on on how to handle the situation. Now let's look at the second question from Uche. Now Uche called in and his own was on how to scale a business. Sorry, one moment I'll be back. OK, sorry about that.

I'm back. I just had to go because, you know, I told you that my sons are practicing their their skills, practicing piano, practicing music. And the older one was feeling frustrated that, you know, he's not making progress and the guy begin to provoke, you know, so I just had to go and sort that out because honestly, I don't understand this kind of behavior that you're frustrated because you're frustrated you want to break something.

I mean, who does that kind of behavior help anyway? For those of you that don't have kids, you know, don't be don't be scared. It's just one of those things. It's fun. It's fun having kids anyway. How would you? So would you from Luby now, which is question was how to scale your business, which is in the logistics business? And he's one of these guys who owns an aggregator or A2 sided business, an aggregator or A2 sided business, basically just people who create a business in the middle that brings buyers and sellers together.

So in his own case, he has a website, an app, a WhatsApp, the every every. And then he's connecting business owners who have things to sell with customers who want to buy stuff. So like for people who want to order food, you know, you place the order to the company and then Uche is in the middle. He's aggregating all these services and his own is logistics. So you you place the order and which is the one who has the platform and who has the people and you know, all the infrastructure to make sure that your cattle rider gets there on time, the boat gets there on time.

What else? KK I've seen I think was in Lagos. OK, maybe not in Lagos, but I think was from African country. I saw that I was in Bolt. One of these people should have started using KK for for for both, you know, for ride sharing and stuff like that. So I guess it's only a matter of time before it reaches Niger and people start using KKK to deliver them as well. So, so that's the setup now for, for for Uche. And OK, I told him to get in touch.

Eventually he got in touch and we're currently talking. But we're now our conversation has moved another level as we're trying to solve another problem. Because remember how on the podcast, I keep talking about you need economics. So we have to be good in sales. But The thing is, when our unique economics is messed up, we're just multiplying problem upon problem. Now this is what you need. Economics means it means that on every single one thing that you are producing or that you are delivering or that you are whatever the naira and Cobo, the money needs to math out correctly, need to make sure that on every single one that you're selling.

Let's say you sell kiddies things. Let's say you sell toy guns. If you import these toy guns from China at 1005 for one, but then you're only selling it at 1006 for one, that is 200 naira. But then out of that 200 now maybe delivery cost is there and then you know if something is damaged, I need returns and then you know stuff like that. The unique economics there is too tight because that 200 now profit margin, you know it's not enough to cover much.

Not even talk of you know you carry something and put in your pocket or say you will remove money from the business because you want to flex. So on every single 111 gone that you are selling the unique economics, it has to make sense. The margin should be nice and smooth. The padding should be correct because that's what will give room for the business to grow. You'll be able to take something out and enjoy yourself. You'll be able to take something out and reinvest in the business.

So apart from knowing how to sell, how to sell, we also need to make sure that our unit economics everything is adding up. So in which's case, now the head is on small problems here on unit, unit economics and on payment terms. So it's just like that with some, some businesses like I had, I don't know because I haven't consulted for anybody in the restaurant business, but I had that for restaurants. The margin, the money that they're making is not big, big,

big like that, that you know, the margins are not huge. So sometimes it's a feature of the industry that you're in. But if it's not, you just need to make sure that all those things are sorted. Now, the reason why I say I've been talking about unique economics is because especially since I started the radio show this year, lots of people come and say funding, funding, funding, funding is the problem. Where can I get loan?

Where can I get this? But then by the time I ask some questions, I'm like, your unique economics is wrong. It's off like on this thing, if you're making only two, two naira on average, and then once in a while one big thing will happen and then you now lose, you know, it is naira or 1010 naira or something. Like there's a problem here if you don't fix it and now go and borrow big money to try and cure this problem, you have serious busy.

And I'm even talking to somebody like that today. This one is not a client but you know, some people just come, they have questions and well, I can't just turn them away so I try and find a solution. So I've referred him to the Abuja Multi Door Courthouse system to see how they can sort it. So was that kind of thing. Wifey had a business, they went to go and take money, they took 4M, but then the fundamentals of the business was not correct.

Everything has backed up. And then of course the other person is like where the hell is my forum? Apart from that, the person even wants interest on top like you know, like there's no, we agreed. I gave you the forum. You will say that this how much you give me on top. So please, all these foundational issues and this is the reason why I like to pay attention to the foundational stuff, the unsexy stuff. Do we know how to sell?

Do we know how to interact with customers? Do we know how to figure out what it is that they need, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then after that, our unique economics, easy working our world, the price that we're pricing, is it a proper something? Does it give us room? All these things Very, very important. Where was I? I just went off track and so Uche now I was like Uche, Uche and logistics. So he wants to scale the thing,

basically. So what does scale mean? Now on this podcast, every single time I say scale, what I just mean, what I just means is to increase your results or to multiply results beyond your own personal efforts. So in other words, if you're a one man show like me, I'm a one man show, or if you're a one woman gang, then you have no scale because everything depends on you. If you do not do something, the thing will not move.

And if you do something, it will only move to the extent that you push it. The day that you stop pushing it, the thing will not move again. So that's what scale means. So the example that I gave while I was on the air was this, that if me and Uchi were sitting down one-on-one and we're having that conversation, you see, that's just normal. But since I was on the air now having that conversation, broadcasting the whole thing,

there was scale me, one person now reaching hundreds and thousands of people, or however many people listen to the radio. So that's an example of scale. You're doing something and you want the results to multiply beyond your own personal effort. You don't want to be a one man show anymore. You don't want to be a one woman riot gang anymore. You want to multiply your efforts. So the things required to scale, just remember that old Zenith Bank advertisement.

You know what it is you say if you say Zenith people, systems, technology. So that is what you need to scale. You need people, you need systems and processes. Any technology that is the only way to multiply results beyond you. So someone like Wuche now as a one man show was a one woman gang. Wuche is doing everything. Product manager does his job, software engineer does his job, customer care does his job, Fleet manager does his job, head of operations does his job.

So to scale now, you now need to bring in other people to be doing those roles. That is the people aspect now, systems and processes. I don't just mean machine, it just means the frameworks, the standard operating procedures that these people need to apply. It has to be on ground. When you bring in a product manager, you don't just say a project manager or I begin the managed product. You should be able to give him some guidelines.

As our product manager in my business, in my industry or for me or for my customers, this is how you arrange things. This is how you do, this is how you do that. So you need all those systems and processes in place. We need documents, we need templates, we need standard operating procedures, We need whatever it is you want to call it, that somebody can look to, to know how to solve this particular problem or to get this particular job done.

So the example that I gave was with customer service people. The reason why your customer service Rep is sending a message at 1:00 AM at night is because he or she has gotten into a particular basic with a customer. They don't know how they're supposed to resolve that problem. The solution is in your head. So that's the reason why they're sending a message at 2:00 AM at night, because you're the only one that has the answer.

But if you have systems and processes in place, you have reduced these things to a Word document. You have put it somewhere so that somebody can refer. All the customer service Rep needs to do at 2:00 AM at night is to go and check the Word document or to go and check the file in the office or whatever. And they'll be able to figure out how The thing is solved. Maybe in the morning they'll now update you. So Madam, last night that our customer Olga IMA and he was unhappy because of diseases.

This how I solved it. I hope everything was OK. So we need that as well. Then of course, technology, now we need that to scale. So in his own sense, you know, dispatch board instead of using WhatsApp because there's somebody I know here in Abuja call her business, although she's doing good business. But honestly, because one day I went to go and pick up my wife ordered, she ordered a fish, crab, fish, crab. What again all this seafood,

seafood or something. I mean, I'm not a fish eater. So whenever she buys all these things, it's yeah, disgusting basically because for those of you that eat fish, I don't understand why you like fish. The smell, the smell, the look, the just somehow. Anyway, so I shopped to this one's place to collect it. And lo and behold, how they manage everything is through WhatsApp. That's how they manage it. Tracking orders is through WhatsApp.

And but the problem with that is, you know, sometimes somebody will send message now and maybe you open it. You thought you wanted to reply the message. You go down, down, down, down, down, down and you forget that you have not replied to somebody. So it's only when the guy now remembers that, oh, there was another person, you start searching no down his problem. That's the thing that leads to orders being delayed orders being lost and all kinds of problem.

But then when you have all these digital fancy stuff, dispatch dispatcher keyboard, so you can just look at the screen, you know, you see as OK order this is at this stage, order that is at that stage, all those things and I'll make everything set, everything smooth. Makes it easy to to run the business, to delegate, you know, things like that. So technology for someone in which is space absolutely important. Then of course, apart from switchboard, you know, databases and blah, blah, blah, all those sorts of things.

So that's just an example about how to take the scaling. That's just how to scale basically. So if you're a woman, if you're a woman, show, if you're a woman gang, you know, if you're a solo, solo entrepreneur and you want to scale, that's it. You need people around you, You need a team. When that team comes, we need to have frameworks, systems, processes in place that we will use to train all that, all those people first before we now start delegating things to them.

If you bring in people and then you tell them why I go and do the work, you didn't give them training. You're causing all kinds of headache for yourselves and for your customers because all of us should be using different idea and we think about it. You have your business right now. You know how your customers are. You know the best way to run these things because you've been in the industry. You now come and hire someone like me to be your employee and I've never done this work before and you want to now use idea.

I'll be coming, I think, from my own background. If you have five of us, five of us are coming at you from different backgrounds, SO5 different backgrounds, Everybody trying to use idea to try and solve problems in the business or more. It's only a matter of time before chaos will ensue. But that's it basically. So that's it for today. Those are the only listener questions that we are going to tackle. I don't want this to be a very long episode.

So now we have an idea of what to do when somebody steals your idea. You didn't write things down. Don't worry, there's a way forward. If you can't afford the lawyer, don't worry, there's a way forward. We can find things. We can find affordable options like the Abuja multi door courthouse, There's a Lagos multi door courthouse. I don't know what's going on in Port Harcourt, but there's always places. There's always places,

especially nowadays, that lawyers are trying to make access to justice very fast and very cheap. So people are people are always coming up with ideas about how we can resolve disputes, you know, sharp, sharp instead of going to courts and, you know, paying big money and wasting a lot of wasting a lot of time. So that's it. And we have an idea now of what is required if we want to scale our business. So if you are solo, you're a solo person, you're a one woman riot squad.

You now know what to do to grow your business. Now know what to start planning for. Yeah, to grow the business. So that's all for today folks. Remember, if you have sales and marketing questions, bring them to me. You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I will catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.