From Startup to Superpower: Unleashing Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'd like to look at why running a startup isn't self-inflicted pain, but rather it's a worthy go. Now this isn't from a listener question, but the idea came from a post I saw on LinkedIn. Also, I've seen a couple of people espouse similar ideas that running a nine to five, or rather being involved in the 9:00 to 5:00 is a lot easier. Running a startup is self-inflicted pain. It's if you're running a startup, then you have masochistic tendencies, you know, stuff like that anyway, so I figured I might as well give my own 2 Kobo on the matter.

Now before we look at whether running a startup is self-inflicted pain, first of all we have to define what the startup is because the definition of a startup itself is slightly contentious depending on who it is that you're talking to. Now, if you're talking to people who are in the tech space, they're going to define a start up by a number of features. They're going to say a start up has to be venture backed. So that means you are looking for investors.

You're looking for people to give you money to grow the business, whether you take the money as a loan or you take the money as equity because people are hoping to get a stake in your business. Then there are some people who also say that to be a start up you need to have a tech component to the business. So in other words, if you're creating an app because you're trying to match trucking, trucking companies in Lagos to people around let's say Lagos and Ocean and those areas who are trying to export things out of the country.

So if you're trying to create an app to match the demand and the supply when it comes to trucking companies, then some people are going to say yes, that is a start up. But if you raise money because you are trying to create a a large poultry farm for instance, or a large bakery, some people are going to say no, that is not a start up because it lacks the tech component. Now I'm not saying I agree with all these definitions, I'm just saying this is what some people say, the number one, it has to be venture backed #2 it has to be a tech component involved.

Oh, by the way, that first idea about matching trucks to people who are trying to get their stuff to the port for export, It actually is an idea. And I think a good idea for a business is just that the lady involved didn't go through with it. She was part of the cohort for the Faith Foundation in Lagos. She didn't go ahead with the idea, but I thought was going to be a good idea to at least test out and see if it could work.

Because when I was involved in the family business, which was an export business, we're exporting charcoal, sesame seeds, commodities, basically. It was one of the problems that we had. You need, you need to find reputable trucking companies that are on time. If this trucking company fails to show up, who is another reputable individual that you can get or in reputable company that you can get to fill the slot. So I think those are genuine challenges that can be fixed by folks in the in the tech space.

So I think it's a good idea. If you thought of trying to tackle that problem, give it a shot, you'd be surprised. There might be a market for it. Then there are some people who say that to be a start up, apart from me being venture backed and needing to have a tech component then you also have to be pre product market fit or you're trying to figure out what trying to solve those sorts of problems. Now product market fit is just the idea that your product or your service has found a willing market and it shows that there's market demand for the idea.

So back to the lady who was with Faith Foundation but who didn't start the idea if she was in the process of building the app, finding out how many freight forwarders have transport companies, how many transport companies want to be listed on their app on their website and you know, blah blah blah. So in the middle of all that trying to figure out if this idea can work, some people will say yes that is a start up, but if the company already has product market fit that means that you have found a a customer base, you found people who find value in your product or service and you're chugging along and you're making profit.

Then some people will say no, what you have is not a start up. Then there's some people who say that for it to be called the start up, the goal has to be to build mass evaluations. You know you have to build $1,000,000 company or a million naira. No, no. If it is an IRA, I don't think we can be thinking in millions, probably have to think in billions or trillions or whatever. But you get the idea because I have lots of Nigerians that are starting fintech right now.

So if you're trying to build massive valuations so that you can float on the stock market, your investors get their money, you get rich off of that. There's some people who say you need all of these things to be considered a start up and so that is what you will find if you talk to people who are in the tech space. Now there are some other people in the non tech space like me for instance. I kind of lean towards this other definition because the idea of a startup existed before, you know we had all these boys in in America you know running around and creating all these unicorns.

Now the idea and the term already existed before then. I think they just kind of hijacked the term. So now now that everybody hears startup, you just think about those sorts of companies. So if you talk to people in the non tech space then a startup is just any early stage business maybe not people at the ideation, ideation stage. OK. Well I guess would include people at the ideation stage as people who are looking for what business idea am I going to start?

No, no, no, no people at no this I would, I would say it excludes people in the ideation stage. If you're looking for what business idea am I going to start then I'm assuming that non tech people will just say I don't know you have a hobby or you're just throwing around some ideas. But then once you get to the stage of looking for market validation, you know is that market supply for this idea, for that idea you're talking to people, you're trying to do some sales and marketing motions.

I'll say that non tech people would say OK in that case you do have a start up because it's an early stage business. Now for people in the non tech background, the goal of the business actually is profitability and sustainability. We're trying to see how much money you can make off of this system now and how long can this thing run into the future with or without you. That seems to be the goal. So the whole thing of massive valuation IPO what's IPO again IPO that's I can't remember what IPO means.

I really should check my at least you read my old law books more. So I can't remember what IPO means. Yeah, initial public offering. Yes, initial public offering. That's why you take your business and then you present it to the public so that people can buy shares in your company on the open stock market. Yeah, so IPO, initial public offering. So for non tech people, the goal is not an IPO. The goal is to see how you can grow this business profitably and to do so over the long term.

Now this whole thing about selling a business, something that is particular to people in the UK, the USA, Western nations basically. And but it's not a notion that I think has taken root of taking root in in Nigeria, because I think in Nigeria when people start businesses the goal is to usually is to keep it within the family. So I've started the business now I want my kids to take over. I want my younger brother to take over, you know, that sort of thing.

All my cousins to take over. And then the idea being that even if the business runs profitably, when you die, if there's nobody in the family to take it up, then you just wind up the whole thing. So that is kind of like the Nigerian mindset when it comes to building businesses and but is should you build a business to sell? In my own opinion, I'll say even if you don't, you're not thinking of selling your family poultry or whatever.

But running the family poultry with a mindset that you might sell it in the future is a good thing because it force, it forces you to build a self-sustaining and profitable business, a business that has sellable assets and a customer base that you can sell whether you are in the picture or not. So if you pretend that you want to sell this business in the future, you're going to run it in such a way that you're going to build a much more valuable business overall.

Honey, forgive me for going beyond the the topic for today. I was just trying to define what the startup is. So if you talk to tech boys and tech girls, the tech girl is going to tell you that to be a startup, it has to be venture backed. You need a tech component, then let's see what else. And then the goal is we want to become billionaires by doing an IPO, you know like Facebook and Amazon and the rest of them floating on the stock market and then we all become billionaires.

But then if you talk to people in the non tech stage, they're going to say look a startup is just any early, any early stage business whether you sell eggs or you sell cement or whether you have a transportation company and you're trying to match, you know you're trying to get your trucks from Lagos to ocean so that you can haul people's things to port. So it's an early stage business, it is a start up. So those are the two different definitions or the the two different perspectives or world views that you're going to find when you talk about what a startup is.

Now to the other part of the question. Is it self-inflicted pain? And the answer is a definite, resounding and huge YES, Yes, it is self-inflicted pain. It definitely is more pain than being involved in the 9:00 to 5:00 and I've explored that in other podcasts, so there's no reason why we should go into this in more detail. So excuse me. So now, now that we agree that this is self affected plane pain because it can be a painful process, the question now becomes, why do you do it?

Why get involved in the startup, what it is, a tech idea of a startup? Go and raise finance. You start looking at investors. They're raising huge money. You don't know how you can pay people back. You know you have to build massive teams. You have to do this. You have to do that. Or even if it's non tech, instead of sitting in Zenith Bank and collecting the salary, you go and buy the chickens. You're feeding the chickens.

You're wondering how am I going to sell the chickens? Or if it's back to the trucking thing. You know, you collect a loan from your father or your uncle and then you buy one truck and you're operating one truck. And you wonder, when am I going to break even and have enough money to buy a second truck? And then from 2 trucks, maybe get to 5 and then from 5 trucks maybe get to 10. How do I find drivers? What else? How do I do local government registration so that people task force will not harass my trucks once we leave Lagos, you know,

and all these questions. So there's a lot of pain involved. So why go through all this self-inflicted pain? We do it because there is massive upside whether you're doing a tech thing or a non tech thing and then there are lots of personal motivations involved. The massive upside when you're doing the tech thing is you get this thing to work, you're going to be a big boy, you're going to be a big girl, you're going to make lots of billions.

And if you do it the non tech route, the massive upside is you're going to be able to create the kind of wealth that you wouldn't have seen. If you are working in Zenith Bank as a cashier or as a branch manager, then there are also lots of personal motivations that some people who say I want to be my own boss. By the way you I want to be my own boss people. I don't think that's a good enough reason to get involved in business because when you get involved in startups and in business or whatever, yes you are the boss.

Well, in a sense you are the boss. But actually your boss is your customers, and your customers or the marketplace can be more demanding than your boss at Zenith Bank. So in my own opinion, I would say just stick to Zenith Bank or wherever it is that you work, manage your your, your, your boss more, start switching off your phones over on the weekend so he can reach you and then harass you. What else? You know, do those sorts of things.

It'll be a lot easier than saying I want to be in business because I want to be my own boss. It's a huge surprise. That's all these people who, you know, my own, my own boss kind of people. So those are some of the personal motivations. I want to be my own boss, I want to be independent, I want to show, I want to prove that I can do it, you know, blah blah, blah. So that's the reason why people do it. Mostly because of the massive upside, the money that we can make and then the personal motivations.

We don't want the boss want to be in control of our own schedule, want to be more involved with our families, want to prove to ourselves that we are capable and we are worth it and all that. Then the question yeah, so looking at those, is this, is the hassle worth it? It depends. There are some people who say, yes, that is worth it, worth it, because the best case scenario is that you're going to get incredibly rich. That's the massive upside.

But then of course you know that not everybody is going to get massively rich. But then we'll look at that in the second-half then. So that's the best case when it comes to the massive upside. You could be rich and then on the personal motivations, it could be worth it. Because apart from proving to yourself that you're capable and then you're worth it, you also create a huge stash of social capital for the children. Now social capital is something is is what sociologists call the experiences, the memories, the testimonials, the, well, you know, whatever it is that children inherit by being in virtue of a particular context.

So there's this thing that if your mom or your dad was a hustler and things kind of worked out OK, then the children feel like, you know, this self-employment thing, you know, this also thing. I can do it. It can work. So you know there's some people, there's some children who come out of those situations thinking I think I can, I can make this work, Mommy and daddy did it and I think I can do it as well. So that is what social capital is.

Of course there's also the invest of that where some people notice that mom and dad tried, they gave it their all, they failed woefully. And then the children say, ah, you know what this self-employment thing, I beg no BM, I'd rather work in Dangote and Dangote cement. Let me see how I can become a senior manager and retire with a good pension and you know, blah blah blah, stuff like that. So if it works out, yes, then massive upside.

You get rich. You also build a ton of social capital. Your children will become fearless. Your daughters will look at you and say, ah, mommy was able to do this thing. My mommy doesn't have two heads and she did. As a single mother, I can do it too, especially since I'm a married woman. Now. If mommy could do when she was single, I can do it. So as a single mother, I can do it as a married woman with the support of my spouse.

So I'm a social capital. So those are the reasons why it's a good idea to go ahead if it works out. You be rich, you also build social capital and that will trickle down into your family and you will be the one who will be credited with rewriting your family history. You know, people always say you know, before Kemi or before, blah blah, blah. We were all civil servants. But once Auntie Kemi opened up and showed the way, you know,

then that inspired Auntie Nick and that also inspired Uncle Kunle and that inspired, you know, on and on and on. And that's how a family tree was changed. You know, the sort of thing that people will say about Dangote, You know, Dangote is from the what family is it? So I forgive me, I can't remember his family name, but is it Dantata? I think and I should have checked this before coming on the air, but bottom line, that it belongs to one of those families where, you know, they had an illustrious grandfather or an illustrious great grandfather who was successful trader.

And that kind of opened their eyes to everybody else like oh OK, this thing can work And then his children get involved and then their own children get involved. And then in this generation now, you know, practically there is one person in each arm of the family who is practically A billionaire, you know, more or less or a multi millionaire. So that sort of thing. Then some people say that no, it's not worth it because the business might fail.

And yes, there are those situations where the business fails, but in my own opinion, it still is a good idea to go ahead and do it anyway. Even though you might fail and you might fail miserably, it happens. It's still going to be an advantage, because when the business fails miserably, you're going to come out of it with some transferable skills. You're going to have learned some things. You're going to have to have executed some things to get that business to rise even though it didn't rise.

But those skills will never leave you, and you will carry them into your next job, your next endeavour, whatever it is that you want to do. So it's a good idea to torture yourself and be go through all those masochistic tendencies and still have your trucking company fail and still have your chicken business fail and still have your bread business fail because you're going to get transferable skills. You're going to learn a lot about ideation.

How do you come up with good ideas? You're going to learn about strategy. Where do you think we should be looking to next? Watch the goal be you're going to learn about sales. How do I start conversations with people? How do I build relationships? How do I get them bought on? How do I achieve tie in? How do I close the sale? You're going to learn a lot about marketing. How do we make messaging to the market as a whole, whether it's using radio or TV, advertising or social media?

They're trying to broadcast messages to hundreds and thousands of people. How do we do that? They're going to learn about customer relationship management, client relationship management, because if you don't have client or customer relationship management, there is no business. Because you need to be able to figure out who are you talking to, who is owing you money, What are you supposed to do next? Have people referred you or not?

Are you following up on the referrals? Have you gotten testimonials? What's the customer? What's your customer service skills like? You know all these sorts of things. Customer relationship management skills. You're going to also learn about stakeholder management. For those of you who are going to raise money, let's say you borrowed money from Popsy or your rich uncle, or a rich auntie to buy your first truck or to buy your first two trucks.

You know, stakeholder management, you're going to learn that you're going to have to call 'cause you took Popsy's money, You took your auntie's money. You're going to have to call them once in a while to say auntie. Good morning. How you doing? How the children, blah, blah, blah. You give her an update. Trucks are doing OK. We made this much profit, but we needed this amount to service this truck or that truck. I'm going to be able to meet this month's payment.

I can't meet this month's payments. Can we defer to next month? You know, blah, blah, blah. You learn how to become good at those sorts of skills. So stakeholder management, you're also going to have to learn investor relations, OK, which practically is the same thing more or less. It's just that stakeholder management includes not just investors but members of the wider community or the ecosystem at large. So it might improve, include regulators.

So let's say the bread business, OK, no, even the trucking business is going to work like I mentioned, how? You have to try and figure out how what these people called task force, Yes. How So? That stack. Task force won't harass your trucks the moment you leave Lagos. Because once you cross the border, you leave Lagos. You enter into or show stack for task force. It will start chasing your trucks. You want to puncture your tire because they want to make sure that you paid this levy, that local government levy, blah blah blah.

So you have to become good at stakeholder management. So stakeholder management is not just your investors, but your investors. And then other how, let's say other players in the ecosystem, in this case for the trucking company, it will include local government officials. Let's see, what else? Police. Highway policeman on the highway. Let's see, who else? Who else? Who else? Who else? And you get the whole point. Then investor relations is a smaller subset of stakeholder management.

So it's stakeholder management, but only concerned with people who gave you money. So to the trucking company, investor relations would be how you're interacting with your father, who gave you the money, or your father's best friend who gave you a loan, or your rich auntie, You know who gave you money so you can buy your first pickup truck or whatever. You're also gonna have to learn leadership skills because in talking to all these people,

local government task force, talking to your auntie, talking to people who drive the trucks or talking to the people who run your bakery and things like that. You're going to have to learn personal leadership skills. Leadership skills. Work for yourself because you have to be a self motivated, self governing individual before you can lead and govern other people. Then let's see what else. OK, team building skills. You're also going to learn how to build a team.

You know these are the sorts of things they're going to learn. Even if you try this trucking business or you try this egg business or you try this export business and you feel miserably and you feel woefully, you would have lost money. Yes. But The thing is these are all the things that you can learn. So when you decide that you know what this business thing is not for me, I think there's a call of God in my heart. I want to become a pastor.

All these things are going to come in handy. Ideation, strategy, sales, marketing, customer relationship management, managing stakeholders, leadership, team building will help you in your career as a pastor. You say? You know what? I'm tired of all these things. I want to become a politician. I like the way things turned out for Tinubu. I want to become like them. All these things become useful. Ideation, strategy, sales,

marketing, stakeholder management, investor relations, leadership, team building. You know these are skills that politicians need. If you decide you want to be a civil servant, you get the point. All these things are going to be useful. Team building, leadership, stakeholder management. We need as a civil servant. And it's the same if you go back to private sector. Maybe they refuse to hire you at Zenith Bank. You know your branch manager thinks you are Ingrid because they give you a good job.

Or you left to start your trucking company, but you're not able to get into Access Bank for instance. Know these skills to come in handy. You're now not just going to be a banker with the skills that bank employees have. We're going to have all these added extra skills that might even help you rise up the corporate ladder. And if you decide that, you know what, none of this is for me. I want to run an NGO. All these things are also going to be come in handy as well.

So in my own opinion, yes, it is torture. Yes, it's real hard, but it's worth it. Because if you succeed, you get rich. Even if you succeed in a modern sense, you don't get rich. At least the social capital, your children will see that this is possible and you will change your family tree. And then if you fail and you fail woefully, at least you have all these skills that have mentioned in the later part of the podcast that you can take and you can parlay into your next career as a pastor, as a politician, as a civil servant,

as a private sector worker was an NGO. What if you finish the whole thing? You get really, really jaded and you think, this world is not my own, heaven is my home. I'm tired of giving up. Then you can at least join the Catholic Church and then maybe join one of the mendicant orders or become a monk, or, you know, something like that, and then retire into the monastery and then pray your days away because you have been defeated by the world.

By the way, I'm saying that tongue in cheek do not be defeated by the world, and you should take your responsibility to advance the gospel, regardless of how things turn about in business. So business turns are great. Advance the gospel. Business turns out bad. Advance the gospel, you know, but don't become, don't run away into the monastery because you couldn't succeed at life. So that's it for today. Pretty much. Tomorrow we'll be back at our regular scheduled questions.

So please connect with me on WhatsApp and on LinkedIn. I love hearing from you guys, especially when you have a different point of view. Typically when you have a different point of view or you reach out because you had to quarrel with me on something, it means that I have to clarify some ideas that I had espoused on the podcast previously. So it's a good thing even when you reach out and you say I don't agree because the series on that I did on how to drum up sales using LinkedIn.

It came up pretty much because Remi Leko reached out to me to say I listened to this episode and I don't agree. And of course, that's where the six or seven episodes that came afterwards, clarifying my stance. That's how the whole episode came out. So if you don't agree, you have a different point of view. Reach out. I'd love to hear it. You'll be enriching the content and you'll be enriching the discourse for other people.

So you can connect with me on WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then you can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayedee. I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from the link. We are currently listening to this episode. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys in the next episode and I hope you've been convinced that it is a worthy endeavour.

But then again, if one of those people who you wake up and you think you know what corporate Niger employee you know, that's my thing, that's that's not a problem. No shame. But just know that every single Nigerian, I want to say every, I mean every, every single Nigerian gets involved in entrepreneurship at some stage, whether you're early or whether you've retired. And now thinking, OK, I'm 60 years old, I'm retired, what can I do?

OK, let me start the catfish ram so we get involved at some point. So I guess maybe the wiser question, the larger question will be if I have employee tendencies and I only want to work in Zenith Bank or I want to work with Dangote and become a senior management or board of directors. I guess the goal is to see how you can have something small on the side, How you can be testing small, small, small, small, small. So that when that time comes and you do retire and you're bored and you want to open your catfish farm, at least you have the requisite skills, knowledge,

connection and confidence that you can make your catfish farming work. So thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording.