Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone

“Oh, hi!” I waved frantically at the young, light-skinned lady walking down my street. Her set of white teeth gleamed in the distance as she approached with a backpack.

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“What are you doing here?” she asked, extending her arms for an embrace.

“I stay here, I didn't know you stayed around here as well,” I said

She raised her shoulders and dropped them again.

“Oh, I'm moving in” She moved her shoulder, indicating the backpack she was carrying.

“Really? Where?” She raised her hand to point at the building directly adjacent to my house. I opened my mouth in shock. I hadn't noticed someone was moving into that empty flat, not to talk of my coursemate!

“Welcome to my house,” she said as we walked into the small apartment.

“This is good,” when I walked into the kitchen, I yelped with surprise. “Woah, you have a fridge and an electric blender?” I could hardly hide my excitement as I perused through her kitchen.

“Don't get all worked up, those stuffs are for my new business” she said, the smile on her face getting bigger.

“Oh, what business?”

She nudged at the shelf with her head. When I looked up, I saw nothing less than a hundred small plastic bottles with a branded sticker that had the inscription, ‘Your Best Drinks’.

“Okay….? What do you make?”

“Tiger nut drinks, zobo drinks, and smoothies”

I nodded my head, undoubtedly impressed with what I had seen so far. I was a huge fan of entrepreneurship among young people and tried to support entrepreneurs when I met with them.

“So when do you start?”

She looked around her house again, as if saying she couldn't begin yet then turned back to me,

“I don't know yet. I need help if I'm going to do this with school. You know how demanding the Department of Theatre Arts can be”

I bobbed my head up and down several times. From morning classes to evening rehearsals and preparations for one production or the other, students in the Department of Theatre Arts barely had any time to themselves.

On most days, we returned home so spent that we had to lie on the floor and sleep immediately, sometimes skipping dinner.

“So what's your plan?” I asked as I walked out of the kitchen, peeking into the bathroom to see what it looked like.

“I'm thinking of getting help, I'm just scared that I won't make enough profit to start paying staff yet”

I was not a business mogul, I preferred to sit at my desk, typing away at my laptop instead of having to walk around in the sun, convincing people to buy what they mostly didn't budget for, but I could help.

“Well, I can make smoothies,” I said. She whirled around and shot me a surprised look

“Seriously?” I nodded sheepishly. “Brilliant! You can do the smoothie aspect of the business then, and sell it at your own price. The goal is to promote the brand”

I wasn't thinking when the next words tumbled from my mouth, “I think I want to make the smoothies affordable since it's the first time starting out”.

That was the easiest mistake I made in trying to impress this newfound friend of mine.

She began the business in earnest. I went over to the market to get ingredients, then to her place every day after school to make the smoothies and store them in her fridge. The following morning, I was up early to go over and take them out again then head with her to class.

It was almost easy, the smoothies were nice and cold, and almost every 30 minutes, someone walked up to me to get a bottle, but I had shot myself in the leg. I dropped the price of each bottle from the 800 naira she had intended to sell to 500 naira, and I was barely seeing profit. I almost couldn't realize the capital to buy the ingredients subsequently.

When I complained to her, she shrugged in her usual manner and said, “Then we can leave out the smoothies for now and focus on the Tiger nut drinks. They've been selling better anyways”.

I had to stop myself from feeling offended by that statement. It was all my fault, trying to impress her and ensure the product was affordable at once while inconveniencing myself and making no profit.

I heeded her advice and dropped the smoothies to the disappointment of a lot of people, then allowed her to run the rest of her business herself.

I promised never to get involved in such a deal again, after all, all I wanted was to sit in front of a laptop to write stories. And that was just what I was going to stick to.