My name is Nasiru. I finished my NYSC service in akwa ibom state where i served in a secondary school located in ikot okoro. While serving, there was no place to watch football matches because the nearest viewing centre was very far and entails me to sleep at the area that has d viewing centre. Three months before my passing out, i finally decided to set up a viewing centre in that same village i served. That was in April 2011. Fast forward to 2012, I am begining to make profit from it and recently i am dedicating my whole time to making it real big. I had wanted to post my experiences long ago cuz i had been a nairaland member since 2009 but could not login to my old account cuz i could not remember the password. I know there are other corps members or ex corps members doing business in their places of primary assignment. Please if u are one, lets hear your successes and shortcomings. I will come back to post my experience. Lets hear from u as well. Brb.

Let me go show Man city v Man u 2.30pm. Last season i made 2500 naira on this match. But the patronage means i can make up 4k. Later.

Yes my fellow nairalanders am back from d derby match. Now i will begin to highlight my experience chapter by chapter. Please is anyone reading this post?

Chapter 1:The start
I saved N130,000 mostly from my nysc allawee and inec parole at the 2011 elections and registrations.I got a spacious hall that has a capacity of 150people for a bargain fee of 10k every year. U can't get it cheaper than that. I bought a 29 inch CRT at 15k, two fans at N8,500, new tiger Gen 13.5k, DStv decoders 16k and 25k, ups 5k, bench 30k, electrical work 4k, PS2 game 12k, 21 inch tv, cables 2k, 2 extra gen 12k belgium, sumec 2700.
Chapter 2: The momentum
The time I started showing d football season has ended. So i started d 2011/12 afresh. The patronage was low at the beginning and the highest i do get is 1000naira. Subscriptn fee was 10k and 4 most of d season i hardly get 9k and i accumulated a lot of debt 4rm buying petrol and subscriptn fee.

The next chapter is about my challenges and shortcomings and how i managed it.

Chapter three: My pains and challenges
- I was making less than 10k monthly which was not good enough knowing dat at d end of d month, i would deduct #10,000 for subscription. This made me go hungry. I hardly eat 2 square meal daily and when i did, it's basically one plus several doses of garri. I was growing frustrated but i knew it was going 2 be better one day.
-Power surge in d dstv decoder meant i couldn't show matches nov 2011 just when i had started getting customers. I took it to multichoice office in uyo and was told i had to drop it 4 it to be taken to their office in portharcourt. This took two weeks. At d time i had freshly paid subscriptn fee in2 d decoder. So i was left wit no money and no income.
-Hunger and frustration was my lot. I went to a private school 2 seek a teaching job but d pay was disappointing plus i needed some run around cash. 5k was what d school agreed to pay. I had been teaching in the school for 10days when i discovered they don't pay salaries as at when due. Some teachers were owed 3months salary. I stopped going again. There was a friend i knew while working as a ARO I(assistant reg officer) d previous year. I went to visit d guy in inen abasi atai in oruk anam local govt, same location as my business. I stayed wit d guy who's staying with his parents. The mum would prepare food for us mostly in d evening. Since she never knew i was going thru financial turmoil, she thought perhaps i had d cash 2 take care of myself. I was somewhat an introvert and didn't disclose my problem 2 those i knew would do nothing. The name of this my friend is Etimbuk.
-The decision to travel to my parents hit me which i was hitherto avoiding. But knowing that staying extra time in the village not earning income and had to depend on others other than my parents was equivalent to wasting my time and future. So i returned to my business area. To borrow money in this present day nigeria,ain't fluke. But there was a guy by name ettebong, he borrowed me 6000# to be able to travel back to where i reside wit my parent. Before this time, i was owing others close to 6000#
-Journey home. I was able to travel to lagos and my parents were so happy to receive me. I never bothered to explain my problems to my parents while in akwa ibm since it was my decision to stay instead of me to go take govt job in sokoto state, my state of origin . So they taught all was well even though they had seen that i had emaciated a whole lot.
- I told my dad d problem. He was so sympathetic and he gave me #50k to go ahead with my plans. I thanked him greatly and a friend of his lent me 20k. Wit 70k, i thought d money would not last long when i reach, so i decided to buy four 14 inch tv at d rate of 6.5k plus. I bought some belgium phones and went to alaba and bought CD PLATES worth 15k. Then i travelled back to my business area around december.
I will come back to narrate d remaining story. But i need to know that someone is reading this. Your comments will greatly boost my moral to go on.

Inspiring story. Please go on.

guy am feelin u ryd on.

Bro, great work. Your aproblem isn't a big one, marketing and advertising and maybe location.

So, go out there and market ur business to the environs. Let them know you exist. Even the world greatest product will fail if no one knows about it. Don't assume that they will know and automatically find you. I think that is what you are doing.

It's normal for a non entrepreneur though. The most important trait in all your story is COURAGE! That's what separates u from d lot. That fearless spirit.

Thank you. Now i know someone somewhere is reading this. now i continue

Now after i returned from lagos. The football die hard fans in d area and neighbouring villages instantly heard that i had arrived. They told me how much they missed watching football matches. I was happy in the fact that a non football crazy community could start missing matches. So i started promoting my PS2 game. The children playing it like never before. I ended up making N1,000 on PES 2 alone that day. Since i didn't come wit cash, i had to sell the phones i came wit plus the CD plates i bought. I started playing d movies that i brought in d shop. Instantly customers started resurfacing from nowhere. At times i would be going home and i'd be getting one request or d other. I bought those plates at d rate of N50 each and sold at N100. In just one week, I had sold CD plates worth N5000. One major thing that endeared me wit d people is my ability to speak d language. Everywhere i go people speak d local language to me. With d local language, i told them i had gone to lagos to buy phones for sale and also CD plates. I told them in fact i do go to lagos to buy anything i know is of use to them. So i showed them my phones, plates, electronics and other gadgets that i came with. Now i started getting people requesting about my phones. I bought one nokia 6600 at N3000 and sold it 6k. Nokia N70 dat i bought N4.500 i sold at 8k. Thank God i bought three. Indigenes bought one and corpers bought the other ones at d same rate. The interesting thing is that they got to know as a result of the posters i put around d shop. I sold one blackberry storm 2 at 20k which i bought 11k. I bought one loader cd at 6k with speakers which i sold 11.5k with the guy seriously begging me. I had sold several things double their prices and each time i get people requesting for d same products i had sold to others. The buyers gave me lots of customers before u know it, it had spread to other local govt that there's a corps member that sells phones and electronics at an affordable price. So i have people coming in as far as uyo, d state capital, coming to check on my goods. Although at this time i was left wit little products. I will come back to narrate d remaining story...

Zakariyau carry go jare, nothing do you

hmmmm, very interesting but dont u think the profit margin is much? anyway am happy for ur biz prowess. those are my peopleoooooo, pls take it easy with themoooo.

boron10: Zakariyau carry go jare, nothing do you

Ben is that u? Interesting. Some of my friends had been wanting to know what i was going thru especially d corps members posted here, so i needed a page dat i can always direct them. Thats why i openned this thread

it will hit the front page soon

Naaah i was going to talk about that until u raised it. See i've moved round to compare prices and i discovered dat d china version of d phones i sold were marketed at very ridiculous price e.g someone bought a refurbished nokia C1 for #8.5k. Thats a phone i do sell at just 5k, d original. That guy regretted it and later gave me customers. It's about ur bargainin power and whether i need money at d time or not.

inwangobio: hmmmm, very interesting but dont u think the profit margin is much? anyway am happy for ur biz prowess. those are my peopleoooooo, pls take it easy with themoooo.

But Nasiru don't you think you're exposing yourself? Someone from the village might be reading it and would not want to agree the price you give for the phones next time.

You are absolutely right.

Theben: But Nasiru don't you think you're exposing yourself? Someone from the village might be reading it and would not want to agree the price you give for the phones next time.

yea i know but they can never get it as cheaper as i give them. If i list out d expenses and stress involved to bring them coupled wit d fact there's no enough capital you'd pity me alot. I'm very open to them and many times i tell them d truth but since they don't have any option they buy my goods.

Now having used d 14 inch TVs I brought along to display games. I tagged a price of N10k on each of those TVs. People dat saw the liked them. They were impressed because they were only used to china products. By this time, i went to uyo to retrieve d decoder I submitted for repairs. I couldn't imagine that one of the customer care operatives was telling me that I had 10 days subscription left of which they promised to suspend the account so that my money won't be charged. At d time d decoder developed fault, I had only subscribed three days ago. I was charged one thousand naira for service charge and took d decoder back to d viewing centre. I remembered d first match i wrote on d board was Livpul v Newcastle last season and I decided to advertise it as free knowing that i had only chelsea, man u and arsenal fans. Other matches do not have spectators except me. That match was watched by almost everybody numbeing about 100. They enjoyed d match to d extent that some of them that had never been a football fan joined to watch d next match. That was a super eagles friendly last year. I made 3.500 from d match. I showed a couple of matches in d weekend and realized about 5k. I added money to subscribe for d following month. Formerly, before d setback dat took me back to lagos. I do get fans but not as much as i have them when i returned. Chelsea was d most loved club and make 1500 on any of their matches except champions league which is higher: 3k. Man u 1k and arsenal 500. I constructed two more boards with a lot of bench worth 20k. I placed one in d market square and one at a junction having more residential houses.The patronage almost immediately increased after this. Having seen that it worked, i discovered many of them come from far distance and do not use an internet enabled phone. So i created a txt document of d fixtures and also wrote dem out on a paper and paste in strategic places. This reduced my work because at times even when i didn't write fixtures they come automatically.

To be continued soon....

The major challenge i'd ever faced was that other leagues aside d premier league do not have fans. So i took it upon myself to show bayern munich,PSG, real madrid, inter milan, AC milan matches free of charge. At d time, i had only two barca fans and no real madrid fans. So in a weekend of la liga matches, i would show real madrid for free and then charge N50 for barca. At times i collected N30 but at the end of d day, i knew i had two barca fans and if others join it's a bonus. They would pay for barca and watch madrid 4 free. The two regular fans spread information in their area that i show madrid free and charge only for barca. So that made other barca fans and madrid fans to patronize me from other areas. It now reached a point where more people liked madrid matches than barca. At this point, i started charging for madrid but i collected same from my two regular customers. As it is now, a 7pm kick of madrid match now gives up to #800 and barca brings in only #600. At many times when UEFA champions league is on they do complain that they want to watch chelsea, real madrid, arsenal etc and I was on a single view. Then i heard about dstv extraview and went for it. This was january 2012. What inspired d decision was that Africa cup of nations would have begun early january and Nigeria was knocked out prior to this. I was told if Nigeria qualified, the turnout would have been massive but guinea dispatched nigeria in d final leg of qualifiers. Honestly, this was d most disappointing time i had faced but nevertheless life goes on. Many fans said it won't be necessary watching the competition since nigeria was out.

Op, you are doing a great job. But could you make it really appealing to read by putting spaces where they belong?

CHAPTER FOUR: My break through
The turning point for me was when i obtained a secondary decoder at 28k with installation and show double matches. This increased d rivalry among fans and i had fans coming from very far areas and whenever there are key matches like chelsea v Man u, i do get fans that could not get a space in uyo and abak. So it made me get as much as N5000 on such matches. January 2012, d nations cup was fast approaching but no one was talking about it. So i decided to list out d groups and write out fixtures and place them in strategic areas for people to see. Whenever they came to watch matches they do analyse the groups and talk about which match would be tough and which ones would be walkover. The first match of the nations cup was preceded by the opening ceremony and followed by the home side's match(Gabon). This particular match coincided with a 5pm kick off in d premier league as it was on a sunday. I showed d matches both. I discovered that at a point people stopped watching d league game and concentrated on the AFCON match. They enjoyed d match so much. The following day (monday), those that watched d opening game came to watch the group B match. I had only ten fans for the 5pm kick off and then almost twenty for 8pm kick off. That was how I continued to show d competition. I discovered that i had separate fans for the league and separate fans for AFCON with few watching both. On weekends, they all attend making d population double than it used to be. It was at that time i started making # 3800 per match. The interesting thing was that i was paying 10k for subscription before and went for extraview compact plus where d subscription fee reduced to 8.8k. I was showing d AFCON matches until it came to a time i made #2,900 on ivory coast because they liked didi drogba. Ghana earn me just over 2k. They so much enjoyed d dual view so much that i used d avenue to advertise other teams like napoli, bayern munich, madrid, barca and inter milan when they clash with normal premier league fixtures. They later got familiar with such teams and that later increased d spectatorship for d champions league especially when chelsea met napoli and later bayern munich. The atmosphere became rowdy that other people that are not into watching matches would just come in to watch because of d passion. Some fans would raise songs and start dancing "etighi" in mockering of their opponent. I remember this particular match when man u played Everton and every one thought the league had been lifted by man u once again. Man u fans were on attendance and d opposition fans too. When man u was leading their fans started making noise and singing all sort of songs. Close to d end of the match, d match was at 4-4 and it was the turn of the opposition fans to mock man u as they sought for d winner but to no avail. One of d fans particularly raised a song,"All powers belong to Jesus....."and others followed in unison and started dancing and rejoicing. At times, this kind of atmosphere made me forget about the challenges of life a great deal.
To be continued.......

2sexy: Op, you are doing a great job. But could you make it really appealing to read by putting spaces where they belong?

Thank you. I will take note.

Nigeria is realy blessed with human resources,positive thinkers who gona make affluence tomorow

wow! Never knew you went through all these. Apologies for my disturbance then

boron10: wow! Never knew you went through all these. Apologies for my disturbance then

If I'm to include everything on this page, it will be worth a 500 pages book. Up till today, i'm still enduring a whole lot. Don't worry i will invite u one day to come see for yourself.

Emzybrown: Nigeria is realy blessed with human resources,positive thinkers who gona make affluence tomorow

The human resource is everywhere in nigeria but climate is not favourable at all. One can't wait till infinity waiting for white collar job