TerryMcGinis:
I'm interested in digital marketing, can you help with the course sire?

Sure. Yes I can but it's a paid service

lizzypro:
Lizzypro45@gmail.com

Will be glad if I can get the videos

I don't think I have them anymore

This is one of the most enlightening thread ive read on nairaland in a very long time. Kudos to all those that shared their experiences. I've also invested in people especially friends and I've lost money too. Actually I have a job so it's more of investing in friends who are not really employed. So I've learnt the following
1. Most business people feel that their major problem is money, once they get funding their business will explode. Based on my experience with helping friends fund their business ive realised that what most entrepreneurs lack is ideas. Secondly a lot of them do not even do proper reaserch before going into the business. At the end they will lose investors money. That's what happened to me.
2. Believe me there are lots of people who have money to invest but d challenge is most people that will come to u to fund their businesses have not even sat down to do extensive research before looking for investors.
I will explain my experiences briefly. So i have a friend from d middle belt, told me about soya beans business, that we will buy, store and after some months we will resell and make profit. So i sent money we bought about 80 bags between November 2018 and January 2019. Cost of the soya beans plus bagging and transportation to where we stored at TARKA l.g came down to about 12,000 plus per bag . (Based on his so called research we should be able to sell each bag for at least 18,000 in 6 months time). To cut the long story short the price kept dropping we ended up selling them at 9,500 per bag to other sellers in benue in January this year.
We also planted yams, were able to harvest about 1,800 tubers of various sizes. The challenge has telling me now is how to get buyers for the yams. Meaning he didn't even consider where he will get buyers after harvesting. It's currently being priced anyhow at benue ( 100 big yams at 30,000) quite unbelievable.
Another of my friend gave him 400,000 he sells all this alkaline water. Buys from unique and sells in owerri. Later for to know that he sells on credit mostly to civil servants in d state and its always difficult getting them to pay u the money. He still has over 250,000 outside after I have him d money over 5 months ago.
I'm not really bothered about the monies that ive lost, it just reinforced my belief that a lot of so called business people won't sit down and and take a lot of time to research about they business they want to go into before disturbing people for money.
Another one based in Benin is now telling meme about butcher business , that they buy cows from d Hausa people there take to abbatoir, sell to middlemen and consumers and make up to 40,000 per cow, did a lot of good analysis. But based on my experience all those are just analysis nothing more. I didn't even bother with him even though he's still calling. For me I'm not really d one that lost , i invested the money in them to help them stand on their feet, unfortunately they didn't do t heir homework well, and i have no intention of giving any of them even a job. As a friend ive done my bit for them.
So for every businessman out there take time out to do ure research because u might never get a second chance from d investor once u flop. And believe me there are thousands of people out there with money to invest.

westerk:
This is one of the most enlightening thread ive read on nairaland in a very long time. Kudos to all those that shared their experiences. I've also invested in people especially friends and I've lost money too. Actually I have a job so it's more of investing in friends who are not really employed. So I've learnt the following
1. Most business people feel that their major problem is money, once they get funding their business will explode. Based on my experience with helping friends fund their business ive realised that what most entrepreneurs lack is ideas. Secondly a lot of them do not even do proper reaserch before going into the business. At the end they will lose investors money. That's what happened to me.
2. Believe me there are lots of people who have money to invest but d challenge is most people that will come to u to fund their businesses have not even sat down to do extensive research before looking for investors.
I will explain my experiences briefly. So i have a friend from d middle belt, told me about soya beans business, that we will buy, store and after some months we will resell and make profit. So i sent money we bought about 80 bags between November 2018 and January 2019. Cost of the soya beans plus bagging and transportation to where we stored at TARKA l.g came down to about 12,000 plus per bag . (Based on his so called research we should be able to sell each bag for at least 18,000 in 6 months time). To cut the long story short the price kept dropping we ended up selling them at 9,500 per bag to other sellers in benue in January this year.
We also planted yams, were able to harvest about 1,800 tubers of various sizes. The challenge has telling me now is how to get buyers for the yams. Meaning he didn't even consider where he will get buyers after harvesting. It's currently being priced anyhow at benue ( 100 big yams at 30,000) quite unbelievable.
Another of my friend gave him 400,000 he sells all this alkaline water. Buys from unique and sells in owerri. Later for to know that he sells on credit mostly to civil servants in d state and its always difficult getting them to pay u the money. He still has over 250,000 outside after I have him d money over 5 months ago.
I'm not really bothered about the monies that ive lost, it just reinforced my belief that a lot of so called business people won't sit down and and take a lot of time to research about they business they want to go into before disturbing people for money.
Another one based in Benin is now telling meme about butcher business , that they buy cows from d Hausa people there take to abbatoir, sell to middlemen and consumers and make up to 40,000 per cow, did a lot of good analysis. But based on my experience all those are just analysis nothing more. I didn't even bother with him even though he's still calling. For me I'm not really d one that lost , i invested the money in them to help them stand on their feet, unfortunately they didn't do t heir homework well, and i have no intention of giving any of them even a job. As a friend ive done my bit for them.
So for every businessman out there take time out to do ure research because u might never get a second chance from d investor once u flop. And believe me there are thousands of people out there with money to invest.

While I agree with most of what you said. I don't agree that lack of ideas is the reason why businesses fail.
All the instances you gave had fantastic ideas, but none were successful.

The issue is that most people have been deceived by the cliche 'have an idea that can change the world' What changes the world are not just ideas but hard and smart work. I just mentioned on another thread that no matter how spectacular that idea is and how much business planning goes into it (not discounting the importance), most 'ideas' fail when put into the real world. There are lots of things you cannot envisage on paper but one can only talk of its viability when it's test-run


For most of the start-up businesses you mentioned, I usually advice people to model what Igbos did after the Civil war that helped to spread wealth. If it's something people are already doing, even if you have much money, go and understudy or work for a successful person in the line of business you want to venture into. Learn the ropes, then go out and first start small. It's much easier to scale up after getting a successful model than scale a non-succesful mega project down into profitability

In Nigeria, there is this rule of thumb i follow as far as business is concerned, whatever business you don't have time for, don't dabble into it. Doing business in Nigeria is no beans, there are lots of factors and unforeseen that will make a mess of drawn out projections but be that as it may, resilience and many other habits that makes the man with the vision effective comes into play. I have lost a lot of millions in my chosen field , but focus and stick ability with strong belief is paying off. Now its a different ball game.

Ndubuisipaul1:


After reading you comment tears roll through my eyes .
How can a young man like me be mentioning that he lost this huge amount of money in this same country that I have struggled all through my life.

unless you are lying but if not, you must be from a well to do home. or you are one of those few lucky ones .because for me the maximum investment that I lost in my 30th year of age is less than 10000 ( ten thousand) I invested on selling phone charger
in fact I have never had 50000 ( fifty thousand ) whole as my money in my account for the first time in my life.
I know some people case are even worse.

Three years from now, you will become a millionaire. But remember to help the poor but don't ever do business with them.

Be very truthful in all your dealings with men.

Naijabad:


Three years from now, you will become a millionaire. But remember to help the poor but don't ever do business with them.

Be very truthful in all your dealings with men.

On behalf of that brother, i say Amen. I pray God uplifts him financially. Amen, again

westerk:
This is one of the most enlightening thread ive read on nairaland in a very long time. Kudos to all those that shared their experiences. I've also invested in people especially friends and I've lost money too. Actually I have a job so it's more of investing in friends who are not really employed. So I've learnt the following
1. Most business people feel that their major problem is money, once they get funding their business will explode. Based on my experience with helping friends fund their business ive realised that what most entrepreneurs lack is ideas. Secondly a lot of them do not even do proper reaserch before going into the business. At the end they will lose investors money. That's what happened to me.
2. Believe me there are lots of people who have money to invest but d challenge is most people that will come to u to fund their businesses have not even sat down to do extensive research before looking for investors.
I will explain my experiences briefly. So i have a friend from d middle belt, told me about soya beans business, that we will buy, store and after some months we will resell and make profit. So i sent money we bought about 80 bags between November 2018 and January 2019. Cost of the soya beans plus bagging and transportation to where we stored at TARKA l.g came down to about 12,000 plus per bag . (Based on his so called research we should be able to sell each bag for at least 18,000 in 6 months time). To cut the long story short the price kept dropping we ended up selling them at 9,500 per bag to other sellers in benue in January this year.
We also planted yams, were able to harvest about 1,800 tubers of various sizes. The challenge has telling me now is how to get buyers for the yams. Meaning he didn't even consider where he will get buyers after harvesting. It's currently being priced anyhow at benue ( 100 big yams at 30,000) quite unbelievable.
Another of my friend gave him 400,000 he sells all this alkaline water. Buys from unique and sells in owerri. Later for to know that he sells on credit mostly to civil servants in d state and its always difficult getting them to pay u the money. He still has over 250,000 outside after I have him d money over 5 months ago.
I'm not really bothered about the monies that ive lost, it just reinforced my belief that a lot of so called business people won't sit down and and take a lot of time to research about they business they want to go into before disturbing people for money.
Another one based in Benin is now telling meme about butcher business , that they buy cows from d Hausa people there take to abbatoir, sell to middlemen and consumers and make up to 40,000 per cow, did a lot of good analysis. But based on my experience all those are just analysis nothing more. I didn't even bother with him even though he's still calling. For me I'm not really d one that lost , i invested the money in them to help them stand on their feet, unfortunately they didn't do t heir homework well, and i have no intention of giving any of them even a job. As a friend ive done my bit for them.
So for every businessman out there take time out to do ure research because u might never get a second chance from d investor once u flop. And believe me there are thousands of people out there with money to invest.

Thank you for this.
I am a small business person myself, and have been in my business for about 2 and a half years.
A lot of people get emotional about starting a business. They just calculate A - B= C. Voila!!
This is not so. There's a lot of investment in terms of time, branding, logistics, advert and customer service and experience. There's also the battle of trend. A product that is selling highly today, tomorrow it is not even being looked at. You also have to know what is essential, what products are in high demand, do less of selling on credit. Sell value. Be careful about middlemen and proxies. They make most of the profit leaving you with peanuts.
I'm still learning. I'm still growing.

One other thing small businesses do is ignore record keeping. Even if it is tom-tom you're selling, you need records.
Simple expenses and income record. I have record of everything I have bought/sold since inception. I always know my Month-to-date position, Year-to-date position, Overall business performance. I know when I make profit in a month, or when I made more expenses than income. I know how much I pay for transport/courier. I know my marketing/advert costs. I have a dedicated account for business funds and I pay myself a percentage of my profit for the month. Any month I don't make profit, no payment. That is the reality of the business. To earn more, you sell more and watch your costs. I use an app to keep these records and I have it backed up.

My advise to most people is , start small and grow. You encounter smaller obstacles and you surmount them. You make smaller mistakes and learn from them, then apply the knowledge as you grow. You cannot start from the top. All the big businesses we envy today, didn't start where you met them. They grew!

Sorry.
I keep saying this, if you're looking for a wife look for someone ready to be a wife otherwise it will end up being a poor investment decision.

Me wey de talk no be say I be woman expert wo

Winneygirl:


Thank you for this.
I am a small business person myself, and have been in my business for about 2 and a half years.
A lot of people get emotional about starting a business. They just calculate A - B= C. Voila!!
This is not so. There's a lot of investment in terms of time, branding, logistics, advert and customer service and experience. There's also the battle of trend. A product that is selling highly today, tomorrow it is not even being looked at. You also have to know what is essential, what products are in high demand, do less of selling on credit. Sell value. Be careful about middlemen and proxies. They make most of the profit leaving you with peanuts.
I'm still learning. I'm still growing.

One other thing small businesses do is ignore record keeping. Even if it is tom-tom you're selling, you need records.
Simple expenses and income record. I have record of everything I have bought/sold since inception. I always know my Month-to-date position, Year-to-date position, Overall business performance. I know when I make profit in a month, or when I made more expenses than income. I know how much I pay for transport/courier. I know my marketing/advert costs. I have a dedicated account for business funds and I pay myself a percentage of my profit for the month. Any month I don't make profit, no payment. That is the reality of the business. To earn more, you sell more and watch your costs. I use an app to keep these records and I have it backed up.

My advise to most people is , start small and grow. You encounter smaller obstacles and you surmount them. You make smaller mistakes and learn from them, then apply the knowledge as you grow. You cannot start from the top. All the big businesses we envy today, didn't start where you met them. They grew!

Please can you kindly tell me the app you used in managing your business?

Winneygirl:


Thank you for this.
I am a small business person myself, and have been in my business for about 2 and a half years.
A lot of people get emotional about starting a business. They just calculate A - B= C. Voila!!
This is not so. There's a lot of investment in terms of time, branding, logistics, advert and customer service and experience. There's also the battle of trend. A product that is selling highly today, tomorrow it is not even being looked at. You also have to know what is essential, what products are in high demand, do less of selling on credit. Sell value. Be careful about middlemen and proxies. They make most of the profit leaving you with peanuts.
I'm still learning. I'm still growing.

One other thing small businesses do is ignore record keeping. Even if it is tom-tom you're selling, you need records.
Simple expenses and income record. I have record of everything I have bought/sold since inception. I always know my Month-to-date position, Year-to-date position, Overall business performance. I know when I make profit in a month, or when I made more expenses than income. I know how much I pay for transport/courier. I know my marketing/advert costs. I have a dedicated account for business funds and I pay myself a percentage of my profit for the month. Any month I don't make profit, no payment. That is the reality of the business. To earn more, you sell more and watch your costs. I use an app to keep these records and I have it backed up.

My advise to most people is , start small and grow. You encounter smaller obstacles and you surmount them. You make smaller mistakes and learn from them, then apply the knowledge as you grow. You cannot start from the top. All the big businesses we envy today, didn't start where you met them. They grew!

You have hit the nail on the head!

A lot of the people rushing to start businesses have no clue about how to run an enterprise, they just sit in their armchair to monitor their friend's business and automatically assume they know it all

This thread is inspirational. If anyone thinks he knows, let him humble himself and learn.

I learnt that:

1. Avoid doing business with relatives. If you do, never leave anything in their control.

2. Get knowledge about the business. Do not overlook anything about it.

3 I discovered that over 70% of the people that lost money here engaged in businesses they have no control over (forex, betting, Ponzi, doing business in absentia, doing business on trust, doing business on assumption, doing business based on hearsay, neglecting important details like business location etc)

4. Many people suggested never to start a business with loan. I do not agree with this. What I will say is that DO NOT USE LOAN TO START A BUSINESS PEOPLE CAN CHOOSE TO LIVE WITHOUT. Why should I buy clothe during bad time?

5. Finally, I am grateful to those who shared their experiences. It was massive. I wish however that people in manufacturing, and other hefter industries could share their experiences.

adanny01:


I got my boss a 200m ministry of works contract earlier this yr, he refused to finance it saying that its too close to elections.

We sold it out and counted our loss.

The guy who bought it did 60% and has since been trying to get paid. I hope he gets paid sha cos that ministry get as e be. You need serious leg to get paid there.

Buhari tried to sanitize that ministry but the right effect has not been felt. At least they dont dish out contracts anyhow like they did under GEJ when the funds to pay where obviously not available.

What ministry

Wow...can't believe I read from page 1 till the end. Very very revealing thread...read a lot...and one of the things to learn here is, invest only 10% of your start up capital...then you can grow from there. You don't have to add the whole bulk.

nice thread had a lot to learn,
I equally have had my fair share of loss sa,
opened a boutique, was doing fine until sales girl issh messed it up,
onto betting agency, this would have been a nice setup but then I didn't do enough research, ended up getting license for stakers den, I didn't know the difference then, a month into it when I realised the mistake i tried getting a lic for bet9ja, they said my shop was to close to another agent's, frustrated out,
later I tried running my own bakery, never knew that stuff was that capital intensive, in the end the fabricated oven built for me wasn't working fine i had to abandon the bakery when I ran out of cash and could change the oven, up till now the machines(oven, milling machine, table, bread pans, e.t.c) are still in there, just hoping to get enough cash or investor to rerun the bakery.
wow! business in naija not easy, hopefully I can equally learn some online business to help myself more

come be like say na 9-5/white collar work soft pass. despite all the bullshit that comes with it,the fact that one can't get rich doing it even after keeping at it for decades. makes me wonder how the many rich people among us got there. they can't all be corrupt and dishonest. how come they weren't affected by these challenges?

NCANTaskForce:
Dogs, The idiot I contracted to take care of them was nonchalant about it, I lost close to 700k on 4exotic breeds of dogs

So sorry bro, Can I message you?

aboyaji:
I had to put mine up for the sake of service to mankind. I have been looking for a way of putting my sad experience to writing all these years.

I started importation business in 2014 when I lost my job. I started importing watches, Jerseys, Phones, anything that moves fast. I joined it with dropshipping too as I reside in the Eastern part of Nigeria where goods are also cheaper and affordable. Everything were going simultaneously as I introduced local online shopping from Konga and JUMIA and the businesses were running smoothly. I had no shop at the moment and had no intention of getting one cos I was making it that way. It was faster.

My younger sister would call from school and place orders and I send them across while she remits within the week. I had bigger plans for the business that I started making contacts with the international markets and also updating myself with the Nigerian shipping companies. Visited a number of them then like KINGSOO group in Trans Amadi in portharcourt for my Maiden shipping. I was focused...

Not until sometime almost at the end of the year, I lost all. I got in contact with a brother who lives in another state and told him about my business and the goods I deal in, he got interested as he was financially buoyant. We fixed day and time for me to travel to his state. He made his orders and I delivered as more orders came from him for other people which I still delivered. I was oblivious of the fact that family should be kept away from business as my friend warned me before I embarked on that journey of no return.

I kept asking for the money for months which took years and now, more years to even pay for at least for one single item out of a whole lot of items delivered.

It dawned on me later that he had no intention of paying me at all. So many measures were taken to get the money back which wasn't fruitful.

I am sorry for your loss.
But I want to do a business like yours, how much do you think I need to start this importation business. Considering the present economy too.
I will also appreciate if I can get your contact for WhatsApp Chat.
Thanks.

Connected1:
I am sorry for your loss.
But I want to do a business like yours, how much do you think I need to start this importation business. Considering the present economy too.
I will also appreciate if I can get your contact for WhatsApp Chat.
Thanks.

I'd advise you start first with drop shipping to know what's obtainable in the market recently.

aboyaji:
I'd advise you start first with drop shipping to know what's obtainable in the market recently.

Okay

Connected1:
I am sorry for your loss.
But I want to do a business like yours, how much do you think I need to start this importation business. Considering the present economy too.
I will also appreciate if I can get your contact for WhatsApp Chat.
Thanks.

Let me advise you, the current rate of dollar doesn’t make importation business friendly anymore.
If you can do dropshipping or affiliate marketing or do both then you will still make it than importation business. I know say you no go hear.

emmaebube:

So sorry bro, Can I message you?

text me 08080833582

Most times we are the cause.
I know it's can be very fustrating when you can't pay your bills ND all that.

But then let's learn the fundamentals of business..
Most people will stake 100k to bet or involve in Ponzi scheme, but we don't have such patience to start something that will fetch us money legally.

Change begins with us

PattyMike:


It's still in its birthing stage. I will eventually teach any one willing to learn when it's off the ground and running.

Boss man, how's this business now? I stumbled on this thread today and I've known you from the QA world thread too.

Gaspardd:


Lol, my plan was to pull out 2020, but i think i might extend it to 2021.
Also i want d bear market to extend till d next 6 mths, with that i can buy more.
And i actually used my house rent to buy more also so right now i am homeless.. cant be seeing such a low price and me just folding my alms.

How did it go?

Gaspardd:
Crypto
Bought verge at 56sat with 1000k usd then rose to 35k usd
Was greedy and didnt pull out, now i have 900usd

if you waited till 2021 you would have become really rich off crypto. Crypto is not for those that rush

HardMirror:
if you waited till 2021 you would have become really rich off crypto. Crypto is not for those that rush

Lol. Who wud have known.....

akwesenana:
How did it go?

Pulled out early, i watched myself missed my chance to becoming a millionaire.