₦airaland Forum

It's a common phrase I hear from people when they have to answer the question on why they do what they do. Questions like
Why did you wear this type of cloth instead of that?
Why did you chose this career instead of that?
Why did you buy that?
Get answers that goes in the line of ' because I want people to... '.
They are more concerned about what people think about them than actually achieving their own goal.
Here is a powerful paragraph from a book I am currently reading.
'When you are 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you are 40, you don't give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you are 60, you realize nobody 's been thinking about you at all.
Surprise, surprise! Most of the time, nobody's thinking about you at all! They are too busy worrying about their own lives, and if they are thinking about you at all, they are wondering what you are thinking about them. People think about themselves, not you'.

Because, at the end of it all, it always going to be about you.
P. S: in case you are wondering which book it is. It is titled ' How to get from where you are to where you want to be' by Jack Canfield.

It can be very challenging to set a goal and execute on it. But the way one can achieve ones goal is to 1. Have a CONCRETE goal in the first place 2. Set a time frame to achieving this goal 3. Make a plan on what you need to do. 4. Execute on the plan. Number 3 and 4 are usually challenging. As simple as it is for one to plan, it is very difficult for most of us. Why? Because we are afraid we might not meet our target. But remember, your aim is not to achieve 100% of the goal, your aim is to achieve 80% or more. Planning to achieve 100% might be scary and one other disadvantage is that if you achieve 100% of something you feel there is room for improvement but when you achieve 80% you think you can still do better, and that is priceless. Executing on the plan is very very important but it is very easy to be distracted along the way. What to do? Remind yourself of your goals whenever you see a sign of distraction or sense any fear or laziness. The question is why are you doing this in the first place?

Sponsored by Www.offkrent.com ...hostel for students

The best place to get students for hostel is on
Www.offkrent.com . it's the place Nigerian students now use to find hostel. Over 4640 hostel rooms available already. It's simple and easy to use

christ007:
at ile epo oke ode

Is that in Lagos?

I just read this on pulse. And it kept me thinking on how many students have been deprived of their right to gaining University admission just because of this

UI to admit only 3783 out of 56,000 candidates

The University authorities say the institution will admit only a few students because there is no enough space to accommodate the new students in the hostel.
The VC said,  ''I must also said that we are allowed to admit about 7,000. We have about 7,300 bed spaces and if you divide that by two you get the reason why we are admitting 3783 candidates next session''.

What do you think will happen if the school is assured that their students can get safe off campus hostel to supplement their hostel accommodation capacity? Off course, MORE STUDENTS WILL BE ADMITTED. This is the problem we are solving at www.offkrent.com

Where is the self contain located? I mean town

It is that time of the year again when students across various institutions in Nigeria hunt for hostel.
Getting it right at the beginning of renting your hostel is very important. This is because you don’t want to be stuck in crazy terms and fees that comes with renting the wrong hostel from the wrong hostel manager/agents.
Here are some questions you need to ask before you pay the rent for that new hostel.
1. What is the state of electricity? You have to know what type of electricity is being used in the hostel. Some hostels don’t have prepaid meter. So their connection is direct and the occupants might be paying extra fee on a monthly basis. Other hostels, most especially the news ones usually have a prepaid meter that allow occupants to recharge the meter based on the amount of electricity they use every month. In all cases, ask if the electricity bill is already included in your annual rent before making payment. If the bill has not been included, ask what the monthly fee is and the proper channel for making payment. Also note that some hostels might have outstanding bills and you don’t want to be the one paying for what the previous occupants have used.
2. What is the security situation of the area? If you are the type that work/walk late at night, it is advisable to ask people what the security situation in the street is like before making payment. This is important, especially if you are new to the environment. Some areas are prone to attacks or natural hazards. So make sure you ask people around for any possible threats. Some streets also have specific security rules of what time you are allowed to move or not move.
3. How much will you pay subsequently? It is likely that your annual rent for the second year will reduce, usually by 10%. Ask the estate agent/owner so that you won’t be paying any extra fee.
4. What does the Water situation look like? Lots of hostels have borehole that are either not working or stolen. Make sure you ask existing occupants of the situation of water and how good the water system is before making payment.
5. What's the condition of available facilities? Test if all facilities are working properly. That you have a water closet doesn’t mean it work. So test the water closet system and make sure it work properly if not ask for a repair to be done. Check the door knob to be sure if your selected room is secured. Also check if the electricity is working, check wall sockets and lamp holders. Check if the place have a burglary on its window or at least have a safe material to save you and your property from theft.
6. How good is the foot Traffic? if you are looking to start a side business in your hostel as a student, you will definitely want a place that have a high traffic of student passing by the hostel on a daily basis. So that your business can get a lot of attention.
7. Is the place calm? If you are an introvert or someone who love silent environment, you should observe the area if it is good for you.
8. What are the rules and regulation? If you are renting a private hostel, ask for the existing rules and regulations. Most hostels have a documented rules and regulation that guide the behavior of occupants. There are certain rules that govern the use of the hostel facilities, some rules govern allowed visiting hours and some rules for contributions for example fuel, electricity and cleaning services.
9. Ask for the direct person in charge: some hostels have 2 to 3 hostel managers at a time. Make sure you ask to be introduced to the person in charge of the hostel and get their contact. This is in case you have any complain.
10. Finally, ask for a receipt: The receipt is the evidence that you’ve make payment for the hostel you are about to get. If you don’t have a receipt, your occupancy might be questionable.

Source: http://blog.offkrent.com/10-questions-ask-renting-hostel-nigeria/

The University of Ilorin is known for its highly developed student residential areas. Lots of hostels around the campus are mainly built for student accommodation purpose. Self-contain (Dorm/Condo/Studio), Single room hostels, 2 bedroom flats, 3 bedrooms flats are all types of hostels that are common around Unilorin campus.
Some common facilities in hostels around Unilorin campus include; Electricity, Borehole with running water system, tiles, wardrobe, Fence, standby generator, wall hanger, and solar panel. The following hostels were selected based on available facilities. This hostels are all located in Tanke area of Ilorin.
Testimony Villa :

Testimony Villa : As seen on offkrent.com
This is a self-contain hostel located at Balogun street, Tanke Oke odo built in 2015. The hostel is fully tiled with running water system, security door, water closet, well painted, interlocking, borehole, and a security guard.
Hostel yearly rent is N100,000, including electricity bill and lawyer consent fee that give legal cover to both the student and the hostel owner.
Lincoln hostel:

Lincoln hostel as seen on offkrent.com
This is a classic self-contain hostel with full tiles, borehole with running water, private bathroom, toilet and kitchen located at Balogun street, Tanke Oke odo. The compound has about 6 blocks with a floor that is fully interlocked. Lincoln hostel has a security guard that secure the hostel 24/7 every day of the year. Annual rent for Lincoln hostel, which include all charges like the electricity bill, security guard fee, and other minor charges is N110,000.
Hostel 3:

Hostel 3 as seen on offkrent.com
If you are looking for a nice 2 bedroom flat as a student of Unilorin, this is a right pick for you as the hostel is built with modern facilities which include a POP designed wall, a store, kitchen cabinet, fenced with gate, borehole, fully tiled and also painted with glowing colour paint that catches the eye from afar. If you have been looking to get a nice 2 bedroom flat around Unilorin campus.
Benik Hostel:

Benik Hostel as seen on offkrent.com
Only 3% of hostels around Unilorin have a personal transformer. Benik Hostel is one of them. A newly built hostel at the back of the University of Ilorin bus terminus. Fully tiled, with borehole, running water, security guard, private toilet, bathroom and kitchen
Hostel 5 :

Hostel 5 as seen on offkrent.com
This hostel is a one story building with multiple phases all fenced inside a single compound that is well secured. Available facilities include: Borehole, running water system, kitchen cabinet, fenced, store, parking space, and a fully tiled floor. This hostel is located at MFM street, Tanke Ilorin. If privacy is your highest priority, this hostel is the right choice for you.
6. Colony hostel:
Colony hostel as seen on offkrent.com
The list will not be complete without adding the famous colony hostel. Painted with a mixture of milk and green colour, colony phase II hostel is a 2 bedroom flat hostel located around balogun area of tanke Oke odo . This hostel is fully tiled, with a big reservoir that supply water to all the units in the compound. Colony hostel also have a security guard that work around the clock to make sure that the hostel is secured. The occupants in this hostel include working class, married couples and students.

View full content on http://blog.offkrent.com/6-beautiful-hostels-unilorin-campus/

As we get closer to 2018, a lot of people, especially startup founders and entrepreneurs of all kinds have on their list things like: increase productivity, hire more staffs, and increase revenue e.t.c. What they mean by increasing productivity most times means creating more products.
For many years now, I have been an advocate of creating products that are exciting, products that people will love using. One proxy to this is that I love creating products that have lots of functionalities and also create WOW experience for the end users.
This means I measure level of productivity by the number of products shipped per day. If I ship less products a day, I consider that day not productive.
One incidence happen recently when I visited my cofounder, who is the CTO of offkrent , after working remotely for over a year. My goal is to make sure we are more productive during my stay. So I decided to measure our level of productivity by comparing the number of products we ship during this period to what we have in the past.
And then the moment of truth. With my old definition of productivity, I realized that we are shipping less products per day during this period. So I decided to increase our productivity level by trying to make him work faster on projects.
What we later realized was that this period was better as compared to the time we were working remotely. Because most times, he would have developed and shipped products that might not later be used. But with my presence, we can debate if a product is worth shipping before even trying to design it.
Now he spends less time writing codes, because we spend a lot of time on thinking about new features and drawing plan before writing any code. This is what I call being EFFECTIVE.
If you check the meaning of productivity in any dictionary, you will get something in the line of ‘productivity is having the quality or power of producing esp. in abundance’. But what you need is not to produce more but to produce less products that really matter.
For startups, it is more tempting to confuse productivity with effectiveness. You can be shipping lots of products that are not relevant to your customers. This is why concepts like the the lean startup and others that advice entrepreneurs to put their products in the hands of the end users, as early as possible, before doing any work are very efficient. This is to make sure you don’t waste a lot of precious time designing products that you are going to later delete or once that your users don’t care about.

After a lot of comments from our users, fans, friends and family on the user experience on our website. We have now released the mobile optimized version of www.offkrent.com. Which means our users can now enjoy seamless hostel search on their mobile devices. Again thank you very much for always being there

Find and book hostel in Nigeria

Have you ever been in a silent environment while trying to read or listen to a material but after spending some time you figure out you haven't assimilated any thing? Yes it is possible. Even though the external environment is silent, the internal environment is not.
This is caused by the noise in our minds, which is usually louder than any form of external noise. This is as a result of series of unrelated thoughts we incubate in our minds at the same time
The only way to make the noise go away is to consciously concentrate on a single thought at a time.
To pick one thought and ignore others as if they don't matter, because they don't at that moment.
It is about making one single thought the king at a time.

Find your choice hostel in 3 easy clicks

Here is one way I think people can find a job easily in 2018:
look for companies who are looking to expand their operation to Nigeria or your state of residence by setting up GOOGLE Alert for the word 'expansion to Nigeria'. With this, you will receive alert from Google anytime there is a news of a company planning to expand to Nigeria/state of residence. Read the details of the expansion and reach out to the company via email, LinkedIn or even tweet at someone from the company on how you are good fit for their expansion. If you do this often, you will get a company who is willing to give you a shot

Find any type of hostel at any price on offkrent.com

Yesterday, I had an amazing opportunity to speak with a global audience on 'Why now is the best time to invest in a startup'. I am sorry you couldn't be there but this is the next best thing I can do. Enjoy!

Before I start, I am glad to inform you that this chat is been read by audience all over the world. Thanks to social media.
Let's start with a quick definition of a startup.
In simple terms, a startup is a company in its early stage. It is like a new business venture. As with many established businesses, startup can deal in physical products or render service. For example, my startup offkrent.com is an online hostel booking website for Nigerian students (a service based business). A Startup can also be an offline business too for example, Reelfruit is a fruit processing company that package several fruit snacks. Like the mango snacks below

So, startup are not SCAM or another fraud venture, they are real business solving real problems. And of course earning a lot of money.

Why should you invest in a startup?
In 2004, Peter Thiel invested $500,000 for 10.2% of facebook, at the time. And later sold PART of the shares for $1billion dollars in 2012 (just 8years after investing).
Warren Buffet is considered by some to be one of the most successful investors (an investor is one that invest in a business) in the world, and as of August 2017 is the second wealthiest person in the United States, and the fourth wealthiest in the world, with a total net worth of $81.1 billion(that's a lot to spend in a lifetime).
Other people in this category include: George Soros,Mark Cuban, Peter Lynch, Carl Icahn, John Templeton just to mention a few.
All with a big 'B' at the back of their net worth.
No matter what we say about money, we all need it. I bet you still remember those sayings about money. Like
Money won't make you happy
All rich people are going to hell
Money don't grow on trees
And many more bullsh*t story people try to tell themselves about money. Why? Because they don't have it.
This chat is not about money lecture. I am just trying to clear some people's beliefs about money so that they realize they need it.

There is one thing all rich people have in common: they let their money work for them. In the past, all you can control is your 24hours and the extent to which you can maximize that is the extent to which you will be successful. But today, people have figure out a concept they call 'OPT' which means 'other people's time' . Now we can work thousands of hours in a single day by paying others for their time. This is what most rich people do. And what you should consider doing by investing in a startup that is run by other people who have experience in what they do.
Investing in a startup also mean you can change the world by making it a better place by contributing to the development of the ecosystem. Investing in a startup means you will be solving other people's problems, you will be creating jobs
It's actually good to know that you can make money and at the same time help others. I will only be lying to you that it is always rousy. It isn't. As much as you can make 50x your initial investment, you can also lose your entire investment, which is non-refundable. But isn't life all about taking measured risk?
Money sitting in the bank does good to no one. So you are left with two choices 1 is to leave the money in the bank and let it continue to depreciate 2 is to invest it in a venture that make other people happy by helping them succeed
You can reduce the risk of losing your money by investing in a startup you understand what they are doing and that you believe in the dream and the people behind it.


I will like to say thank you to facebook and twitter for creating a platform that make it easy for people to connect and share useful ideas. This is one of my goals, to create a company that people will feel grateful using. You can join us in this journey by investing in our startup @offkrent.com. Where we make life easier for students.

If you have any question, please leave it in the comment box below or message me privately. You can also tweet at me @alaotope160 on twitter or reach me via whatsapp on 08137820379

Join me today 12/12/2017 for a live chat on: Why now is the best time to invest in a startup
Facebook:Alao Tope Alao Tope Atop
Twitter: @alaotope160

Where I will touching key areas like:
1.Why should you even invest in a startup
2.Why now is the best time
3. The maths and return on your investment
4. Timeframe to expect return
5. What type of startup should you invest in and why
And more + Q & A session

It's going to lit !

DWAYFARMS:
Have add you up will Will talk better from there.

Alright

amarilo:
Whats is all about. Student renting rooms off campus?

Yes

Let's connect on whatsapp with 08137820379

DWAYFARMS:
Once saw something like this in UNILORIN...
Is it the one there?

Yes

Offkrent.com is an online hostel booking website for Nigerian students in tertiary institution. It is what most people have referred to as they Jumia for hostels. This newly formed startup, last month, November 2017, processed about 1million naira in hostel booking. This was achieved by the tremendous hard work the team puts in building the startup and their focus on reaching profitability.

THE STORY OF HOW I GOT ADMITTED INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
It all started after I have graduated from secondary school as the best student. Expectations were high. I had a great score in my UTME. Here comes the time to go ‘kill’ the post UTME and once more, shine. But life doesn’t always give us what we want or what we think we deserve. Long story short” I failed. I failed the post UTME. It was the post UTME of my most preferred school then. No one expected this from me not my parent, not my teachers, not my mentors, not even me.
I can’t fully rejoice when my friends started getting admission. Not that I don’t want to rejoice with them, but the feeling of being left alone, being left out of the game was what kept me from doing so. I suffer the pain for a whole year. I must tell you, I tried, I tried gaining admission into any school. I even tried to gain admission to a remedial program so as not to be left behind. But the truth was, my parent don’t have the cash to pay for the exorbitant fees. So, I am back to where I started. Which means I had to wait for another year to try. The fear now is if I will be able to perform better, if history is not going to repeat itself. But I kept doing what I know how to do: I read and pray.
Here comes another year, here comes another opportunity for me to get it right. I have to get it right. So I put in all my effort hoping to have the highest score in UTME across the whole country for that year. But no, my score was less than the previous year, which means I score less than 300 I was disappointed and scared as I think my performance is getting low. How do I expect to perform better in post UTME this time? When I can’t even make a better UTME score. But this time, I manage to make it above the average post UTME score, but I still have the fear. If you are like me, you’ve probably heard the story of a guy who had 90% in his post UTME but was denied admission. What hope do I have? When my score is not even close. Again I did what I know how to do: I pray.

“Thank God I have been offered admission”, “I was offered Biochemistry but I put in for Medicine”, “Is there anyone who have been offered Physiology?”
No, that’s not me. Those were the comments I found on a Facebook group I follow, the first batch of the admission list has just been released. The tension is on the high again.
With a mixture of excitement and fear I quickly rushed to the University’s website to check my name. But all I could see is the sorry message and the plead to check back later. I was once again down. After few days, I do what most people would do; I started looking for the percentage of students that were admitted in the first batch and comparing them with the previous years, and also asking people who have gained admission into the same school to know which batch they were admitted. I was once again calm when I heard most students were admitted in the second batch. But my heart is still filled with ‘what if’ questions: What if I am not admitted? What if history repeats itself?
Once again, I do what I know how to do: pray.
It was on a sunny afternoon, and I was feeling sick from fever. I was laying on my bed when a call came in. It was my friend who had been offered admission into my institution of choice the first year we both tried. I was afraid after seeing his call, this is a guy that will rarely pick his phone to call you. What is he going to tell me? Is it that the second list is out that I should go and check? Or is it something else, not related to admission? So I picked the call in suspense. Then I dropped the call after some minutes. My guess was right, it is one of the two guesses I had. But even better; I have been offered admission. Immediately, everything around me looked different, the fever flew away, I was filled with joy. But then I remembered the last part of the call where he said: “the bad news is that you have not been offered the course you applied for”.
But who care if it is that course or not, I am just trying to make it to the University. To clearly understand my position just visualize a man whose favorite food is rice and would hardly eat any other food on a good day. But here comes a day he is penniless and hungry with no hope of food. And close to the end of the day someone from somewhere brought him a food he hasn’t tasted in his whole life. You guess what he will do with the food. So that is what I did.
I accepted the admission and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.
Thank you for reading through
Narrated by: Alao Tope Abdullahi
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: www.offkrent.com …finding hostel with ease

Congratulations to the freshest undergraduates. Here is one for you. Feel free to use it as your DP

Everything I will share with you in this post comes from my personal experience and what I have learnt studying great people by reading their books, a lot of it. Though there are lots of things to know about success, but here are 5 that are really important.
1. Hard, smart and continuous work: Achieving success requires great effort. Nothing will happen if you don’t put in the work. It can only get better when you put in the effort. I am definitely a fan of not just hard work, but smart and continuous work. Hard work used to be the only thing you need to achieve success in the 18th and 19th centuries. But in this century, you need to work hard, work smart and keep working.
2. Perseverance: Persistence always pay dividend, if you persist, you will definitely get great result. When you first start to blow a coal, you are usually tempted to give up, because you are discouraged by the little portion of the coal that catches fire. You start to wonder how far you have to go to make the whole coal burn. But if you continue to blow, the coal will definitely catch fire, more fire than you expected.
3. It takes time: Achieving anything of value takes considerable amount of time. The bigger and more sustainable the goal, the longer it might take.
4. You only have to get it right once: Considering how much work it takes to attain success, one is tempted to think it will always take this amount of work to continue to achieve success. But the good thing is; you only have to get it right once and the rest will be very easy as things get amplified after the first achievement.
5. You need the help and support of people: At some point, you will need the help of people around you to achieve success. A positive attitude towards others and the skill to convince others to see and understand clearly your goals, is very important in achieving success.
Source: http://blog.offkrent.com/?p=86

But why do we need to set goals?
Whether it’s Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, Larry Page or people you look up to, the single reason why we all set goals is the same: to achieve happiness. Every human goals are central around this one thing, nothing else.
Now pause. Remember the last time you set a goal, what were you hoping to achieve?
You will realize that at the back of that achievement is happiness and self-satisfaction.
Not achieving one’s set goals will also bring the opposite. What if we don’t set goals in the first place? The result will still be sadness because we will see and hear of our peers who are achieving their worthwhile goals and be disappointed we have nothing to show. So, to be happy and contempt, we need to set goals that are worthwhile.
Setting new goal is scary when you’ve had previous failure
I bet you’ve been there trying to achieve a particular goal, but failed. I could remember scoring an ‘F’ even as the best student in my class. It was not a good experience for me, the humiliation of how people look at you and how you see yourself is what even make it worse. This is normal. As Albert Einstein –a great scientist- said, “If you have never made a mistake, that shows you have not taken a new step”. That you failed means you put in some efforts in the first place, one thing nature reward. Failure is part of success. There is different between temporary defeat and permanent failure.
Now let’s set your goals
Get a pen and paper for this exercise
Step 1: Imagine an ideal future for yourself, Imagine the exciting moments you will have. What will you have? Which career path will you be? What type of house will you live in? What type of car will you drive? Where will you love to go on holidays, with who? What quality of cloth will you wear? How will your parent feel?
Write all this down. Then proceed to step 2
Step 2: How well should you perform academically to attain this ideal future, what ideal CGPA will be required? Is it possible to achieve this? Are there people with this grades already? What is currently holding you from getting what you want?
Write all these down as well
Step 3: Do the math. How many ‘A’ or ‘B’ (‘C’ is not an option) do you need to have, to achieve this CGPA?
Write this down.
Note: The CGPA you wrote is your target not your goal, it is a means to getting everything you desired in step 1.
Step 4: Keep your answers in a place where you can easily reach any time as you will need to visit this document from time to time. Don’t share this with anyone yet, because they can be a source of discouragement. Keep it to yourself.
Of course, you will find out that there are thousands of people who have achieved the same goal as yours. Some were even poorer than you, with a fraction of what you possess. On the part of the things that are holding you down, analyze each one of them and you will realize they are just excuses that are generated as a result of fear. Here is one single thing you should remember every time you are afraid of doing something: Everything you will ever want is at the other side of fear, fear is not real.
Step 5: Read the goal you’ve written in step 1 and step 3 every morning and remind yourself of these at all time of the day. Whenever you feel like quitting or performing below your set standard, remind yourself of this goal. This will keep you motivated and will give you the energy you need to keep moving.

In this ebook titled HOW TO GO FROM 'C' STUDENT TO 'A' STUDENT you will learn the easy way of getting good grades. It's FREE. Get your copy here http://offkrent.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5ebcaf252d41042f8bdba87f9&id=c0d21e8324