My BBB Experience: MEST Class of 2019

Onyinye Nnedolisa
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

It has been about ten months since I last published a story on Medium and I believe it is now long overdue. Let me catch you all up real quick - I decided to quit my job in March this year to take an unplanned vacation for two months in a coastal city (yes, I said goodbye and hello with a flight ticket).

Living my best life!

It was a struggle trying to figure out my next step but to be honest, I didn’t really care, I just wanted to explore a new path that included changing careers , and did so with little to no plan. Yes some people thought I was crazy but aren’t we all? In all of this, I had applied to be an Entrepreneur-in-Training (EIT) at Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), Ghana in December of 2017.

MEST is an entrepreneurship and technology school that recruits individuals from across Africa and provides them with a fully funded scholarship, mentorship, learning opportunities and the funding they need to build a successful global technology business.

Portrait day at school.

You may be wondering why I applied and I wondered too but thankfully I figured it out and I will share the two major reasons.

  • I wanted to challenge myself.
  • It was a perfect opportunity to launch my career in Product Development and design within a thriving tech community. I have decided to dedicate my time to building usable tech products.

Fast forward to getting accepted into MEST — I was excited, thrilled, scared, overwhelmed and every other feeling in between. This was a new experience and I did not know what to expect but still all that mattered was remembering the reason I choose to do this in the first place.

Week one was the orientation phase and everyone was trying to figure out who the next person was. My friend Zee and I were having fun, familiarising ourselves with our new home and also getting to know the rest of our colleagues.

Me and Zee.

In week two, a challenge called BBB (Bet Buy Barter) was introduced and things got real from that point onwards. BBB involved us working with a team of two other people to identify a problem in the market, develop a solution, implement it and make profit from a 20 Ghana cedis (1,500naira) investment. It sounds funny right? Well, guess what, we had to do it and we only had five days to plan and implement.

I had the pleasure of working with two other EITs; Esther and Stephen (great job guys!). We spent the first day trying to figure out exactly how we were supposed to make a profit from 20 Ghana cedis so, we wrote down business ideas, some feasible and others not so much. We eventually concluded that offering services was better than selling products because it didn’t require a lot of capital (Please don’t forget we were working with 20 Ghana cedis, 1,500naira).

Our services included car washing, kitchen duty, weigh-Ins (Weight checks) and sobolo or zobo sales (I know what you’re thinking but we found a good deal). Some of the other services and products offered by the other teams were: website design, killer cocktails, face painting, animated/explainer videos, accessories sales, pancakes, transportation services, popcorn, puff puff (all my naija people, feel free to chant!) and — environmental friendly charcoal and we all recycled ideas.

My team and I did a bulk of our work on the first day of the challenge and agreed to “semi-lounge” (have fun at the ChaleWote festival) on Saturday and Sunday. We made a total of 403 Ghana cedis (31,000 naira) in profit, returned the initial 20 Ghana cedis investment to MEST and contributed 30% of our earnings to the cohort fund.

Some of my learnings:

  • I wash cars really well and I could set up a car wash business.
BBB challenge day 1.
  • Working together in a team isn’t as easy as it sounds and it takes communication, a shared vision and understanding to pull through.
  • Building a business is not easy and neither is making one Ghana cedi. You realise that even when people need your product/service, there’s a chance they will still not spend on it.
  • It is essential for your model to be as flexible and agile as possible; be alert, assess and pivot when necessary (Don’t die on one solution. If it’s not working, iterate!)
  • Remain open minded, stay teachable.
  • Don’t declare profits that you don’t have.
  • Tune out the noise, stay focused!
  • Lastly, kindly share all profits when due. I made 70 Ghana cedis (5,400 naira)
I don’t dance now, I make money moves!

It was fun working on this project with a group of people who think and work differently from me. It was good to make extra cash and it was fun to laugh with other teams who were struggling but found a way to remain positive. It helped me gain better understanding of products, users and business in general.

Ehhh, I can’t forget attending the actual festival where I saw mad stunts, good food and happy people.

I hope you enjoyed this read! Let me know what you think in the comments and don’t forget to clap and share!

Onyinye Nnedolisa

Written by

Patience can do lots of things, have you ever tried? ll Building products with empathy.

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