“Gut’s all we got.” Why We Started Triift Africa.

This is for people like Mr Emmanuel Asuquo. The pot-bellied man who stutters harder than I do and owns a restaurant beside the very big names in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria.

For him, It’s hard to compete when the odds are stacked against you, from customers who would care less about your business cycle and demand an extraordinary service to the back breaking work of making a business survive day in and out especially under the stringent economic conditions.

That he can’t compete with them over price is in fact, a blessing. Sometimes walking into his restaurant, I can breathe the potentials that the place holds.

This is about people like the cross-eyed little girl I struggled to make eye contact with in Ibadan two months ago. She was no more than 10 Years old and had two cartons of three crowns milk on her head. She was selling at a retail price that really ate into her profits.

This is about people like the woman that sells rice and swallow in front of my office. Her little daughter does the dishes, while she serves the long queue of impatient people getting on her nerves for a taste of her ‘calabar-flavored’ delicacies.

Her story is long because she is always owing me N50 change and I still haven’t forgiven her for not opening shop on Valentine’s day. How could she choose her boo over our stomachs? Just how? LOL

We are everywhere. We are the woman selling ewa agoyin and bread. The woman selling akara and pap. The barber by the road side with just a generator and a small flourescent bulb over a mirror shard. The man selling indomie and egg by the street corner. We are the guy selling recharge cards for N5 profit per card, We are the guys that sell pure bliss & plantain chips in traffic. We are everywhere.

This post is about you!

Less than a month ago, I stumbled on statistics that Nigeria has 36.9 Million MSMEs and about 70% of them do not have access to credit of up to N30,000. I am no economics expert, but I believe that the key to unlocking Nigeria’s economic growth is in these small businesses. But day in and out, policies are out to stifle their growth.

The struggle for survival here is real, our people want to make something for themselves but even with opportunities and ideas, our business climate is wired to smoke you out, so businesses fail more times than one.

In the face of all of this, you can almost taste our ‘never-die’ spirit. The resilience of the Nigerian is one fire you can’t put out. We are persistent amidst enormous hardship and a business climate that won’t let our ideas leave the ground.

What doesn’t kill you they say…

So, Imagine how pumped I am when I see some of us come out of our shells to talk about the huge steps they are making with their businesses, guts is all we got sometimes.

It is amazing to watch @ChefEneSoulfood post about her food business, so much that I have promised to block her because of how she terrorises my taste buds with her food pictures.

This is for @_alphawoman that wants to finish our money with all her fine designs, you would be in the middle of choosing one design and paying for it and before you breathe in and out, an even better design is out and now you are spoiled for choice.

It is beyond brilliant the creative excellence @ICONOREOLUWA is doing with his world-class furniture brand @Alaga_NG, in a space defined by zero attention to detail, it is beautiful to see game changers.

This is for @Amb_Ore and the milestones he and his partner are pulling day in and out with @wiicreate. This is for Olashile Abayomi @FireOFola, words lose their potency when it comes to how passionate you are about your business @soupamarket and seeing it take form. Thank you for saying yes to yourselves.

This is for all of you!

2 months ago, I and @Yemisi_Ajeojo started putting ideas together on how to support small businesses to get off the ground. We had talked about this randomly in the past, the plan? To get them from hustle to portfolio.

She broke down the idea for me, and with many streamlining and idea sprints, we took our many plans (which we can’t wait to roll out by the way), put them in growth stages and here’s our first foot forward.

Creating a business name was the first fight, I can honestly say I got frustrated. The coolest to outright bizarre names tho…

After a lot of brainstorms, we finally went with @TriiftAfrica

Mr Emmanuel Asuquo (remember him from earlier?) was our first recipient. I have been friends with Ogima (Igbo for Oga Emma) for the longest because I haven’t discovered my cooking skills and I love a good meal. His restaurant attracts a lot of people in Lekki because his food is conservatively priced, a blessing in disguise really. Ogima cannot service these growing demands because he cannot afford to finance them. His fridge was hardly ever full with drinks, his menu was scanty as well. With only 2 staff, they all cook, they all serve, they all buy drinks, they all wash the dishes.

Choked by curiosity, I asked him about the dreams he has for his business, he just went on and on, you could see it in his eyes. I just sat there with 4 demands that mattered to me and many other customers; a full fridge, an increased menu that serves into the night, Extra hands and a TV.

I really just wanted him to take advantage of opportunities that were more or less low hanging fruits for his business. I thought he could transform his business to accommodate a lot more customers, that was my only mission.

When he heard my demands, he said: “Bros, I know, na money kill am nau”. We talked and reached an agreement and the next weekend after finalising repayment plans for a low-interest loan, we gave him money for this expansion. Less than 2 months down the line, he now serves till 7pm, he has a new hand, his fridge is full and we didn’t get a TV for security reasons 😒😒

We plan to do even more. In the past weeks, we have prospected businesses we want to support. We have been able to gather funding from close friends and family to make this work and this is putting it out there that we need more. More people, more everything in fact.

We are strong believers in the fact that the key to unlocking Africa's economic future will be contingent on supporting small business to grow from hustle to portfolio. This is our big dream with Triift Africa, but for now, let’s fight our small battles first.

So yeah, here we are saying… do you know a small business that needs support in terms of finance or even business advisory, then our doors are open. Are you kind enough to join us on this journey? Then we are raising funds and looking for smarties to help make this dream live.

Yes, if you’ve got an idea, an opportunity or something you think we should be doing, reach us at charles@triift.com or yemisi@triift.com.

This is our first foot forward and gut’s all we’ve got. We are open to partnerships and collaborative opportunities with all you awesome people on point us in the right direction, pull our ears when we are failing, just help.

We decided to share this even though it is still an idea in the works because we are confident that more people doing more to help businesses in Africa is welcome for the big picture we see, a slice of the pie for everyone!

Got questions? ask away, comments? we’d love to hear from you.