Survival Tales

Happy New ~Year! 2016 already seems brighter.

My Mum’s nickname for me was “survivor” you could throw me the biggest curveballs and I would always find a way to stand back up. Famously I moved to Brussels to work for Mckinsey in my early twenties without a) having been there before except for my interview b) Speaking  french or dutch c) Knowing anyone. It was my second job . It definitely was not the path commonly tread ( a job in Lagos or London anyone) but I threw myself into it and had a fantastic 3 years travelling the world and learning tonnes at the firm.

2015 my was a tough year, with so many curve balls thrown my way, after a while it felt like an avalanche. One Term sheet signed that never became an investment, Well Funded ( read overly funded) ecommerce companies poaching fashpa staff for 2x salary ,  fashion online reduced a game of pricing, ( 1k fashion anyone), an acquisition offer ( big corp wants to buy fashpa eek but its early), a slow economy, SME killing CBN policies, bad hires, ebola,  heck everything that could go wrong seemed to happen in 2015. You can read more about my travails and whats like to run a startup in Nigeria in this FT article here, happy to have provided the title 😉

I made some mistakes as well, the most devastating was hiring and not firing quick enough. The right team is KEY.

It was a tough year but I made it, my startup made it and I had I learnt a whole LOT, so as we go into 2016 I am more rugged, pragmatic and a little roughed up CEO. For me this year is about 3 year things–

1. The Power of Focus
2. Team is everything
3. Start small dream BIG

I will expand on the following three things in future posts. I also hope to write more in 2016. So happy new year to you too and here is to a fashtastic 2016!

 

 

 

P.S

Thank you to Tolu Ogunlesi for reaching out to me on the economist SME piece.