More women are entering into the entrepreneurship space than ever before, either as full time girl bosses or via their side hustle. We love it and we want to see more women own their position as girl bosses. Our Girl Boss feature has two aims, the first, highlight the amazing women pushing forward Nigeria’s economy and secondly, to create opportunities for other women to learn just what it takes to be a #Girlboss.
Meet our Girl Boss
Damilola Olaide-Agboola leads the team managing the entertainment and lifestyle brands Eu-pho-ri-a Smoothies and Skate City, the first skating rink built within a mall in Nigeria. With a background in Finance, she has launched out to pursue her passion and satisfy her sweet tooth!
Starting at the Beginning
IBG: Tell us a bit about your business.
DO-A: The name of the business is eu-pho-ri-a and our core business is making simple Smoothies, Milkshakes and Frappes. Our flagship store is located alongside Skate City, a purpose built indoor roller skating rink on the first floor of the newly built Maryland Mall. Eu-pho-ri-a also has presence at Bukka Hut at Lekki Phase 1 and Genesis Cinemas, The Palms Shopping Mall, also in Lekki.
Euphoria means different things to different people as there are many meanings but to me it simply means extreme happiness; simply because this is how I feel when I’m having any of our drinks…euphoric! This state of extreme happiness is further pronounced in our choice of locations at relaxation and entertainment centers such as Skate City, Bukka Hut and Genesis Cinemas.
IBG: How did you decide on your product/sector/service and on your price points?
DO-A: Deciding on the product wasn’t all that difficult. I love drinks. I have an unapologetic sweet tooth and have always loved milkshakes (my first love out of the 3 products in the line). Our tag line is “Crave your indulgence”. I chose this because life is hard enough as it is and I would like to have a happy place to escape to! I am a very playful person; I love to hang out, chill, have fun but I am also a “serious thinker”….oxymoron right? My playful side has always shone through and I began to think of fun, sweet and simple drink recipes to create within the food and drinks industry. Having worked in the financial sector and with a little research, my financial partner and I had discovered that retail food and drink businesses did well in any economy and my eureka moment was sometime in 2014. I didn’t know how I was going to go about it but I believed my love for drinks would see me through.
Pricing for me was difficult. I had recently just started selling at Bukka Hut and Genesis Cinemas when the economy did a 360 degree turn and price hike of food items was blamed on the spike in the dollar rate. I sought advice from my financial partner and I was advised to increase prices. Imagine just starting a business and within a month, you find that you have to break the news to your customers that prices are going to go up. That was never in the plan. Though it was a difficult thing to do, it was the best advice I got. Customers adjusted to the new prices and it’s been smooth sailing since then.
Setting up the flagship store using a model that ensures traffic flow was one that I had to ensure was plausible. Skating was an aspect of entertainment that remained under-served in the Nigerian entertainment space and an area I wanted to harness, bringing fun back to the city. Hence, I decided that the eu-pho-ri-a flagship store should be embedded within the same space as Skate City at Maryland Mall.
IBG: How do you build a successful customer base?
DO-A: Thinking about customers remains a continuous priority for us. Ensuring our blend composition fully attains the quality and quantity required by our customers at the multiple locations remains a key area we focus on. When I say ‘we’, I mean myself and the staff network. Our staff go through a continuous training exercise to ensure this aspect of the production cycle remain our key focus. For us, it is important that we are perfectly located to ensure we are in a highly driven lifestyle place; such as Skate City. A year ago, we commenced business majorly by word of mouth through family and friends and harnessing our network base seeking new customers constantly to ‘crave their indulgence’ with any of our smoothies or milkshakes. The combination allows for a universal customer base of all ages whether you are health conscious or not.
IBG: What was your first major challenge and how did you overcome it?
DO-A: I have always been told that starting any business is the most challenging aspect of the business cycle. We went through the usual phases of coming up with a plan, starting small with a view to scaling up, discussing with those that have set up businesses previously and finding out how they did it. Learning the ropes was a key phase for me as I resigned from full-time employment a year earlier. Creating awareness as well as demonstrating that the business was viable was also very important for me at that stage.
As part of promoting awareness for the brand, we had to do a lot of free offerings. In 2015, I had decided the week before to provide a gift of 300 smoothies and milkshakes for my aunt’s 70th Birthday party (all in a bid to get the brand out there). How hard could it be, right? However, I had never done an event of that size before and all the planning of the world could not have prepared me for all that went wrong that day. This is a snapshot of some of the things that went wrong: I had only 3 hrs of sleep the night before, I had planned to move my equipment there the night before as I was told there would be electricity to power them up. However, this did not happen and everything had to be done on the day of the event. There I was on my own, with 1 staff member (who went ahead of me). The service boys I had hired disappointed me so I had to find new service boys at the last minute. There was so much traffic that day, the drivers had done several trips and the rest of the items were to arrive with me as I was going to be the last to arrive. Unfortunately, I spent another 2 hours in traffic before I got there.
When I realised the driver was running late due to all the traffic. I said a prayer for God to take control and I slept. It sounds funny, but I slept because I realised everything was out of my control and it was the only way I could remain calm. When I finally got to the event, I just went into work mode and it was like nothing had gone wrong. The drinks were a hit with both young and old!!!..#myfirstbigsuccessfulevent
IBG: How did you get the seed capital for your business? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
DO-A: When I decided I was going to leave paid employment I made up my mind that I was going to start small and I started saving up aggressively, cutting costs where I could and putting in all the bonus payment from paid employment into it. After I had gathered enough funds, bought some equipment, demonstrated a decent level of commitment, I approached my financial partner and put in an application.
It is clearly very difficult to secure financing for small and medium sized businesses but the honest truth is one must start with family and friends whether as partners or as primary users of the items being sold. A combination of all of these was used by myself to ensure we gain some level of momentum.
The Business of Entrepreneurship
IBG: How do you stay competitive?
DO-A: That will be giving out my secret. Simplicity and consistency of our product range are our key mantra. We try to focus on our customers, delivering good quality smoothies and milkshakes in a fun and exciting atmosphere as is at Skate City.
IBG:How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
DO-A: Initially, I had little or no funding for marketing. We relied heavily on social media, word of mouth and flyers. Upon opening the flagship store, we decided that driving our own traffic is very important for our survival. Our co-location with our family entertainment centre, Skate City was a tool we knew we had to flog. We immediately enlisted the assistance of a public relations personnel to accentuate our social media drive.
IBG: What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
DO-A: It’s a fun place, it’s a family entertainment centre and a hangout place for all ages. So it is important that the team spirit remains high at all times. We try to create a happy environment with music and fun stuff constantly going on. There is a focus on staff happines
s as that is one of the key ways of ensuring customer satisfaction. It is tough to maintain but we try to do our best. It is a constant push and pull situation.
IBG: As you started to scale up your business what major challenges have you faced and how have you solved them?
DO-A: Staffing and ensuring that processes are being followed. It’s a daily struggle but the key is to ensure your staff remain motivated to move in the direction of the business.
IBG: Who has been your greatest inspiration?
DO-A: My greatest inspiration is my husband, Olaide Agboola. He is one person I have watched over the years turn nothing into something. He does not relent and keeps going irrespective of the situation. He pushes himself to the limit to do his best, to be the best he can be.
IBG: What book/movie has inspired you the most (and why)?
DO-A: Apologies, I’m more of a music person. But a book I read a while ago that inspired me was Mensa Otabil’s Buy the Future. It helped to further shape my thinking and solidify what I already believed before I read the book. I had heard him speak/preach and I was motivated to buy his book. I think it was one of the best decisions I made. I was quite young then but there are things from that book that have stuck in my head.
IBG: Innovation is key to business success. What was the last innovative idea you had and how did it transform your business?
DO-A: Our business keeps evolving. Creating a finger food menu alongside our drinks menu has helped us become a one stop centre for entertainment; showing that we can deliver on food, drinks and fun whilst you are at our store at Maryland Mall.
IBG: What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
DO-A: Being able to open up my flagship family entertainment store at the Maryland Mall a.k.a the black box. Birthing both businesses, eu-pho-ri-a and Skate City – a roller skating rink makes this self-fulfilling.
Girl Boss Life Style
IBG: What is your favourite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
DO-A: My favourite part of being an entrepreneur is being able to develop and sell products and services I love, knowing that getting it done requires job creation. But I have to also mention that another great aspect is being able to choose my hours of work as well as spend more time with my family.
IBG: In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
DO-A: Rollercoaster
IBG: What sacrifices have you had to make to be a successful entrepreneur?
DO-A: A lot of personal cost cutting measures, forfeiting certain luxuries of life, going without a stable salary structure, being nocturnal – sleepless nights researching, thinking of how to improve processes without grinding activities to a halt.
IBG: What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
DO-A: Waiting for everything to be “perfect” before starting. Time is money! Did an awful number of completely free events. Not delegating when I could have, this wears you out fast
IBG: Share your daily morning ritual with us.
DO-A: I don’t really have a daily morning ritual apart from ensuring I have my ‘quiet’ time. I have gone from the days of rushing off to work thinking of what the day would bring to waking up as early as possible and trying to figure out what is happening in multiple locations with staff, product levels, customer reach out, sales level, staff misconduct and handling same, partnership propositions, new ideas at the same time.
Close out
IBG: If you could start your business over, what would you do differently?
DO-A: I would use less time in planning and start immediately I have a few equipment. I would be more aggressive with marketing and not do so many free events, they should be discounted.
IBG: What is your greatest fear and how do you manage fear?
DO-A: My greatest fear is leaving this earth without completely fulfilling my dreams and purpose.
IBG: What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
DO-A: As cliché as this sounds, I will say never give up on your dreams.Do not over plan! We live in a world that is unpredictable. Planning helps but over-planning can make you slow down and make you think you are not ready. Do not wait to make your own mistakes before you learn. Learn from other peoples’ mistakes and apply the corrections as best as you can. Contrary to what people say; In business, experience is ‘not’ always the best teacher…it’ll cost you financially.
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