ENTREPRENEURS' WATCH - LAMAS CLOTHING EDITION

Today, we celebrate of 10 years of excellence.
Our focus on this edition of "Entrepreneurs ' Watch" is multiple award-winning fashion designer, fashion stylist and wardrobe consultant,  Olayiwola Ogedengbe a.k.a Lamas, the Creative Director of Lamas Clothing Nigeria ( @lamasngr)
On this edition ,the internationally renown fashion designer shares with us what his 10 years journey in the entrepreneurial world has been like.

WHAT INSPIRED YOUR DECISION TO BECOME A FASHION DESIGNER?
 For me, fashion is something that has always been there although I discovered it in 2005 and officially started running my label in 2007. Dressing well and looking well is something I have always been passionate about and that's what inspired my decision to become a fashion designer.

CAN YOU TELL US  ANY UNFORGETTABLE INCIDENT THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU SINCE YOU'VE BEEN IN BUSINESS?
 There has been quite a few but one major one was  when I had to sleep overnight behind the police station counter because of a client of mine. You know one can't know the kind of jobs all your clients are involved in before you decide to work for them. The police were tracking the person's number and it happened that my number was one of the numbers  he had been communicating with and that's how I ended up at the police station and I had to sleep overnight where I battled with mosquitoes. I think It's one of the things you have to pass through when building a brand.

WERE THERE TIMES YOU FELT LIKE GIVING UP ON THIS JOURNEY?  HOW DID YOU SCALE THE HURDLES?
 There were many of such times but one thing has always been my bedrock and that is passion. There have been ups and downs and challenges.  Life is not a bed of roses, so is entrepreneurship or business.  There have been times I didn't feel like doing anymore but I had to come back because I knew that if I gave up, I would be disappointing three people; first  is myself, second,  the people who look up to me and third, the people who believed in me when I had nothing.  So giving up wasn't an option for me, I had to forge ahead and here we are.

HAVING BEEN IN THIS BUSINESS FOR TEN YEARS, HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH THE CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING FASHION INDUSTRY?
 The first way I have been able to keep up is my creativity. I also have been able to keep up by moving with time. There are so many platforms such as social media, you can see what's going on in the fashion world. Also one gets to attend fashion shows, exhibitions, seminars e.t.c.
As a fashion designer, you also get to go out to events to see what's trending and you can derive inspiration for designs. You need to serve your clients with varieties, as they say " varieties is the spice of life" unless they would get tired.

CAN YOU SHARE WITH US YOUR MOST SATISFYING MOMENT IN BUSINESS?
  That was in February 2017 when I got featured by BBC Africa as the most consistent entrepreneur. I think I was the only person that has been visited in Ibadan. For me, It's not really about the money but the fact that there are people looking at what we do and they can say " Go and look at Lamas"...There has been other high points but I think that's the major one and we give glory to God for that.

WHEN YOU STARTED OUT, WERE THERE PARTICULAR ROLE MODELS YOU WERE LOOKING UP TO OR MENTORS?
 I had role models quite alright but I had no mentor.  I know I needed to carve a niche for myself. There are lots of fashion designers in Nigeria, there are lots in Ibadan, even on my road here at Joyce B but what distinguishes us is how innovative you are. I had role models but each of them had their particular trademarks and that's what I decided to do also.

AS A FASHION DESIGNER,  WHY DO YOU THINK TAILORS DISAPPOINT THEIR CLIENTS?
 First, other businesses also disappoint, not limited to tailors alone. Disappointment can be in two ways, either concept disappointment or as regards prompt delivery.
I think in this case individuality comes in. Some are naturally lazy while some are just covetous.  They collect more than they can handle.
Others have really busy schedules and they tend to forget the day they promised to deliver.

YOU STARTED A RADIO TOUR TO CELEBRATE YOUR TEN YEARS ANNIVERSARY,  WHAT PROMPTED THIS?
Yeah, we started a radio tour, first of It's kind, asides artistes.  The purpose is to inspire entrepreneurs.  I have failed and succeeded.  There is no  successful entrepreneur that has never failed.  Success doesn't come cheap,  it comes with a price, one of which is failure, pain, burning the midnight oil,days when your friends are sleeping and you will be working but then, days are coming when they would be working and you will be sleeping.  Although the radio tour has cost us many things, but we believe whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

HAVING BEEN IN BUSINESS IN IBADAN FOR TEN YEARS, HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE THE WAYS THINGS ARE PRESENTLY AND THE WAY IT WAS WHEN YOU STARTED?
 There is a big difference.  The perception ten years ago isn't the perception now as far as entrepreneurship, fashion and acceptance goes. Now entrepreneurship is the order of the day, back in those days,people tag you as the unserious one.
Lack of employment is what is making lots of people venture into entrepreneurship but the truth is that entrepreneurship isn't meant for everybody.

20 YEARS FROM NOW, WHERE DO YOU SEE LAMAS CLOTHINGS NIGERIA?
 20 years from now, I see one of my children having taken over running Lamas Clothings. He/she would be taking the front seat while I take the back seat.  By then we would be in ten different major countries of the world. I see myself sitting down on my balcony 8 a.m. Monday morning and when It's four p.m. , I walk into the office and ask how the day went.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO TODAY'S BUDDING ENTREPRENEURS?
First, as an entrepreneur, you have to know your calling,  that is the foundation.
Then you need to believe in yourself. Belief in oneself is very important.  Also you need to be creative and move with people of like minds. Friends that will challenge you.
Also you need to be resilient especially if you don't have any financial backup.
Set long and short term goals, that's how I did mine and it worked for me.
People will discourage you, directly or indirectly so you need to believe in yourself without any external encouragement.
.
.
Our utmost appreciation goes to the Creative Director,  Lamas Clothings Nigeria ( @lamasngr) for this inspiring edition of "Entrepreneurs' Watch"
Keep the flag of excellence flying as you continually showcase Ibadan and Nigeria as a whole to the world.👌
Happy Tenth year anniversary.
We celebrate you.
.
God bless @lamasngr
God bless Ibadan!
God bless Nigeria

ENTREPRENEURS ' WATCH - FITTRIX EDITION

"Entrepreneurs' Watch " this year is starting with a bang 💯.
Our first feature is an entrepreneur to the core.
A lawyer by 'bookery '😀, a wife and a mother of three.
Meet Ebunoluwa Oludolapo Akinwale (via @ebunfittrix), a wellness coach and nutritionist. .
On this edition she shares with us how her personal weight loss journey grew into a passion and how she has been able to build and sustain businesses around that passion : Fittrix Consulting and @naturestreatscafe , Ibadan's first wellness cafe (100% organic), situated at Palms Mall, Ibadan.

SHARE WITH US HOW YOUR WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEY STARTED?
    I've never really been a slim kind of person so I have always been self-conscious.
But when I started having kids, you know the way you eat for two, I just started piling on weight and I wasn't even working then.
My "ha-moment" was when I was going to start a job and I climbed on the scale and I saw 104.8kg, I was perplexed.  I knew I had added weight but never imagined it would be that bad.
That was the turning point for me. I had tried to lose weight a year or two before then but I was starving and created ulcer, so I went online to see how I could lose weight the healthy way. I started writing down the information I saw, comparing notes, so by the time same information is repeated from various sources,it means there is some sort of truth in it. So from the lists of meals that were acceptable, I created a meal plan/guide for myself and that's how I started.

HOW EASY WAS IT FOR YOU TO LOSE WEIGHT ?
  It wasn't a walk in the park neither was it terribly difficult. Probably because I gave myself realistic goals.  I didn't plan to lose all that weight in a month, I mean I didn't gain all that weight in a month.
I celebrated the milestones I achieved and enjoyed the kind of reactions I got from people, those kind of things spurred me on, I mean I lost weight right in front of my colleagues and naturally, they were by first set of "experiments". They started asking me how I was doing it. The first part of my weigh loss happened in four and half to five months. I lost weight from 104kg to 82kg and then I found out I was pregnant with my third baby. During the pregnancy, because I had learnt to eat properly, I didn't pile on much weight unlike the previous pregnancies where I was adding 28 to 35kg. I think I added just 12kg, I wasn't doing that "eating for two thing "and my gynecologist was always complaining.
I weaned my baby to 6 months then I started again.
I pushed it to 65kg in another five and half months.

HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO TURN YOUR PASSION FOR HELPING OTHER PEOPLE ACHIEVE WHAT YOU WERE ABLE TO ACHIEVE INTO A BUSINESS?
  My colleagues inspired my decision and the person that sowed the seed of making it a business was one of my managers although she said it on a really light note.
After a while, I left my job then and moved to another place and I was like the Head of HR/admin and I didn't have time again. I then decided that I wanted to have more time for my kids, my husband was always traveling and one of us needed to step down, so I did.
I'm not the kind of person who can just sit at home and watch telemundo, i had to be actively busy both physically and mentally.
So i listed the things i enjoyed doing. From event planning ,to fashion and then fitness which was a new terrain to me so i kept wondering how that would translate into business.This was towards the end of 2012.
I kept on pondering on how to package it.
Apart from the fact that i wanted to help people, I was looking for something I could do that would give me flexible time.
The irony of it was that I didn't have a prototype to copy in Nigeria.
Once I thought of it, I registered my business name. The name came up as "fitness tricks " which we modified to "fittrix consulting ".
As at that time i still had not figured out how to package it for people. One night ,i woke up and started writing in a book i call "book of life" which is always on my bed even though i was not sure of what i was writing.
When i woke up in the morning,i read what i had written down.
It's packaged like an online boot camp,set up a package for people with everything they would need to achieve the set goals and be with them every step.
That's when i opened a blog and shared my story with pictures.
The response since that moment has been wonderful ,people started asking me to help them.

ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO WOULD LOVE TO START HEALTHY EATING.
  Make it lifestyle, healthy eating should not be a project or a trend. I'm sure when we wake up every morning, we brush our teeth, that's a lifestyle, you can't say,I don't feel like brushing today,I would brush in two weeks. Discover what works for you and stick with it.
I believe as long as one can practice portion control, No food should be off limit.
E.g look at our forefathers, they ate all these things we are running from but what changed?  They were just more active. So whatever they eat is being burnt off. Unfortunately, civilization has made us less active. If we can do that,No food would be off limits as long as you are eating Good meal not junks.

YOU STARTED AS A CONSULTANT FOR PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO SHED WEIGHT, HOW WAS THE ORGANIC CAFE BIRTHED?
 Meal prep started when some of my clients starting asking me if I could not just be doing the meals in the meal plan for them. Also some of my clients started craving for cake,so I had to go back to the drawing board, what are the ingredients for baking cake, what are the healthier substitutes and that's how commercial baking started even though I had always known how to bake Which I learnt online.
For example, this Greek yoghurt everybody has been talking about,I  learnt it online, I was always  craving one I usually buy in Lagos.
So I read online, followed YouTube directions and cultured mine from the one I got from her.
After several trial and error, I mastered how to do it.
Then I needed to create a niche for myself and decided to go organic.  I decided to use fresh milk for mine because I had read that most people use processed milk.
The yoghurt is perfect for people who are lactose -intolerant or diabetic.
Of course there were times I got frustrated but the passion kept me going.

CAN YOU SHARE WITH US SOME OF YOUR SATISFYING MOMENTS IN BUSINESS?
  I feel fulfilled whenever any of my clients reach their targets.
For the cafe, I get satisfied whenever people tell me how amazing my yoghurt is.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE ISSUE OF GENDER INEQUALITY IN TODAY'S BUSINESS WORL
  I don't see it. For me, I don't do stereotypes.  I always believe there are different scenarios to things and same thing applies to gender inequality.
I believe you can decide to allow or not allow it. I am a feminist to the core but the trend of feminism I see on social media is different these days.I don't believe I am superior but expect my views to be heard.
These days, the so - called "feminists " are against marriage.
I don't believe marriage is an achievement but a ood marriage is an achievement.
I also believe in divorce, it should be used as a last resort rather than stay in an unhappy or abusive marriage.

HAVING BEEN AWAY FROM CONSULTING FOR ABOUT A YEAR,  HOW HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU FULLY STARTED BACK THIS YEAR? ..
  Recently, I got a call from a client I had worked with and she was like, am I not consulting anymore and that's when I decided to start back my consulting fully this year.
The first client I had this year is the heaviest I have ever had.187kg.
I hadn't done this actively in about a year and coming back, God gave me this.
Today we did our progress check and she had lost almost 10kg in a week.
Currently I have five people I am working with.

ADVICE FOR UPCOMING ENTREPRENEURS.
First thing I like to tell entrepreneurs is "baby- steps" . The saying, Rome wasn't built in a day isn't  just a saying.
It takes planning and laying one brick after the other.
I mean anybody looking at me now would think I just jammed money but wouldn't know I started this journey way back in 2012. Most entrepreneurs now want to start big but it should not be . .
.

.
We appreciate @ebunfittrix of @naturestreatscafe for gracing the first edition of "Entrepreneurs' Watch " for this year.
God bless Fittrix Consulting
God bless Nature's Treat Cafe
God bless Ibadan

Eat clean.....love life 👌

Visit @naturestreatscafe

ENTREPRENEURS' WATCH - SMILE EDITION

Celebrating the game changers,the people who do ordinary things extraordinarily well is what "entrepreneurs watch" is all about.
On this week's edition,  our focus is a renown documentary photographer, a business man, a media personnel , a publisher and an author.
He is also the brain behind Ibadan's e-commerce platform @ibadanmarket.
Meet the CEO of @officialsmilephotography.

In an exclusive interview with ibadanslayers, he share with us his journey into the entrepreneurial world.

CAN YOU GIVE US AN INSIGHT INTO YOUR BACKGROUND?
I was born and brought up in Ibadan. I studied marketing at OND level after which I proceeded to The Federal Co-operative College, Ibadan, where I studied, co-operative Economics management for my HND.
.
LOOKING AT YOUR EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND, WHAT MADE YOU DEVIATE AND VENTURE INTO PHOTOGRAPHY? .
Photography as my career is my key while my educational background is my key holder. A career without a good educational background gets lost. Its more or less like having a key without a key holder, the key gets lost eventually. My educational background is what has helped to enhance my photography career to be different from others. My knowledge of marketing has helped me to give a good presentation,  how to present myself and my image, how to interact with clients and solve people's problems. Studying co-operative economics management has really helped me to relate with the grassroots and how best to economize funds. It is that knowledge that has helped me to maximize resources .

WHAT WERE THE MAJOR CHALLENGES YOU FACED WHEN YOU EMBARKED ON YOUR JOURNEY INTO ENTREPRENEURSHIP? .
 For me, my sense of adventure into business is about identifying a problem and preparing myself to solve the problem.  So I consider any challenge that comes my way a great opportunity for me to earn more. In as much as I can face it and overcome it, it will definitely turn into profit for me. So i never see any challenge as a stopping stone, rather a stepping stone. And I must tell you, I love challenges. I believe that if you solve a major problem, nobody negotiates the price. People only negotiate the price of things that don't hold the solution they desire. Nobody negotiates the price of medicine prescribed by a doctor,  likewise if you are a problem solver, nobody will be able to negotiate your price. So the challenges faced is not the issue but the ability to provide solution at the end of the day.

WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER AS
THE MAJOR PROGRESS IN YOUR WORKS?
 I wouldn't call it progress but increments. Because i believe there is still a lot more to achieve. Well i started my business with my school fees when I was in HND 2. I used my final year school fees to purchase my first camera. While running my HND,  I made up my mind that I didn't want to finish school and start looking for a job here and there. When I took the risk with my school fees which some people would consider as abnormal, today I don't regret because if I had not taken that step, I would not be where I am today.  Although I am not where I dream to be, where I am still going is way bigger than where I am today,  I am still striving.  To God be the glory,  I have received recognition locally, continentally and internationally.

TEN YEARS FROM NOW, WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ACHIEVED?
In ten years time,i think there are lots of problems that need to have been solved. I see myself solving a global problem and being in corridor power of a global platform. I see myself as a global striker,  not a local or just a national striker.

WHO AND WHAT ARE THE MAJOR INFLUENCERS OF YOUR WORKS? @ : As much as i desire people's results, I am more interested in their process. There are lots of people that have influenced my works. Like the personal photographer to the president Obama, Pete Souza. I study his works and it has influenced me a lot. If you look at my works,you can see a kind of blueprint of his works. Likewise one other person that has influenced me is Bayo Omoboriowo ,the,personal photographer to the president of Nigeria.  Also anybody that does something unique, i follow their work and it influences me.

IF GIVEN OPPORTUNITY TO GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?  WOULD YOU CHOOSE A CAREER IN PHOTOGRAPHY ALL OVER AGAIN? Of course I would choose photography over again. photography has taken me to places where my certificate could not have taken me. I have met with not less than fifteen presidents of African nations, been under the same roof without restrictions, dialogued and dined with them. My academic qualifications could have never taken me to such places if not for photography.

IF ANYONE WERE TO WALK UP TO YOU SEEKING ADVICE ON HOW TO BE AN ACHIEVER, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO HIM/ HER?
The first thing i would tell him/her is to discover his/ her passion. Once that has been done, be sincere to yourself.  Don't wait for a perfect / convenient time, process the discovered passion in time. No vision / idea comes with perfection. You are the one to perfect it over time. Also, strive to increase your sense of self confidence, don't wait for people to praise you because if you do, you will end up frustrated.  Stay focused and keep moving. It might look rough initially but one day,you will get your recognition.  Your talent will lead to your passion,  your passion will give you joy and your joy in turn will command wealth for you.  Don't worry, whoever mocks your ideas now would end up being your fan when those ideas begin to command wealth.

In conclusion, What i would like to add is with regards to documentary photography.  This is one aspect of photography that isn't being taken seriously in Nigeria and we ought to. For example,  the white man has used documentary photography to project negative stories about our country.  Now its our job as documentary photographers to correct the mess that has been made.  we show people both the beautiful and the ugly side. I also urge entrepreneurs to partner with one or two documentary photographers that will help tell their story and project the image of their brands. I also would love to implore the government to invest more in documentary photography.  Thank you.  We appreciate @olawoyinsmile of officialsmilephotography for making this edition of entrepreneurs watch both inspiring and entertaining.
 We say God bless you
 God bless your brand
 God bless Ibadan.