This is the success story of the worls acclaimed Moin-Moin alias Bean Cake Maker, Mrs Ayodeji I am a trained Confidential Secretary with twenty years work
experience. My last place of work was Corona Primary school Ikoyi,
where I worked for nine years. I left Corona School with the intention
of starting a Playgroup. To actualize this, I enrolled in a six-month
Montessori programme with Heritage Montessori in Lagos. At the end of
the programme however I realized much as I liked working with children,
I was not so passionate about it.
In September 2007, things
became quite challenging for me and I was almost getting to the point
of frustration as a result of my inability to identify what I really
wanted for myself. The turnaround actually started when with my last
One thousand Naira. I went to the market and bought ingredients for
moinmoin with the intent of preparing my family a meal.
Co-incidentally, my sister in-law paid my family a visit that night and
had a taste. Immediately, she insisted that I must include moin-moin in
her menu, and from there, friends, colleagues and other family members
began to place orders and the requests just became endless! I was
amazed at how things began to take a turn though I really did not have
any idea on how I could make my services available to the general
public, especially bearing in mind that I had no financial weight at
all.
Expectedly as mentioned earlier, my initial buyers were
family members, close relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours.
Business was by way of referral and word of mouth. Then it occurred to
me to go back to my former place of employment to increase my customer
base. I would show up in my Peugeot car with warps of moin-moin in a
cooler, stand at the gate and call old parents I knew by name in an
attempt to sell them moin-moin. It was indeed an experience. Having
an initial network of familiar people was a factor in helping to at
least sustain the business. I hyped on the fact that most eateries
sold moinmoin in tins, plastics or foils, and so I would let people
know mine came in leaves, by this, the taste is preserved and more
nutritious. I was also able to insist on selling in dozens so this
really helped my turnover.
No sooner had people started
patronizing my moin-moin than they also began to request that I make
other delicacies, such as variety of soups, stews, meals, etc,
especially the very traditional ones. I never turned down any order
even though I didn’t really know how to make some of them. For those I
never knew how to make, I would go to the market with a pen and
notebook and ask the sellers of the ingredients to teach me how to make
the delicacy. Then I would prepare a little portion of it, return to
the same sellers who would taste it and award me marks. Not until I
receive a thumbs-up for my effort would I fill the customer’s order.
At
this stage, I had gotten a name for my outfit and was in the process of
registering with the Corporate Affairs Commission. THE INITIAL N1000
HAD GROWN TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF NAIRA! I knew I needed to
acquire business skills at this time to enable me take the business to
the next level. I was fortunate enough to be admitted for a scholarship
programme at the Lagos Business School under the Certificate in
Entreprenural Management programme, sponsored by Goldman Sachs Inc.
under the umbrella of the 10,000 Women Programme. I went on the
programme for a period of six months. I could see from the first day I
walked into class that I was surrounded by women just like me. We all
had the drive and the ambition, but had never had the opportunity to
learn about business. Through our courses, we learned the practical
skills we needed, skills like accounting, people management and
planning.
After completing the course, I saw the importance of
having a formal accounting system, I established relationships with my
suppliers and started having them deliever our supplies. This helped us
better manage our cash flow. Now we can cater for hundreds of people
at the same time.
As a result of the profound success of the
business, regardless of the unlikely beginning I had, the Goldman Sachs
Group invited me to New York to share my success story at the Annual
General Meeting on the 14th of April 2009. Again in September 2009, I
was invited by President Bill Clinton for the Clinton Global Initiative
2009. This was because the initiative was as part of its programme for
the year focusing attention on empowering women in developing
countries. I therefore had the rare privilege of sharing my success
story with participants at the programme.
Thank God for the
story so far! By the special grace of God, we have two outlets, one in
Gbagada and the other in Ikoyi. We place emphasis on the nutritional
value of the meals we serve especially with the numerous health
challenges people are faced with today. We know that this is just the
beginning and that is why we are committed to quality and excellent
customer service
For more on our Internationally accalimed 'Moi-moin ( Bean Cake Maker). Stay tuned to Delight Tv
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