@smallchopsng / 09097201441
…He is an engineer and foodpreneur. His quest for owning and managing his own food business lead him to redefining the small chops business in Nigeria as he, right after college started a business with just 50k. Learn how he did it.
Podcast Keynote
Can you please introduce yourself and tell us about your background –
My name is Uche. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering from Covenant University. I have been running this business for 3 years. When I was in school, I usually did catering for events. So when I came out from school, food business was the easiest thing for me to do.
Can you talk about the Startup of your business including funding?
Small Chops Ng is one of the businesses I’m currently running. I have interest in agriculture, industry & commodity trading; but then the way I structure my businesses; they all run themselves. So for small chops, I haven’t put in personal money since after the initial startup capital expense. It’s been running itself since day one.
I started pretty small working from home and I would say the starting capital was about N50, 000. At that point all we were doing was online as intermediary and people will come to us; we push them to vendors until the point when we decided to set up our own kitchen. It took us 16 months to move from aggregate site to having our own kitchen and producing our own products.
What’s your typical workday like?
Well I do 10-15 hours a week because I have a structure and a team that handle things.
What is your business structure like?
There are 3 sections – Operations, Customer Service/ Madia and then the Kitchen. The kitchen has 5 staff, operations and customer service 3. So the kitchen is separated into head chef, 2 chef assistants and 2 kitchen assistants.
Where do you see your brand in the next 5 years?
I’m doing some research and we are trying to expand beyond Nigeria. We are looking at extending into East and West Africa.
What piece of business advice would you give someone starting up?
- Have a unique menu
- Know who you are selling to
- Pay serious attention to your product quality
- Pay very good attention to your customers’ need
- Make sure your delivery is on point and don’t deliver orders that will not make your customer happy; better to refund
- Never ever cut corners.
What advice would you give your young self?
Stress a little thing, but don’t let it take a toll on other things. Business is good but then, a personal and social life is important.
Book Recommendation:
2018 Home BOSH Landing
How They Started
Key takeaway points:
- Structure your business so that it can run effectively without necessarily having you in it
- Start small and grow your business organically to what you want it to be
- Have a unique menu
- Know who you are selling to
- Pay serious attention to your product quality
- Pay very good attention to your customers’ need
- Make sure your delivery is on point and you don’t deliver orders that will not make your customer happy; better to refund
- Never ever cut corners
- Business is good but then, a personal and social life is also important.
