Blessing Achu: Providing start-ups with co-working spaces

For over a decade, Blessing Ebere Achu worked as an ICT professional. But deep down in her heart, she wanted to do something different, something that would provide solutions to societal problems.

In 2016, she quit her job with a broadband internet service provider to establish 360 Creative Hub. Her aim was to provide co-working spaces for creative entrepreneurs in Nigeria.

Blessing was inspired to establish this business by the gap she saw in the country’s co-working spaces for small business operators. Co-working is a system of providing a shared workplace or office for people not working for the same organisation.

To do this, she took courses and trainings on fashion and designs and started out a fashion outfit before eventually establishing her co-working business.

According to her, most co-working spaces in Nigeria only cater for ICT businesses with very little or nothing left for operators of other sectors.

“I noticed that while we have many co-working spaces catering to the IT crowd, not many were centered on the creative arts, which is a sort of problem, because when you look at the index of innovation, creativity itself is a major factor,” Blessing says.

“Also, our fashion industry is gaining international recognition now and there is need to develop the sector. All these considerations led to the establishment of 360 Creative Hub,” she adds.

She notes that her aim is to build a community around the fashion industry, through the provision of working places for creative and all adjacent professionals that can contribute to a new cohesive movement.

Blessing, a graduate of Education from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was able to raise her initial capital from savings and family members as well as friends to start her business.

According to her, since starting, the business has grown as it can now pay for its own running cost. She currently has six full- time employees.

Speaking on the maiden edition of its fashion acceleration programme, the young entrepreneur says with 20 fashion start-ups already part of the system, the goal is to yearly train 50 start-ups in that space across the country.

“Because this concept is new, it has been embraced by few. We currently have 20 fashion designers and we are growing daily. We do not want to serve only those who can access our physical space. We are setting up a virtual community to ensure that everyone around the country can  benefit from some of the services we hope to offer with some partners,” she says.

Answering questions on some of the business expansion plans, Blessings says 360 Creative Hub plans to train people on various opportunities in the country’s fashion value chain. She also wishes to train established designers on ways of using technology to scale up their businesses.

She says that 360 Creative Hub hopes to create a one-stop shop for fashion professionals across the country.

“By the year 2020, our 360 Creative Hub will have produced at least 50 global brands from local communities throughout Nigeria, which can conveniently compete in the global market,” she projects.

She tells Start-up Digest that the country’s fashion industry has the potential to diversify the economy in an era of globalisation.

“Globalisation has placed the fashion industry in a position where it is possible to design clothes in Lagos, email the technical specifications to Asia, and then (hopefully) receive quality samples in just two weeks,” she states.

She adds that the world is fascinated by African culture and designs, yet the continent’s fashion industry, which South Africa and Nigeria currently lead, has failed to make global impact because of the domination of China in the continent.

“The world is fascinated by African culture and design. So why isn’t the fashion industry on the continent blowing Paris out of the water? The issue is as complex as the patterns of African prints,” she says.

Speaking on some of the major challenges confronting her business, she says getting an affordable big working facility is one of the issues confronting her business. She notes that most big office facilities are way too expensive.

To address this, Blessing has got a smaller work place, which she has creatively renovated and partitioned with modern structural designs.

Similarly, she says irregular power supply in the country is a bane to her business. She points out that it has increased her production cost tremendously as the business mostly runs on diesel.

She calls on the government to bridge the country’s huge infrastructural gaps especially in the power sector, noting that Nigeria’s industrialisation depends mostly on infrastructures and technology.

Blessing also urges the government to create access to the market for small businesses, absence of which has ruined many start-ups.

On advice to other entrepreneurs, she says “Never take ‘no’ for an answer. Be consistent and persistent. Solve a problem and have integrity.”