Nelly Agbogu’s biggest challenge birthed her business journey
Nelly Agbogu is the brain behind NELLIES healthy food and snack company in the heart of Lagos, Nigeria. Nelly isn’t your average business owner who dreamt of entrepreneurship
from an early age like most CEO’s would tell you. She is a woman (and a mum) who had struggled with her weight and faced hurting body shaming criticism for years; and in the course of finding a solution to losing weight, and also being a mom of a baby who eats gluten free products, she had to find her passion for baking healthy options to help herself and her children. She then decided to build a brand out of it. In her words, “My biggest challenge birthed my business journey.”
Transitioning from working with an oil company to starting your own business?
I will say it was a smooth transition at the end. I have always known I will one day leave my paid employment but how I was unsure. First it was all about me trying to lose weight and having a healthy alternative until I discovered one of my children could only eat gluten free products, so I started making research on how to create a gluten free snack for my baby in nursery school. Saddled with the fact that I could not sustain importing gluten free snacks, I took to Google/YouTube (again) to see how I could create his snacks. I remember then I will post pictures on my BBM handle and a lot of people would want it. So I started thinking this may be a market untapped. I made my research, I realized there were a handful of healthy stores but nothing really in healthy snacks especially gluten free so i decided I would just start and see how I will make the business scalable.` By day I was a 8-5 worker and by night I owned Nellies and baked my heart out till 5am where I will get the kids ready for school and head to work. I am usually the first at work so I will just lock up myself in the toilet and sleep to resumption time. By the end of 2015 I knew I was ready to open a store because I created a “ quit-your-job-plan-in-one-year” where if I was able to make my gross in one year as a side hustle I will quit but I did it I did it in 6 months. By 11th of March 2016 I got redundant from my oil servicing job and 16th of March I opened my first store store in Victoria Island. You see why I said it was a smooth transition.
What made Nellies the reputable brand it is today?
It’s our passion, creativity, innovation and consistency. It’s about us taking a risk in a market and carving a niche, it is all about us discussing our struggle and our openness to learn. It’s our willingness to give samples, learn from our mistakes and being open to criticism.
Soaring above body shamers and advice for those who do it
At first, dealing with criticism was a lot to swallow. People see you and assume that because you are big, you are unintelligent or you do not qualify. But I have a child who needs me, who really doesn’t care if I am big or not, he just needs his mom to help him find an alternative. He is my WHY that people don’t get to see, so I don’t blame them. As time went on, I started seeing things from a 360 point of view, I realized that people who criticized me were doing so from a place of love, they want to see Nellies as a brand grow beyond what it is, they are passionate as we are about our vision and any little way to could help they did. By understanding that, we at nellies have been able to make changes where we can and be a work in progress where we should.
Training over 300 business owners
I have trained over 300 business owners but not at Nellies but a side business. I started something birthed out of passion called Naijabrandchick, where I train people on how to leverage on Instagram to grow their business. Instagram has been a big factor to the growth of Nellies so I thought the best way to give back is to teach the tools and tricks I have used to become an authority in the healthy food space in Nigeria.
Greatest challenge and how you surmounted it
My biggest challenge initially was being able to identify if the business was worth going full time. I was working at the time I started and focused on next day deliveries but as the business began to grow, I knew I had to develop a new strategy. So I started by dropping my products in stores, and since my products were without any form of preservatives, I will have to ensure that I sold out or they will all go bad, now this was a challenge. What I did was to take to Instagram, to create a buzz to direct my customers to stores where my products were stocked. I did that and created more buzz and people began to know me and my brand. The quit-your-job plan I set myself for one year, I hit my goals in 6 months so I knew it was time to start looking for my store of my own. The most rewarding part of it all was seeing my innovation and creativity being appreciated. We gave out samples at first to new customers since our products were unique and very different, now we get a lot of referrals on our products and with the help of social media and the buzz we are creating, business has started to become more rewarding.
How can government and private individuals encourage small businesses?
I feel the best way the government and the private individuals can help small business owners is to be lenient when it comes to the laws for start-ups. There should be some waiver in paying some taxes for the first 5 years. Also, I feel that private individuals should seek to help small business owners by being open to long term profit sharing to help reduce overheads from some business owners.
What day in your life is it that you can never forget?
Hmm… The day I was locked up for not having regulatory number for my innovative healthy snacks. But now, I see it as my business learning curve, I was still new in business not sure what to expect. Today, we are fully compliant and cannot wait to have our numbers out so that we can start distribution all over Nigeria.
What informs your choice of menu and how do you create new ones?
Our choice of menu is borne out of if they are Gluten free, Low Carb, Ketogenic , Vegan or Organic. So we try to have a wide range of items based on the seasons since 80% of our produce are proudly Nigerian.
How has your business survived despite the challenging economic situation?
Fairly good! We opened our store when we had the dollar increase in 2016 and this stabilized my projections however, it made me look inwards on the healthy alternatives which we could use here in Nigeria instead of looking at importation. Also, the government ban of some food items and the BUY NAIJA TO GROW NAIJA campaign also pushed our business.
How do you ensure your treats remain delicious yet healthy?
Remember that why I started this on a full scale was because of me and my son. So cooking a meal for a toddler who is a picky eater has to be delicious. Also, for snacks, I needed to ensure he does not miss out on what other kids are taking so I tried to make the snacks as close as possible to the popular ones. Ugu chips was made to mimic Chips, Acha crackers was made to mimic graham crackers, Zobo jam was made to mimic the jam we have but without the sugar … and so on…
It’s your birthday today, what are you grateful and hopeful for?
I am grateful for the gift of life! I wish to be able to use this gift God has given me to touch lives. My projection for Nellies is to be out of Africa’s first innovative healthy food and Snack Company.
Kemi Ajumobi