Yejide’s Rivah Beauty wins admirers one year after

Yejide Elugbaju is the founder and CEO of Rivah Beauty Limited. A make-up artist with an experience in the beauty care industry, Yejide’s fashion outfit, Rivah Beauty, is winning admirers one year after establishment.

The 24-year-old Yejide has always loved looking good and making others look better, an attribute that drew her to the beauty care industry.

She started fashion for fun, experimenting on her face, family and friends who were willing to allow her make them up.

At some point, recommendations started coming. This prompted her to improve her skills.

“I took some classes free of charge on YouTube, watching a lot of videos to experiment what I have learnt. I also enrolled in a make-up school to learn more. I began to get contracts from friends and family to make them up on special occasions which I was doing with a lot of passion,” she tells Start-Up Digest.

She then began to see opportunities and the huge desire of people wanting to look good. So, like an eagle-eyed entrepreneur, Yejide launched herself full-time into the fashion industry, establishing Rivah Beauty in January 2016.

What was Yejide’s initial start-up capital? She started her business with only N50, 000, which is a lesson to upcoming entrepreneurs that big money is not the biggest challenge.

“I am still investing in it. Ever since I started, my business has grown tremendously and also the demand for our services,” she says.

Nigeria is currently mired in recession but Yejide has not been looking at the country that way.

“Yes, I am aware there is recession, but I notice that there are people making more money this period. So why can’t I? This is why I decided to turn all my passions to reality and profit off them? I still have some projects in mind but, gradually, all will unfold. Despite recession, a lot of people still want to look good and this means business for us,” she explains.

However, Yejide believes that most Nigerian ladies have high preference for foreign beauty products.

“We have local beauty care products that are good as the imported ones. Trying to change my client preference of foreign beauty products and convincing them that our local brands are as good as the ones imported is a big challenge. Most of them believe that they cannot look beautiful once the products are local brands. Another challenge is the high competition in the industry. In Nigeria, everybody thinks they are experts when it comes to applying make-up and this is killing the industry,” she notes.

She also believes that governments at all levels need to support local brands so that their prices can be competitive.

“We have a lot of imported beauty products that are far cheaper than our local brands.   The issue of standards must not be compromised. The various regulatory agencies must ensure that our local brands meet international standards,” she appeals.

“Make-up is not going out of season any moment and once the government can invest in locally made products with improved quality, which are being used all over the world, this will give us higher international recognition in the beauty care industry, which itself is a very big and lucrative industry. This will in turn benefit the country at large,” she states.

Yejide has not taken any loan from an external source because she has family members that have been supportive.

But what will Yejide tell your younger self? According to her, she will tell her younger self to “stop procrastinating and do what you have to do because opportunities don’t wait for you to be ready, you just have to take it when it comes.”

For upcoming younger upcoming entrepreneurs interested in venturing into fashion, she says they must be creative and innovative.

“If you must continue to stay in business, you must be creative to continue to meet the needs of the people. There is a lot of competition in the industry, so it is only creativity and innovation that can help you sustain your business,” she adds.

JOSEPHINE OKOJIE