Someone once said that if you’ve got capital and don’t know what business to start, start a food business.
If you take the above statement literarily, you would think starting and running a food business is “Eazy-Peazy”. Like Tuface once said – “If dem tell you say e easy, na setup!”
You can’t scroll through “Instagram-Food” and not see Lanitas-Kitchen! As sumptuous as her IG page looks, you’ve got no idea how much work and dedication has gone into building the brand to what it is today!
She recently did a thread on twitter (her handle – @Lanitas_kitchen ) on her journey from working as a Sales Rep to Blogging to where she is today. Enjoy the read…
Lanitas-Kitchen :
I wasn’t always known as iya Olounje “the successful Foodpreneur” I’ve had my own fair share of business failures too. The journey to where I am today was a really bumpy one and today I’m here to share part of it with you.
I once worked at a prominent fashion house as a sales representative where I earned 30k as at 2016, did all that job and at the end of the month my take home was barely enough cause I lived on the mainland and worked on the island and I did that mon-sat.Along the line I had accommodation issues and decided to quit. I quit the job and stuck to blogging for someone and I got paid 50k. Job was so easy cause I did it at the comfort of my own home. Didn’t have a professional idea about blogging so all I did basically was copy and paste then change headline…LOL! Yes I did that. We started blogging mainly cause we saw that Linda Ikeji made millions out of blogging, didn’t know how she did it but we felt so long as we had a computer we could be millionaires too. I don’t know who sold us that idea but thinking about it now I’m cringing.
In 2018 April 21st I went into food saying to myself “at least we will have food to eat at home while I cook for others” Oh!! one thing I knew how to do was to cook tasty meals. Also cooking was a passion for me, I cooked took photos and posted on Instagram. Each time I posted I had people asking if the meals were for sale and of course it wasn’t. Nobody ever told me cooking for the house and cooking for commercial purposes aren’t same. Man I learnt really hard when life came at me…
Well to cut the long story short I started taking orders on Facebook and Instagram. My friends patronized me for a week until reality set in, I was left all by myself to promote my brand and make it work cause the favor days ended no sooner than it started.
I had no idea how social media marketing worked so you’ll be very correct if you said I flopped. Oh I fell flat on my face but refused giving up. Shortly after I secured a spot in a Bank where I was to run the canteen. Started out, first week seemed encouraging cause everyone wanted to try the new cook’s meal… but then what happens after they tried it? Sales began to reduce lol. The question is why did sales reduce? Isn’t it supposed to increase? I mean that’s why it’s called business right? Let’s keep going.. I put in money every week and at the end of the week I lose the money put in and whatever gain I thought I would get to pay back what I borrowed. So I packed up and ran for my dear life before they drag me with police out of the bank for owing plenty gbese! Another serious lesson learnt.
Look out for the concluding part…
PS : CONTACT Lanitas-Kitchen for your : ■Food Hampers ■Food platters ■Food/soup bowls ■Bulk food packs ■Surprise Packages ■ We are open Mon-Sat call 08036510175
Lanitas-Kitchen : twitter – @lanitas_kitchen / Instagram – @lanitas_kitchen