The Accidental Entrepreneur

The Accidental Entrepreneur

Becoming a mom changed the trajectory of my career. I trained as a lawyer, practiced briefly.
I went to work daily with the mom guilt, having to leave my infant son in creche early in the morning, and pick him up sometimes late in the evening.
I hated my job, I wasn’t adding value there and it wasn’t adding value to me.

I left on the 14th of February 2013 not sure what direction I was going.  I knew I had trained in cocktail making briefly so I figured I’d make a business out of it.
I’ve always had a relationship with good food and a specific knack for healthy food, all my son’s meals were made fresh with natural things only, which included juice.
I can’t tell when Juicing found me, but I have memories of making Juice that date back to when I was 10yrs old. So I as i juiced for my family (me, husband and son), and friends some people started to patronize me.
My cocktail business didn’t do too well and eventually took the back burner because Juicing became my day job.

Fontaine De Vie is a healthy beverage options company and I’ve run this since 2013. Motherhood made me the accidental entrepreneur I am today.

In years I since I started this journey I have experienced quite a many highs and equal lows. I’ve fallen flat on my face and picked myself up with all my wit and grit.

My business has gone from making less than a million naira in revenue in my first year to making over 60 million naira in the last 2019, we experienced a little decline in 2020 due to Covid but this are looking up again.

With the growth has come the challenge of managing cashflow, particularly because we shifted the business model to B2B. So we relaunched our B2C channels to help us overcome the challenge of cashflow.

We are creating new sizes for our product lines to cut across more sections on the economy for more affordability.

To mitigate the challenge of a short shelf life for our products we are at the point of  seeking investment to acquire and deploy more advanced machinery for cold chain production  and storage systems, which include exploring solar options.

In line with the MDG’s we are working to improve the nutritional value of our product by exploring seed nutrition, natural superfoods to fortify them with additional nutrients to cater to specific sectors like children and nursing mothers.

As an individual I’m on a journey to personal development, I’ve learnt a lot in the years since I accidentally became an entrepreneur. I learnt a lot through blood sweat and years, after which I sought formal learning.  And I’m still seeking learning. So to harness my skills, horn my talents and defeat the imposter syndrome. In the last year I’ve been able to narrow done which specific set of skills I want to horn (i won’t tell you yet). This is the brief story of the #AccidentalEntrepreneur

#OverAPlateConversations 

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