Otedola And The Nose For Opportunity 

Two reasons.

One, while the story itself might appear familiar to some of us, yet there is so much to take in and reflect upon from every page, having the one who lived through it tell it as he lived it.

Two, Haven’t we already vicariously read the book through the book through the reviews and reviews of reviews that litter the digital space?

But that is where it becomes important, for me, to slowly read and take it in with eye on context and what life was like at the time, so as not to miss out on the lessons therein.

Having read only a few pages, I can already see the importance of situating things in the right context, otherwise one might be led to wrong impressions or conclusions, as I think to be the case with some of the reviewers and headline-scanners out there.

One of such is that of the 250,000 pounds loan from his father, Sir Michael Otedola, around which the NEPO-LAPO distinction was framed.

The impression pushed out there was that loan was more like a seed or start-up capital for his business, and the soft ground upon which whatever success he eventually attained rests.

I think people hear £250,000 and imagine what that amounts to in today’s exchange rate, which would be about N500 million, which then leads to a wrong ascription of value.

Oh, not to be misunderstood, £250,000 was a lot of money, as well in 1999!

But within the context of Mr Otedola’s story, that wasn’t his start-up capital. The £250,000 loan from his father, which was about N40 million at the time, was more like a contribution by an Angel investor.

Femi Otedola had already laid a strong foundation, having started Zenon with a start-up capital of N15 million of his own money. Even before then, he had grown his first business, CentreForce, from the N10 million company he started as to a N100 million company.

So, rather than the Daddy’s boy who got his kernel cracked by a benevolent father who advanced a £250,000 loan to start a business, as painted out there, I saw differently. At the time of taking the loan, he had reasonably scaled his business (old and new), and had even sold his house for N40 million (about the same amount he got as loan from the father) at the same time, moving into a rented apartment.

He obviously took his own advice –

 “If you have a big dream, support it with all the resources available to you”.

It’s only 21 pages yet, but what jumps at me is Otedola’s strong nose for opportunities and boldly (quickly) moving to take advantage of it.

For me, that age-old lesson for having the nose for opportunity is what stands out, and might be the defining lesson from this book. And that doesn’t have to be big business or even business. Having a nose for opportunity, even on this platform, can be life-changing.

It reminds of a story I once partly shared here. Back in the days before GSM and mobile phones became as available as they are, it costs an arm and a leg to make a phonecall.

Some progress has been made from the NITEL days when we had to buy NITEL cards and queue at Booths to make calls. The Business Centre was now the go-to place. The going-rate then was N20 for first 3 minutes. Even if your call dropped or terminated after only 5 seconds, that was it.

I chanced upon an opportunity to secure a phone on a franchise. Under the arrangement, I saw that I could make calls at N5 per minute, pay franchise fees and still turn in a tidy profit.

To secure the franchise, I needed N50,000, which I didn’t have. I took a loan from a senior friend, got the phone and launched the business at our Ikeja, Awolowo Way office.

That we offered a per-minute service at N5, while others insisted on N20 for a call was the game-changer. People came from far and wide to make calls. In 4 months, we made enough money to repay the loan, return the phone to the people we secured it from, on franchise and buy a new CDMA phone from Multilinks for N135,000.

Ours was small business. Otedola’s was big business. But it was all about a nose for opportunity and quickly moving to take advantage by creating value.

There are always opportunities out there, having the nose to smoke them out to take advantage is another thing

Irrespective of one’s background, either NEPO or LAPO, one must train the nose to spot opportunities, and find a way to take advantage of them.