Times are really hard and a lot of businesses are not spared



Just under two years ago, Sheriff Shittu started Showroom.ng after stints at Lokoso, Konga (as a business analyst) and Zima Fashion (as COO). His big plan was to make millionaires of up to 100,000 Nigerian carpenters, and try he did. He’s just announced that he’s shutting down the business at the end of the month, and in the same vein, he wrote a post on his Medium page titled 12 years a hustler, time to go home.


For me, it’s a reminder that it’s terribly difficult to build a business, and better men than I am have failed at it. I’ve reproduced the post below, and I wish him godspeed in his next venture. Over to you, Sheriff.

I’m exhausted, it’s been roller coaster for the past 12 years having started my first startup then and ever since, it’s been from one to the other.

I really felt I could succeed, I have read the right books, the right blogs but in execution, draft right business plan and I have fallen short. Maybe it’s time to change things a little, something is quite wrong I think.

The height of it was las year end, business was doing fairly well then everything started crashing. Somehow I survived the robbery at gun point in the middle and rally round to try to make things work, but getting worse and every now and then the thought will always come around, what if it all ends here? What if I just have an accident right now (while driving home at 11pm on third mainland bridge)? Maybe it was law of attraction but somehow I had an accident but in the daytime when I didn’t think about it.

I launched showroom.ng almost 2yrs now and within months with all the permutation (maybe strategy) we were on a super roll, the dream roll. I think personally I wasn’t introspective enough as I was just riding with the tide. That’s super wrong for a CEO, “you don’t just work in your company you work on it”, so they say. I only read it, I didn’t live it.

I personally won’t attribute the failure to wrong market, or wrong product. It was a wrong execution.

Maybe this will help

Weak domain expertise: we don’t have that in our team, inasmuch as I tried to learn on the fly, this will fucking take years of learning, practice before charging people. I had personally underwrote mistakes from partner or staff 100%, just so you could make customers happy, but resources are limiteuch and our products are heavy items.

Speed: the edge a startup has over bigger company is suppose to be speed, yeah for a couple of our products we were fast but for so many we were terribly late. Building features, making user experience superb is not my strength, I’m ninja but in the team we didn’t have stay either or could afford one.

Team setup; success of any endeavor have a lot of tie to the people behind it. Looking back, I’d selected those with; domain expertise, better work ethic (than myself) and complimentary strength.

Raise enough money, don’t raise at all or don’t start. I personally think or being conditioned over the years that startups need to raise fund. It’s not so. I worked with a couple partners that didn’t raise a dime for their companies and they are doing pretty fine(offline). Sells a piece here and there. When we started doing fine, I somehow felt entitled to be funded.Somewhere along the line I asked myself, why really must this guys give me money? Did I work the money in their pockets? I felt really bad and awkward sometimes with the process.

You don’t know everything. F*ck it, I have read all the article, the manifestos, I have worked with a team that built massive stuff. Looking bad, I think…our strength are magnified when we work in a strong team, and diminished when we work alone or in a weaker team. Listening to advise, following your instincts are all as good as knowing what to do right per time. If at a particular you take a wrong decision and another and another, the damage may be bigger than you can reverse.

Be true to your core values even at tough times. I believe, customers reign supreme in every business and as such whenever we fall short, I felt personally responsible for them. And at many occasions avoided facing the customer. Cause I thought, if I was in their shoes, I had done worse. I really think as at this time, it’s harder to keep to the ethos, it’s better I just pause, see what’s wrong and find a way out.

On a personal level, my journey so far as been onerous. It’s either tech or nothing. I don’t have any community I belong to other than tech. I just felt every other thing is time wasting. If not for my wife that drags me to church every now and then, I’d be okay just watching online. When the time became really tough, maybe church community could have been of great help had I been fully integrated like I was 8yrs ago.

Somehow I felt sorry when people mock those who committed suicide; its not every pain or failure one can withstand. As someone who have been pushed to that limit at many times, it’s just a thing line between life and death. Like receiving a call just before the act or your car refusing to start. ☹

I don’t know maybe I shouldn’t write this, maybe I should go get a job. Maybe I should go look for help, but the only family I have is the tech. Maybe I’ll think this through more. But writing this could be the salvation I need to do better next time.

By month end I’m shutting down showroom.ng. I’ll probably just take a month off. Not doing nothing. I have not stopped working on one idea or another since January 2004. When I decided, I want do startup, build a site like Google for Nigeria.

I feel responsible for upcoming tech entrepreneur that if they have more of what we didn’t have then their failure wou then their failure would be our responsibility. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself as I really haven’t succeeded.

Did I get support, absolutely. From those who’d chat me up at night to connect me with customers, to those who invited me for a chat just to help straighten out a strategy and review products. I have been luckiest person in this community.

I was talking with my mechanic about how much my car could be worth, he gave me a low figure. I was like, Bleep it…i want to sell this stuff , pay all our outstanding debt and start on a clean slate. If possible.

I have cried, even in the presence of those who think I got all figured out. I felt embarrassed but I couldn’t help it. I don’t know what may come out of this, but being alive and scorned is better than being dead and hopeless.

Source: http://techcabal.com/2016/08/24/showroom-shutdown/

Wow, he really tried but it just didn't happen for him.

Sad... the pains of doing business in NIGERIA

ibkn:
Sad... the pains of doing business in NIGERIA

It is not about doing business in Nigeria, even if we know Nigeria present economic is not encouraging, it is about how long you tend to continue, but when you can't go further, it is always advisable to take a break and realize what is not being right. The man sound like all hope is gone! well this may be his time of failing forward. But if he keeps dwelling much in his failure than he sees the victory ahead, he may just pass out , because his fear his defeating him. I'll pray he rise up again after he fall.

it is well

I feel your pain. Entrepreneurship especially "techpreneurship" needs a lot of guts and will-power.

Thought provoking write up,wish someone can get this to FP.
Cc: lalasticlala

Eyyah, such is life.

Dis is just d way it is...We all fail @ one point or d other..But our resolve to keep trying will take us places..Bruv I salute ur courage for even starting sth in d first place.Try harder dude.I will do d same.

may God help us

Sad. No good news coming out of Nigeria these days

He should take out time to re-work his model.

Every firm going under and every job loss is a curse placed on those who voted in this government and have refused to acknowledge their wrongs.(zombies)
Ofcus the biggest curse goes to the ugliest man in Nigeria, Obasanjo.
Yes he wrote some nice stuffs up there but in summary, the harsh economic realities leaves little or no buffer for young companies with high risks

Times are hard indeed

Another business succumbs to the wounds inflicted by the Economic assassin of our time... The Dullard par Excellence and the Burukutu guzzling Nepa bill certificate holder of Daura.

Just remembered dis quote,tough time dont last but tough people do...it not easy oh..shutin dnw nt best option

No wahala. You keep pushing and failing forward. Easier said than done but then again, what' slide without ups and downs?

Ok.the rich remember the others when their world fall apart,i pray u find d zeal to pick up the broken pieces and fix it together

Buhari is born with badluck..... Nelson Mandela.

Truly a thought-provoking read.
I guess the writer still need a lot of help. Psychologically, emotionally, financially and spiritually. He needs people around him to lean on. Good on him that he could express himself through writing such as this. It takes a lot of courage. A lot of courage.

At the end of the dark tunnel, may your light shine forth, sir.

Buhari is a disaster... Putin

it's sad but let not make this about Nigeria and understand that the global economy is on meltdown. watched CNN the other day and it reported that big and I mean big manufacturing companies are closing down because of cheap imports from China even in the US OOO. I have mixed feelings about the issue but really China is taking over the world gradually because they export in large scale and sell cheaper than what the price is in the buying country which forces businesses like this to shut down. Nigeria needs to review it's protection policies but again if the government ban imports to promote local manufacturers guess who will complain? NIGERIANS SMH.

The owner is a very good friend of mine, and he was a very die hard fan of buhari

frenchwine:
Every firm going under and every job loss is a curse placed on those who voted in this government and have refused to acknowledge their wrongs.(zombies)
Ofcus the biggest curse goes to the ugliest man in Nigeria, Obasanjo.
Yes he wrote some nice stuffs up there but in summary, the harsh economic realities leaves little or no buffer for young companies with high risks

That curse is definitely not for those who voted in this govt but for all those who looted the nation's treasury without thinking about our collective future as a nation.

Cuteamigo1:
it's sad but let not make this about Nigeria and understand that the global economy is on meltdown. watched CNN the other day and it reported that big and I mean big manufacturing companies are closing down because of cheap imports from China even in the US OOO. I have mixed feelings about the issue but really China is taking over the world gradually because they export in large scale and sell cheaper than what the price is in the buying country which forces businesses like this to shut down. Nigeria needs to review it's protection policies but again if the government ban imports to promote local manufacturers guess who will complain? NIGERIANS SMH.

continue to deceive yourself

you don't jump into tech business with every bit of you like that. You gat to get a job first and do tech part-time pending when you hammer

Now I'm really sad about all this going on in our country. Quite discouraged on a business venture I was thinking of.

Well, he should be encouraged and not give up.

very good advice for entrepreneurs, learn from those that made it as well as those that failed.

guys take your time and read everything, it is educative