Dear Studentpreneur

Sometimes you do too much.

This economy: Does the pressure decrease or increase?

Your income: mhmm…creases!

A minute\’s silence for when eggs used to be five hundred naira a crate. Let\’s take another one minute of silence for our comrades whose sources of income only ever ‘creases regardless of the cost of living.

Nostalgia will randomly just hit you out of nowhere as you\’re about to pay for fish. Once upon a time, ‘Hello Daddy’ was sufficient income to live on for the average student, but times have changed. It\’s either you reduce the quality of life you\’re used to, suffocate your parents with billing or you become a studentpreneur.

Thanks to Tinubu\’s economy, your ‘Daddy hello’ friend has now become a copywriter, ghostwriter, underwear vendor and crypto lord all at once. The lifestyle cost na you no know o. Every one in five of your friends is now a something-something vendor. If you\’re not one yet, you\’ve found yourself thinking about it every other Tuesday. There are three kinds of studentpreneurs in every university:

1. The trust-fund vendor

This studentpreneur is all about the brand, being a business owner is first and foremost an aesthetic thing before it is a source of livelihood. The trust-fund vendor only sells Pinterest-worthy goods. They are soft boys and girls, they are more likely to take a quick break when the pressure begins to get too much.

1. The I-sell-everything vendor

If you checked this studentpreneur\’s catalogue, you cannot be sure that you won\’t find ‘live cow’ under items listed as available. If they post three items for sale, slide one would be a plate of chicken, slide two would be diamond studded boxers and slide three would be a thrift cutlass. What are they selling? You don\’t know. All you know is that they are sha a vendor.

1. Madam/uncle do too much vendor

Have you ever seen a squirrel storing nuts in his cheeks? Do-too-much is the human version of a squirrel. He/she is your class scholar and student union president who still manages to run a tyre business on the side. You have never seen this studentpreneur at rest since you\’ve known them. They simply tend to do too much to rest.

Whichever category you\’re looking to join or belong to, a studentpreneur e is a studentpreneur regardless of what you are selling and it can be hard to keep up. Here are things that every studentpreneur should never forget:

–The customer can be very wrong

Have you ever considered that maybe it is your target audience that is carrying gun? Because why is a customer calling you on the phone to breathe down your ear? Some will spend two hours asking you pointless questions only to not buy anything from you after. Many customers are mad but few are roaming. You\’re also a part of the problem because why are you entertaining someone that is asking whether you can do delivery to the nearest cemetry at midnight? Are you selling sacrifice? When did your target audience become ‘ritualist’? Sometimes you need to know when to give up on a potential customer.

–You are not elastic

There\’s a reason why the ‘student’ comes first in ‘studentpreneur’. Whether it is the trust-fund vendor, I-sell-everything or do-too-much, these three studentpreneurs have something in common, they are incredibly good at multitasking but sometimes, multitasking can slowly turn you into a weapon fashioned against yourself; you are either always tired, dehydrated and sleep-deprived or you just can\’t figure out why your business is failing. Combining five extracurriculars with academics and running a business is like adding things to an already full-tray while running and expecting that nothing will fall. It\’s either you fall or the tray does. If you don\’t know your limits and how to prioritise, burn out will always be around the corner and before you know it, either your academics or business is suffering. You are not elastic my dear, stop trying to overstretch yourself.

–Sometimes you need to relaxxxxxx

It is Sunday but as you\’re leaving church, you are heading to Idumota to greet your supplier who just gave birth and pick up another batch of products. When you get back, you begin to pack orders without changing out of your church clothes. Immediately after, you sit down and begin to do assignments because you\’ve been too busy with volunteering for an NGO the week before to do it. In all this, did you even remember to eat? Or to change your clothes? It\’s okay to go on a break if you find yourself close to burning out. Put up a ‘we’ll be back soon’ sign on your business page and just…breathe.

–How to go back to the drawing board

studentpreneurs that are just starting out tend to underestimate the importance of proper market research (blame trust-fund vendors for making it look so easy). It is not enough to print business cards, buy a box of scarves, a ringlight and open an Instagram account. A studentpreneur needs to factor passion, his schedule, difficulty level and market specifics when he wants to decide what to sell. An unhappy studentpreneur is probably selling all the wrong things to all the wrong people. It\’s not everytime claw clip. Have you tried selling garri?

When it looks like business is slow and nothing is working, learn to simply go back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong.

What kind of studentpreneur are you and what other kinds are there? Let us know in the comments 🧡.

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