MY WEEKEND INSIGHT

BUSINESS, WAY MORE THAN TITTLE-TATTLE

Sabiiti Herbert  22/05/2021

Last week a good friend of mine who’s also a neighbour paid a courtesy visit at my home. As the old adage goes, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh”, my heart is inclined towards business lanes and as thus, when i hang out with a friend whether am the host or being hosted, there will be scattered conversations about business. So, we discussed businesses with my day’s visitor for close to two hours. Quality time it was!

During the discussion, he revealed how he lost over two hundred million Ugandan shillings in sauna talk business. Sauna talks are always inclined to politics, marriages and businesses. On some dreaded fateful day in sauna, there was discussion on how piggery business is very profitable. From the talk, he pictured earning returns to a tune of a billion in profit. Unlike some folks who go to seminars and come out blazing, energised to the roof but as soon as one leaves the gates of the seminar venue, they’ve already grown cold, this gentleman couldn’t sleep when there was an opportunity of being a Billionaire in just 1-2-3-4-5 years. Consider this rhetorical; Do you rush into start ups for every business where they tell you there is money?

So, he invested big money in setting up piggery farm with very little (almost no knowledge) about piggery business, he was only pursuing an *MBA* yes, a Mega Bank Account. Long story short, he lost 150 million of his initial capital plus over 60 million in credit.

Let’s get to where it all begins, what actually went wrong?

1. He invested a lot of money in building a modern day state of the art pigsty.

2. He got a poor breed of piglets onto the farm

3. Miscalculated feeding and other operation costs (OPEX)

4. He left his baby with house helpers who have neither been pregnant nor held one in their hands. The business “baby” died of pneumonia and kwashiorkor.

5. He neglected the means and focused on the end (Money)

The gist of today’s insight is that business will or may always look too simple from the outside. Ugandans like engaging in businesses where someone seemed to have flourished just for the sake of it. You’ll hear phrases like, “By the way, it has worked for him” or “so and so has made money in this kind of business”. Many others are ‘encouraged’ falsely by those in the same business without engaging them to share probable threats and struggles they go through on the pathway to being successful in that particular Arena.

Forexample, i have realized in my business hustles that you can be making 70m per month yet your total cost is 78m and by God’s Grace you keep operating day-in-day out.

However much the objective of business is to get profit, patience is a virtue you’ll need. Most Ugandans haven’t tapped into the patience space, yet beneath it lies reward. That is why people are still and will continue to be fleeced by the famous Nalukolongo crew. By the way i have had a serious discussion with one of the ~gurus~ fraudsters, he promised to train me because he has enough market. That would be song to the ears of those interested in buying cheap gold. Have you had of cheap Gold? Ugandans like money in any form, that is what our president said.

I would say, try as much as possible to ‘abstain’ from jumping into businesses that you don’t know about, just because so and so has flourished with it gives you no leeway to hit the road. If you must join the arena, get your shoes of readiness, be patient, research, start slow and in due time you’ll take off. An aeroplane has a run way on the earth’s surface to first gather momentum before it takes on the skies.. it’s for a reason.

So let’s get back to my relentless neighbor, he retreated, re-grouped and this time started again with less than 5 but good quality piglets. The first time which is now in his past, he had dived in with over 70 piglets of a poor breed.

To be continued..next weekend.