Excellence for many people is merely another unattainable option because, achieving excellence is no mean feat, and those who do are the ones who have remained defiant in the face of obstacles. Accountant turned hospitality entrepreneur, Toyosi Orunmuyi is one such individual who has stamped the greatness of his vision in the Lagos coastal area with the launch of his new beach resort, 234 Lofts. In this interview, Orunmuyi, who is the brain behind The Podium Event Centre, shares his vision for intra-West African tourism, his path to entrepreneurship, and why 234 Lofts was designed and built with containers. TOMI FALADE brings excerpts.

Tell us about yourself.

I am a homegrown accountant. I’ve had a career from 2005 till now, so pretty much 18 years of accounting. I studied at the University of Ilorin, and I went on to start my career with KPMG in Lagos for five years. I moved to the US and I was there for about five years. I also did my MBA there. Basically, I am both an accoun­tant and an entrepreneur.

At what point did you become an entrepreneur?

The MBA was my turning point, that was what took me from being an accountant to a businessperson. I know numbers from accounting, but the MBA allowed me to solve prob­lems. I moved back to Nigeria in 2016, and started The Podium Event Cen­ter, and that’s been going on for about seven years now.

Tell us about your new beachfront resort, 234 Lofts and what inspired it.

We started construction in 2022 last year and we are launching now. I want to believe that my heart is hos­pitable, and that has drawn me into hospitality and events. I also had a stint in the hospitality industry out­side of Nigeria working for a hospi­tality recruitment agency.

What gave you that confidence to come back to Nigeria to invest even when others fear to because of the uncertainty in the country?

I don’t think it was confidence, I think it started out as naivety. When they teach you business plans in school, you come back and think that those business plans will work in Nigeria. It has been a very tough ride; you learn as you go. I’ve learned a lot and I understand that it takes a lot of guts to do business here and I think I have guts. I see a challenge and I just want to take it up and give it whatever it takes.

Having been outside Nigeria, what are those things that you saw that are different from what is done here that you would like to replicate here and what other innovative approach­es have you presented?

I think Americans are the best at hospitality. During my time in Amer­ica, I picked up a lot of stuff. It’s in America that you go somewhere, and your food is late, and they tell you ‘Oh, we are sorry, you don’t have to pay for this food, or you can take a drink while you are waiting.’ That doesn’t happen in Nigeria. Americans do hospitality best, and I think it comes with a little bit of that level of care for the customer.

I have also run a food business and it is a lot smaller now. I started it in 2015 with my wife and it’s still running but it’s very small now. That was where I learnt customer service properly. Even if a customer is an­gry, just by putting an additional cup of juice with their order the story changes entirely and what you want to do in business is; you want to turn net detractors into net promoters. So when a customer has a bad expe­rience, I always try to turn that bad experience into a good experience. That extra cost is small compared to the damage that kind of thing will put in your bag.

Why the choice of building from containers?

There are different reasons hon­estly. On one hand, because we are at the beachfront, this land cannot be sold because it’s zoned as ancestral lands. So we wanted something that is moveable and not permanently fixed. The containers are a little eas­ier to build and quicker to finish.

What is the idea behind the name?

234 is the country code of Nigeria. Our personal vision is to have this beach resort across the West African coast. And we will name each of the locations according to the country code of the countries. And the big vi­sion, should we become billionaires, is to have a cruise line that will take you to each country on a seven-day African cruise. One thing I found out is that a lot of West Africans don’t travel West Africa. Asides Ghana, most Nigerians don’t visit countries in West Africa. I really have a dream to grow intra-West Africa tourism.

What else is different, why should people come here?

As far as the coastline is con­cerned, first is proximity. We are right in town, you don’t need a boat to get to us, neither do you need to be stuck in traffic for hours to come to us; we are unique. If you want somewhere pri­vate, somewhere with not too many people, not too loud; that’s one of our unique selling points here. We do not take service for granted and we just want to help people relax and enjoy their time with us.

Are you doing this alone or do you have partners who are working with you?

I always have partners. Every­body has ideas, but to get your ideas to business, you need two things. One is money, capital. The other one is just everything else, the guts, the motion, and the education because vision plus money is business. We all see problems, but it is very hard to take the problem, build the solution to it, then is monetisable. Only then can you become a billionaire.

From all of your experience, what would you say is a valuable lesson you learned in this peculiar Nigerian economy?

Fear of the government. Honest­ly, as a business person, everything is working against you in Nigeria. Also, always put things in writing. Any small agreement, even if it is a text message, put it in writing; a coin can flip very quickly. Working with people has been a tough deal as well. Unfortunately, you have to work with people since you can’t do it all. You have to employ people, and you have to incentivise people. Finally, I think the government can do more, espe­cially with the few entrepreneurs that are bold enough to do this. One of the big things that happened during COVID-19 for some of my friends and colleagues abroad was that the gov­ernment gave them grants, free mon­ey, tax refunds and things like that. In Nigeria, we did not get anything.

Most people are finding their way out of the country now, and ‘japa’ syn­drome is on the high; you are going the other way. Why?

My story is different. Nigeria is tough and I won’t speak for the glob­al professional. When I returned to Nigeria in 2015, my salary was N36 million per annum and I was com­ing from the US. It was coming as 180,000 US Dollars at N198 to one dol­lar. Between then and now, that same amount is now 36,000 US Dollars. So imagine I was still working, being promoted and I am earning N80 mil­lion, which is very big money here, it would still be less than I was earning in 2015 when I returned because we are now buying a dollar at N1000 plus. For a professional person, it’s really tough because even if I was earning N100 million (and those kinds of jobs are very few) I would be earning al­most half of what I was earning eight years ago. That’s a problem.

How would you describe yourself as a businessman?

There are things I enjoy doing. I enjoy construction, things that have a start and end time. To witness the joy and fulfilment of completion. But at the end of the day, the numbers still have to make sense in terms of profit.

What are some of your guiding prin­ciples in what you do today?

I think the first thing is fairness. I try to be as fair as possible. It’s not all about money. Money is very important in business, but it’s not all about money, and it mustn’t be all about money. If everybody here gets N10 million today, they won’t all have up to N8 million by next month. Money comes and goes, so fairness is important. I am also very big on relationships and I do what we call ethical business too.

Tell us about growing up and the experiences that prepared you for entrepreneurship.

Both my parents were civil ser­vants. I grew up in Ilorin. My fami­ly was great. I had three brothers. I knew we had to work hard because our parents made it very clear to us that ‘you’re going to school for your­self’. So, I finished with a 2’1. When it was time to serve, I heard about this gig in an accounting firm and I went there to do what I could. I was very young; 20+ years old. I started working early, and my KPMG days were really just building network and becoming a good accountant. I did ICAN and every other thing.

The time I spent outside Nigeria, I think, was what broadened my horizons significantly because I was in a program that took me to a new country every four months. England, Nigeria, Egypt, Dubai, UAE, and the US. It was a good eye-opener as well because I worked in different indus­tries in different countries and that was my first eye-opener. And then the MBA was what gave all of those expe­riences a business structure.

When you created The Podium event centre, what were you thinking?

I was looking for money. We all know problems, but as I said, I know how to take that problem and trans­form it into a business opportunity. I find money to execute it, and then I also have the guts to execute it too. That’s the difference.

If you have experiences from a lot of places, then you pull it out to­gether and you can spin a business around it.