2 Years of Bee-lieving!

So, I started this crazy entrepreneurship journey 2 years ago this month and ahhhhh what a trip! , it’ s been a journey of survival in this Nigerian business space. In this Nigerian business space, you have to fight with banks, grumble over electricity and alternative power supply, curse over internet connectivity, fight with a slow and frustrating government system when you have to deal with getting approvals like we do, haggle over getting your money’s worth of supplies and wonder over delivery time.

There is no ease to doing business in this country, it’s a struggle everyday so you can imagine what it means going through these hurdles when your dream is to offer seamless and stress free access to legal services. When I started this, the plan was to order a service/product online or over the phone from us, get a quote immediately for your service, pay and wait for delivery wherever you are in the world. We wanted to provide this service for anybody anywhere in the world who wanted to operate, manage or invest in the Nigerian economy. The dream is to create a one stop platform for business formation, applications for licenses and permits required to run those businesses, compliance for those businesses as well as a call center where all inquiries about all those business questions can be answered. The dream hasn’t changed but we have had to change and tweak the process often with a lot of frustrations along the way.

I still ask myself everyday, “What am I doing? What have I gotten myself into?” Those are the days I am glad I had so much optimism at the beginning, those beginning days I didn’t doubt for a bit whether I will succeed or not or questioned the possibility of getting this done. I was so clear on what I was doing. Thank goodness I got into business with this mindset because if I had known half of what I know today, I never would have started this because I probably would have been scared out of my skin. Some days are so good though, I get to win and I realise I couldn’t have lived the past two years of my life any other way.

As we mark 2 years of our existence, I know for certain I am yet to scratch the surface of a quarter of my dreams for 618 Bees. But I won’t take for granted our achievements so far, I am grateful for them as I have come to realise that the most powerful weapon against my daily battles is finding a way to be grateful inspite of the challenges.

We had a budget and a plan for 2020, but just as we were getting started COVID-19 happened. If you are familiar with what we do here at 618 Bees, you will understand that we need to have a lot of interaction with government agencies for a lot of our jobs, so you can imagine how affected we were as a business. We were totally grounded, most especially all through April.

That notwithstanding, the good thing about challenges is that as humans, we always find a way to adapt and survive by doing things differently. And as part of our survival process, we are introducing some new products, rebranding the 618 Bees Business Roundtable and making some improvements to our website and the business generally, they include;

1. Introducing Virtual Board Meetings by 618 Bees.
2. Introducing our e-signatures platform which is bound to ease documentation.
3. Virtual Interactive Sessions with 618 Bees, and
4. Rebranding the ‘618 Bees Business Roundtable” to be known as “XME by 618 Bees”.
5. Improving our website by adding some new features.

Most of our events going forward will be done virtually for now and the goal is to change the way our business operates as the world leans more towards a more digitized workplace. Businesses must be ready to innovate to remain competitive in the new normal and I have decided to come out of this pandemic with the mindset that businesses are open to more opportunities as opposed to more limitations. We will be giving out more information about the above items in the coming days.

As we comprehend the new normal, I will be relying on this quote by Walt Disney which says “I’ve heard there’s a recession, I’ve decided not to participate.” So instead of holding on to the fear of what the new normal will look like for businesses, I have decided not to participate in that line of thought and have decided to trust myself more because so far, I have survived a lot and will survive whatever is coming. I still believe that the path to success is never guaranteed to be easy but with unwavering faith, perseverance and patience, anything is possible!

Finally, the achievements of an organisation are the results of the combined efforts of every individual and I say thank you to my very supportive Team 618 Bees –fantastic board members and staff, our loyal clients and to every bee-liever out there who has supported us by choosing us by trusting us with their business, you have no idea how much we value your business.

Thank you for supporting this small business!

Efe Ugboro

CEO, Team 618 Bees