"All men must die, but we are not men." — Daenerys Targaryen

 

"All men must die, but we are not men." — Daenerys Targaryen

Yep 2020 happened and just like everyone else I got really burnt, badly! my startup Parkit.ng had just closed a deal to setup a 100 vehicle detailing centers across Africa with an investment firm based in Lagos and voila! the EndSars aftermath; state wide looting just having recovered from Covid. Entrepreneurship is really not for the faint hearted, the couple of events will go on to buttress my point...

We entered into 2020 really excited and pumped for what the year had for us, we had our goals, strategies, and of course turkey 😜. We were ready! and full of life, we spent the first 2 months trying out new business models, prepping to go full swing.

It was the 27th day of February 2020, the first "confirmed" covid-19 case in Nigeria was announced, I remember looking at my partners and wondering what that meant for us especially considering all our outlets were in malls and public places, everything we had labored so hard to build was about to become a mess, it wasn't before long before the government directed that all public places (malls, etc.) be closed and eventually the nation wide lock down. 

We were shut down for 3 months, in these few months we had accumulated some debts stemming from staff salary to rentals at various locations, amongst others, it was unbelievable what was happening, absolutely no one saw this coming.

The lockdown was eventually eased off and we managed to resume operations in May of the same year, our view was blurry but yet we were determined to follow through till the end.

We incurred debts, moral was low, it wasn't the best of times for any of us, we were really tempted to just count our losses and move on.

When all hope almost seemed to have been lost, we were reached out to by an institutional investor via facebook, we had a brief meeting and reached an agreement after subsequent meetings. The deal was both a direct investment to the company and location expansion; 100 vehicle detailing centers across Africa.

I know, you could as well feel the excitement we felt with this new deal, it was a life saver lol, we were literally super excited, we were finally back!

Preparations commenced, location selection, ops and strategy, due diligence, we were ready! Funds for the first location was released and we commenced our expansion, this time to a new city (Abuja).

The expansion to Abuja was going really smoothly, we were enthusiastic about this new city expansion, we were ready and had processes in place to ensure it was seamless.

In October 2020 the End SARS protest erupted, for context sake; End SARS is a decentralized social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. For a long time there had been series of abuses recorded against the Nigerian Police Force especially on Young folks, this led to what was now known as the End SARS protest.

It went on for weeks, both young and old, particularly the young took to the streets everyday, protesting against Police brutality, this crippled some business activities in Lagos and across a few other parts of the country. On the 20th of October, the Nigerian government issued a sit at home order in a bid to end the protest, this was flawed by a few youths, soldiers got involved and eventually, allegedly opened fire, causing harm and possibly death to a few young folks.

This caused outrage the following day, people took to the streets and eventually hoodlums took advantage of the situation, looting malls, shops, we were not spared, our locations were looted and one eventually set ablaze and burnt to the ground.

I received a call on the 21st of October in the early hours of the morning from the security head at one of the malls where we had an outlet informing me that our outlet had been set ablaze. 

Why would anyone set a car wash ablaze was the question I kept asking myself, this was the second time this would happen, the first was during the xenophobic attack in 2019, it made no sense to me.

Our investors got wind of this information, lost confidence in Nigeria, our business model (owning the locations) and eventually backed out after the first location. We were yet again placed in a dilemma, it made absolutely no sense to us, why would this happen I kept asking myself.

We managed to complete the setup of our Abuja location, commenced operation by December and I returned to Lagos.

We were back to where we left off. We had to figure out a way to rebuild and get back in business, having gone through these crazy emotional roller coasters we had little or no energy left in us.

Nothing made sense, depression was looming but I wouldn't allow it have the better part of me. 

With the very last drop of energy left in me I embarked on a begging spree. I literally reached out to every single person I called friend and a few family members.

By the end of January 2021 we had raised enough money to rebuild, and we were back in business fully by February. We could finally breathe for a while, trying to figure out what our next line of action would be, we were still in shock and hadn't fully recovered from the effects of 2020.

Fast forward to September that same year we were approached by Fixit45 an autotech platform dedicated to redefining the automotive experience for car and fleet owners, facilitating value-creating interactions across stakeholders.

Fixit45 saw opportunities for synergy owning to the fact that we had digitized an entire vertical; vehicle care and decided to make an acquisition offer.

After series of meetings we reached an agreement and eventually got acquired by Fixit45.

I and my entire team also moved to Fixit45 to continue the awesome work we had started while at Parkit, let's see what the future holds for us.

It's been an adventure filled journey I must say, the highs and lows makes it interesting, despite all the challenges faced, we kept our heads high and never let go of the vision.

"All men must die, but we are not men." — Daenerys Targaryen3v1