Merchant Spotlight: Adeola Owosho ✨
Welcome to another episode of our seller of the month series where we chat with top sellers on Catlog. Today, Adeola is talking to us about his journey as an entrepreneur in Nigeria.
Hello Adeola, it’s good to have you here. Let’s meet you and tell us about your business
My name is Adeola and I run a business called Mazzini. Mazzini is an e-commerce brand that equips remote workers (especially in tech) with workspace materials and gadgets that they need to work from home efficiently.
You can think of it as a one-stop shop for everything you need to set up your home workspace.
How long have you been running your business?
We started Mazzini about 1 year ago
Describe a major highlight of your business.
When we found a winning variant of our product that sold out in 1 week back to back.
What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur?
It's the adrenaline rush for me tbh. The uncertainties, the experiments and the freedom to explore new things make entrepreneurship worthwhile. I don't get to be ordered around by a boss. Instead I lead a team of people who are united together towards bringing an enterprise to life.
I also love the thrill of figuring out what the customer wants, designing products to fill those needs, and finding the simplest way to communicate the value.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced or still face since you started?
2 major things:
1) Low-trust society of people who don't trust online shopping. This makes it difficult to automate stuff and put the business on autopilot. Customers insist on payment on delivery and that really slows down business
2) Weak logistics infrastructure. We need to get a package to Aiyetoro in Ogun state and the only dispatch that goes there (DHL) takes up to 10 days
How do you deal with these challenges?
Today, we just limit our marketing to certain regions that are easily accessible to dispatch riders and safe to receive payment on delivery. It seriously limits scalability but what can we do?
How did you hear about Catlog and why did you decide to sign up?
My friend found Catlog on Twitter and shared the link with me. Business has been bliss ever since
How has Catlog helped your business?
We have finally been able to cut off 50% of the conversations we have with customers in DMs. Instead of texting every customer individually and going back and forth, we just send a Catlog link and they are able to pick up from there and place their orders
What is your favorite feature?
The direct Whatsapp DM feature
What features would you like to see?
I'd like to see Catlog integrate delivery companies APIs so the platform can just order a rider automatically instead of us having to do that all over again on other platforms
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend Catlog to a seller?
10/10 for real
Are there business owners that you look up to?
Omolara Sanni, she is my co-founder and she inspires me a lot
One piece of advice to business owners and aspiring ones
Just start. It doesn't have to make total sense in the beginning. Just start, get feedback and improve and pivot along the way
Mazzini has pivoted 2 times and we might have more coming depending on what we sense from the market.
“It doesn’t have to make sense at the beginning’, we hope that this motivates you to take that leap of faith and start. We are rooting for you.
You can visit Mazzini store on Catlog here
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