Toyosi Orunmuyi is a hospitality investor whose dream is to make affordable luxury holidays available to fun seekers across West Africa. His recent venture is 234 Lofts resorts Lekki, a beach-front property that, according to him, will revolutionise the hospitality industry starting from Nigeria. He spoke to ROTIMI IGE about his reasons for switching from his accounting background to investing in the hospitality business and his vision to boost West African tourism.
Have you always wanted to be in the hospitality business?
I am a homegrown accountant. I’ve had a career from 2005 till now, about 18 years of accounting. I studied at 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 business person. I know numbers from accounting, but the MBA allowed me solve problems. I moved back to Nigeria in 2016, started The Podium Event Center, and that’s been going on for about seven years now.
Tell us about your new beach front resort, 234 Lofts and what inspired it.
We started construction last year and we are launching it now. I want to believe that I am 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 when others dread it because of the economic uncertainty in the country?
I don’t think it was confidence. I think it started out as naivety. When they teach you business plan in school, you come back and think that business plan 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 lived outside Nigeria, what did you experience differently that you would like to replicate here and what other innovative approaches do you plan to introduce?
I think Americans are the best at hospitality. During my time in America, I picked up a lot of stuff. If your food is late, 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.
That was where I learnt customer service proper. Even if a customer is angry, just by putting an additional cup of juice with their order changes the experience entirely and what you want to do in business is 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 one. 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 beach front, this land cannot be sold because it’s zoned as ancestral lands. So, we wanted something that is movable and not permanently fixed. The containers are a little easier to build and quicker to finish. Also the aesthetics, it is unique and a beautiful transformation.
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 ship 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 across West Africa. Aside Ghana, most Nigerians don’t visit countries in West Africa. I really have a dream to grow intra West African tourism.
What else is different, why should people come here?
As far as coastline is concerned, first, 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. So, 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 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, 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 learnt in this peculiar Nigerian economy?
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 pay them. 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 the pandemic for some of my friends and colleagues abroad was that the government gave them grants, tax refunds and things like that. In Nigeria, we did not get anything like that.
How would you describe yourself as a business man?
There are things I enjoy doing, like construction; things that have a start and end time. To witness the joy and fulfillment 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 first things first 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. 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.
The time I spent outside Nigeria, I think, was what broadened my horizon significantly because I was in a programme that took me to a new country every four months. England, Nigeria, Egypt, Dubai, UAE, and the United States. It was a good eye opener as well because I worked in different industries in different countries and that was my first eye opener. Then the MBA was what gave all of those experiences a business structure.
Do you have a plan to sustain your culture?
I think it is really all about process and culture to a point. If you think about the really big companies, Apple started out in someone’s garage. Today, Steven jobs is dead and Apple is still Apple. So, one thing we have to learn to do really well in Nigeria is to build structures that make businesses outlive the visionary. When you have a vision, you can infuse the vision into people. Finding the right people and also trying to infuse that vision.
What keeps you going as an entrepreneur despite all the challenges?
I am a very practical person, you are either going or not. I’ve already decided to go and I most go. Also, people have entrusted their money in my hands. I am usually the one with the vision and execution. I am good at all of those things. I also value my name a lot so I don’t joke with it.
So, even when I am tired and I want to give up, I can’t. l
Can you tell us if you’ve made any bad investments and what you did about it?
My very first business I did in my life. It was only N350,000. I had just moved to Lagos and was being paid N55, 000 per month, so you can imagine how long it took me to save N350,000. That was my life savings. I met this guy who owned a small laundry business. I was his customer.
I thought to invest in his business. With that N350,000, we were going to buy a generator, a golf car, etc. The moment I transferred the money to his account, he disappeared till date. This was 2006.
That taught me something looking back. My trust level for people kind of went down and that was why I started saying let me be the one that people should trust.
Are there any plans for innovation?
Yes, a lot actually. Even though it might not be immediately but yes. A lot of thoughtless, contact less innovation. There are many innovations in the market now with contactless check ins etc. We will bring many new things to the industry.
How much do you value the hospitality sentiment in Nigeria?
I am new in the business but I’ll say hospitality in Nigeria is growing very rapidly, especially the beach-front economy. Travelling abroad, tickets are very expensive now, forex is also very expensive at the moment. So, many people are looking inwards and we will have to up our game as well. Why should we go to Kenya or Maldives when you can be here.
All of our rooms are chalets. We are set on the beach so there is a lot of beach views, serenity, the waves, breeze and more. We have a pretty big swimming pool. It’s called a lazy river pool. We have spas, and themed days to keep everyone entertained. So, think about anything you want, it’s here. Team bonding, reunions, kids’ parties, weddings, birthdays, fine dining etc. I want to do salsa here, yoga too.
We have a partner that is bringing virtual reality games as well. So, it is going to be just entertainment, holistic enjoyment, good music, food and everything in between.
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