← Konnected Minds Podcast with Derrick Abaitey
Konnected Minds Podcast with Derrick Abaitey
Segment: Stop Crying About Capital - If You Can't Raise 20,000 Cedis, Check Your Friends
00:10:56
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Transcript25 lines
- [00:00]
A
Let your yea be yay and your no be no. Then let's get to the more important thing. What idea do you want to pursue? If the idea is good, you will have people fund it. When people give you their money, break your back and return them a good investment, you know what happens? They will instantly give you back the money. Because the money people invest is not money that they are going to eat today or money that they are going to spend today. So if you are diligent and you are growing their money, they always bring you back money and the business will grow. A lot of people say they don't have capital. What idea do they have? The idea is more important than the capital. I'm going to explain to you further. Okay? If you have a good idea and you need 20,000 to start.
- [00:46]
B
Yep.
- [00:47]
A
And you can get 2,000 cities from 10 people, is that not 20,000? If you are in this country and you can't raise 2,000 cities to start your idea, then you should check who you work with or who are your friends or who you are. Or who you are. Yes. As a person. Because if you are someone who's built a good name, you should be able to raise 20,000.
- [01:05]
B
You think a 19 year old or a 20 year old should be able
- [01:08]
A
to raise a 20 year old might not need to start with 20,000. Okay. I started my business with thousand cedis.
- [01:15]
B
All right, talk to me.
- [01:17]
A
How I was selling water, tanker water. My major business was that that's how I blew. And I started it on credit. The guy will give me the water. I'll go and sell it to Ridge in Ridge Tow. I'll come back, Fidelity bank will pay me. I'll come and pay him. I used to make 100 cities on a trip. It got the time. It was costing me 100 cities to go for my money. But I kept on. Then brawl came and they took over the buildings. And all of a sudden my business blew up. I had about four other towers to supply. Still making 100 cedis on a trip. But if I do 80 trips a day or if I do 80 trips a week, that's 8,000 cities. So my life changed. We have to be consistent. Just don't give up. See the future. Sometimes you start a business, you are not making too much and because of that you want to quit. But if you grow the business well, very soon it will have exponential growth and your money will increase. We should also understand this business is profit and loss. Most of us only focus on profit. We don't think about Loss. So understand that sometimes you lose money. And losing money is not the end of the world. I know people who have started businesses and are the least challenged or the least loss.
- [02:35]
B
What should people do when the losses come?
- [02:37]
A
Brace yourself up and go again. Think better. The losses teach you wisdom. It teaches you lessons. And what are lessons for? To make your life better. I lose money. Don't think I'm sitting there. I don't lose money. I've lost money. I've lost land. I've lost two houses in Pilatu. When I started this was in the early teens. I lost two houses that I built. I'd roofed. Someone took me to court for a whole year. We're going to court, wasting our time. One day we went to court and I told my lawyer that this thing is draining me. It's taking me. He should let them take the building. I'm going. He didn't understand. But by letting that building go, I've built more houses. Because going to court every day. I don't know if you've gone to court in Ghana before. There you go. You are safe. You are not safe. Cases are joined. And because of that, it held me back because I wasn't moving. I was waiting to settle the matter. But once I let go of those buildings with a little I have, I moved on to other things. And by the grace of God. Look at me now.
- [03:34]
B
That's some of the stories that a lot of, you know, successful people don't tell young people.
- [03:40]
A
The failure. We lose. We lose too. We lose. I've lost lands. Last year I did a transaction and I lost bigly. Like I'm talking serious money. But what did I do? Quickly I looked for other opportunities that I could do to make some quick money to show up for the cash that I'm losing. And by the grace of God, I'm on it. So don't think that we don't lose. It's risky. So there's profit and there's loss. Just make sure your profit is more than your loss. And tough times come. There was a day that I had house. I had about five houses sitting down. And my wife needed thousand cedis to go to the hospital. And I didn't have the money. And I was too embarrassed to tell her I didn't have the money. So I went for a walk, a long walk. I'll come. And I realized she's still at home. So I'll go again because I thought she would use her money. And later on. But that day I learned something that as A businessman, you shouldn't put all your money in stocks and materials. Have a little cash for emergency. A lot of us put so much money in our business that we don't even have any cash anywhere for an emergency day like this day that my wife wanted to go to the hospital. So since that time, I've learned to keep some money for a rainy day. And these are lessons that you can only learn on the grind. Nobody can teach you. As for the losses, every now and then they come. I went into car business with my friend. We shipped cars. A whole container fell into the sea. There was fire on the ship. They rescued people, or there was a fire on the ship and some people went to rescue it and they held the cargo hostage. Or they said, there's this technology they use in marine. So they seize the goods, basically. So we lost a whole container of cars. Four cars. We didn't die. We moved on. Today we are bringing brand new cars from China to sell. I don't call them failures, okay? I call them challenges. They make you wiser. They make you stronger. Now when we ship, we do insurance. At the time, we're not insuring our goods. And now when we ship, we insure. How did we land up? By losing that container. So I don't want to term them as failures. There are challenges that you face that make you better. Now, when I'm going on a land, before I pay for a land, I do a proper test. A proper test includes going on the land to pretend that I'm measuring it or I'm digging it or something. Because land speaks. Once you do that, whatever is on the land will come before you even pay for it. Yes. Recently, someone wanted to give me some land at the airport. I called my guy. I said, well, do we have roofing sheet for hoarding? They said, yeah. I said, okay, go and hoard this land. Saturday, we're there. Hoarding. We're hoarding. Hoarding. A big man. I saw two calls. One from a top developer I know who is friends with a very big man, and another one from the big man's pa. So once I saw the call, I said, why are these people calling me? I'd even forgotten that they were holding the land. As soon as I picked up call, my senior man said, hey, Saka, you are stealing Mr. Susan's land. I said, oh, Chief, tell him not to panic. I'm just testing the land. Someone wanted to give it to me. If it's not experience, I would have given that guy $50,000 because he wanted 50,000 me to commit $50,000 in day and day. I said no, let me test the land first. And this comes with experience because the land was selling for so much that 50,000 was just a flash in the pan. So if he says the land is for him and give him 50 and go on the land and pay the rest later, you'll be tempted to do that. Yeah, yeah. But one thing that I've also come to learn that I want to share is that.
- [07:23]
B
Let me stop you here for a minute. So if it's your first time watching Connected Minds or you have been here before but still have not subscribed, do us a favor because majority of the people that watch our videos have not subscribed. This doesn't help us grow beyond what we expect. So help us by hitting the subscribe button. Thank you. Now let's get back to the conversation.
- [07:47]
A
When it's too good to be true, indeed it's too good to be true. Trust me, I know the luckiest guy. I know the wisest guy. So always be careful. When it's too good to be true, it's indeed too good to be true. So be careful.
- [07:58]
B
Let's talk about your journey to real estate. When did that journey start, the real estate aspect of your businesses?
- [08:08]
A
I went into real estate by chance. It's not like I plan to go into real estate. When I started making money from my water business and other things that I was doing, I was into graphic designing, I was printing T shirts. I was doing all sorts. I basically do from Amina to Zinabu, anything to give me good money, any opportunity. I see. But then I built a house, my first house because I was making decent money and I wanted to build a place for myself. When I built that house, I put a to let sign on it that I was going to rent it out because I wasn't married. It was a four bedroom and we had a place for playing pool. It was quite a nice house. And so a couple came and said that they. They had the house was on sale at the time. I was desperately looking for a business, a stable business because the water I was chancing on Ghana waters inefficiencies. I knew that eventually one day things would get better in Ghana and I wouldn't have the opportunity to sell tanker water.
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B
Right.
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A
So it was that incident that brought my mind to the fact that I could be building homes to sell. And that's how I entered real estate.
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B
Because the couple came in and said they wanted to buy it.
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A
Yes, I had built it to Rent it. But by day saying they wanted to buy it. It brought my attention to the fact that I could build and sell.
- [09:30]
B
Okay, so after you sold it, then what was the plan with the money you received? How did you I built more turn it into okay.
- [09:38]
A
At the time I was selling it. Before they moved in. Ghana Highways Authority marked the road the house for a road. Highway, right. So I had to refund their money. But later on Atamil's first time, I was compensated for the building. I was given $125,000. At the time was 125,000 cedis. And he demolished it. I went to demolish it myself. I took the roof, I took the doors, I took all I could take and I used it. Plus the money that I had and the money that I was given to build three houses in Paraco Estate.
- [10:14]
B
And that's how did you have the land there already?
- [10:16]
A
No, I acquired the land. That land was a low land. I filled it with 300 trips of sand. I got the 300 trips from the construction of the N1. At the time. I bought a trip for 100 cities. So it was 30,000 for 300 trips. They needed somewhere to go and dump their trips. And they wanted somewhere close. And Paraku was close to them. So they filled the land for me was a low lying land. They filled it. I put three houses there.
- [10:44]
B
These times you had no experience in real estate. You just built it.
- [10:48]
A
And I knew that. I knew the architects were there. Connected minds podcast.