How The Igwe Twins Turned Their Fortunes Around With Mobile Food Brand … Made Close To Two Million Naira Turnover in First Year of Business

Igwe Twins

While an average youth on the street today laments furiously about societal neglect and inadequate support from those that matter, there are still a few, who through faith and doggedness prevail in this same society against all odds.

It’s amazing to discover two individuals, though in their twenties, already making meaningful impact through their foray into entrepreneurship. As a matter of fact they were nominees of the last future awards in Nigeria. Future Awards is a fast-rising platform that gives recognition to outstanding youths in all area ofendeavour.  

Let’s focus on the pair of Mr. Tobias Igwe and Titus Igwe popularly referred to as the Igwe Twins. The Igwe brothers, together, run the affairs at Speed Meals, a fast-rising mobile food business, in Apapa, Lagos.  Their services include; cakes, small chops, cooked food delivery and catering services. Today, they have had the opportunity of providing services to high net worth individuals in Nigeria.  Amazingly, the two young CEOs were able to make a turnover of two million naira within the first year they opened shop. The business was officially registered in June 2010.

Brief Background of Igwe Twins:

The passion for anything culinary came natural to the Igwe twins who said they came from an average family where cooking was done mainly by the boys.  Growing up for Tobias and Titus was really a tough one, especially at the demise of their father. This tragic event occurred while they were both undergraduate students of the University of Lagos. With younger siblings to cater for, bills and school fees to pay; it was pretty rough and tough.

They both tried their hands on quite a few petty businesses like phone call centre, business centre and what have you.  But none did survive for too long due to one reason or the other. One of them had to stop school while the other continued. They also found themselves at one occasion working as office assistants just to make a living. It was during this tough time that they struck gold. 

Here, the Igwe twins share their startup experience with SDE! readers, as well as give guide on how to start your own corporate mobile food business.

How the Business Idea was birthed

Idea is said to rule the world. One good idea that meets a demand in the market is sufficient to change one’s fortune. The idea to turn the art of cake making to business came about in 2008. Back then, one of the twins had the privilege of meeting one-on-one with a young cake expert who opened their eyes to the business side of cake.  The two brothers were fascinated about the creativity and how it can pull in cash for them. And without wasting time, they learnt the skill and the rest as they say, is history.

 The Igwe twins said they discovered that Lagos is a very busy city especially with the huge traffic. Many people complain of being busy at work to the extent that they don’t have time to eat. More so, they found themselves residing in an area densely populated by businesses. Based on these facts, the twins decided to come up with a food concept that delivers food to offices.   

 One way to derive maximum pleasure from a business is to build it around one’s personality trait. The Igwe twins explained that they enjoyed being on the go. They detest just sitting down doing the same thing repeatedly but prefer to explore. So, when they had to make a decision about the kind of business they would do, they both agreed it would be a mobile one.

How They Honed Their Skill:

Talent they say is not enough. Perhaps, this was the driving force that propelled the young entrepreneurs to further hone their skills. Titus said: “Tobias and I did not rely on just our raw culinary skills and went to bed, we were smart enough to learn the art of cake making and other culinary dishes from the best hands here in Lagos. We also enrolled in the Fate Foundation School to learn more about what entrepreneurship is all about. Here, we learnt about business plan, management, record-keeping and so on. All these further gave us exposure and has impacted greatly in the way we run Speed Meals Mobile Food Business today” he enthused.    

The Business Model:

 Successful businesses are known to run on models. Model simply means pattern, system or the approach which you want to operate or drive your business. The Igwe Twins decided to raise the bar by expanding from doing just cakes to making real meals. Now, there are various ways of positioning the one’s business depending on the type of client or market you want to attract. For the Igwe twins, they resolved that rather than have a full fledge restaurant, they would focus on busy executives, who as a result of the nature of their jobs would prefer a food vendor who delivers to their offices. Today, Speed Meals run a mobile food delivery business model which entails preparing real meals for corporate clients.

How they got their Start up capital:

Capital is one hurdle that has stalled the dream of many youths who want to go into business today. For the twins, they were able to adopt the strategy of giving out free samples of their cakes to several potential clients to taste. After which the two became expectant that they would land a deal. And not too long afterwards a cake deal worth about N90,000 came from one of those who tasted their free samples. This was enough to jump-start their business. With that, they were able to purchase a few of their equipment.

How they attracted their clients

The survival of any business is the ability to pull-in clients to buy from you. When the twins started the business with cakes, they knew they could not afford the cost of advertising and so they came up with a strategy. The church was their first contact.  They knew that kids would always be attracted to cakes.  So, the twins would make very good cakes, take it to church and share it with kids. This was done freely for a while. And the children would announce it to their parents that they were given cakes by the twins. This was one strategy that began to announce the arrival of the twin cooks to the public. The twins also adopted another strategy which was to visit churches within their neighborhood that had classes for intending couples. They would seek the consent of the official in-charge and offer free cakes to the class. These two major strategies brought in jobs for them as well as referrals even till date.

How they branded their business:

Branding is about creating an identity in the market place. It is bringing to bear the unique value your business has to the market place such that every of your target market identifies you with it. Without it, there’s every possibility that you may not last for long amidst fierce competition.

For Tobias and Titus, they were quick to embrace the importance of branding.  No wonder they went the extra-mile to engage the services of a brand agency to help come up with their brand profile. “We are gradually positioning our business as a global brand.” Titus explained. Speed Meals, pioneered by the twins have been able to position itself as a brand that provides quality, quick and professional mobile food service. 

How to keep your customers:

Your customers are your greatest asset. According to the Igwe twins, attracting customers can really be challenging but more challenging is even retaining them. “But overtime, we’ve been able to crack the code. One of the ways to keep your customers is to make them your friend. People like to keep tab of their friends. So, we make a conscious effort to call our customers and find out about their well-being. We have records of their special days like birthdays, wedding anniversaries and other occasions as the case may be and we call them to congratulate them on such occasions.”   

Igwin Twin in training session

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How To Drive Traffic To Your Brand Using Public Campaign

Your brand is your asset. Your reason for being in the market place is because of your brand. your capacity to employ any staff is because your brand enjoys consumer patronage. 

Now, the ability of an organization to sustain that patronage is because of the right key to traffic generation. Listen, a brand without traffic is fast approaching the grave, believe or not. But yours can never be if you can just take time to learn from this piece.

One little strategy that has worked for so many bigger brands in Nigeria is the trick to ride on the back of education. Guess what? The impact of brands in public education or enlightenment cannot be underestimated. This is due to its potency to create brand visibility and positive perception.

The power of “brand to educate” can be better understood looking at the Dettol campaign which runs on TV. The effectiveness of the campaign is said to manifest through our children who would echo one after the other, "We should wash our hands with Dettol soap". I had not taken their comments seriously until they persisted.

It is important to state that brands that are dedicated to enhancing the quality of life, build a sustainable image over a long period of time. Public education campaigns go the extra mile to connect directly with the public. It creates an instantaneous acceptability for ones brand due to its advantage of knowledge sharing to the public. The Dettol Health campaign is a perfect case study, indeed an eye opener to what brands can do to promote public good and influence them to take concrete steps to better their lives. This type of strategy has soared the sales of Dettol brand and will do same for yours.

When brands enlighten and educate the public, such brands remain in the hearts of the consumers making them become brand loyalist. The functional benefits of such brands are also properly promoted to the consumers. There is no way such a brand will not occupy distinct advantage in the market.

With the campaign which is targeted at the school pupils, the brand is being positioned to make them become influencers on their parents. Through the published educative manual, the school pupils have automatically become health champions. The branding campaign is a well structured communication dedicated to public awareness in maintaining health standard..

One major fact that companies with consumer brands should realise is the need to embark on a long term investment on their brands. Some companies tend to focus on profitability alone without considering the interests of consumers. When brands are consumer driven, activities are embarked upon to promote public good.

Brands should seek to activate educational and enlightenment programmes that will impact positively on the brand's image and on the long run benefit the public. When brands are consumer driven, the consumers will always be the focus of all brand activities and programmes.

We need brands to educate and enlighten the consumers more on issues that affect them directly. This tells the consumers that brands are not only after their purchase alone but also their welfare. Brands can develop and thrive when they offer consumers something that they want and need which are beneficial and relevant to their lives. The ultimate result is that consumers will have intimate and powerful relationship with such brands.