Interview with a Nigerian Noodle Entrepreneur

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. All good?

Yes, sir. All good.

And you're doing it up here or downstairs?

Downstairs.

Have you seen our setting here?

I'll, I'll take a look in here. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Let's take a look for sure.

Might be good to do it here.

Definitely.

So you have a view of the live view of the port. It's a live view of the port.

Wow.

You can see the cranes moving-

Yeah

... which means they're offloading.

This is incredible.

And this is all our products that we make in Nigeria.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

Wow. What was the first product you brought to

Nigeria?

Indomie.

Indomie?

Yeah.

Those are the noodles?

Noodles.

Correct me if I'm wrong, you have the biggest noodle company in

Nigeria right now.

In Africa.

In Africa?

Yeah.

Well, what was the inspiration there?

Well, I grew up with it, so, uh, we figured out that

if we can bring a affordable

product into Africa.

Where are you from?

Indonesia originally.

Indonesia. I heard Bali is really pretty.

Bali's super.

Yeah. So why Nigeria? What brought you to Nigeria initially?

I came here for a long weekend, and I never left.

What did you love about it?

People. Wonderful people.

And are you very optimistic about the future of the country?

I lived here for 30 years permanently, but there's no better place in Africa than

Nigeria.

And, uh, if we, if we take a look on this wall right here-

Yeah

... we see Kellogg's. You know, you've partnered up with some of the

biggest

companies in the world. Before you had such massive brand

partners, what

was it that led to you to be able to land some of the partnerships with the biggest

companies in the world?

So when we partnered with Indomie first, that established us as a player that can

compete with any global player. So the biggest competition we had here

was Nestle

at that time, and Nestle launched Maggi.

Eventually, over time, we surpassed Maggi's business,

and we eventually bought the

machines from Maggi. So we knew in our head

that we can compete with any

multinational in the world. That set the benchmark for us to create a

platform

here to bring in global multinationals to come and partner us.

Now, well, we see the products, we see the beverages,

but you mentioned up here

that this is a live view of the shipping right here.

You see the trucks moving.

Yeah. So do you own the different verticals of

the chain?

Like, do you do the shipping and the manufacturing as well, or-

We don't. We don't. We don't. We own the port. We

are partners in the port.

You need to go here.

Yeah, you gotta check it out.

You need to go here. It's unbelievable

that this infrastructure exists in this part

of the world.

Yeah. Well, we'll check it out. And, and for those that don't know, like,

how big

is your company today?

Total revenue, we will exceed $2 billion,

and we employ 25,000 people.

I love it, man. Well, let's head out front and do the interview.

Let's do it.

Did you have people that doubted you when you went into business for yourself?

Oh, yeah, initially, yes.

Yeah.

A lot of people doubted that Nigerians will ever eat noodles,

but it's the

10th-largest noodle-consuming country in the world.

Do you have any idea growing up that you were gonna go into the noodle

business?

No, I did not.

You didn't. What was your turning point?

When I came to Nigeria.

Were you a big noodle consumer before?

I was.

Yeah.

I grew up with noodles.

Yeah.

So the whole family came and said, "Yeah, can we market noodles here?" And we said,

"Yeah, let's give it a shot." Took us 10 years to

build the basics, 20 years to

build the, the brand. Now number-one brand in, uh, Nigeria.

How did you make that happen? Like, how did you scale it-

Hard work

... to that size?

Hard work.

Beyond that, there was the partnerships, was the distribution. What was it?

Oh, yeah, we built everything. We built everything from scratch,

from building the

noodle plant, to the packaging plant, to the carton plant, to the seasoning

plant, and now to the palm plantation.

So from farm to table, that's what we have done.

What's a lesson about money that you learned

that you would give to a young

entrepreneur? 'Cause cash is often the downfall of a lot of

companies in today's

world. So what's a piece of financial advice

that you would give to the younger

gen-

In- invest. If you have any savings, invest. Don't save. Invest.

You make more money investing than saving.

Did your company make a lot of money right away?

No.

No.

It took us a long time.

How long?

A good 20 years.

Really?

About.

So you thought very long term when you were building the business.

Very long term.

Why is that?

That's what it takes. It's not a short-term business, you know?

It's not a tech business or AI business where you make quick bucks.

This is a consumer business. Consumer business,

you have to build over time.

How does somebody create a winning product in today's world?

Do you have a formula for creating a winning product?

Yeah. Right product, right taste, right price.

So do you try to find the lowest price with, like, the best quality?

Is that one of your-

The best quality is the first thing, and then you find the right price, not the

lowest price.

Why not?

All our products are premium price.

I like that, though.

Yeah.

Because oftentimes when you have the lowest price,

then the perceived value goes

way down, is what you're saying.

Yeah, exactly.

How old are you now?

65.

And if me and you died tomorrow, and you had one more message to leave with

the

younger generation, what would that be?

Keep walking.

Why?

Any situation in life, you keep walking.

Well, thank you so much for your time.