The second edition of the Small Business Innovation Challenge (SBIC) organized by KADE KEYO came with a surprise as Marvelous Bolarinwa, founder of Mara Nailed It, who wasn’t originally scheduled to participate in the pitch emerged as the winner.
Four small business owners pitched their business models to an expectant audience at the EridanSpace events hall, Ikeja Lagos which saw Marvelous emerged winner of the 50,000 Naira cash prize on Friday, September 29, 2023.
Marvelous, a nail technician and pedicurist, helps female folks feel confident and beautiful.
She does that by providing a relaxing and enjoyable experience for them to express their personality through their nails.
During the pitch presentation, she fascinated the audience with her understanding of profit margin, and business cost, as well as how her business model has been sustainable despite limited resources.
The other three small businesses who pitched at the SBIC are:
- Ose Binitie (The Idia Food Company Limited) – This enterprise produces a variety of consumables which include alternative energy drinks made from natural fruits.
- Happiness Ukoha (Ukh Happyville Multi-Ventures) – Happiness does corporate errands and kiddies events
- Rebecca Adedire (Guest ‘N’ Host) – This web solution simplifies the process of finding and booking events for guests while also helping hosts to have a complete self-application that helps them sell their tickets.
Unlike the inaugural edition, this second edition had additional perks which includes a $1000 credit in Business Intelligence training powered by Google and provided by RLabs.
The SBIC Challenge 2.0 winner also walks away with the Cash prize of 50,000 Naira powered by Gildre, a global community of founders, innovators, creators, builders and mentors.
Delivering the opening remarks, Tanho Attah, the convener of SBIC said that the project is creating a platform that allows small businesses get access to investments and structure.
According to Tanho, there are a lot of business owners who can’t handle their social media platforms or digital tools as simple as emails, even as we are evolving into a digital economy.
Small businesses that don’t evolve with these trends will be left behind and that is why we created this challenge to help them find pathways to innovation.
“SMEs are the most important enterprise in the world, however, they get the least attention in terms of funding, support and infrastructure”.
“We are going to point whereby every small business owner will see themselves as not small but as a business, knowing what they do is highly beneficial to society.
During the course of the event, Moses Elijah, Head of Partnerships at RLabs discussed “The 6 Thinking Hats for Idea Implementation and Enterprise Evaluation”
Reacting to the emergence of the SBIC second edition winner, Tanho commented, “I am surprised and also very excited because it shows that being a business owner and entrepreneur is about seizing the opportunity when it comes. What happened today has revealed why we are driving this project with all passion to create more opportunities for people to plug into their best potentials.”
According to Tanho, Marvelous emerged as the winner owing to having her core raw facts in terms of numbers, including costs and savings. “In the end, business is all about two things, sales and profit margins and she got them right”
Speaking on her emergence as the winner of the SBIC second edition, Marvelous couldn’t contain her joy, “This announcement makes me so emotional and amazing because I wasn’t prepared to pitch from the offset, I am very grateful for the opportunity by the organizers of the SBIC.”
She disclosed that the funding will be deployed into getting the most important tool kits for business.
On the next edition of the SBIC, Tanho hinted that the project seeks more partnerships to extend the project to the virtual community such that small businesses outside Lagos can be a part of the opportunity. “We are also planning a social media edition as well”, Tanho concluded.
The second edition of the SBIC was powered by KADE KEYO in Partnership with Techeconomy, Studio 10N, Gildre and RLabs Nigeria.
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