Her name’s Honey Ogundeyi and she has been running Fashpa, an e-commerce platform for shopping African fashion for really cheap, for more than three years now.
While Honey considers herself pretty young in the entrepreneurial space in Nigeria, she thinks she has learnt a gang load of stuffs in the course of building and running her startup, and that her experiences are worth sharing.
“For sure I don’t know it all; I’ve only been running my business for three years now so I understand that in entrepreneurial world I’m still a baby. But I’ve learnt so much along the way and I’ve had a lot of successes as as well as I’ve made a ton of mistakes,” Honey said.
Through the vlog, which is known as Side Hustle to Empire, Honey hopes to achieve one thing: document her entrepreneurial journey for others to learn from because, in her own words, “I think passionately we as Africans don’t document our journey to building empires enough.”
On the vlog, Honey will talk about startups and how to build a global African business, which is what Fashpa is by the way. She’ll talk about raising money, making money, hiring, firing and stuffs like that.
The first edition of the vlog is out already and it’s really a must watch. Here are a few extracts from the whole show.
1. Launched three years ago, Fashpa is a fashion technology business based in Lagos, Nigeria. The startup has clients spread across the globe and its aim is to change the way people shop for African fashion.
2. Fashpa started as a side hustle – this explains why the vlog is known as Side Hustle to Empire – when Honey was working as an Industry Manager at Google Nigeria.
3. Honey is an accidental entrepreneur. Before Fashpa, she was not in any way involved in any startup activity; she was never attracted to the entrepreneurial world. Fashpa was born to solve a problem she had; difficulty shopping African fashion.
4. She missed the 9 – 5 life. She misses the salary (she has worked at McKinsey and Ericsson both within and outside Nigeria, so you can imagine), the travelling and the free food at Google Nigeria. 
5. For Honey, the fact that she’s able to work on something she loves and passionate about, and seeing it grow from idea to an actual product people use is one of the best things about being an entrepreneur. Also, she reckons she might not have got the recognition, accolades and what have you she has today if she didn’t start Fashpa.
6. The worst thing about being an entrepreneur? For Honey, it’s the loneliness.
So, that’s it. Truthfully, it was an interesting watch. Those parts where Honey displayed her funny side added spice to the show; worked fine for me. Side Hustle to Empire would be out every week. Click here to subscribe.
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