3, 2, 1: How Ms Nella’s founder merges school + work + home!

Now this was one interview that I enjoyed, but took the longest time to sort out! And it’s my fault… The process of getting an entrepreneur, scheduling and having the interview, and then writing up can be a lot but nope, not making excuses. Just trying to get you to temper justice with understanding!

Right! We’re bringing this interview right after the one with the King of Interns with a personal friend and all-round gorgeous lady, Adetola Taylor. Now Detola is a mom, a Dentist ( the prettier ones are usually put in Dentistry she says *wink*) who graduated from the University of Lagos and has a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Warwick.

She’s also the brain behind MsNella products. The range currently features hair and body butters made from a Shea butter base.

Let’s get into it already!

FGS: Let’s start with the number 3 – if you were told everything you had would be taken from you and you could only keep three things, what would they be?
DETOLA: Hmm, do these three things include people or just inanimate objects?
FGS: Any three… you decide if you want to mix them or not!
DETOLA: My wedding rings, my family, my memory
DETOLA: Phew! Never had to answer that question before. Definitely a difficult one.
FGS: Love your answer! Let’s talk a bit about your work – how does a doctor dabble into hair and body butters?
DETOLA: Haha! I’ve always been fashionable I guess. I repressed it cause I thought I needed to be taken seriously. And spending all that time in medical school never really leaves room for much else.
DETOLA: I stumbled on the hair butter by accident. I had just had a baby and while I have been blessed with good hair all my life, I realised I was losing hair because the pregnancy hormones were slowly leaving my body. My hair was coming out in tufts. So I decided to give my hair a breather from relaxers (I usually used to apply relaxers twice a year prior to baby)
DETOLA: While on the break from relaxers, I started researching into products that would help me restore my hair and nurse it back if you will, to former status and that’s how the hair butter came to be.

FGS: You must have hit gold with your research because you now produce the hair butter and distribute across continents! How easy was it going commercial?
DETOLA: Not very easy, because now that I am no longer selling to friends and family I have to put systems in place.
DETOLA: I now have to register the business, get a NAFDAC number and think about an advertising budget and distribution.

FGS: Do you have that locked down now? Can I apply to join your sales team?
DETOLA: Ha ha! I wouldn’t say I do. You see money answereth all things. I am working on raising capital to execute it all though.

FGS: How does your family feel about their doctor mom/wife/daughter’s side hustle?
DETOLA: Very supportive (well except my dad who doesn’t know that I have a beauty side hustle). In actual fact, they believe producing these products are way better suited to me than being a doctor. Oops!
FGS: Two things that make you keep on whenever you feel like giving up?
DETOLA: 1. Testimonials from customers. It humbles me to have a product that someone actually wants. 2. My husband. His total belief in this business leaves me no room to throw a pity party.
FGS: How do you juggle the home, school, and your business?
DETOLA: Hmmm!
DETOLA: Honestly? I don’t know
DETOLA: Sometimes I think I’m mad
DETOLA: Ha ha. My friends have called me mad
DETOLA: But I grew up tough and I think that has helped shape my perspective of life. Someone out there is doing this and has not died so why can’t I?

FGS: Lol… What would you tell a young potential entrepreneur to watch out for?
DETOLA: Hmmm… Amass a war chest.
DETOLA: I’m no entrepreneur honestly. I just found a business doing stuff I like. Hard-core entrepreneurs go all out. I just believe I have been lucky and even I don’t believe in luck 🙂
FGS: But surely you have done a few things right to be where you are today…
DETOLA: I must have ☺. Knowledge is not overrated. If you’re going to do something, know it in and out. If there is a part of your business you believe you will need help with, get the best help you can find. I am totally poor when it comes to doing the books but I get help with these things.

FGS: And I have to ask, how do you source your ingredients? Locally (Nigerian) or from international locations?
DETOLA: Since I’m currently in the UK, I source from here. Back when I was in Nigeria, I used Nigerian sources. Either way, I find the cheaper source and keep my products affordable.

Because I was rounding up my masters, I put the business on hold. Attending a cosmetics course in the summer and relaunching with new packages. Keep an eye out!
FGS: Ok. Finally, one thing you’ve done that you’d do again, again, and again…
DETOLA: Not see the whole staircase but take the first step.
FGS : That’s it!
FGS : You’re amazing Detola. Thank you!
DETOLA: No, thank you! Thank you!!

And that’s my gorgeous friend and brain behind Ms Nella, Detola!
PS: Her efo riro is not even of this world! Dang!

All MsNella products can be purchased from the online store msnella.me or physically from SocialLagos-94 Awolowo road Ikoyi. You can also find MsNella products on Konga.

3, 2, 1 SERIES: AN HOUR WITH MISS LINDSEY!

Welcome to the 3, 2, 1 series, my name is ………. (don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time now)….. Ok! To the business of the day!

About a year ago I did a story on this brainy beauty who had just been evicted from MTN’s Project Fame (a move I still consider faulty, flawed, insert more adjectives as you wish). That story is here.

Recently my Fairy antennas picked up that she has a song out vewwy vewwy soon; and so with a rousing applause, welcome latest interviewee to the 3, 2, 1 series, Miss Lindsey Abudei, on twitter as @MissLind_Sea. Enjoy!

The delectable Miss Abudei!

FGS: Lindsey is…..?

Lindsey: Lindsey is a young girl who totally loves music; she’s a graduate of law as well

FGS: when did you fall in love with music? Was it ‘from the womb’ or something you picked up?

Lindsey: I think I’d like to say it came right on the day I was born; my mum told me music had to play for me to fall asleep and had to stay on till I woke up. Any abrupt change in that mood would make me wake up, plus I grew up waking to music play almost every morning

FGS: I bet NEPA/PHCN was a lot better then than it is now or else your parents would either have spent a fortune on fuelling generators, or become musicians themselves

Lindsey: you bet that!

FGS: what’s your kind of music?

Lindsey: it’s neo-soul/alternative… could either be on its own or in fusion

FGS: do you make the kind of music you listen to or do you bring out different from what you take in?

Lindsey: I make music that has got the influence of the kind of music I listen to…

FGS: and how long have you been making music professionally?

Lindsey: for about 7 years

FGS: wow, that’s a while! Do you have an album out?

Doing what she does best.....

Lindsey: no I don’t, it’s in the works though

FGS: ‘Drift Away’ was your first single released, what has the response to that been?

Lindsey: yes it was…The response has been good…pretty flattering too I must add

FGS: three things you took away from your time on MTN’s Project Fame and how they have helped you grow?

Lindsey: exposure, more skill and a network. I’ve grown in the sense that I’ve become more confident in myself and my music too

FGS: when Lindsey isn’t singing, what is she doing?

Lindsey: she’s doing poetry, reading, playing indoor games or going for the next play reading if she can.

FGS: in a blog post I did on you earlier I talked about you defending a criminal and singing their defence to the judge or jury…. So we know you’re a lawyer; what’s the plan? How do you plan to blend music with law?

Lindsey: music is my first love…It’s in my plan to take it up seriously…law could serve as my fall back plan when active music is done…Would probably take up entertainment law… And about me singing in court, yeah I remember…That’d be a funny one for me to see!

FGS: question from a fan, “who is the man who inspires you to write all these great songs?

Lindsey: lol…Well ‘Drift Away’ came from a heart break; don’t know about any other men for the others…

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf/MP3

FGS: lol, will pass that message on to the fan (also known as )! You have a new single coming out in a couple days, the 10^th of September….

Lindsey: Yes I do. Wouldn’t exactly call it a single though but yeah I’ve got a song coming out on the 10th of September

FGS: What was the inspiration for that (read as me building on the question from a fan), and why wouldn’t you call it a single?

Lindsey: I felt like doing something different… So I had this random idea to do a song that’d give a different feel from most of the songs we’ve heard in a while or in the past year from the Nigerian entertainment scene…

FGS: I know! The one beat 20 different artists/lyrics kind of music right?

Lindsey : You could say that… lol!

FGS: Two things you would want to have/be by 2015?

Lindsey : A much better musician and at least a Grammynomination/award

I really like this one!

FGS: whoop whoop!!! And you know you’ve got what it takes girl!!

Lindsey: *curtsying*

FGS: Looking to the future now, would you ever do a song in any of the major languages (Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Pidgin)?

Lindsey: I could…I’ve come to see how that ties to our identity or even mine as a Nigerian; I guess you could say I’d do “classy Nigerian”

FGS: lol at classy Nigerian! Tell us what the new song is about…..

Lindsey : Am I allowed to spill the beans now?*watching my back*

FGS: ahhhhhh, suspense kind of thing yeah? That’s fine, we totally understand. Final question, who would you give anything to do a collabo with?

Lindsey: I’ve got a couple of people…Lagbaja is one though

FGS: and that one is enough! Thank you Lindsey!!!!

Lindsey: Thank you too

Lindsey: *hugs*

FGS: mwah!!

More @MissLind_Sea......

There you have it, Miss Lindsey Abudei! Come back here late on the 9^th to listen to the song first!

 Related articles

• An hour with Elnathan 2011
• An hour with Onyeka Nwelue
• An hour with Zubair

INTRODUCING THE 3, 2, 1 SERIES!!!

So the only permanent thing in life is change right? That’s why now you don’t look the same way you looked when you were 2, 6, 12, or even 16 years old.That’s also the reason why you know a lot more than you knew last month, a fortnight ago, last week, and even yesterday! By the way, what have you learned recently? According to Benjamin Franklin, “what has become clear to you since we last met?”

On to the issue of the day, recently I discovered that to fully understand a statement/claim/pronouncement a person has made, it will help to find out a little about them. Most times it not only helps to put what they’ve said in context, but it also accords them the credibility (or not) to make such claims. For example, you are more likely to believe a counsellor who has been married for 30 years with 3 kids and 5 grandchildren in a ‘how to make your marriage last’ seminar than you would believe a jerry curled, shaped eyebrows, American/British accented fella about whom stories of strings of relationships have been spun. Get my drift?

That’s what the 3, 2, 1 series is all about. Innovation brought to the blog to help every one’s understanding of the issues carried/discussed here. Someone says something insightful (or otherwise), and I interview them on this blog to find out what place they were at when they did or said what they did. I only recently decided to tag it thus because I needed a justification for the interviews, and an explanation for you!

Regardless of who I’ll be interviewing, there will be three questions totally unrelated to the discussion which get thrown in at different times during the chat, just because I am the Fairy GodSister and they are bound to answer! Lol! Seriously though, it’s just a way to be different, and to probe deeper than regular interviews would.

So far I have interviewed Zubair Abubakar, the young man behind the Nigerian Constitution for Blackberry App, I’ve also interviewed Elnathan John on the back of an article he wrote explaining the uprising in Northern Nigeria after the Presidential elections in April.  Recently I interviewed Onyeka Nwelue, another young Nigerian after he wrote an article around the very controversial GEJ Lunch.

I have my sights on a young lady whose organization is interested in dissecting the constitution in a way younger Nigerians will understand and then going round secondary schools to have interactive sessions with them. With time, the 3, 2, 1 series hopes to be the place where new talent is showcased, people doing great things are revealed, and brilliance nurtured and encouraged.

I’ll try my best to give advance notice of the people I’ll be interviewing on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus so you can send me whatever questions you’ve got for the people in advance so keep in touch! If there’s someone you’d like to see featured on this blog, I’d advise that you read the three interviews I’ve done already and if you still want me to talk to your person, send an email to dfairygodsister@yahoo.com with their name, email address, and the reason they should be featured in the 3, 2, 1 series! Easy as that!

So, welcome to the 3, 2, 1 series, I trust you will enjoy it!