My friend Henry was my classmate from secondary school to my MBA. He is one of two people who have been with me like that. His younger brother dropped out of school to trade. His parents couldn't dissuade him as a young ambitious Igbo boy. I didn't notice him until a day in 1994.

He came to visit us in school with a brand new car. I then questioned him to understand his source of wealth. He had gone to learned about the margins on bathing soap while trading and decided that the best way to maximize it was to make his own brand of soap for poorer people.

There was a time when a lot of people advertised those soap making classes in newspapers and he went to one of them to learn. He also figured out packaging as he knew that colorful packaging was essential. In a year, he was already a multimillionaire all from selling soap.

He didn't have many shops or locations, he had only one place at Oshodi where he manufactured and packaged the soap. People came to him because the product was moving and they were also making more money. He told me that he could decide how much to make by increasing production.

I was an MBA student at the time and we were learning all the theories of business but this guy was showing me what was possible in real life. I had also just started our tech business with my cofounder but we were dependent on the benevolence of one company.

My good friend and classmate Theo Amadi observed what I was doing and gave me this advice:

You are worse than a salary earner. You have only one source of income and it is irregular.

I started seeking regularity and consistency of income from that day. Found it 20 years later.

Depending on B2B contracts is suicidal. You are not a going concern, you are a temporary contracting entity that can be swapped for others. It was when we started serving the real market directly that I understood. It is a hard hurdle to cross. Contracting is easy.

Entrepreneurship is not all roses and happiness. My friend’s younger brother faced stiff competition from FMCG with better advertising and distribution. He eventually moved abroad. I don't know what he is doing now.

He is, however, still richer than all of us educated people. He built a house when we were still living in a BQ. He bought cars when we were still begging to use my mother’s car. I bought a car that year too. In a way, that young man inspired me to work harder and do more.