Ugonna Ginigeme

Ugonna is a born-entrepreneur whose entrepreneurial aspirations date back to his early childhood days. At age 7, he was already writing about how he wanted to own his own big businesses (manufacturing and trading companies specifically) in future though at the time he didn't know that was called 'entrepreneurship'. He finally got the opportunity to fully explore his entrepreneurship side when he gained admission to study Engineering in the University of Ibadan. As a student entrepreneur, Ugonna ventured into multiple business sectors including launching two fashion businesses, an entertainment and event-organizing business, a snack (shawarma) business, creation and selling of educational materials, trading of gadgets, coffee and so on. Unfortunately, all these business ventures failed despite the hardwork and commitment poured into them. Out of frustration, Ugonna began to investigate the source of his failures and to better understand the problem, he also reached out to other students who were entrepreneurs or had ventured into entrepreneurship and failed. This led to the realization that though many students were interested in entrepreneurship, they usually failed because there were no easy and effective way for them to sell their products or services, and there was no form of support given to them to help them build sustainable businesses. For every student entrepreneur, it was literally a case of On Your Own (OYO). After discovering these challenges and other pressing challenges faced by students, Ugonna became absolutely determined to do something about it and he launched Vasiti.com in 2015 while he was still a student. Over time, many people have described Ugonna as a committed, resilient and hardworking entrepreneur because of the hurdles, challenges, roadblocks and difficulties they have seen him overcome on this entrepreneurial journey especially building Vasiti. Ugonna is always striving to learn, unlearn and relearn, and in times when things seem impossible, he is motivated by the famous quote from Nelson Mandela that says "It always seems impossible until it's done". On the side, Ugonna consults and carries out free strategy sessions for SMEs in the fashion, catering, finance and education sector. When he is not working, he loves to meet new people, hang out with friends or play games especially chess.