Adekunbi starts her entrepreneurial journey at the tender age of 9 years , when she noticed that there were few quality greeting cards in the city where she attended boarding school compared to her hometown Lagos. She then smartly decides to buy the cards and sell them at school at a decent profit margin . Many years later as an undergraduate, she realized that with graduation fast approaching she did not have the necessary skills required to make her an effective employee. She then proceeds to pound the pavement in search of an internship opportunity. Upon encountering resistance and confusion from potential employers, she realizes that several companies were unaware of the power of internships. Her epiphany coupled with several long months spent developing her business plan, she launches her company while still in school. Today, her company has helped train and place over 300 students in several small and medium scale companies as short term interns. With several interns being retained on a full-time basis post engagement. Through Sesewa’s efforts the problem of rising youth unemployment (90% of college grads are jobless 1year after graduation) is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Her goal is to reach the students while their still in school, train them on the necessary soft skills required to keep their jobs and help them locate the best matched internship positions that will enable the young careerists become better professionals in and outside the workplace.
What you will learn
- The Big Idea
- How she founded the company because of the growing rate of unemployment in the country
- Insight into the disparity of the educational tools given to students vs. what is expected from them in the workplace
- How she became the middleman between companies and students to facilitate internships
- How timing plays a huge role in gaining workplace experience
- Challenges and obstacles faced in establishing and running a business
- How she gets companies to participate in the various internship programs
- The early successes of the company
- How she prepares future interns to go into the workforce
- Starting her entrepreneurial journey at an early age
Key Advice
- Get a mentor: Getting the right guidance and having the opportunity to rely on someone else’s years of experience, and learning from the mistakes they’ve made, sets you on the right path.
- Get a board for your company: A group of people to whom you are accountable gives structure and balance to a company.
Words of wisdom
- Advice for recent grads/young people who want to start: Be prepared for a bumpy ride, but know that the other side of it is beautiful and very rewarding. Go for it!! There are no perfect conditions. Do what you have to do today. There is no perfect time.
Books and resources
- SME toolkit
- Business in a Box
- Good to Great – Jim Collins
- The E-myth revisited – Michael Gerber
- Blue Ocean Strategy – W. Chan Kim
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