Profiles of Purpose: The Boy from the Streets
02/01/22 • 9 min
Meet Afolabi Abiodun, founder and CEO of SB Telecoms and Devices, a company creating HR solutions for small and medium businesses in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa. From street hawker to debtor to entrepreneur, Afolabi is proof positive that a boy from the streets can find success.
No one ever doubted that Afolabi had the drive to succeed. But his lack of business knowledge often got him into hot water...and lots of debt. After incurring millions in debt, he actually ran away from home to avoid embarrassment and move on to a new life.
To make matters worse, Abiodun explains “it was actually my grandma's property that was used as collateral for my business. The banking office went straight to my grandmother and told her ‘your property will be sold’”.
A message from his brother changed his course. “He said: you can run fast as long as you want, but the problem that you've left behind will haunt you for the rest of your life.” Abiodun came back and the rest is history in the making.
The problems Abiodun faced running his own businesses — recruitment, payroll, and other HR tasks — led him to create SB Telecoms, an easy-to-use HR application that handles everything from recruitment to retirement and hire to fire.
“When people talk about problems. I say to people, yes. It's easy to say. We don't have infrastructure in Africa. Power is a problem, but I mean, for me, this is a way of life for me all my life, the road has always been bad. This is the world I know. I try not to complain about it. I try to solve it.”
Listen to his mini profile to hear how street smarts and business smarts can help propel entrepreneurs on their journey forward.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Meet Afolabi Abiodun, founder and CEO of SB Telecoms and Devices, a company creating HR solutions for small and medium businesses in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa. From street hawker to debtor to entrepreneur, Afolabi is proof positive that a boy from the streets can find success.
No one ever doubted that Afolabi had the drive to succeed. But his lack of business knowledge often got him into hot water...and lots of debt. After incurring millions in debt, he actually ran away from home to avoid embarrassment and move on to a new life.
To make matters worse, Abiodun explains “it was actually my grandma's property that was used as collateral for my business. The banking office went straight to my grandmother and told her ‘your property will be sold’”.
A message from his brother changed his course. “He said: you can run fast as long as you want, but the problem that you've left behind will haunt you for the rest of your life.” Abiodun came back and the rest is history in the making.
The problems Abiodun faced running his own businesses — recruitment, payroll, and other HR tasks — led him to create SB Telecoms, an easy-to-use HR application that handles everything from recruitment to retirement and hire to fire.
“When people talk about problems. I say to people, yes. It's easy to say. We don't have infrastructure in Africa. Power is a problem, but I mean, for me, this is a way of life for me all my life, the road has always been bad. This is the world I know. I try not to complain about it. I try to solve it.”
Listen to his mini profile to hear how street smarts and business smarts can help propel entrepreneurs on their journey forward.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Previous Episode
Profiles of Purpose: What About My People?
Meet Lerang Selolwane, co-founder of Lucient Engineering, a company that’s bringing water, power, roads, and rail to the people of Botswana. By constructing and maintaining the essential infrastructure his country and people need, Lerang is also creating pathways out of poverty.
Selolwane is not your typical 20-something entrepreneur. He began his career working for the largest diamond mining company in the world — a job that literally took him around the world. It was an exciting time, but he realized that his priorities were somewhere else ... specifically, back in Botswana.
“These experiences I'm having are great, but what about my people? Who's going to build a London for my people? And after a while, it goes from being a great experience to not being so great because you realize that this isn't yours. Your people, people who look like you, don't get to have this,” he said.
So, he came back home to build a business that would make an impact on his country and people. He started by focusing on the basics — roads, water, power, and transportation.
Selolwane explains why:
“When you don't have access to clean, reliable water ... when you don't have access to transportation that can get goods to market ... when you don't have power that allows you to even dream about building a tech or an IT company ... everything else just doesn't happen.”
While Selolwane has recently transitioned out of Lucient Engineering, the company’s work continues. And, in true entrepreneurial spirit, he’s involved in two new ventures designed to drive further economic development in Botswana.
Listen to his mini profile to hear how a strong purpose can drive both value and impact for mission-minded entrepreneurs.
To participate in Grit & Growth’s paid focus group, visit http://stanfordseed.co/podcastsurvey
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Next Episode
Profiles of Purpose: Clear As Water
Meet Samuel Appenteng, managing director of Joissam Ghana, a company working to make clean water more accessible to rural communities in West Africa. By collaborating with the communities his firm serves, Appenteng is pumping hope and health into the people who need it most.
Unfortunately, the scale of the problem is immense. Appenteng explained, “In sub-Saharan Africa, over 320 million people have no access to potable water. As we went more and more into the rural communities and saw the kind of deprivation and denials of a decent living, I began to realize that we need to bring relief to people.”
From groundwater exploration and research drilling to water quality analysis and water treatment, Joissam is changing lives with clean water. Joissam began its work in Ghana, but the company has already expanded to seven more countries: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Togo, and Gabon in Central Africa. Its approach is unique: to involve the community in the clean water effort from the very beginning.
“They will all come around and help you as you go and pass the lines to be able to start sending electrical charges into the earth,” Appenteng said. And once drilling starts, he continued, “You will have everybody in, down there observing, and there's a lot of tension. And then the technical team was saying, we are getting there. We're getting there. You start getting a lot of excitement. Believe you me, as soon as you hit water, and it starts gushing out, women and children start jubilating like it's a football game with a lot of goals.”
Listen to Appenteng’s mini profile to hear how his company is increasing its impact across Africa and providing health and economic benefits to millions.
And for more information on the Executive Program in Women’s Leadership mentioned at the top of the episode, visit https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/exec-ed/programs/executive-program-womens-leadership
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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