by Oludami Yomi-Alliyu

Saturday, 22nd April 2017, made it one month since the winners of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP) were announced.

It was total excitement and celebration galore for the lucky 1,000 entrepreneurs — and of course, their families.

However, on the other side of the coin, it was nothing but sadness and heartbreak for the over 93,000 hopefuls that were let down. That’s except for those that only applied for applying sake and didn’t really look forward to winning. (Who does that?!)

Well, I applied too, even though many around me thought I didn’t need the money. [Are you eff-ing kidding me? Who couldn’t use some extra N1.5m (what the last winners were paid) in his business?! It’s my business and I knew I needed to win.]

More important for me, however, were the potential doors and connections being a “Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur” is reputed to open, and the mentorship program. To be honest, na connection I dey find, just as I do every day of running my business.

Long story short, as you can already guess, I was not picked as a 2017 winner of TEEP.

Yes, I was pained, just as anybody who put so much time and research in his application would, and just as anyone who believes in his idea would.

I, however, accepted fate. (Or what else would I have done?!) But I started wondering, how would other failed applicants take this?

For me, all I wanted to do was expand my business, even if it’s to use the money to get an office and create an app, and so on. Otherwise, this same business is what feeds my young family, and it’s growing steadily. And I’m grateful for that.

In fact, at a point, I got over 1,000 subscribers to my mailing list in less than a week. Even when the business was sparkling new, it had made almost 500k in profits. With the same business, I’d partnered/done something with guys like Otunba Akin Alabi, Craze Clown, Jason Njoku, etc.

So…someone (or some people) sitting down somewhere, “judging” my business idea to not be good enough for a grant cannot do jack to my self-esteem or the belief I have in my idea.

BUT…(the most important question — and my reason for writing this article) what would failing the TEEP application do to a budding entrepreneur; one that has nothing but great ideas and big dreams that have not been proven?

What does it do to a business starter that doesn’t really have the strength of will and has not the slightest idea of how to get capital/funding — or even how to launch? Or if you’ve failed at a “mass” grant/funding program like TEEP, how on earth do you face potential investors alone and one-on-one?

I guess you can also begin to imagine the hundreds of categories of people at various stages of entrepreneurship that would have been discouraged by failing. Or the thousands of otherwise brilliant business ideas that would have been killed merely by failing in the TEEP application.

And the organisers of TEEP didn’t help matters. Last year, they had about 45,000 applicants. This year, they doubled on advertising (in fact I’d say the advertising was aggressive) across every possible medium, without doubling the number of applicants they were going to choose.

Sometimes I wonder what exactly they’re up to. I guess it’s none of my business. And that doesn’t negate the fact that Tony Elumelu and his guys are doing a lot of good for this country. (God bless you, sir!)

I’m only wondering: why advertise like crazy to get more people on board. Increasing the number of applicants by over 100% without increasing the number of winners — or the amount given — even by 0.1% bothers me. So I keep wondering: what exactly are these guys really after?

Don’t blame me for thinking this way, though. I’m Nigerian, and thanks to our leaders, I (like most other Nigerian) were brought up with trust issues against people in authority. But then, like I said, it shouldn’t be my business. No be my papa money!

What point exactly am I trying to drive home with this article? Is it just to criticise grant programs like TEEP for not choosing more people (even after spending so much on advertising to encourage more people to apply)? No, that’s not my point.

Am I trying to advise anyone against applying for grants and fellowships? Definitely not. (Who I be?!)

This article is for the other 93,000+ failed TEEP applicants, and for you if you’ve ever lost in a business plan or grant competition; to tell you that the fact that your business idea lost in a competition doesn’t mean you have a bad idea. Or that your idea will definitely fail. No; you’re just not lucky enough to be chosen — or basically, there are just other ideas few people think are better than yours.

This proves the old time fact that only you have to believe in yourself. No one else owes you that. No one has to believe in you.

Don’t ever give up on your idea assuming it’s a bad one just because you lost. Take this from a fellow failed applicant that’s actually getting traction and feeding his family with the same idea that failed in the competition. Yes, that’s just what it is: a competition.

Competitions like this are just extra and should be seen as such. No successful person would list “compete for grants” as one of the steps to success in life. (They’d rather attract/pitch to investors.)

It’s old-fashioned hard work and dedication that is required to succeed in business.

If I were you (and that’s what I’m doing), I’d rather take TEEP application failure as an opportunity and a challenge — an opportunity to work more to improve my idea, and a challenge to prove to the world that the belief I have in my idea is valid.

Should you apply again next year? Well, that’s your choice to make. All I’m saying is: don’t wait on competitions. Start working on your idea now. Take baby steps. Success really isn’t as beyond reach as it seems.

I wish you the best in your entrepreneurial journey, and I look forward to seeing your idea rule the world, notwithstanding what anyone thinks about it!

Your brother in the struggle,

Oludami

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Oludami Yomi-Alliyu is a freelance copywriter and certified digital marketing professional (CDMP). He helps to build brands by leveraging on the various digital platforms available. Catch him on Twitter @TheOludami or visit www.RenegadeCommerce.com.