BIO: Folarin Daniel Adeboye was a CEO and Co-Founder at F&K Savings. In 5 years of operations, F&K Savings was able to onboard over 35,000 users while processing over 4 million dollars in transaction volume.
STORY: Daniel and his partner’s desire to grow F&K Savings fast made them lose substantial money to an investment they blindly entered. This, and other managerial mistakes, caused the business to go under.
LEARNING: Don’t mix pleasure or family with business. Never forget why you got started.
“Don’t mix pleasure or family with business; stick to basic business principles.”
Folarin Daniel Adeboye
Guest profile
Folarin Daniel Adeboye was a CEO and Co-Founder at F&K Savings. In 5 years of operations, F&K Savings was able to onboard over 35,000 users while processing over 4 million dollars in transaction volume. F&K stopped operations due to many factors, some of which were simple mistakes by the management team. Folarin Daniel is currently consulting and branding whilst still open to new opportunities in emerging markets. He’s a tech enthusiast, a financial and business consultant, and determined to help people make better business decisions.
Worst investment ever
During his university days, Daniel participated in so many activities in school. He was the Auditor General of his faculty for two years and did some internship jobs with some financial platforms. So Daniel had a basic knowledge of finances. But despite that, Daniel didn’t save any of his pocket money—and he received a lot from my parents. He was a reckless spender in school, and so when he wanted to start a business after university, he didn’t have enough money to start.
Nevertheless, Daniel went ahead with his business idea because there was a need for his services. He wanted to help young students prepare for their financial future. Daniel partnered with a Ghanaian friend of his, and together, they started F&K Savings.
This was at that point when startups were coming up and getting funded. The partners felt they could play in this space and do something incredible. And that was how it all started. The business started very well. They had to do everything manually because they were broke. They had to find ways to get things done. The partners got some people on board and shared the dream with them.
The business had remarkable growth within two years. The partners were getting deals from companies ready to partner with them. That’s where their problems started. Down the road, the partners forgot why they started the business. They now just wanted to grow as fast as other startups did. They badly needed to raise money because they were spending so much on hiring as they needed to build the best app. Funds meant to grow the brand were used to pay people and consulting services.
The partners started telling people that they were a full-fledged financial institution. They started spending more on setting up an office space. All this fast expansion started affecting the business. The partners had overexposed themselves.
An investment partner came to Daniel and his partner with a fantastic offer. And since they wanted to grow too fast, they jumped onto this offer because it would give them so much money. Two years after jumping into the proposal, Daniel and his partner lost a considerable percentage of their customers’ funds to this investment after it went down.
Another major issue the partners faced was that they didn’t have any frameworks in place when they got into the partnership. They simply trusted their abilities and trusted each other. They believed they were young and agile and could do whatever they wanted. So they left a lot of documentation and legal frameworks undone.
Daniel and his partner did well with customer acquisition and retention. They did well with the cash flow but messed up with basic business principles, which would have allowed them to stay afloat and continue to win the market.
Lessons learned
- Don’t mix pleasure or family with business. Stick to basic business principles.
- Never forget why you got started. As long as you feel connected to what led to the idea/problem you’re going to solve, you’ll keep going.
- Understand your business environment.
Andrew’s takeaways
- Taking care of clients’ money is a serious business requiring much trust. It’s different from handling your own money.
Actionable advice
Trust yourself and nobody else.
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