Segment: I Started Making Hair Oil for Free - Demand Turned My Personal Recipe Into The Organics

From accidentally building an influencer brand on Snapchat to creating a hair care business that started with just 50 cedis and bottles, and why the brutal truth about being an influencer is that you can't be popular forever because your time will pass and younger people will be more vibrant and more in tune with the culture than you are which is why you have to find something that works for you when you're sleeping and when people don't see your face, the young woman who didn't even know what content creation was in 2019 when she had followers and got paid 800 cedis to post bags for a brand thinking it was the biggest deal of her life, the photoshoot with a big company that opened her eyes to the fact that people actually get paid for this and she could step up her pricing and start talking to brands properly, the COVID lockdown that kept everyone home watching her YouTube channel where she changed from just doing hair tutorials to showing her personality making people find her funny and creating clips and memes that made her sort of blow up, the hair oil she was making and using herself that people kept asking for until she finally gave in and started pouring her personal oil into bottles to sell even though she was a student who didn't mean to do business, the pre orders that came in because the oil takes time to make and the realization that just oil wasn't enough so she went to school to learn formulations and expanded into shampoos and deep conditioners and a full product line, the Okada bike her brother trusted her with that she sold after realizing transport service business wasn't her field and put the money back into the business, the Sunlight Shero competition where she won 5000 cedis by writing about her business proving that opportunities come when you're building something real, the wisdom that you can't be an influencer for the rest of your life because people like Nana Ama McBrown who are still relevant are rare cases and most people will eventually be replaced by someone younger, the meeting where brands were looking for artists who appeal to younger people instead of the top three musicians everyone already knows proving that relevance is temporary and you have to build something that works when people aren't looking at your face, the advice that if you're an influencer you should start an agency or find a nine to five or create something that infuses your influence into a business that keeps running even when you're on vacation for a month because influencing can be very dicey and you can lose it at any moment, the honest reflection that she doesn't even know how she's been relevant from 2019 till now because usually people are just there for some months and then they're gone, the reality that you can't be popular forever and it's not possible to have that hold on people forever just like footballers can't play for the rest of their lives they will retire, the blessing of being an influencer for 10 years which is a long time to have people's attention and should be used to build something real so when you're telling your children that you were popping you can also tell them what you did with that 10 years, the biggest challenge being that she's an on the spot thinker who never asks what questions will be asked in interviews and doesn't like to write scripts because she works better in the moment looking at products and deciding what will work better but sometimes that doesn't work with some brands who need structure and preparation. Host: Derrick Abaitey