Beyond The Hustle: The Next Step in The Evolution of Your Business
Wisdom Idheme3 min read·Just now--
“I must blow one day” isn’t just a phrase in Nigeria. It is a mantra we live by. Every Nigerian has met someone who swears by that line. Heck! Maybe that someone is you, reading this right now. That simple sentence sums up the idea of the ‘Nigerian dream’.
So we chase success with pure audacity. We juggle a 9-to-5 with freelancing on Upwork while running a little dropshipping business on WhatsApp and trying to become a bona fide content creator/influencer on TikTok. That’s who we are as Nigerians, we are nothing if not Resilient!
However, the result of this relentless drive is that we juggle and mix business funds and personal funds because it’s convenient. We lose track of expense receipts, and we conduct business dealings based on the blind trust that the counterparty will fulfil their part of the unwritten agreement… based on vibes. And again, that’s who we are as Nigerians: we are resilient, but we are also scrappy.
Of course, being scrappy is miles better than doing nothing. But why settle for good when you can be great? And that’s where Structure needs to be introduced into the equation. Scrappy gets you off the ground, but structure is what keeps you in the air.
I was fortunate to watch a keynote speech a couple of weeks back, where I heard something really profound on this topic. The talk was by Mr John Iyoha (a renowned business growth expert), and he said: “If you really want to thrive in business, you cannot but chase after legitimacy.” A business only becomes legitimate when it can function clearly and reliably beyond your memory, your chats, and your personal explanations. When every transaction in your business can be traced, verified, and understood at any point in time.
This brings me an app I discovered, PayInto, that promises to be a partner in this journey of legitimising your operation. I happened to volunteer at their launch event, and getting a look under the hood broadened my perspective. I learnt their core intention isn’t just to build another payment app; it is to help you legitimise the hustle of those of us on this side of the Atlantic
Take their Escrow service, for example. You usually only see that on billion-dollar international platforms like Upwork and Crypto Exchanges. Having it means you no longer have to ‘fast and pray’ that a vendor or supplier actually delivers after you transfer the cash. They’re incentivised to.
The app also enables you to create a professional-looking invoice that doubles as a payment link that clients/customers can directly pay you through. This eliminates the headache of disputing what was agreed upon after payment. (Freelance service providers can relate; one of you out there is currently on their 253rd free review ) Combine that with the expense tracker and cashflow monitor features, and what you have is a system that keeps score for you. Every naira in and every naira out is accounted for. Which is exactly what legitimacy looks like at an operational level.
What’s even crazier, there are a lot more features underway, all engineered towards helping you run a smoother operation. Imagine this, you got a new business idea in the darkness of night. You jump out of your bed in excitement, albeit with a little tinge of nervousness. But you’re not going to let that stop you. So you pick up your phone, pull up the Payinto app and apply to register your business name with the CAC. No unnecessary middleman and no jumping hoops.
The truth is, our work ethic has never been the issue. The real missing piece has been the systems that allow it to scale instead of just survive. That’s the exact gap that PayInto bridges. But don’t take my word for it, visit the app download page, explore the features for yourself, and keep shooting for the stars.
