#MemberStories How Lucy turned her culinary passion into a growing food brand with Prospa

Lucy’s love affair with food and cooking began as a child; following her mother around markets to source the best ingredients then joining her in the kitchen to create delicious meals for special occasions. As her business goes from strength to strength, Prospa chatted with Lucy to find out the inspiration behind her business, the challenges she faced as a Nigerian founder and the Prospa feature she loves the most.

Great to meet you Lucy! Please introduce yourself to our Prospa Community.

My name is Lucy Oyailobhegbe Omoigberale and I am the Founder and Executive Chef of Foodies with Lucy, a food catering brand based in Nigeria.

You’re one of our amazing Prospa members, using the app to manage and grow your business, why is Prospa your favourite tool to run your business? 

Prospa is my favorite tool for running my business because it makes managing my business easy and helps me monitor my funds.

What are some of the problems you encountered before using Prospa and how has Prospa helped solve these problems?

Before using Prospa, I had to use my personal account because I hadn’t registered the business at that time. Now that I have Prospa, I’ve been able to separate my personal fund from my business fund.

When you were looking for a business banking app, how did you discover Prospa?

I discovered Prospa through a friend who kept telling me about it over and over again! So I finally decided to try it out and it’s actually been a good experience.

What impact has Prospa had on your business since you started using it?

Since I’ve started using the app, it’s been easy to make transfers and I don’t have to keep saving vendor account details when I need to make purchases from them because they’re automatically saved.

You’ve enjoyed the many benefits of using Prospa, what’s your favorite feature on the app? 

The invoicing feature is really helpful because I can easily send invoices to my clients within the app. 

Tell us the inspiration behind Foodies with Lucy?

I’ve always loved cooking! Especially watching my mum and my sister cook for parties, Christmas and New Year then having everybody come round to eat. As a child, I was always going to the market with my mum and I was really interested in finding new ingredients for new recipes. When I got older, I decided to turn my passion for cooking into a profession and that’s how Foodies with Lucy was born.

What is the hardest thing about doing business in Nigeria?

The fact that the price of foodstuffs keeps increasing and it’s difficult because we can’t keep raising the prices of our food since clients might not be happy with that.

What is the most important thing to know about having your own business?

You’re going to have high days and low days so you can’t give up because you’re having a bad week or low sales. You just have to keep it moving!

If you were starting your business from scratch, what advice would you give to yourself?

I would tell myself not to rush into it, do my research, be sure of what you’re getting into and understand my competitors.

As your business grows, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I see my business being one of the biggest crowd kitchens in Nigeria because for us, it’s not just about numbers but also the quality of the food. We want to make sure that the food tastes good and is of a high standard.

We would love to hear more of our members share their stories! If you want to be featured on the Prospa blog and social media channels, simply complete the form to submit your story.

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