Nobody speaks enough on the depression that hits you after graduating uni, the inactivity, boredom, brokenness, uselessness, and last but not least the crazy anxiety for what the future holds.
Months after leaving the university I started to feel really depressed, I had no money at all and nothing to do. I’d wake up every day with no motivation whatsoever thinking of what I could do to change my situation. I needed money badly and needed to be busy because that popular saying was really creeping up on me; you know the one that goes “an idle man is the devil’s workshop”. The thoughts I was having were really starting to scare me, I knew something had to be done fast.
One Saturday morning my mom’s younger sister arrived from Kaduna and brought along with her a lot of northern things like kuli kuli, gorontula, millet, kilishi, and hibiscus leaves popularly known as zobo. I loved zobo so much. That evening she prepared some zobo for the family, when I got mine, I was surprised at the taste, for some reason it didn’t quite taste like the zobo I remember instead it had this citrus lemon flavor to it, it was great! I asked my aunt why her’s tasted different and she told me about how she liked to switch it up sometimes and try different flavors, sometimes lemon, grapes, apples, and even coffee. I was intrigued. Coffee and zobo? I thought to myself, how is that going to taste? And like how it’s done in cartoons when you get a brilliant idea, I felt an illuminating lightbulb pop up on my head, I knew what to do, I was going to convert this into a business, I had so many ideas coming in all at once but I needed money.
Irrespective of my financial incapability I was very sure of what I wanted to do and that felt good, I hadn’t felt this motivated in a while.
To cut the long story short, after borrowing some money from a friend I started the business, ‘ZoboTales’ Corny right? But it was my very first business. I got bottles, fruits, notecards, and even alcohol. from fruit-flavored zobo to alcoholic ones. I made so many creative signature drinks, I surprised myself. My friends teased me of how I had made zobo drinks feel so high end like bar and lounge drinks, you know I had to add my touches to it.
It did take a while but I started getting many customers; thanks to my friend who made a YouTube video reacting to my many weird flavors, and in no time, people started making orders. I never thought id make so much money selling zobo, to be honest, but here I was, making money. A self-made zobolonaire
