Since Iyan Empire opened in Oomor House, in the popular Oni and Sons area in Ring Road Ibadan, there has been a change in the human traffic in the area. The heaviest in the society have been coming and have, in turn, been telling others to come have a taste. Thanks to the quality of service rendered at the Empire where one is sure of getting freshly made pounded yam between 11 am and 7.30 pm every day.
In this interview with PMParrot/Parrot Xtra’s team made up of WOLE ADEJUMO, ANUOLUWAPO ORIOLOWO, DARE FAJEBE, DOTUN AJIBOLA and MAYOWA OWOGBADE, the CEO, Helen Oyewale explained how her love for pounded yam got transformed into a business. Excerpts:
Where did the ‘Iyan Empire’ idea come from?
It all started in Benin, I actually lived in Benin for several years and I am a pounded yam lover, I love pounded yam so well, I pound yam in my house everyday so I grew up with pounded yam. So getting to Benin, I couldn’t get good pounded yam around, the inspiration just came like ‘can you start a restaurant in Benin?’ I actually learnt how to cook from my mother because she also owned a restaurant, my mum is into cooking, so I learnt from her and that is where it all started from.
The pounded yam stuff started from Benin, but because I was working I thought I wouldn’t be able to manage working and managing the restaurant at the same time, so I dropped my job in January 2017, although the plan was already on ground. Then it got worse when I visited Ibadan for meetings when I was working and most of the restaurants I walked into, I will be like mofe je iyan(I want to eat pounded yam) and the usual response was Amala lowa (we have amala), so I kept wondering why all this thing about amala everywhere in Ibadan, can’t we find good places where we can actually walk into and eat just pounded yam? That was how it all started. I felt wow lets come and tap into the blue oceans of Ibadan where we can actually put pounded yam in place and you can get pounded yam from 11am to 7:30 pm, so that was how it all started
With this your love for pounded yam, are you an Ekiti person?
I am not an Ekiti person, I was born and bought up in Ondo State, Akure precisely and you will agree with me that Akure and Ekiti people love eating pounded yam at all times so that was how the love of pounded came in place.
Now we know you love pounded yam and you are not an Ekiti person, can you tell us about yourself?
My name is Helen Adeola Oyewale, bought up in Akure, Ondo State, I started my primary school at Ondo State and secondary school at Federal Government Girls College, Akure and I proceeded to Adekunle Ajasin University, where I studied Microbiology and I had my NYSC program at Kastina and later moved to Lagos. I worked with three different pharmaceutical companies for seven years before I came to this point.
How is business going after you moved down to Ibadan and what can you say about Ibadan?
Ibadan is big but small compared to Lagos, probably if Iyan Empire was in Lagos, we would have done better because of the concept, but Glory be to God we chose Ibadan, we are people that believe in God, we believe that Ibadan will get there, some years back Ibadan used to be a place where you don’t have night clubs, I can categorically say like six to seven years back, nothing much was happening in Ibadan, but today I would tell you that Ibadan is growing faster than we were even expecting, so with pounded yam empire in Ibadan we are grateful to God that we are doing very well, we knew how we started but today we have grown in our revenue so we believe that Ibadan is also a good place where people should also look out for businesses.
Can you talk about some of the challenges you have encountered so far?
There are many of them; let me start with this, trying to bring something that people are not used to into a community where there is a particular thing, that is the number one challenge. If you ask any Yoruba man that what is Ibadan known for when it comes to food, they will tell you amala and gbegiri with ewedu, so imagine you from nowhere coming into that community and saying Iyan ni o(it’s pounded yam o), we saw that as the first challenge and at the same time we saw it as an opportunity, so that was number one thing that struck us like are you sure you are going to break even with making just pounded yam in Ibadan where the average Ibadan man comes out of his house and the only thing he wants to eat is amala or lafun, so we had that at the back of our mind.
The second has to do with marketing, I must tell you that where we are today at Iyan Empire is by the grace of God and of course the marketing activities we have been able to do. So it was very challenging going out there to convince people that already have where they eat, if you ask an average person or worker, they have a place where they eat or do their lunch, so coming up and breaking into the market was a very great challenge, so thank God there will always be challenges we are bracing up for the challenges because the opposite of challenges are opportunities, so the more the challenges we see more opportunities, it’s just for us to sit and look in deep and we find the opportunity.
How were you able to cope with leaving you job and getting the support of your husband?
I must be very frank with you, starting any business, first you must be prepared and how do I mean by being prepared, I told you I had plans, this was something that had been on ground, that I have been thinking about for like three to four years before I started the business. That means I started saving towards the business and I didn’t go into any loan facility, so out of what I got from where I worked and saved, with my husband, family and friends, we were able to kick start the Iyan Empire. We are not yet there but trust me we will get there.
Where do you want Iyan Empire to be in the next five years?
Thank you, our goal is to have Iyan Empire and Lounge in every city where there is a Nigerian especially Yoruba that loves pounded yam. So looking at that, we will know that we are not yet there. In the next five years, we want to believe God that we will be able to climb that height, we are not expecting 100% climbing but we would have moved from where we are right now, when I mean move, move in margin and percentage, if we are doing one percent right now over all, trust me in the next five years God willing, we should be talking about 50percent of our achievements, we believe in that, we trust with that and we walk with that, so we take our steps gradually and we believe we will get there.
What are your plans for those that might not be the ‘pounded yam’ type?
With the name Pounded Yam Empire, like I said we had to do marketing and alongside marketing we also did a lot of survey, presently we are running a survey in the restaurant to get customers’ feedback, so on our survey form we want to add more to our empire, the main empire is pounded yam based, but we have some sub empires. So we are bringing in so many things into the empire come 2018, we are thinking of introducing plantain porridge , boiled plantain, boiled yam and fish sauce, beans and plantain, coconut rice, fried rice, solid pap and vegetable that is eko and efo riro, so those are the things we are bringing on board, of course we consider those that don’t like pounded yam but our main solid swallow food is Iyan because Oba ni Oba ama je(a king is a king any day), then we have subordinates like rice and yam porridge, but we are still going to expand the subordinates come 2018.
How have you been able to cope with the economic situation in the country?
We are meant to cope with the economic situation as Nigerians. Trust me, we would cope no matter how hard the situation is, we will adjust and learn to cope, if you have visited empire you will notice that our pounded yam still remains N100 despite the fact that everybody is shouting recession. We have not allowed recession to affect our pounded yam and we are trying to ensure that everybody that comes to the Empire is happy, I will still reiterate the fact that this is business and in business you must learn and always find a way around things to make sure that costumers are happy and you as the boss you are also happy. We are coping and we are doing very well.
What can you call the unique selling point of Pounded Yam Empire?
We have said it earlier on, it is pounded yam, the truth is that I would have chosen a name like Aunty Eni’s Kitchen, I can decide to say aunty Bola’s Kitchen or Aunty Deola’s Kitchen but there are many kitchens, you will find like 1100 kitchens and restaurants but trust me the name is striking, you will want to stop over and I think God actually gave us that inspiration, probably if we do not have that name as Pounded Yam Empire probably we wouldn’t have gotten this far. So it is still God that gave us inspiration to use that name, that is our unique selling point because any customer that walks into Iyan Empire, the first thing they ask is ‘se Iyan wa?’ (is pounded yam available?) because they believe that there should be Iyan at all times and that is our unique selling point, that you come to the Empire from 10:30am you meet pounded yam till 7:30pm, you will always get pounded yam wrapped in leaves, we don’t wrap our pounded yam in nylons because of the chemical reactions with nylons and foods, so we don’t do anything that has to do with nylon, we prefer to wrap our pounded yam in leaves that we used to know back then. So that was where we bought the inspiration and that makes us different.
Can you tell about your success so far since you started your business?
We have moved I must tell you, we are no longer were we were, I will just give you an overall assessment, which is, we have moved. We know how we started, I remember the first day we cooked, I think I won’t forget, I think we made a little over N 1000, but to God be the glory today we have moved, when it comes to success stories I don’t want to talk about it, I want people to see our success story themselves, I want people to tell us that Empire ti move gan o, (Empire has really moved o) they should be the ones to tell us about our success story, not we telling you our success stories, but the truth is Pounded Yam Empire has moved thank you.
What advice do you have for the youths out there that want to be like you?
I am going to advise every youth out there to keep their dreams, be very passionate about them and take a step, I have seen a lot of youths out there, the only thing they do is they dream but they don’t come out of the dreams, they just remain in the dream, they fantasize about the dreams but trust me keep up that dream and wake up on that dream and move to the reality of the dreams that is the only way you can have your dreams come true. So, if you are out there and you are reading this, come out of those dreams and walk into reality, it is not easy but you have to take that first step that will lead you to that great path.
