The afternoon is just about to settle in, while silence tranquilizes the atmosphere as I find myself at the end of HiTech Estate. The adjacent black gate leads me into a residential compound, a duplex, where one part headquarters UVest real estate company. The location is almost nondescript, save for company logos here and there. Once I’m led inside the receptive space, and through a flight of stairs into the office of the CEO and founder Philip Babalola, the momentum is upped for conversation. Dr. Philip, as he is honourarily addressed, would later slip into our exchange, the identity of the lady who showed me in.
In this sit-down, Dr. Philip tells his grass-to-grace story, but more importantly talks about how he is helping young people get interested in real estate.
Overnight success is often considered a mirage as people believe every success has a backstory. What’s your story as CEO of UVest?
I belong to the school of thought that says there’s nothing like an overnight success. It’s not like there are some things that don’t happen overnight, but you need to be wary of how long those things will stay. For instance, building a bungalow requires minimal effort compared to building a skyscraper. In creating a skyscraper, the workers use a lot of time digging up the foundation to carry the structure. So, for every success you see out there, a lot’s been happening in the background. I was a hustler in school, and I did a lot of things, actually, a lot of businesses. Before entering the university, my biggest dream was to be a Yahoo boy. My environment shaped my thinking back then. I had someone, just like an older brother, who was into Yahoo. I sat down and started learning stuff from him, how he forged certificates, etc. I decided that when I entered the university, I would get a laptop and start Yahoo. Being a go-getter, I was used to setting and pursuing my dreams. I came up with some lies and got the money to buy a laptop. My laptop was stolen, but I raised 20k and sent it to my brother, who was also in school at the time, to buy me a laptop. I never knew he was in pressing need of money. I didn’t get my money back. I was still not comfortable. I had no money on me. I started attending conferences on the island, all the way from LASU to the island. I attended a lot, but one conference, organized by Akin Alabi, changed my life. That was at Eko Hotel in 2017. He brought many speakers who had a rough background, including Funke Akindele, and one of the things they emphasized was getting skills. Of course, I had a skill. I learned graphics design from knowing how to forge certificates as a learner of Yahoo. So, I started doing designs, logos, freelance, etc. I did multilevel marketing business. One of my very first businesses was selling wristbands. I shipped wristbands from China because I wanted to create an identity for fellow students at LASU. I failed woefully in the business since I was the wholesaler and retailer. I didn’t give people a chance to distribute. Other issues made the business fail, such as being unable to account for the profits and my friends stealing some of my wristbands for their girlfriends. Then, I started selling books to secondary schools around, from PPL to Alaba to Okoko and the environs. I also went to a hostel agency.
At the time, I was receiving #2,500 from home as an allowance for two weeks. After two weeks, I would call my dad to request another allowance, but his response would be off-putting. He meant well to me, anyway, because he would often go out of the way to provide money to buy me whatever textbook I told him I wanted. I remember getting home and calling a family meeting one day to complain about how little my allowance was. My dad asked me if there were classmates who received more allowance, and I said “yes”. He also asked if there were classmates who got less, to which I replied in the affirmative. That pushed me to really understand that the benefit I received from him was a privilege and that I should appreciate it.
Agency was a business that fetched me more money. Initially, I started as the regular campus agent, but I reached a point where I was fed up with the splitting of commission among two or more agents. I opened an Instagram page, LasuResides. I gathered several LASU student agents and got them to always share with me pictures of apartments available for rent, which I uploaded on the Instagram page to be accessed by interested students. I had students working for me directly as well, and we shared the profits of the deal. It was at this point the vision to do the real estate thing on a big scale came. I didn’t intend to be this big – you know some dreams are not clear to you until you start.
I had to get a car, and I was doing Uber to support my dream of going into a full-time agency. But after a while, I didn’t want to be distracted from my big dream, so I quit Uber to focus on my real estate agency work.
Tell us a bit about your educational background before LASU
I was born and spent my childhood in Oshodi where I had my primary education at Faith Heritage. My older siblings went to public school, but my younger ones and I were lucky to be sent to a private school. Afterward, I had my junior secondary education at Ewu Tuntun Grammar School, Mafoluku, Oshodi. When I got to SS1, we left our rented apartment in Lagos and relocated to our new house in Ogun where I continued schooling at Genius Secondary School around Sango/Ijoko axis. Afterward, LASU happened.
What have been your biggest challenges as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome them?
God has helped me to overcome a lot of these troubles. It’s only the second year of UVest, and even though we have had administrative concerns, we’re pushing. But back to my wristband business, the challenge I faced was not being able to account for the losses incurred. I had borrowed money from my dad to start the business, and I avoided going home for a year because I didn’t know how to explain myself. He was not a difficult person to deal with, but I thought I had disappointed him because he gave me the money out of trust. Somehow, he knew why I avoided home and eventually told me to come. He wasn’t angry at me in any way, as he urged me to learn from my mistakes.
Then, there are challenges when it comes to running a multimillion-naira company like this, one of which is having to educate a lot of young people about the need to be involved in real estate. Many young people think real estate is not meant for them. They think it’s for the so-called big people. I’m working to change that, making them realize that real estate appreciates. If you can afford to buy a piece of land at age 20, 21, etc., why not buy it now and keep it till you are ready to settle down? The land will be worth over 100% of the initial cost by then. These days, many young people believe in digital investments like crypto, which is good, but what’s worse is when you don’t have a backup. Yes, in crypto, you can make a lot of money within a short time, but you can also lose it all in a snap. This is not so with real estate.
According to the company’s official website, “UVest is the number 1 choice real estate company for Millennials in Nigeria” What exactly does this mean, and why are millennials the focus of this official statement?
It’s not just a statement, it’s the reality. In two years, we have competed favorably with bigger brands. Sometimes, I joke with my staff that if I were to close the real estate part of this company just to start suing people who stole our content, I would make a lot of money. These popular brands use our content without due reference. I’ve even received calls from some of them who are confrontational. My mentees also get annoyed when companies use our content without due notice, and, even without my permission, they would visit the social media pages of those companies to call them out. The thing is, when you are building with young people, the zeal and passion is quite different. I usually tell people there are two ways to benefit from real estate: through selling it or investing. I tell those not doing too well in sales, you know what, I’m going to put you through this, and you will make so-and-so amount of money within a couple of months.
2022 was great for us because we brought in and trained a lot of young people. We also visited schools to educate them about real estate. There’s a Bowen University student who is the youngest client and partner of the company, and she’s only 16. When I visited the institution, she texted that she wanted to see me. Upon seeing me, she knelt down to greet me, and I felt a bit embarrassed. She said something that I will never forget in my life: “you don’t know what you have done in my life. I no longer have to wait for my parents to send me my allowance of ten thousand naira”. In fact, she’s sold so much that the commission seemed too big for her that she started to invest for herself. One of the clients we got from her was her lecturer who chose to buy every property we launched at the time. That’s about how much impact we have on young people.
Your company claims to leverage the power of tech. How so?
We are trying to build a solution when it comes to investment. In fact, we are building an app already and just waiting till we fully launch the tech part of our brand.
Last year, you were awarded a doctoral degree in business and project management at Estam University, Cotonou in the Republic of Benin. What led to that experience?
I finished with a third-class degree, with an extra year, in the Department of English, Lagos State University. It’s an amazing grade, actually. I didn’t finish third class because I wasn’t smart. It was because I couldn’t balance education with what I was actually interested in. At some point when I tried to create that balance, I already had some departmental problems arising from my involvement in school politics. I had seven carry-overs in the courses of a particular lecturer that held grudges against me. I never planned to get a doctorate degree even if I finished with a good grade. I have never been an academic person and have always read inspirational and business books.
The whole doctorate thing came up through Sally, one of my staff, who finished from Estam University in Cotonou and has a good relationship with the registrar. The registrar was a client of UVest. The school had the tradition of honoring six outstanding individuals with a doctorate every year. Out of the notable people, they had a slot for a young person doing extraordinarily well in his field. The registrar emailed me and reached out through Sally. Initially, I was skeptical about it, because I already had previous experiences in which the organizers wanted me to pay for awards, which I would not do. But Sally kept pestering me about the genuineness of the offer. I phoned a friend who did some research on the university and urged me to take the honor. Up till the very moment I found myself in the hall and saw thousands of students, I remained in doubt. My team was present to support me. The only person whose presence I missed was my dad. It was an overall emotional experience for me, and I’m grateful.
On 11th of January 2023, you were a guest speaker at Listen organized by the Lagos State University, Ojo main campus. What was the experience like?
Yeah…again, notable people were invited to the event, including Adunni Ade and ex-BB Naija housemate Liquorose. When I was entering the hall, I thought nobody would recognize me until I got to the stage and was given a rousing welcome. Listen, for me, it was not about being celebrated. Looking back, I feel I could have done better than I did that day because the time was little. The takeaway, for me, was about the opportunity to impact young people, to let them know there was much more to life than any present difficulty they were experiencing. Quite a number of them reached out to me after the event.
How do you spend your leisure time?
I really don’t have a specific leisure pattern. Most of the get-togethers I have been with my colleagues here, and even when we hang out, we still find ourselves talking business.
What final advice do you have for young people who are inspired by your story?
My final advice is for them to have the right mindset. A positive mindset means a lot. I have always been a positive thinker. Before I started UVest, I told my friends that I would have my youth service in my company as CEO. At the time, I didn’t even have the plan to do this real estate on a bigger scale. Also, young people should read motivational and business books. Two books that have inspired me which I recommend to them are Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.