By Seye Ojo
Ifedayo Agoro, CEO of Dang Lifestyle and founder of Diary of a Naija Girl (the DANG community), is a trailblazing entrepreneur and creative visionary. With an impressive array of accomplishments under her belt, she has established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the realms of content creation, marketing and media strategy.
Agoro, who was born in Lagos on May 13, 1983, has built an online community of over one million followers, spanning various platforms. Through the power of creative storytelling, she has become a beacon of inspiration for women around the globe, guiding them towards their own personal and professional successes.
But Agoro’s influence does not stop there. In 2015, she embarked on a journey with DANG Network, which has now evolved into a flourishing tribe of over a million individuals, predominantly women, who are fearlessly living their best lives one step at a time.
In this interview, Agoro revealed how her DANG Lifestyle, launched in 2020, has flourished into a diverse portfolio of over 20 products, with stores across the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Ghana and Kenya, selling a remarkable 400,000 units of products in three years without a major campaign.
What can you say about your business history?
Right now, I own a company called Dang Lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle company where we produce and we retail skincare products made for melanin rich skin all over the world and we also sell home fragrances and body fragrances as well.
I cannot call Diary of a Niger Girl a business because it’s more of a community of women, who globally come together on Instagram to share and laugh and just get better together, while we are at it.
So, we share stories, we share opinions and we help each other, empower each other as we go. That’s what both companies are about.
Can you tell us about the business milestones that you have recorded?
Dang Lifestyle is such a different way of business because a lot of people start their businesses with our customers. When I started Dang Lifestyle, we had a customer base already because there was a community waiting. We had told them all.
I’m setting up a business, Dang Lifestyle. We’re going to be doing skincare fragrances, and they were ready. As soon as we came, we started selling and we had customers already.
So, without any campaign whatsoever till today, Dang Lifestyle has sold over 400,000 products, without any use of popular influencers or anything of the sort.
Also, for an indigenous company, we now have presence in the UK, Canada, US Ghana and Kenya.
Tell us about your personal milestones
I started Diary of a Naija Girl in 2016 with zero followers and my friends there following and that page has been such a blessing, not only to the people who I followed, but to me as well.
Every single day, when I wake up, I check my messages, email. I find at least one person saying your page has changed my life. You have impacted me. My child wants to be like you. My son is learning from you. My husband says, since I started following you, I’ve become much better.
So, things like that every day that I see that it’s such fulfillment for me. It’s bigger for me. It’s bigger than money or any other thing. It is just such an amazing feat, where we see that the platform is changing people’s lives and bringing women together, empowering them at the same time; that’s a big deal to me.
Can you name the businesses that you have been able to establish and the roles that you played in establishing them?
Before Dang Lifestyle, I had an oil and gas company called Rock Palmer Limited, where we retailed finished oil and gas products. I started that after I had worked in some oil and gas companies.
I started Rock Palmer Limited because I knew that I was capable of distributing these products and also even importing these products with partners, to distribute to some companies. So, that was what Rock Palmer Limited was able to do during the time.
Rock Palmer was around for a while before I decided that as much as this business is doing very well and it’s bringing in lots of money, I did not have any sort of peace of mind. I was also quite unhappy with life. I was depressed.
After work, I would go back home. I would draw all the curtains and stay in the dark. And just not pick my calls, except work calls because the job was giving money but not happiness. I was very depressed.
So, I told myself, I can’t continue like this. But again, I just can’t quit the business because of how I was feeling. So, I gave myself time to plan, to save, to invest, and to work really hard and then get out.
Government policies were stressing me out. The corruption in the country was a lot and the business itself was not stable. I am not referring to my company, but the industry of oil and gas. It was not stable enough to give you any form of comfort.
So, you wake up every day thinking what’s going to happen today, and all of that put together stressed me out and it got me really depressed.
So, I decided that I’m going to do this. I would invest and get out. So, even if I don’t work for two years, I would still be okay, and that’s what I did in the end of 2017 or around early 2018. I stopped.
Working in oil and gas, I refused to take any more contracts or transactions. This shocked people a lot because they felt how are you doing so well, and you are making so much money, but you don’t want to continue? That’s almost impossible. A business is doing well and you want to stop.
So, that’s what I did and then I stopped. I fully went into Diary of Niger Girl, not thinking about the money at all because I did as I said. I started getting joy, and was getting impactful. I decided this is where I want to be. For as long as I can do this, I want to be able to do this.
Have there been recognitions from any quarters?
Yes, definitely. I have been recognised by Lagos State, Top 100 Eko Women. I’ve been recognised by Guardian Woman and Seven Wonder Women. I’ve been recognised by Leading Ladies Africa Top 100 Women, and Her Network as Most Inspiring Woman.
I’ve been recognised by Why Naija twice. The first award has to do with social media. Why Naija has also recognised me as a woman, who supports inclusion in everything that she does. There’s quite a bit of awards, which also included Top 100 Women, Eloy Award Top Business Woman. Yes, it’s quite a lot of recognition and it feels good.
How have the awards that you have won inspired you to do more for the society?
I always say, even in my interviews, that these awards don’t really do much for me, to be honest, because human beings are the ones picking them. I am happy that they recognised that Ife is doing this and that. But at the same time, I don’t rely too much on that accolade as rewards.
If you know what I mean, it’s nice but it doesn’t put me under any obligation to do better or do worse. I don’t need that to do better, to continue to think of how else I can work on these movement and community to get better, and for women to get better.
So, I’m thinking of what new thing can we teach per day. What happened to me today that I can push out that people will learn from? What is the new thing that women have to learn so they can know? What other financial details are out there that we can teach? That’s what I’m thinking of; I don’t care about the awards. Awards don’t make me do anything. They are nice to have; they just don’t push me to do more. I’m motivated daily just by the women who get impacted everyday, to wake up today and do better than we did yesterday.
What are the other experiences of yours that you would like people to know?
I would like the world to know that I am not only an astute businesswoman. I’m also a strategic planner. I’m very good with strategy. I know that people think that Dang Lifestyle has done so well, just because maybe they felt she is a good businesswoman. No. Every strategy that Dang Lifestyle comes out with, I am a major part of that because it’s important to us that we plan every way that our story is told.
So, I’m very strategic in the things that Dang Lifestyle puts out there. Again, we need to know that it’s a business and every story that is told, we need to make sure that it reaches the target audience that we want it to reach.
So, in our product planning, products development, in our storytelling, in our marketing, I’m a huge strategic person. I am very big on strategy. People always say that I am an intentional person, maybe because of Diary of Niger Girl and how we put out our stories, and the kind of people we allow into the community.
My intentionality goes deeper than that. It goes into proper strategy planning for my other company, and it also affects how successful we are today.
What will you say is your cutting edge as an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, my company’s edge is that I always see problems ahead. I’ve always had that gift, even when I was in oil and gas. I see something happening and I prepare for it in future. Some people think I am not feeling the dollar exchange rate against the naira.
I know that for the business to continue, we have to be able to be predictive of the times and I have been very good with my team to predict the times to see and say we predict that this and this will happen in a year; let’s help edge ourselves so that when that time comes, other people that are struggling and rolling around increasing prices, to see that we are good because we have buffered ourselves and waited for that time to happen. So, I know that’s one of the things like I do.
I was telling somebody the other day, who asked if I did not want investors in my company. I said when the time is right, we’ll know and we’ll work ahead of that. When the time is right, we will be ready for the investors to come in.
So, the cutting edge, for me, that my colleagues tell me and my staff is that I’m quite predictive, which helps also in the strategy that I’m planning. I always think ahead quickly and then wait for that time.
You said there was a time you were making money in the oil and gas sector but you did not have happiness. So you quit. What advice do you have for those who make money their priority?
I think that’s okay, to be honest because you can’t tell them anything until they get the money. When you tell people, money does not bring happiness, they would say you can say that now because you have money, which is true.
However, I also experienced full happiness when I didn’t have money, So, money is not the reason for the happiness that comes from within. It may put you in a nice hotel, and in a nice house. But in your heart and inside your soul, when you’re naked alone in your bathroom, you’re filled with gloom and depression. Money can’t help you at that time.
Of course, money can help you to see a therapist. But if you’re not willing for yourself to choose happiness every day and remove the things that cause depression, you’ll continue to be unhappy. But telling people that money does not bring happiness, they will not listen.
I used to say that a lot. I still say it. But I’ve reduced it because I realised people would not listen until they get the money and then realise it really doesn’t bring happiness. Then they’ll begin to start working on their inner self, to find happiness in themselves, so I don’t tell them anything. I just said the same thing, get the money and when you get it, you can distinguish between what money does and what true happiness does to the quality of your life.
Right from the time you started Dang Lifestyle and Diary of Naija Girl, how many women have you been able to impact positively?
So far, we have almost one million followers. But the people who have visited the platform are definitely over 10 million. So, I cannot give a number, to be honest. But I can give a number of people who follow the platform and how many of them actually dropped comments, engaged and sent me messages.
I think around 40 per cent of the almost one million followers have come out to say that they’ve been impacted by commenting via liking or sending me emails or direct messages, quite a lot of them.
However, we can’t really know because a lot don’t comment; just keep their opinions to their hearts and they just spread the word out there. But you never know because you can’t see their footprints on the internet.
What advice do you have for women?
Generally, I love women. I feel like women are so versatile, that if we begin to open our minds to the things that we’re capable of doing, we would be unstoppable. So, I always tell women not to be afraid, just go, and stop asking for permission. Each woman should stop asking herself, can I do this? They should at the same time stop apologising for their ambition, by saying, please can I speak? Can I interject? Can I say something?
Apart from the fact that many women ask for permission, they also apologise for their dreams and ambitions and I would really love that to stop. If your ambition in life is to be a housewife, be there and be a homemaker; take care of your kids and have time for them. That is valid and nobody should shame me for that.
If your ambition is to grow a Fortune 500 company, be the CEO of a public liability company. That is also valid. But anything you shall decide to do, don’t apologise and don’t ask for permission to do it.
What are your projections for what you do within the next five years?
In the next five years, definitely Dang Lifestyle would be a global brand with presence in every country that has melanin rich skin. We’re talking about Asia, Spanish, India, America and Canada. We will have full-fledged presence in all these countries in five years. So, it’s definitely going to be a global brand and one to be reckoned with.
What can you say about the impact of your work on the women community in Nigeria?
When it comes to where we will be in five years, concerning Diary of a Nigeria Girl, and the Dang community as we call it, there is no stopping or no limits to where we can be. Our main focus is to have impact in every country as long as you are a woman, and understand that our power is in supporting each other.
We will continue to tell that story every single day, impacting one person at a time, one country at a time and Dang Women would definitely be a global Girl Dang. That’s my wish and hope for the future every single day. We take it at a time and just continue to impact one person and one country at a time.
Would you say you’ve been making impacts outside of the Dang community?
Absolutely! I try as much as possible to keep my charity work away from the social media because truly it is just something that gives me joy to do.
We have paid for the education of prisoners to be educated in prison, so that when they come out, they can have something to do. We have done Ikoyi Correctional Centre. We have done Kirikiri Correctional Centre too, to help and educate inmates.
So, they’re not just in jail doing nothing. They are getting education. I’m a sponsor of Little Saints Orphanage, where there are girls that I have taken under my wings, to consistently foot their school fees and we’ve done that for almost 10 years now.
We will continue to foot the bills of these girls up to university level. At Lots Charity Foundation, Ajegunle, Lagos, I have taken girls on my wings and supported them as well educationally because their parents can’t help at this time. I just stepped in to make sure that happens for them.