The first entrepreneur in episode 2, announced himself as James Ogwonoja, a legal practitioner looking for 46 million naira to invest in the hospitality sector. He came proposing to expand on his 11-room hotel. He intends to upgrade the facility by erecting 23 more rooms, halls, restaurants, and bar. He posited that he was currently running 11 rooms, along with a restaurant and bar, but he was seeking the dragons’ investment to take his hotel plans to the next phase. He got the dragons interested after he claimed to have a stream of patrons from the corporate sector, especially bankers, in addition to the fact that he posited that he almost had a near-monopoly in the hotel business in Lokoja. His claim however inspired a few questions like “why haven’t you approached the banks for finance?”, to which he responded that he preferred to work with investors like the dragons, “unlike a bank that will come with a bullion van to pack all the money” but just when his pitch was getting high-pitched, Ibukun Awosika discovered that he was on the board of several unrelated companies, and wanted to know how that was possible, to which he responded, “I have almost 210 staff that work for me…”. At this point, Ibukun Awosika exclaimed in awe, “you’re the big guy, you don’t need us”.

The dragons soon opted out on the basis that this entrepreneur, running a lot of unrelated companies would not have time to focus on the business he was pitching. He was simply sitting on top too many businesses.

If you ask me, I’d say that this entrepreneur had brandished his resume hoping to impress the dragons, but succeeded in turning them off with his ‘jack-of-all-trade’ CV. And come to think of it, with 210 staff working for him…I think I’d have to agree with Ibukun Awosika, he is the BIG GUY!

What do you think?