29 year old Olatorera Oniru is one of Nigeria’s most assiduous and ambitious young entrepreneurs. the founder of Dressmeoutlet.com, a Lagos-based e-commerce startup that retails fashion products sourced from across the globe. She strongly promotes made in Africa goods with the goal of retailing only the best 20% African designers. In 2016, she was named in Forbes’ list of “30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs In Africa. In this interview she shares with us her passion and inspiration behind her projects.
Childhood Influence
I would think so. I believe our past moulds our future to create history someday. My past is significantly a part of who I am today. Not sure I can decipher one incidence or action in particular but my entire experiences in life from family, friends, career and decisions have contributed to what I do now.
Meet Me
I’m Olatorera Oniru, Chief Executive of Dressmeoutlet.com, Forbes-mentioned Fashion Amazon of Africa dispatching fashion, beauty and home-goods from Africa to the world. I love life and I’m very passionate about all things Africa.
Discovering My Passion For Fashion
We all love to look good and feel good and so do I. Fashion is art, creativity, innovation and so much more combined. I had worked in the technology space during the course of my career and thus it made sense to combine my experience in technology with my passion for fashion to drive ecommerce in Africa.
Inspiration behind Dressmeoutelet
Dressmeoutlet.com is very customer-centric and quality-focused. We aim to please and serve. We are inspired by the thousands of creative geniuses producing great brands within the fashion, beauty and home-goods space across Africa. We have come across the most unique products from natural skin care to leather bags to runway jewelry. All of excellent quality and proudly made in Africa, ready to be dispatched to homes worldwide. Dressmeoutlet.com continues to source for the very best of this products to retail only the best to our customers at the most affordable prices possible.
It’s all about Work and Family
Career-wise, I am generally occupied with relationship building, growth forecasting, business development and sales maximization for Dressmeoutlet.com. At Dressmeoutlet.com, we have 2 programs we are currently pushing, the Style Champions Program and the Creative Entrepreneurs Program. The former is sales related and the latter is supply and manufacturing related. Outside of work, my family means the world to me.
No fear of failure
There is no giving up here. At least not any in sight or mind or analytical forecasts at the moment. Mainly because I thoroughly enjoy what we are doing at Dressmeoutlet.com and we are deriving results from our hard work. Nonetheless, I do not have a fear of failure or of giving up. If some day, somewhere, somehow I get to feel like I want to take a break or give up, I will. Life’s too short to be stressed out or to do anything that doesn’t bring you joy. It’s important to be passionate about one’s ambitions. Only then can we really drive change, growth and development. I’m happy doing what I do and thus cannot fathom giving up at the moment.
The Awards keep rolling in
I think it’s the amazing awards that do not stop rolling in. We just got invited to Mauritius this month to receive a Young Achiever Award. This year alone, we have been nominated and presented with up to 10 awards and recognitions globally from Most Innovative Company to African Achievers Awards to Top 5 young entrepreneurs in Africa and many others. That’s the greatest aspect of pushing our dreams at Dressmeoutlet.com. Let’s not forget the hundreds of amazing customer testimonials we have amassed. The partnerships and potentials for scalability of Dressmeoutlet.com are significant and we look forward to even more growth ahead.
Focusing on performance & Results
I don’t focus too much on challenges. It takes a lot of time and energy to recount challenges. We all know there are significant setbacks in Africa but the good news is that each and every setback can be eliminated and we can grow and become a greater continent. I’d rather focus on performance indicators, on scaling up and on generating results.
Advice to young Female Entrepreneurs
Know your passion, drive your passion, be your very best in all your undertakings and excel. Africa needs you to be great. We all can be great but first, you will have to push. Push your dreams. Grow beyond everyone’s imaginations, innovate and conquer the world.
I am a Woman of Rubies
I want everyone to be successful. I want to see men supporting men, women supporting women and humans generally supporting humans. I want to see Africa blossom into one of the world’s greatest continents with poverty significantly alleviated.
Woman, Push your dreams!
“Push your dreams! Don’t let anything stop you from doing anything great for the world. The world wants to see you shine while making the world a better place.