I Will Never Do Business With Friends Again

If you ever want to test the strength of your friendship, just start a business together.

That’s how this whole thing began.

There are five of us: me, Temi, Femi, Ada, and Grace. We’ve been friends for ten years, ever since our days in secondary school. Our bond only grew stronger as we made sure to attend the same university together. Others often doubted about our closeness, maybe because they feel that all female friendships are fake. One evening in our second year, while strolling for Mei Shayi noodles amid yet another “let’s start a business” conversation, Ada said something that sounded brilliant at the time.

“Perfume business is booming now. Everybody wants to smell expensive.”

And just like that, a business meeting started. We discussed until we got back to our hostel.

The conversation felt like it was truly moving forward, maybe it was the delicious noodles fueling our ideas, maybe not; who knows. In less than thirty minutes, we’d already projected profits, scouted suppliers, and imagined opening a physical store in Lekki Phase 1.

Lol. We hadn’t even sold one bottle yet, but in our heads, we were already successful entrepreneurs.

After all the meetings (on our beds), the grand plan was this: Everybody would contribute an amount of money, we would import quality perfumes, package them nicely, sell online, and split the profit.

Very simple.

At least… that was what we thought.

We contributed the money to a designated account. It felt real; I even suggested we should take a picture to mark “the beginning of something big.”

The perfumes finally arrived about three weeks later. Beautiful bottles. Sweet fragrances. Everything looked promising.

That was when the real problem started.

First issue: money.

Customers began messaging us on Instagram. It was at that point that we started debating on whose account they should pay into.

Temi suggested his account.

Femi said no, it should be Ada’s account because she’s “more organised.”

Grace said it should rotate so nobody would feel cheated. Rotate ke?

In the end, we decided that customers would pay into our different accounts depending on who was chatting with them and sealed the transaction.

At the time, it felt like a great idea. But now it is so confusing.

Most evenings we would sit and try to calculate how many perfumes we sold and how much money we’ve made. The conversation usually starts calmly, then slowly turns into an interrogation.

“Wait… didn’t you sell three yesterday?”

“I thought that one was transferred to your account?”

“No, that one paid to Femi.”

One time, I rose my voice in the midst of all the arguement, “So how much profit do we actually have right now?”

Silence.

Nobody ever knows.

Right now, our business is basically five friends, three bank accounts, scattered records, and weekly meetings that feel like group therapy.

I know somewhere deep in my heart that if this business continues like this, our friendship go end first before we go anywhere.

Now listen closely, dear reader, in this story, starting a business with friends is not the problem. The real problem is starting a business without structure.

Many small businesses begin exactly like this story:

• Payments going into personal accounts
• No clear tracking of transactions
• No defined roles or operational structure
• A brand that exists only on Instagram but not as a proper business entity

When business is run like this, confusion is almost guaranteed.

A real business needs more than a product. It needs structure, identity, and proper financial organisation.

This is exactly what Open Space’s Business Growth Suite (BGS) is here for. The Business Growth Suite is a financial tool that helps businesses move from informal hustle to structured enterprise by giving them tools designed for real business operations.

With BGS, businesses can:

• Create dedicated business payment channelsinstead of mixing funds with personal accounts
  • Track transactions and sales clearly
  • Establish a professional business identitycustomers can trust
  • Manage financial activity with better organisation and visibility

In simple terms, it helps businesses move from “five friends selling something online” to a real business with structure and systems.

Because the difference between a struggling hustle and a growing business is often not the product.

It’s the structure behind it.