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Chief Executive Officer of Seinde Signature, Seinde Olushola, speaks to BIODUN BUSARI about his passion and resilience behind the success of the collection of over 1,000 perfumes, as well as the challenges and achievements in the business
How has your experience been in the perfume industry for decades?
I’m trying to find a proper way to answer this because Nigeria’s perfume industry doesn’t even exist. We have good perfumers in Nigeria. We have people trained to be perfumers in Nigeria, but they don’t even know their own values. So, most times, they undercut themselves. They are not open to knowledge; they are not open to initiatives. I think they even have an association, but everything they do is more or less stagnant because they are not open to ideas to launch them into success.
Those doing the business part of perfumes as far as entrepreneurship is concerned are not even connected to people who are creating in Nigeria. Those in the business bring a lot of junk to the country for people to buy. So, there is no regulated sector so that you can see fake products. Technically, I don’t think there is any structured sector for the perfume industry in Nigeria.
With someone like you who has this knowledge over the years, what are you doing to reshape the industry?
In Nigeria, some people have been in the business before you, and they don’t even want you to exist. This is the only part of the world where people in the same business don’t want to associate with one another. In Nigeria, we don’t like one another, not because of religion or tribe.
How did you come up with the idea of launching Seinde Signature?
I used to buy perfumes for fun. I bought my first perfume in 1982; that’s like 42 years ago. I used to buy perfumes a lot. It’s the only thing I spend my money on. I hardly go to parties or nightclubs. I’m not calling myself a saint, but these are my decisions based on the money it will cost me. If I see gold and perfume, I will buy perfume. I bought perfumes to the point where I realised that everybody in the country was just selling the same thing. It’s almost like if you want something else, you can’t get it.
I have to travel a lot to get what I want. So, I used to travel only to buy perfume and come back. The more knowledge of perfume that I get, the more I realised the difference in how everything is set up from the beginning. The perfume knowledge in Nigeria is almost zero. It’s not just in Nigeria, but all over the world. Everybody just wants to smell nice, but they don’t understand what comes with even the perfume, the story behind it and so many other things.
If you are a Christian, you will understand that the wise men who came to Jesus gave him gold, myrrh and frankincense. Frankincense and myrrh were perfumes. That gives you an insight into how important perfume is. Also, the alabaster oil that Mary Magdalene poured on Jesus face was perfume. Perfume is not for everybody.
It is meant for the elite, the kings, and those who could afford it. They are not cheap. What happened over the years was simply that the designers made it accessible and affordable because they were able to create them synthetically. The designers found a way to create those perfumes synthetically because they became cheap and affordable for everybody.
Can you talk about the benefits of perfumes to people?
Original perfume has a lot of health benefits. When you talk about relaxation, perfume relaxes you when you smell perfume oil like lavender, cardamom, and bergamot. They are known for calming effects and reducing stress and anxiety. They also enhance sleep. When you bathe and put on your perfume, you have a quality sleep. You may not get all these benefits from synthetics. That is common, everybody knows. That’s why you see them at airports and supermarkets.
But the ingredients for original perfumes are expensive. For example, to get wood from an agarwood tree, you need to plant the tree and it will grow for 25 years. You need to be infected with the fungus for five years to get the oil coming out from the skin. So, that is a 30 years investment.
When you see perfumes with original wood, they are very expensive. Perfume increases your self-esteem. It gives you the confidence to work hard. Some perfumes let you heal fast. It is also for sexual attraction. For instance, the kind of perfume I wear day and night is different from what I wear when I want to go to meetings.
What was the drive behind the establishment of Seinde Signature?
It’s just my passion for a collection of perfumes. You cannot be living in a place that smells so horrible, and you expect to succeed, even from your bedroom. We are not flesh trying to walk in spirit. We are spirits trying to walk in the flesh. It’s the reverse. So, it didn’t start as a business. I was just collecting perfumes. As of 2002 and 2003, I had an issue that time as I said, and people told my wife that I had a problem collecting bottles of perfumes without selling or something.
They said it was the collection of perfumes that troubled me. That time I gave everything out in 2004. But by 2007 and 2009, I started buying again. Then I had the support of my daughter who I will say we started the business together. When I informed her, she would be the one to help me keep them in her own room and put some under the bed. We continued like this, hiding them from my wife, and by 2019, I had a collection of over one thousand bottles of perfumes.
Then the pandemic happened in 2020. I saw a lady who put all her perfumes on her social media page; that was not even up to what I had. Then I just quickly ran to where my perfumes were and began to snap them and post them on my page as well. Then, I knew I was not crazy. That gave me a kind of licence to showcase what I had. I did not even think of any fancy name, I just put my name there as ‘Seinde Signature’.
Within a very short time, I already had over 5,000 people following me. They wanted to meet me. I made friends with some of them. Then one day, one of them came on a Sunday. I will show them the perfumes and talk about them. Some of them begged my wife to let them see the ones in our bedroom. My wife obliged but she started getting angry again that I was bringing strangers to our bedroom.
That was why I carried all the perfumes downstairs and created a cabinet for them. It became like a museum so that people would visit, eat, relax, and see. Then, my daughter would entertain them with food. She was in the food business at that time. They started coming with their families to see my perfumes, eat, drink and talk. Later, I would ask them to pay depending on the hours. We were not selling initially. So, after EndSARS, I started renovating this place (head office at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos).
If you came and spent like four hours with me, you’d pay N50,000. When they visit, we give them a certificate of visitation with nice photos. We opened this place and started fully with all these you can see. It is a studio that we have here (upstairs) and we opened a store downstairs to sell. Then, people started coming from Kano, Abuja, and all parts of the country. So, technically, this place took off in November 2020 after EndSARS. The following year, I opened the store downstairs in June 2021. So, I will say it’s about enthusiasm.
Can you briefly talk about the global recognition this initiative has brought for you?
People started contacting me for talks, meetings, and conferences. A magazine from Italy contacted me for an interview. I have a lot of engagements outside the country coming up this February. The manufacturers started contacting me saying that they wanted to come to Nigeria. They were asking me how I could help them enter into the perfume market.
Now let’s talk about the suppliers. Do you do business with local producers?
I don’t have a local supplier. Here, we deal with only high-end niche brands. A niche is a perfume that has been there before the synthetic one came. So, everybody now knows the synthetic one. But the niche is still there. So, you don’t get them in just any place; you get them in high-end premium shops. The only supplier we have that is Nigerian is not even selling in Nigeria. We brought her to Nigeria. We are more popular outside Nigeria than within Nigeria.
In all of these, what are the challenges?
Well just like two challenges. First of all, there is zero knowledge about perfumes. Everybody just thinks about spending. So, they don’t pay attention to it. So, you have to do a lot of education, a lot of talking to people. Secondly, there is the funding issue. The banks don’t even want to hear about perfumes. If you are not oil and gas, they won’t listen to you to get loans. Those are the challenges we have presently.
How do you overcome these challenges?
We have grown from a one-store shop to five shops in Lagos, and three in Abuja. We have one in Warri. Regarding the funding, we approach online loan apps since we can’t get them from banks.
How has the business grown in contributing to the country’s economy?
Last year, we had a gross turnover of N2.2bn from the perfume and we had like net profit of N1bn. Our staff strength is over 60 staff members. There is no shop where we don’t have a minimum of eight staff. Then we have cleaners and other workers.
What are your goals for the business?
We have laid a very strong foundation for distribution here in Nigeria. So, we intend to have a factory here to produce the perfumes, but we will do it to meet the global standard. We don’t see the challenges of shortage of electricity as others see them. These things have been. For us, we take all those challenges as a leaping stone, as a challenge to move ourselves ahead of everything.
What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs who are thinking of coming to this industry?
My advice is not only for people coming to the perfume business but anybody who wants to do business: Don’t listen to negative news. The negative or bad reports form an image in your head that will discourage you. So, don’t listen to them. Just be focused. That’s the starting point because that’s what will give you strength. Believe in your capacity.
What legacy do you want to leave behind?
We are already doing it differently. I don’t believe in climbing over people to grow. I climb with people side by side. It is now left to you to pick up what you want to see inside that. I believe we are doing a lot but we can’t judge ourselves. It’s people who see us that will judge us. It is a family business because all my children are working here.
My first son is with me here in Lagos. My daughter is in Abuja. My wife handles the home version of the business, and my third son is working with her. I think I’m well positioned to sit back. We are just trying to do it. Our offices are along Awolowo Road, at the airport. We have two here, we are hoping to move to a bigger place very soon.
We want to have a proper perfume museum because perfume comes with history. We have the perfume that Princess Diana wore on her wedding day. Since last year, I have been giving one bottle of perfume freely every day. I told myself to do it for one year. Perfume can only be experienced. So, when I give you, you will tell people about it. The campaign is to give out perfumes that are worth N100m in 365 days.
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