In Nigeria, the private sector does not operate on thin margins. A salary earner will charge you 10–15% to lend you money sitting in their savings account, even for 30 days. Banks sitting on a 23% MPR will still price you at 30% and above, with collateral. This is not a 2–3% interest, 5–10% profit-margin economy. People seek 100%+ margins to make the trouble worth it. Cost is high, so everybody passes it on. A N350,000/year shop becomes N1 million: two years upfront, 10% agency, 10% legal, plus caution fee. The business layers margins to recoup capital. Every transaction extracts. Everyone is overstretched and over-leveraged. Worse still, we bury capital in non-performing real estate, so value is trapped. We need money to pay bills, feed the house, and still have extra to throw at owambe or a funeral on the weekend. That extra is not always about scaling an enterprise. But we envy other nations who operate 0% lending or those who find the venture capitalist model to be a way of life. You can’t take what you don’t have to give. Our culture demands more than enough. So everyone accumulates in every direction and no one thinks of collective growth. Every man for himself, God save us all and we watch as the devil catches the last person! Build a network of like minds. Pool resources together and leverage this “collective” as a way to penetrate tough environments or expand opportunities.