In this exclusive interview with The News Chronicle host Esther Salami, Ms. Ifedayo Agoro delves into how her background shaped the woman she has become, offering valuable insights from her experiences on how women can be their best selves regardless of their backgrounds.
TNC: Can we know a bit about you?
Ife: My name is Ifedayo Agoro, as it’s clearly known. I’m 41 years old. I was born on May 13th, 1983. I grew up in Lagos. I was born in Lagos. I studied English, Bachelor of Arts, at Olabisi Onabanjo University. I graduated in 2006. I’m the CEO of DANG! Lifestyle – a lifestyle company that specializes in skincare, body fragrances, and home fragrances as well. As of today, I can clearly say, arguably, that DANG! Lifestyle is one of the biggest skincare brands in Nigeria at the moment.
TNC: How did your background shape who you are? Some people consider being born in Nigeria, because of the way everything is, it’s like you have to be privileged to make it. Was it hard growing up?
Ife: Yes, it was definitely hard growing up. I mean, I don’t tell stories as though they are like the end of the world. Oh, I suffered growing up. I don’t tell stories like that because I just tell the stories as they are and as I was feeling at the time. Growing up, I knew we were poor, but it wasn’t something that we talked about consistently or made a thing. It was just a life that we lived. We didn’t have money, but that’s okay. So, I know that it wasn’t the best financially, but the way that my parents brought us up has made us who we are today. Ehm… the fact that we were told that poverty is in your mind. You don’t have money, is a state of being, right? but poverty itself, the mentality of lack, is a state of mind and we should never feel like that because, at the end of the day, when you feel, “Oh, I’m poor,” in your mind, you begin to feel others are better than you and my mum always said nobody is better than you. They may have more money, but they are not better than you. Their worth is not better than yours as well. So that’s one of the things that affected my growth growing up and made me who I am today. Not the poverty, it’s just how I was raised.
Another thing is… I think the hustle. Most of us that grew up poor, think about never going back there; because when you begin to taste some of the financial freedom, you know what money can do for you. Money can give you a lot of freedom. Money can open doors for you. Money will make you worry less about just things and be able to focus on making more money if that is clear. So that’s what my growing up did. Aside from the fact that I grew up with the mental state of abundance, I also grew up knowing that we didn’t have that financial capability, and who I am now makes me realize that it’s because I don’t ever want to go back there… everything first happens in our mind.
TNC: Was there a particular thing your parents did that impacted you?
Ife: My mum was special, very special. I always say she’s the best mum in the world because, how again? Like we were trained. One of the things she taught me was whenever you enter a space, don’t cower, don’t shrink, sit up, raise your head up, you are all of that and then more. She taught me to always speak, and she would be very angry—she gets really angry—at people who try to shut me up or any of my siblings. She becomes a lioness because for her, “let them speak.” Just because you’re an adult does not mean that you know everything or that you shut children down. They have a right to have a voice. So she taught me that, and that’s why I tend to have a different mentality from many Nigerians as to the right of people to actually speak their minds, like air their views. That’s why I will never be shut up because I will speak when I’m speaking; you make whatever you want to make of it, but I will not be shut up. I will not be shut down or shut up; and that was because my mum just taught us like that, and I’ve seen examples of her telling people, “Let us speak,” “Don’t shut her down,” and that has really affected me. Another thing my mum taught me – growing up taught me was to get the things I want for myself. Do you want something? Go and get it. That has always been my experience.
TNC: So you had no mentality of entitlement?
Ife: No. It was never like that growing up. It was always – you want something, go and get it because at the end of the day, every power that you need is in you already. The power to do, to choose, wisdom, all of those things—you have it inside of you. So go ahead and go get it. That’s how I work, and till today, that has helped me to understand that. What am I doing if I am not getting the things I want? Why am I waiting around for somebody to get it for me? That’s not who I am. And you know, I think it’s because of my childhood.
TNC: Would you say you were privileged or do you consider yourself self-made?
Ife: The definition of self-made for me is a little wonky, especially because you never did anything yourself with no help along the way.
TNC: You know they call some people nepobabies?
Ife: I’m definitely not a nepobaby… definitely not a nepobaby. However, even the nepobabies that people say, they work hard. You see a lot of children who took over their fathers’ companies and all those things. Those people are working hard to sustain that company; so they are fortunate—it’s fine, not all of us— We cannot be jealous of people who did not choose their parents; they just live inside wealth. How are you going to be jealous of that? Like it makes no sense. So, when you say nepobabies, they exist—also many of them are hardworking and improving what they inherited in their fathers’ companies. As long as we are all just finding success, I don’t think it matters who gave birth to whom. Let’s just find success wherever we are.
TNC: As the founder of DANG Community, you have worked with so many women, so what will you say is one factor you’ve seen that keeps women broken or stagnant in today’s world?
Ife: I don’t think there’s one factor, but one thing that I’ve seen rampantly, of course, based on talking to a lot of women, is comparison. Trying to be like others, trying to compete with others, forgetting that you have your own personality and the sky is too big—you know, for all types of personalities to exist. You don’t have to be me, I don’t have to be you. Why are you sitting down looking at Ife and saying, “Ife is doing it this way—maybe if I do it this way”? I don’t think that’s bad, but you can’t be Ife, so you may have to take one or two things from Ife and add to your personality to make it work. But you cannot completely leave yourself and continue to compare yourself, saying, “Oh, this person has bought a car and I’ve not bought a car.” Instead of just focusing very squarely on your life, your business, your hopes, and your dreams—just focusing squarely on that and making sure that your own life is worth something. So, in my opinion, it’s that comparison. When you just look around and feel sorry for yourself for not having what others are having, meanwhile, you’ve forgotten that those who are doing that are just living their lives and doing their own thing.
So, I wish that many women would just stay focused on their own dreams, visions, and purposes, and just stop comparing themselves. We all cannot be the same—it takes a special mind— be— and not drag or compare yourself—it’s just not worth it. It brings you down, it presses you down more than it elevates you. So, that’s not really important in our growth.
TNC: Is there any decision you made in the past, that you still regret today?
Ife: Of course, I don’t really understand when people say things like – oh I don’t regret anything in life. But I do. I wish that I did not do some things. I think, mostly the only thing that comes to my mind all the time—it’s like— even though I committed it, I just wished I didn’t go that route— is to—accept to be engaged with someone I did not love and I did not see myself being the father of my children, someone who I did not see us moving together career-wise— emotional-wise, I didn’t see that at all— so I did agree to marry that person, only because I was 30, and nobody told me to my face but because— remember I keep talking about comparison?— because I felt empathy or I felt I that at 30— even though in my mind I knew that was just a worked mentality that at 30 you must be married – so at that age, I was like ‘Ah let me—you know, let me do it’ but you gonna go through a lot to call it off.
TNC: With so much competition both from International and local brands, What does DANG! Lifestyle do differently from other brands?
Ife: With DANG! Lifestyle, two things – the first thing is our story and how we started. We actually started from a community of women who desperately needed their skin to look better, who desperately needed the product to work for them. Because with Dang lifestyle, our decision was— you know what? create products for the whole world especially people with melanin in their skin. You can be yellow all the way— but you’re of black descent, right? And our products actually help or you’re even Asian with melanin in your skin.
Our stories come from that place where a community of women came together and said these products are not working for us, these products for Caucasians are not working for us— where do we get products that actually are made for us, because our skin is so different, you know—auburn but is also sensitive – and all of those things. We get sunburned quickly— goes under the melanin rush in our system— so the difference between DANG! Lifestyle and other brands is that we have a story, we have where we came from, we didn’t just wake up, women asked for this, women of a particular community asked for this and we decided yes we will give it to them. The second thing is that we don’t – at this time, we haven’t done ads like campaigns.
We make sure that our users are part of our story so when you use the products and it works for them, we come out and say it. There’s a lot of word of mouth that has gone out for DANG! Lifestyle because it feels like a community company. A company owned by a community and that community is making sure to make a success out of that company and now because the products actually work, the community is going further to spread the word by themselves.
No influencer ads, no social media campaigns at this time. I mean— going forward as the company gets bigger, we have to do ads, we have to do campaigns, but as we are now, we’re 3 in November this year— so the difference is that we prioritize our human connections and we make sure that they are seen; when the product works for you we make sure that you are seen by the world; let people know that this product work for you. It helps us as a company and it helps people know that we see them and that we get them. All that has given us an edge. We don’t feel far away from our customers, our customers feel close to us.
TNC: As a successful woman, what’s the most common trait you share with other successful women?
Ife: it’s the ability to just keep going and adapting. Like is this working, we’re doing it. Is it not working, how do we change it? is it working? yes, how do we make it better? It is the ability to just keep going, not giving up. Just tweaking it as we go but not giving up. Because the moment we just say – you know what I’m done with this – okay, you’re going to do another one, challenges will come up again. So when I’ve met a lot of successful people what I’ve seen in them is – ‘You know what? – this is my line I can see that this is what I want to do, I can see this is what – I’ll keep going despite the challenges. When I encounter challenges, I will work on it. I will adapt. I won’t be lost in the crowd, I will stand out.
Everything that we do is for that purpose, and it’s just to keep going. We are not really only looking at the money, we are just looking at ‘this thing has to succeed’. Not only the money part, just the way that we envision it. Every vision comes with challenges in life, right? And things happen with the world that if you don’t adapt to these changes, your company will be relegated so what we do is – what changes are happening right now? We adapt to those changes and we keep going. But, we’re not afraid of changes, we’re not going to be put in the backbone and we just keep going – that is one thing I’ve seen about successful women.
TNC: What is the best advice you’ve gotten from someone?
Ife: This was from somebody in 2017. I’ve never forgotten, and she said always put your best foot forward. The best is what you should be giving at every point. So when you do something, it has to be the best that you can give at that time. There is no other way; if there’s a thing that you have to do, make sure that is the best that you can do – because of course, we all can always do better, but at that time that you’re supposed to do it, present yourself enough, present yourself in the best way at the time – that’s the best advice when it comes to business that I’ve received.
TNC: What advice would you give to the younger generation watching this?
Ife: Pace yourself. People are so much in a hurry and are very confused by it. I don’t understand why the younger ones are so much in a hurry to be something, to make a lot of money, to buy cars – and in all of this there doesn’t feel to be an understanding of process. Everything goes through a process. The younger ones don’t want to go through the process. They want to land now and make money now which makes them very impatient especially in workplaces, even businesses. As soon as the business doesn’t work, they move. It’s not making money, they move but pace yourself. understand that everything is a process as long as you’re working hard every day. pushing yourself, please don’t expect that things will work overnight. just pace yourself, things will come.
TNC: Thank you so much for your time and wonderful insights.
Ife: Thank you for having me
