Konnected Minds Founder: I Took a Loan for Pharmacy

Derrick Abaitey, founder and host of the Konnected Minds Podcast, has said he took out a personal loan to help launch his pharmacy business after failing to raise enough money on his own.

He shared the story on Joy Learning TV and Joy News' entrepreneurship programme, The Career Trail.

Abaitey said he had always wanted to build an online pharmacy, an idea that first came to him during his pharmacy training.

"While I was doing my pre-registration, I came up with a plan that with all the IT skills that I had, I was going to set up a pharmacy, and that pharmacy was going to be an online pharmacy," he said.

The road to qualifying was far from smooth. In his third year, Abaitey nearly lost his place on the pharmacy programme after struggling with a mathematics course.

"There was a time in my third year where things got really tough. I'm terrible at maths, and I had a final chance to pass. If I didn't, I was gone," he recalled.

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He stayed behind after the semester ended to study for his exams but still found the material hard. A friend then recommended Gifted Hands by Dr. Ben Carson.

"I dropped everything I was doing and read it very quickly," he said. He credited the book with changing his mindset and keeping him going.

He passed the exam and completed his training, fulfilling a promise he said he had made.

"I had made God a promise that if I passed the pharmacy course, wherever I was driving, I would stop the car and prostrate on the road because I needed this degree," he said.

When the results came out, his girlfriend, now his wife, checked and found his name. "I stopped the car in the middle of the road, got out and went straight to the ground to thank God. I was finally out of it," he added.

Abaitey registered quickly and landed his first job, but he said the work did not satisfy him. The trading he had done as a student kept pulling him back.

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"Every time I went to work, I didn't really like it. The hustling I did in college was calling me back," he said.

He partnered with Eddy, a fellow pharmacist he met at church, and the two wrote a business plan of more than 200 pages. They calculated they needed £80,000 to start.

Both men worked extra shifts, sometimes travelling outside London for weeks to earn more. When savings fell short, each took a personal loan.

They still needed working capital. Their first pitch to investors failed, so three friends agreed to put in £500 each per month in exchange for shares. The investors later stepped away to focus on other commitments.

Early on, the business had no customers. Their target was care homes, but contracts were hard to win.

So the pair went out in suits, briefcase in hand, and walked into a care home without an appointment.

"I said, 'No, but we're here to offer you a better service than what you're currently using.' I had never done a sales pitch before. The only thing I had was aud