Hi, I am JiJi....( Part 1)

My name is Ajibike Salami, Jiji for short. Random fact is "Aunty Jiji" is a name that my nephew that was 2 at the time (he's about 19 now) called me because he could not be bothered to pronounce my full name. O well, the name has stuck and most people that know me call me Jiji now.

I have always unconsciously been interested in hair, I had ventured into opening a kids salon in 2015 as a side hustle but failed woefully. My interest was at an all time high when a few months to my wedding; in lieu of getting a trim; my long natural hair was chopped recklessly in 2016 by a hairstylist (POV, I wanted to be; and was a natural hair bride). I started taking extra care of my natural hair in a bid to have enough length to still be a natural hair bride.

As I cared for my hair, I got more interested in Hair Care and started to spend more time reading up, watching too many Youtube videos and consuming hair related materials. I psyched myself enough that I could do hair now and I did it (lol),I twisted my hair and a lot of popular hair blogs back then reposted my pictures (not really viral, but I got noticed, lol). Suddenly people wanted me to do the same twists for them lmao. At that time, I was a full time banker so I spent the weekends I was not working at my banking Job doing people's hair.

The more I did it, the more confident I got. I took a couple of paid trainings with Kemi Lewis, Rare Essence Academy, etc. I also had a mentor (Yellow Sisi) that told me to set a target for an amount I wanted to make. I knew I was going to quit my banking job when I met the target in less time than I initially set. I quit my job in 2018; I had a healthy savings and a backup plan(my husband, lol).

I was going to take on a partner at that time but that did not go as planned so I decided to start small and converted our garage into a salon in Abuja Nigeria. The garage salon, La Place de Jiji, started in May of 2018. I started with two Hairstylists; and by July, we had hired one more staff. Ironically; although I did not turn over my "bank salary"; I had no need to deep into my savings to pay my staff and by the end of the year, we hired one more staff member.

To be continued...