Fiona Ajimsimbom

28/05/2026

The Woman Who Said It Was Too Oily

Abongwa added pepper to the Nchang Special.

Real pepper. The kind that announces itself. Not background flavour; a presence.

Most of her regulars loved it immediately. Three of them ordered double. The okada man said it was the best thing he had eaten since his mother's cooking.

But one woman — a regular, a good customer; took one bite, put the bag down and said loudly, "Abongwa, this one is too oily. And the pepper is too much. You are going to lose customers with this." She said it in front of five other customers.

Abongwa felt the familiar heat rise in her chest. The old Abongwa would have apologised. Adjusted the recipe. Tried to make everyone happy.

Instead she said, "I hear you. But this one is for the people who love pepper. If it is not for you, I still have the original."

The woman bought the original and left without another word.
The five other customers who had been listening looked at each other.
One said, "Give me two of the pepper ones."
Another said: "Make it three."

The Nchang Special sold out that morning for the first time.

That evening Abongwa thought about what had happened. The woman's complaint had felt like a threat. Instead it had become a demonstration. The people who were right for the Nchang Special had revealed themselves, not despite the complaint but because of it.
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Law 12: You must p**s people off

📖 The Lesson: You must p**s people off.
Bartlett says, "Some people will love you. Some will hate you. Some simply won't care. Indifference is the least profitable outcome."

Abongwa's decision to keep the pepper was a business decision disguised as a personal one.

When you try to please everyone you end up with a product that excites nobody. The person who complains loudly about your pepper is not your customer. The person who orders three bags because someone else complained — that is your customer. And they just became more loyal because you showed them you stood for something.

A brand that offends nobody stands for nothing. The complaints are not warnings. They are proof that you have a point of view strong enough to provoke a reaction. Indifference is the only outcome you cannot build a business on.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
Have you ever softened your product, your price or your message to avoid upsetting someone; and lost your best customers in the process? What happened?

27/05/2026

Sometimes business makes you question your self worth.

Remember who you are. You're not the problem. Tough times don't stay forever!

What She Told Herself

There was a week in the fourth month that Abongwa nearly believed the wrong thing about herself.

Sales had dropped. Three days of rain had kept people inside. Her charcoal supplier had raised his price without warning. One of her regular customers; the teacher who bought every morning, had moved schools and stopped passing.

She sat in her kitchen on a Thursday night and had the thought quietly, the way dangerous thoughts always come: maybe this was never going to work.
She allowed the thought to sit there for exactly one minute.
Then she got up and did something she had not done since she was a civil servant.

She wrote her own review.

Not for anyone else. Just for herself. In the back of the same notebook where she kept her questions.

"Abongwa Nchang. Started with 15,000 FCFA. Has served more than 200 customers. Created a new product that sells out every time. Has never missed a morning except when the children were sick. Adjusted her recipe when a stranger told her the truth. Opened earlier when she found out people needed her before 6am."

She read it back to herself slowly.

That is who I am, she thought. Not the week. Not the rain. Not the price of charcoal.

She was back at the table on Friday.
Not because the circumstances had changed.
Because she had remembered who she was.
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Law 7: Never compromise your self-story

📖 The Lesson
The most convincing sign that someone will achieve new results in the future is new behaviour in the present.

Abongwa's self-story was almost rewritten by a bad week. She caught it. She corrected it; not with positive thinking but with evidence. With a list of real things she had actually done.

Your self-story is not vanity. It is the operating system your decisions run on. When it is wrong, everything the business does is wrong too. Protect it with evidence. Review it regularly. Never let one bad week edit what took months to build.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
If you were to write your own business review right now; honest, specific, based only on what you have actually done, what would it say?

27/05/2026

Business lessons in style 😎

Are you following the stories fromt the Nchang's Kitchen Diaries?

Here's a recap of the first 9 stories, inspired by the 33 laws of Business and Life from the book, "Diary of a CEO" by Steven Bartlett.

What one lesson did you pick of Pillar 1: The Self? It might encourage someone to go back for the rest.

27/05/2026

The Sign That Made People Stop

For six months Abongwa's sign had said one thing, "Nchang's Kitchen." In blue marker. Slightly crooked on the left side.

People passed it every day without seeing it. Not because it was invisible; but because it had become wallpaper. Part of the street. Expected. Ignored.

Her daughter suggested a new sign.
Abongwa agreed but had no money for a proper printed banner. So she bought a larger piece of cardboard, a red marker and sat at the kitchen table one evening thinking about what to write.

She thought about her customers. What they felt in the morning before they ate. What the puff puff actually did for them. Not what it was; but what it meant.

She wrote. "Your morning deserves better than nothing. We are here."

She put it up the next day. Three people stopped to read it on the first morning. Two of them had never bought from her before.

One man, a teacher who passed every day without stopping — read the sign, looked at Abongwa, and said, "That is true, you know." Then he bought four portions.

He has bought four portions every morning since then.

Abongwa did not change the puff puff. She did not change the price. She did not change the location.
She changed what she said; and made people feel something for the first time.
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Law 11: Avoid wallpaper at all costs

📖 The Lesson
Avoid wallpaper at all costs.
Bartlett says, "Make people feel something, either way."

Abongwa's first sign was information. Her second sign was an emotion.

Information tells people what exists. Emotion makes people care that it exists. Most business content — posts, captions, signage, pitches;becomes wallpaper because it communicates facts without feelings. It tells people what the product is without telling them why it matters for their life right now today.

The question is never 'what do I sell?' The question is 'what does my customer feel before they need what I sell; and how does my product change that feeling?' Answer that question in everything you write. Make them feel something. Either way.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
What does your product or service actually make your customer feel — not what it does, but what it changes emotionally? Write it in the comments. That feeling is your real marketing message.

26/05/2026

The Goat on the Table

It started as an accident.

One Thursday morning Abongwa's neighbour's goat escaped its rope, trotted down Cow Street and stopped directly in front of Nchang's Kitchen. It sniffed the puff puff. It looked at Abongwa. It did not leave.

Abongwa, who had no time for nonsense, tried to shoo it away. The goat stepped closer. She offered it a piece of puff puff to distract it. It ate the puff puff and stayed.

Her daughter, who had been watching from across the street, took a photo.
The goat standing beside the Nchang's Kitchen sign, looking directly into the camera, surrounded by puff puff.
She posted it with one caption: "Even the goats of Bamenda know where the best puff puff is."

By evening it had been shared forty-seven times.

People Abongwa had never met were tagging their friends. Someone from Douala commented asking if she delivered. A woman from Yaoundé said she was visiting Bamenda the following month and had already decided where her first stop would be.

Abongwa stared at her daughter's phone screen that night.

"A goat," she said slowly. "A goat did more for this business in one afternoon than I have done in six months of posting."

Her daughter smiled.
"The goat was real," she said. "That is why it worked."
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Law 10: Useless absurdity will define you more than useful practicality

📖 The Lesson
Useless absurdity will define you more than useful practicality.

Bartlett says: "Normality is ignored. Absurdity sells."

Abongwa had been posting beautiful photos of her puff puff for months. Perfectly lit. Perfectly arranged. Nobody shared them. But one goat changed everything.

The most shareable content is never the most polished. It is the most unexpected. The thing that makes someone laugh, blink twice or call their friend to look at their screen. You do not need a big budget to make your brand travel. You need a moment that feels genuinely surprising and completely real.

Normality is scrolled past. Absurdity is shared.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇

What is the most unexpected or absurd thing that has ever happened in your business; something you laughed about at the time but never thought to share? Tell me. That story is your best marketing.

25/05/2026

One a Monday in May, Abongwa could not get out of bed.

Not laziness. Not discouragement. Her body had simply decided it was done.

She had been waking at 5am, standing on concrete for six hours, carrying and lifting and stirring and smiling and making change and answering questions. She had been doing this six days a week for five months without a single full day of rest.

She lay in bed that Monday and listened to the street outside filling with the sounds of morning without her.
Her daughter made the decision for her. She called the regular customers she had numbers for. Told them Nchang's Kitchen would be closed for the week.

Abongwa did not fight it.

For seven days she slept. Ate properly; not the testing bites between frying but actual meals. Sat outside in the afternoon sun. Let her feet rest. Drank water instead of the strong tea she had been using to push through mornings.

On the eighth day she stood up and felt like herself.

She went back to the table the following Monday. Three customers had found other options. But seven had waited.

One of them_the okada man who bought four portions every morning said, "We thought you had given up."
"No," Abongwa said, setting out the stove. "I was refuelling."

She made more that week than she had in any previous week.
Because the woman behind the table was fully present again.
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Law 9: Always prioritise your first foundation

📖 The Lesson
Your health is your first foundation.

Nchang's Kitchen could not function without Abongwa. And Abongwa could not function without her health. Every system in your business sits on top of your physical and mental wellbeing.

When the foundation cracks everything built on it becomes unstable. Rest is not the opposite of productivity. It is the condition that makes productivity possible. You cannot pour from an empty stove.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
When last did you take a genuine rest; not scrolling, not planning, not catching up — just actual recovery? What would it cost your business if you collapsed tomorrow?

24/05/2026

This is for my 51 followers!

I'm grateful for your support. My only objective is to keep bringing you business lessons, tips and strategies to take your business to the next best level.

To show you my appreciation, I am giving you this platform to use it the way you want it.

Message me. Write about what you do and I will dedicate a post just for you.

Other followers will share with you what has worked for them and what you could do!

If you are facing any issues, chances are that other people have faced the same issues and they will advise you.

What's more, you will get more eyes on your business. And you know what visibility is right?

In this community, we're taking everyone along. We are winning together ❤

Shall we do this together? Make use of the message button now!

Happy Sunday business superstars!

24/05/2026

Abongwa had a bad habit.

Every evening after closing she would sit in front of the television with a bottle of Malta and biscuits and watch Nigerian series until midnight. It was the one part of the day that was entirely hers.

Her daughter had suggested she use that time to do accounts. Or plan the next day's portions. Or research new recipes online.

Abongwa had tried. Twice. Both times she had lasted twenty minutes before the television won.
She stopped trying to fight it. Instead she moved the habit.

She started keeping her notebook on the table beside the Malta. During the commercial breaks - and Nigerian series have many commercial breaks; she would write one thing. One customer name she wanted to remember. One idea that had crossed her mind during the day. One number. One question.

She was not fighting the television. She was using the television.

Within a month the notebook beside the Malta had become the most valuable business document she owned. Patterns she would never have noticed. Ideas she would have lost by morning. Customers she had almost forgotten.

Her daughter found her one night, Malta in one hand, pen in the other, pausing the television to finish a sentence.

"What happened to just watching?" her daughter asked.
"I still watch," Abongwa said. "I just also think now."
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Law 8: Never fight a bad habit

📖 The Lesson
Sleep. Lift. Move. Smile. Laugh. Listen. Read. Save. Hydrate. Fast. Build. Create. Your habits are your future.

Abongwa did not conquer her evening habit. She collaborated with it. Fighting a bad habit is exhausting and usually unsuccessful because you are trying to create absence; to make something disappear. It is far easier to introduce presence — to place a better habit alongside the existing one until the better habit quietly takes over.

Your habits are building your future right now whether you are paying attention or not. The question is not whether to have habits. It is which ones you choose to feed.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
What is one daily habit you already have — however small or seemingly unproductive — that you could attach a business-building behaviour to starting tomorrow?

23/05/2026

What She Told Herself

There was a week in the fourth month that Abongwa nearly believed the wrong thing about herself.

Sales had dropped. Three days of rain had kept people inside. Her charcoal supplier had raised his price without warning. One of her regular customers; the teacher who bought every morning, had moved schools and stopped passing.

She sat in her kitchen on a Thursday night and had the thought quietly, the way dangerous thoughts always come: maybe this was never going to work.
She allowed the thought to sit there for exactly one minute.
Then she got up and did something she had not done since she was a civil servant.

She wrote her own review.

Not for anyone else. Just for herself. In the back of the same notebook where she kept her questions.

"Abongwa Nchang. Started with 15,000 FCFA. Has served more than 200 customers. Created a new product that sells out every time. Has never missed a morning except when the children were sick. Adjusted her recipe when a stranger told her the truth. Opened earlier when she found out people needed her before 6am."

She read it back to herself slowly.

That is who I am, she thought. Not the week. Not the rain. Not the price of charcoal.

She was back at the table on Friday.
Not because the circumstances had changed.
Because she had remembered who she was.
------‐-----------------------------------------------------------------
Law 7: Never compromise your self-story

📖 The Lesson
The most convincing sign that someone will achieve new results in the future is new behaviour in the present.

Abongwa's self-story was almost rewritten by a bad week. She caught it. She corrected it; not with positive thinking but with evidence. With a list of real things she had actually done.

Your self-story is not vanity. It is the operating system your decisions run on. When it is wrong, everything the business does is wrong too. Protect it with evidence. Review it regularly. Never let one bad week edit what took months to build.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
If you were to write your own business review right now; honest, specific, based only on what you have actually done, what would it say?

22/05/2026

The Question She Started Asking

For the first three months, Abongwa ran Nchang's Kitchen on instinct.

She made what she knew how to make. She priced what felt fair. She opened when she felt like opening and closed when the stove said it was tired. Business was decent. Not growing. Just decent.

One evening she sat with her notebook; the one her daughter used for school that had a few blank pages at the back, and she started writing questions.

Why do my regular customers come back?
Why did Mama Forbi stop coming on Wednesdays?
Why does the office crowd only appear on Fridays?
Why does the new recipe sell out before the original?

She had never asked these questions before. She had been too busy answering the question of survival to ask the questions of growth.

The next morning she started doing something small. After each sale she asked one question.
"What made you come today?" Or: "Is there something you wish I also sold?" Or simply: "What do you think?"
The answers surprised her every time.

Within two weeks she had added groundnut cake to the table as a standalone item. She had moved her opening time from 6am to 5:45am because three customers passed on their way to the 6am factory shift.

She had started wrapping in brown paper instead of plastic because someone said it felt cleaner.

None of these ideas had come from her. All of them had come from the questions she finally started asking.
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Law 6: Ask, don't tell

📖 The Lesson
Ask questions of your actions, and your actions will answer.

Abongwa had been running a business. She had not been listening to it. When she started asking questions, of her customers, of her numbers, of her own daily choices; the business started answering. It told her when to open, what to add, how to package, who to serve better. The answers were always there. She just had not been asking. A business that is never questioned never grows. Ask it everything.

💬 Tell me in the comments 👇
What is one question you have never asked your customers — or yourself about your business — that if answered honestly could change how you operate?