Beneficiaries Spotlight Series Interview with Rashida Bello

Rashida Bello, founder and CEO of Yalojar, a home delivery service that brings fresh farm produce straight to your doorstep. In this spotlight edition, Rashida shares how Yaloja is making healthy eating accessible to busy professionals and families, her experience in the Growth4Her Accelerator program and how she’s able to overcome key business challenges and win a grant that helped her scale her business operations. Through the program, she overcame key business challenges and won a grant that helped her scale her operations. Let’s dive into her journey, the impact of the program, and her advice for other women entrepreneurs.

Interviewer: Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your business?    

I’m Rashida Bello. I’m the founder CEO of Yalojar. It’s a revolutionary home delivery service for fresh farm produce. Our mission is to make healthy eating accessible and convenient for busy professionals, mothers of special needs children, elderly moms, and so on and so forth. And our resources are produced directly from local farmers, ensuring freshness, quality, and fair prices.  

Interviewer: What motivated you to join the Growth4Her Accelerator program?  

Okay, I joined the Growth4Her Accelerator Program to scale Yalojar, expand our reach and create a positive impact on the agricultural sector and our customers’ lives. I was drawn to Growth high comprehensive approach for supporting women entrepreneurs. You know, and what made me stay, after the first couple of sessions, I thought I wouldn’t have time to finish, but what attracted me to the program was that psychosocial session, the training, and so on and so forth. It really had a positive impact on me and my business.  

Interviewer: Were there specific challenges your business was faced with prior to joining the program? How did the Growth4Her Accelerator program help you overcome these challenges you faced in growing your business?  

We had staff issues most especially. We needed to innovate and offer unique design options to differentiate our brand in the market. Stay adaptable, innovative, focus on quality products and customer satisfaction. And those psychosocial sessions, they made me know the kind of person that I am. I realized that I am kind of different at work than at home. And so, I was able to at least cut people some slack when dealing with them, because I know that probably I’m expecting too much from people. It really helped me with handling my staff, my team, and then other things I learnt were, I was able to pitch. Something happened during the mentoring sessions. I was able to pitch my business to my mentor, my team and my other fellow mentees and they were able to help me refine my pitch deck and the pitch. With all of these, I was able to win a grant with that pitch. So yes, that’s another thing. And with that grant, I’ve been able to get a solar freezer for my business. So yes, it has been very helpful, with that solar freezer, we don’t have to bother if there is light or not. Farm food is fresh from farm to doorstep and it’s going to help us with getting more customers.  

Interviewer: Can you share a memorable moment or experience from the Growth4Her Accelerator program that stood out to you?  

Okay, the memorable moment was the day I was pitching. My business was registered with a different name in the beginning then I started to use the trade name Yalojar. Then, I had to register my other business named Yalojar which I didn’t want to lose. So, then I didn’t know which one to choose during my pitching, I think we had this practice pitch before the main pitch. So, another mentor from another group now told me to be careful and just choose one and then stick with it because it’s going to scare investors away. This gave me a kind of structure, it was a memorable moment for me because that was when I was able to say, I’m choosing Yalojar and I’m going to get rid of the other name. This helped me so far to concentrate on one business name.     

Interviewer: Since completing the Growth4Her Accelerator program, how has your business grown or changed?   

Like I said earlier, the program has helped me win that grant and I’ve been able to get a solar freezer. It’s actually a big deal for us because the power here is very bad. So apart from that, we’ve been able to refine our pitch deck. We can confidently submit it anywhere now. And we are more confident now when we are going to raise funds, because we know that we’ve been trained to pitch, we’ve been trained, so it’s a step forward in our business.  

Interviewer: What advice would you give to other women entrepreneurs who are considering joining the Growth4Her Accelerator program?  

I would recommend the Growth4Her accelerator program to women entrepreneurs seeking to scale their businesses and make a meaningful impact as long as you are open to learning, you are open to networking and embracing new opportunities and always stay true to their vision and values because when they go through all the learnings, well I’ve been through several accelerations but I’ve not seen anyone with the psychosocial support, so it’s great to help them work on work-life balance, help them know who they are and how they can relate to people better. And they’ll be able to surround themselves with a supportive community. So, it’s going to help them with persistence, resilience, and better support for their business in general.  

With that said, I just want to say thank you so much Growth4Her for the good work. And there was something that I really appreciated about the program it’s that the classes aren’t too much so that you don’t get bored. And then the mentoring was very nice, the psychosocial support was top notch.