When Prince Joseph Aigbe lost his job in 2019, his immediate thought was to travel abroad, specifically Canada, for better opportunities. However, he discovered that having a skill was a key requirement. While still thinking of a skill to learn, a retreat he attended changed everything. At the retreat, he was watching movies on his laptop when a man approached him and asked, “Did you know you can make money watching movies with your laptop?” That struck him, and he went home pondering the idea.
By Eberechi Obinagwam
When Prince Joseph Aigbe lost his job in 2019, his immediate thought was to travel abroad, specifically Canada, for better opportunities. However, he discovered that having a skill was a key requirement. While still thinking of a skill to learn, a retreat he attended changed everything. At the retreat, he was watching movies on his laptop when a man approached him and asked, “Did you know you can make money watching movies with your laptop?” That struck him, and he went home pondering the idea.
“When he said that to me, it was like a punch inside me,” the Mass Communication graduate from National Open University recalled. He continued: “The man was a video editor, so I went to meet him to know more. He asked me to come on Monday, and when I did, he introduced me to video editing. That was how my journey into video editing, photography, etc., started.”
After completing this six-month video editing training, Prince said he started developing his skills in other related areas through online courses. He first started with photography, videography, before kicking off with his business brand, High Definition.
To be visible and attract clients, Prince would reach out to all his contacts on WhatsApp, telling them what he does without minding whatever response he gets. As he kept doing that, he started getting jobs little by little and advancing his skills.
Today, Prince who once thought of traveling abroad, is doing great in Nigeria and has trained over 400 people in his free skill acquisition program, a yearly program he started in 2023.
“After discovering this skill, I forgot about japa and I haven’t done anything else since 2019,” he said.
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Capital
Prince said capital was not a challenge to him because his business is that of rendering services. He said he bought the necessary gadgets he needed from profits he made from his jobs.
Penetrating the market
Prince said it takes consistency to get visibility. According to him, when you keep putting yourself out there, morning, afternoon and night, it automatically gets to people’s heads that this is what you do. And after that, he said, it’s left for them to either patronize you because they like you or they have a relationship with you.
He said: “My first job was based on a relationship even though I messed up the project. It came from my pastor’s son. He called me to cover his concert. He didn’t call me because he trusted me that I can deliver, no, it was based on relationship, like, ‘oh, Prince is our church member, let him come.’ I messed his job because I didn’t know much then. I was still in my first month of training.”
Prince continued to reach out to all his contacts, advertising himself, “I wasn’t even doing any ads, I was just bumping into my contacts and telling them what I do. It took me a long time to penetrate the market,” he said.
The brand owner of High Definition also said that the environment played a role in his business while starting up. He said he started from Sango Otta and the kind of people he was reaching out to were the ones that were going to pay N20,000 or N30,000 for a job that could be worth more in another location.
“So, your environment and the kind of people matters a lot because it determines how far you can go. For me, I should have left my comfort zone after completing my skill. That would have helped me in going far but because I didn’t, I had challenges penetrating the market,” he said.
Startup experience
Prince recalled his first job while still on training. He narrated how a drive he collected from his boss to cover an event got him messed up. “I was supposed to buy an external drive to save my file but I couldn’t. So, when the job came, I had to borrow from my boss and he told me that this hard drive he was giving me was very bad that even if I was copying my job, I should not let it exceed more than two megabytes. So, I copied some footages into that drive and that drive never opened. It was only the other footages from the other camera that I was able to deliver to my client. My client was asking me, where is this and that? And I told him, bro, the hard drive went bad and I was talking to him from a relationship aspect. I was new. I was still training before this guy gave me a chance and it wasn’t easy.
“I wasn’t happy for weeks with the outcome of the job because I knew I messed up. But at that time, there was nothing I could do. I had to apologize and funny enough, I was still asking him for my balance. My client was looking at me, like, for real? Your balance? That was the first and last time I ever worked with him until I left Sango to Island,” Prince narrated.
Breakthrough
Prince’s breakthrough happened in 2020 when he was invited to Lekki from Sango where he was based and was paid N30,000 for a week’s job and that encouraged him to push on. He said: “I usually send messages to my contacts, explaining to them what I do. And when I do, I don’t give a damn what you will say, I will just tell you what I wanted to tell you.” He added: “But this particular day, one of the contacts I reached said he was going to get back to me. I didn’t take it seriously because I was always getting that as a response so, I wasn’t expecting him to reach me. Later, he reached out to me and asked if I could do a particular job. I have never done that job before but I said yes that I could do it. He asked me how much.
“Because I had not done the job before, I didn’t know how much to charge him so I just asked him his budget. I think he understood that I didn’t know the job and asked me if I had a laptop. I said yes. He gave me his address at Lekki and that was the first time I went to Lekki and it was in a 5-star hotel. I used to hear about a 5-star hotel but I had never been there before. When I got there, I was like, so this job can bring me to a place like this. That encouraged me to push on,” he added.
Continuing, he said: “My client introduced me to other editors and showed me samples of what he wanted me to do. I looked at it and saw it was simple and it was what I could do. He asked me again my charges, and I asked him his budget. He told me it’s N30,000 for one week. Wow, that was huge, that was someone’s salary in a month, I thought within my mind. The job was for a beauty pageant.
“But I didn’t have a laptop like I told him. I didn’t bring the laptop I had because it’s a smaller ram and I wasn’t using it for my editing jobs. While I was thinking of how to manage the situation, I met a guy there with a laptop. We got talking and I asked him if he could lend me his laptop to do one or two jobs here and he gladly gave me. Then, I understood the saying, ‘a closed mouth is a closed destiny.’ That was how I was able to do the job.”
After that experience, Prince started looking for editorial jobs from brands and companies that could need his services. “It was so frustrating for me then because I wasn’t getting many jobs at my business place in Sango and I needed to sustain myself, gain experience and build my portfolio.
“While I was looking for a place to practice my skill, someone referred me to a guy. My referral told the person that I was a newbie, and that I needed experience. When he employed me, instead of rendering him my service, he was the one training me and was also paying me. Most times, when I do a job, he would have to re-edit them again. I knew it was frustrating and tasking for him but he was patient enough to do that for me and I will forever be grateful for that. It was my first paid job as a video editor. That was where I learned more on editing because during my training, I didn’t do any editing because there was nothing to edit. I was there for three months and it was within my area in Sango Otta. Along the line, the film production stopped and everyone went to their various destinations.”
After the three-month job, Prince upgraded his skill, and started getting more jobs that finally took him off his comfort zone in Sango to the Island.
Business challenges
Prince identified electricity as a major challenge in running his kind of business. “My type of business requires light when running post-production and when there is no light that means you have to burn fuel which is currently too expensive. And this adds to what we charge our customers,” he said. He also identified high cost of equipment as a challenge.
Japa
Prince said he once had intention of traveling for greener pastures but after acquiring a skill, he does not anymore because he is presently fixed with his job but would only go for vacation. He advised young people to learn a skill because being skilful will always pay you anyway and anytime.
About Prince
Prince was born in Benin and raised in Lagos. He studied Mass Communication at the Lagos State Polytechnic where he obtained National Diploma, before proceeding to the National Open University where he bagged a BSc in Mass Communication. He is a professional Video Editor and a Media Specialist.
Prince is an employer and a trainer. He has trained over 400 people in his free skill acquisition program that he started in 2023, and runs every year. He once received an Outstanding Leadership award by Heal the World Moment in Sango otta Ogun state. He can be reached on Facebook: Prince Zion AIGBE, LinkedIn: Prince AIGBE, TikTok: Princeaigbefilms1.
