Trading business
Keep a Lagos import shop alive through a naira crash, and end the year worth more in real terms.
The idea
In Lagos, when a bad deal costs you money, people say you have paid your school fees.
Every trader, founder and farmer pays them. Nobody hands you a syllabus first. Ọjà Lab lets you pay yours in practice money, as many times as it takes, before the real ones fall due.
School fees, as the market charges them
- The supplier who took the deposit and stopped answeringPaid in cash
- The contract signed without reading clause 7Paid in shares
- Dollars bought the week after the rate movedPaid in stock
- The land bought without a search at the registryPaid twice
- The same four lessons in Ọjà LabFree
Two classrooms
A lecture hall teaches business. A market teaches yours.
The people who run Africa's small businesses need the second kind of lesson, and it has never come with a classroom.
What it costs
A business degreeFees most small-business owners will never be able to pay.
Ọjà LabFree for the learner. A sponsor, school or programme pays.
The time it takes
A business degreeOne to two years, much of it away from the shop.
Ọjà LabA few minutes at a time, on the phone already in your pocket.
What you study
A business degreeFrameworks, and case studies of large companies.
Ọjà LabYour own shop: the naira, the supplier, the landlord and the tax office.
How you are tested
A business degreeExams and essays.
Ọjà LabDecisions, with results that land in your cash next week.
What a mistake means
A business degreeA lower mark.
Ọjà LabThe reason you came. Make it here first, then replay the month.
What you leave with
A business degreeA certificate.
Ọjà LabPractice, and a report on how you really decide under pressure.
A business degree is a good thing to have for a corporate career. Ọjà Lab does a different job: it gives the person who is the whole company somewhere to practise. It is practice and not a qualification.
The market never asks for your certificate.
It asks whether you can pay the supplier on Friday, read the contract before you sign it, and still be open after the naira moves. Those are skills, and skills come from practice.
How it works
You run the business. The market answers back.
Each turn is a week or a month in your business. You plan, you decide, and the game works out what your choices did to your cash, your stock and your name.
Open your shop
One clear aim, your cash, and what changed this week. Ìjàpá points to the next step.
Decide
Story cards from real market life. Every answer teaches something different.
Read before you sign
The Contract Room. Read each clause, ask a lawyer, push back, sign or walk away.
- PlanSet your price, your stock, your hires and your marketing.
- DecideAnswer the cards the market throws at you.
- Run the turnSee what happened to your money, and why.
- Look backAt the end, see the same story with different choices.
Try one
Week 1. Lagos. 29 May 2023.
You import electronics. This card is the first one the trading path deals you. Pick an answer.
FX & risk
Rumour: the naira is about to be devalued
Traders in the market say the official rate will be freed within weeks.
What your answer teaches
There is no free answer here.
Buying now costs you the street premium. Waiting costs you nothing today and may cost you a great deal next month. Pick one and see what it is really a lesson in.
Tap an answer on the card.
In the game, the engine works out every naira from your choice. This page only shows the idea. The trading story is modelled on what Nigerian importers lived through in mid-2023, when the official rate was freed and the naira lost more than a third of its official value within weeks.
Eight lives to try
Pick the business you are in, or the one you are afraid to start.
Tech start-up
Build a payments start-up, raise money without giving it all away, and know what a sale really pays you.
Music artist
Build a fan base and a living from your music, and keep ownership of your recordings.
Creator
Turn posting into an income you control, not one an algorithm or an agency controls.
Farmer
Turn two hectares into a farm business that survives bad seasons and low prices.
Fashion label
Grow from sewing for clients to a label with your own name, and keep the name.
Property developer
Finish your building projects on clean land titles without running out of money.
Footballer
Get a real contract, get paid what you're owed, and have a plan for life after football.
Five more are fenced off and coming: food, transport, beauty, man with a van, and a nightclub.
Who it is built for
One person with a phone, or a hall of two hundred.
The trader before her first import
She practises landed cost, supplier terms and when to buy dollars, with a shop that isn't hers to lose. Then she does it for real.
The founder before the first term sheet
He reads a co-founder agreement and an investor note clause by clause, and finds out what "fully vested on day one" costs when a partner leaves.
The bank, foundation or accelerator cohort
A shared story code gives a hundred learners the same market in the same month. Group reports, in totals only and never by name, are planned for the first pilots.
The lecturer with one seminar
A class plays the same trading year, then argues about who priced well, who borrowed badly and why.
What you gain
Judgement you can use on Monday.
Mistakes get cheap
Lose the shop in week 30, learn why, and start again tonight.
Your own rules, not someone else's
A Nigerian rulebook is built in: VAT, PAYE, company tax, and what staying informal really costs. Simplified, and for learning only.
Contracts stop being frightening
Every path has deals to read. You learn which clauses bite, and that walking away is allowed.
Real stories behind the cards
Case files from published accounts of real deals show what happened to people who faced the same choice.
You meet yourself
Before a run you say how you see yourself. Afterwards the report shows how you played.
Your growth report
ExampleHow you see yourselfHow you played
8business paths you can play today
45case files from published real-world stories
14African languages Ìjàpá greets you in
₦0of real money at risk, on any path
Rules we do not break
Built to be on the learner's side.
- Never used against you
No credit scores. No lists passed to lenders. How you play is never held against you.
- Learners play free
The institution or sponsor pays. There are no adverts and no paywall halfway through.
- No real money, prizes or promises
No coins, no cash-outs, no trading tips and no claims that playing will make you rich.
- Your answers stay on your phone
There is no account to make. We count totals, such as how many runs were started, and never people.
Come and play
Pay your school fees here. They're free.
Play one week of the trading path. It takes about as long as a cup of tea. If you run a programme, a class or a cohort, tell us what your learners need to practise.
Want to run it with a group, sponsor a cohort or teach with it? Talk to us.
Where it stands today
- BuiltEight playable paths, a decision deck, a Contract Room, a tax rulebook and an end-of-run growth report.
- Not yetIt has not been tested with groups of real learners, and specialist reviewers have not yet signed off the legal and tax content.
- NextFirst playtests, then first partner cohorts.
- Looking forProgrammes, lecturers and sponsors who want to shape it with us.
Talk to us
Bring Ọjà Lab to your people.
For banks, foundations, universities, accelerators and programmes. Tell us who your learners are and what they need to practise, and we will reply by email.
- Run a pilot with a group of learners
- Sponsor a cohort, so learners play free
- Teach with it in a class or programme
- Shape a path for your sector