For many professionals, turning 40 signaled a point of stability in a corporate career. For Temilola Adepetun, however, it marked the beginning of an entirely new chapter, one that transformed a simple parental frustration into a thriving enterprise. She founded SKLD Integrated Services Limited, a company that has spent more than two decades serving parents, schools, and students across Nigeria.
“I started my business at the age of 40,” Adepetun recalled. “Before then, I kept asking myself an important question: if you retire at 50 or 55, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?”
That question stayed with her for a long time and eventually pushed her to start exploring ideas beyond her corporate career. She began writing down possible business concepts and reflecting on opportunities. After about a year of thinking and testing the idea informally, she decided to take the leap into entrepreneurship.
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“My business actually began when I was shopping for school supplies for my first son,” she explained. At the time, Adepetun was working in the oil and gas industry with a demanding schedule that ran from early morning to evening. Weekends, however, were spent visiting multiple stores just to find school supplies for one child.
“I couldn’t find everything I needed in one place,” she recalled. “Every Saturday I found myself sacrificing time moving from shop to shop.”
The experience revealed a clear gap in the market. Adepetun began speaking with other parents and observing how families struggled to source school-related items efficiently. Through these conversations and observations, she realized there was an opportunity to create a one-stop destination where parents could conveniently access everything their children needed for school.
“At 40, I decided to take the leap,” she said. “I had already been thinking about whether I wanted to work in a company forever. I knew I liked building things and creating solutions.”
From the beginning, Adepetun approached the business with patience and discipline. Rather than chasing rapid growth, she chose to build gradually and sustainably.
“Running a business requires passion,” she explained. “If that passion had not come from within, if I had simply copied what someone else was doing, I probably wouldn’t have stayed committed.”
Her philosophy was influenced by a Yoruba proverb that continued to guide her approach to life and business.
“When you wake up, that is your own dawn,” she said. “It means it is never too late to begin something meaningful.”
That mindset helped shape the early years of the company. Instead of expanding aggressively into unrelated areas, Adepetun focused on solving real problems for customers and strengthening the company’s core offerings.
At one point, she experimented with selling children’s clothing alongside school uniforms. The attempt quickly revealed a hard lesson.
“It didn’t work well,” she recalled. “I realized I didn’t fully understand that market, and after selling the first batch we had to clear the rest on sale.”
The experience reinforced a critical entrepreneurial principle.
“That taught me to stay focused on what you understand, especially in the early stages,” she noted.
As the business grew, Adepetun remained meticulous about financial records, inventory management, and product quality. Listening to customers also became a central part of the company’s evolution.
“Many parents appreciated being able to get everything they needed in one place,” she explained. “Their feedback helped shape the business.”
In its early years, the company also discovered that the market for school supplies was highly seasonal. Instead of allowing that challenge to limit growth, Adepetun sought ways to keep the business active throughout the year.
“I studied school calendars and began introducing products schools needed for projects, arts, and crafts,” she said.
Over time, the business expanded from retail into wholesale and other related services, though growth always remained measured.
“Some entrepreneurs try to scale very quickly,” she observed. “But if your systems and capabilities are not ready, that rapid growth can create serious problems.”
The journey was not without challenges. Over the past 25 years, Nigeria’s economic environment experienced numerous disruptions, from inflation and currency volatility to the global shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nigeria has gone through many seasons,” Adepetun reflected. “Recessions, inflation, and economic uncertainty.”
To stay relevant, the company had to continuously adapt its strategy while remaining anchored to its core values. In 2009, for example, it launched a premium school uniform line that gained strong market acceptance. However, by 2016 the company realized that many families needed more affordable options.
“That was when we introduced local production to cater to another set of customers,” she explained.
More recently, the company introduced another product line called Blue Tag, designed with a different fabric mix to meet more accessible price points.
Foreign exchange challenges also required careful adjustments. Rather than forcing customers to absorb rising costs, the company diversified its product range to include items at multiple price levels.
“At one point we started tracking abandoned carts,” Adepetun said. “Customers would reach the checkout and begin removing items because the total cost was too high.”
The insight led to a difficult but strategic decision. The company reduced its profit margins in order to maintain accessibility for customers.
“Our profit margins took a hit,” she admitted. “But maintaining market share was more important.”
Customer trust, she emphasized, remained central to the company’s philosophy.
“If something goes wrong with an order, we took responsibility,” Adepetun explained. “Sometimes we bore part of the cost. If necessary, we replaced the product or gave a rebate. The goal was to ensure fairness.”
Integrity, she added, remained non-negotiable.
“Nobody is perfect, but we must always strive to do the right thing—ethically, culturally, and morally,” she said.
Another quality that shaped her leadership style was a willingness to experiment.
“I often told my team: nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she recalled. “If an idea made sense, we tried it. If it worked, that was great. If it didn’t, we learned from it.”
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Technology also played an important role in the company’s evolution. Within two years of launching, the company moved away from manual invoicing and began implementing digital systems. Over time, these systems were upgraded to enterprise-level retail and inventory management platforms.
The company also invested heavily in organizational development. In 2023, it achieved ISO certification and strengthened its leadership structure with a dynamic executive team and collaborative strategy processes.
Five years ago, the company secured private equity investment, enabling expansion of retail outlets, logistics capacity, and inventory diversification.
“That investment helped us grow faster and strengthen the business,” Adepetun explained.
Even after more than two decades in operation, Adepetun still saw the company as a work in progress.
“We still considered ourselves a growing company,” she said. “We hadn’t reached our final destination, and perhaps we never would, because there would always be something more to do.”
Looking back, she believed the journey required passion, patience, resilience, and discipline. But above all, it required belief in the value of what she was building.
“Running a business for 25 years took conviction,” she reflected. “You had to keep learning, adapting, and improving.”
Disclaimer: This article is adapted from an interview with Temilola Adepetun, founder of SKLD Integrated Services Limited, during her conversation with Peace Itimi on Founders Connect published on YouTube. The insights and perspectives presented are drawn from her remarks in that interview and have been edited for clarity and readability. They reflect her personal views shared during the discussion and do not constitute an original feature article produced by EnterpriseCEO.
