When Affiong Williams walked away from a comfortable job in South Africa to start a dried fruit business in Nigeria, many would have questioned her decision. The idea was bold, risky and almost unheard of in her home country. But for the founder and CEO of ReelFruit, this leap of faith marked the beginning of a journey that would take nearly a decade to bear fruit, quite literally and culminate in the launch of Nigeria’s largest dried fruit factory.
The Unexpected Path to Entrepreneurship
Born on March 9, 1986, Affiong Williams initially harboured dreams of becoming a medical doctor. She pursued a degree in Physiology and Psychology, in view of entering medical school. However, by the time she graduated, her interests had shifted dramatically. “After my undergrad, which I found extremely difficult, I knew medical school wasn’t for me,” Williams later reflected.
Seeking new opportunities, she pivoted to business and earned a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration from Wits Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2006. This decision would prove transformative, not just for her career trajectory, but for an entire industry she would later pioneer.
Williams’ entrepreneurial awakening came through her first job at Endeavour South Africa, an organization supporting small and medium enterprises in developing markets. For four years, she worked closely with entrepreneurs, and their stories captivated her. “I loved working with entrepreneurs,” she recalls. “I loved that they created jobs, the values they stood for, the idea that they took risks, and that the reward was outsized. So after four years, I decided to become an entrepreneur myself.”
The Birth of an Idea
When Williams decided to venture into entrepreneurship, she knew she wanted to focus on value-added agribusiness. Her initial plan was ambitious: produce fruit juice to help reduce post-harvest losses for farmers. However, reality quickly set in. “I knew I couldn’t afford to build a fruit juice factory,” she admitted.
This financial constraint led to a pivotal moment. Living in South Africa, where dried fruits were extremely popular, Williams saw an opportunity. Dried fruit processing required less capital than juice production and, crucially, didn’t require constant power supply. The was a significant advantage given Nigeria’s infrastructure challenges.
According to Williams, “I figured I could be the first to bring it to Nigeria and make it big. “If I had done more research, I might have shelved the idea, but I was convinced Nigerians were open to new tastes. I believed all I needed was to create awareness and demand.”
The Gamble That Changed Everything
In 2012, Affiong Williams made the life-altering decision to leave South Africa and return to Nigeria. Her family expected her to join them in the United States, but she felt a stronger connection to home. A crucial factor motivating her return was a ₦10 million UN grant for which she had been shortlisted. This grant would provide the capital needed to launch her dried fruit venture.
However, fate had other plans. “Barely three days after moving back, I got a rejection letter,” Williams recounted. “It was disappointing, but obviously, I had to restrategize.”
Suddenly finding herself in Nigeria without the expected funding, Williams faced a moment of truth. “It was an extremely challenging time because not only was I doing something new, I was also filled with a lot of self-doubt. I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life, but, of course, I couldn’t quit so early.”
From Apartment to Empire
With her back against the wall, Williams turned to the dried fruits she had brought from South Africa. She crudely packaged them and began what she called her “market research”, essentially hawking products around Lagos. The feedback was encouraging and people began to appreciate her commitment to the venture.
Operating from her apartment, Williams started small-scale production. Soon, she encountered what every entrepreneur dreams of: demand exceeding supply. “We eventually ran out of space and struggled to meet increasing demand,” she would later recall.
Family and friends became her first investors, believing in her vision when traditional funding sources seemed skeptical. A significant breakthrough came when her then-friend, now-husband, provided what Williams describes as her “first angel check.” This investment enabled her to rent office space, purchase a small van, and hire additional staff.
For the next five years, ReelFruit operated without its own factory and relied instead on third-party producers as far away as Ghana while doing minimal processing in-house. This decision, while born of necessity, proved strategically sound. “I believe that in doing business in Nigeria, you should be deliberate about the battles you fight,” Williams explained. “We thought it was more productive, at the time, to focus more on growing the market and then, further down the line, backwards-integrating into real processing at scale.”
Deploying A Revolutionary Fundraising Strategy
Traditional fundraising proved challenging for Affiong Williams. Investors were skeptical about the dried fruit market’s potential in Nigeria. Rather than abandon her vision, she developed an innovative approach. “Because we were so unsuccessful at raising a large round, it became apparent that people didn’t believe the big picture,” she explained.
Williams adopted a strategy of raising smaller amounts tied to specific, achievable milestones. “When we claimed we were going to expand by x amount, they found it easier to believe that we could, say, double our sales, hire more people, open new locations, or launch more products. That story was a lot more relatable with investors.”
This approach required patience and persistence. “Because we pioneered the dried fruits market in Nigeria, it took the first five years of our business to prove that this was not a flash-in-the-pan product. When you couple that with all the other challenges of raising funding in Nigeria, it’s easy to see why it took so long. But I’m delighted with the outcome.”
Learning to Lead
As ReelFruit grew, Affiong Williams faced the challenge of scaling her leadership. One crucial lesson involved sharing her vision with her team. “I think in the early days, I struggled with sharing my vision with the team. I felt that if I kept sharing my vision about becoming an end-to-end business with huge manufacturing and global exports, while we were still working from a one-bedroom in Yaba, they would think I was out of touch with reality.”
The turning point came when she decided to be more transparent. “When I started sharing more, being open about my ambitions, the team rallied behind to help me reach them.”
Williams also learned the importance of boldness in business. “I’m typically a bold person personally, but in business, I was very timid, always expecting the worst. But I’ve gotten bolder about what we can and can’t do. I think that boldness has caught on with the team, so I’m proud of myself.”
The Nine-Year Journey to Series A
In September 2021, nearly a decade after starting ReelFruit, Affiong Williams achieved a significant milestone and closed a $3 million Series A funding round. This achievement validated her patient approach and persistent vision.
The funding enabled ReelFruit to expand its production capacity five-fold and pursue international markets. Williams had already begun exporting to the UK and launched a direct-to-consumer e-commerce store in the United States. Her strategy for the US market was particularly thoughtful, instead of competing directly with established brands in mainstream stores, she focused on serving Nigerian-Americans and leveraged the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to ship duty-free, providing a crucial price advantage.
Building Nigeria’s Largest Dried Fruit Factory
February 2024 marked the pinnacle of Williams’ entrepreneurial journey with the commissioning of what has been described as the largest dried fruit factory in Nigeria. Located in Ogun State, the impressive facility boasts an 800-metric ton annual processing capacity and the ability to increase monthly output from 6 metric tons to 30 metric tons.
The facility created over 280 new jobs and hired more than 200 employees in its first year. Through an innovative agro-extension program, ReelFruit now supports 250 registered mango and pineapple producers and strengthens partnerships with Nigerian farmers to ensure consistent raw material supply.
Lessons for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Williams’ journey offers valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs. Her number one piece of advice is to “seek knowledge.” She emphasizes understanding your industry better than anyone else, stating: “You need to understand the intricacies of your sector more than the next person so that market trends, macroeconomic windfalls and gains, etc., don’t take you by surprise.”
She also stresses the importance of networks: “In Nigeria, especially, you need to know people to get things. I think it’s worthwhile to invest in creating very strong networks, especially around your industry.”
Perhaps most importantly, Williams advocates for patience and commitment. “If someone told me in advance that it would take five years from ideation to having our first factory, I would have said, ‘No way.’ But it’s important to acknowledge the time it will take and be ready to commit that time.”
Global Ambitions
Today, ReelFruit operates across multiple channels, including over 700 stores, airlines, schools and hotels, while maintaining export sales via Amazon. The company employs over 80 people across three regional offices in Nigeria and has trained 50 rural women to grow export-grade mangoes.
Williams’ vision extends far beyond Nigeria’s borders. “One of my big goals was to create in Nigeria for the world. I wanted our Nigerian-made products to be good enough to sit on every shelf in the world,” she states. “We want to dominate this space and take it as far as possible. In doing so, we hope to demonstrate a path for Nigerian-founded FMCG companies looking to be end-to-end while also serving customers around the world.”
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