We caught up with recent Founders Live presenter Oluwatosin Afunleyin of Gracelight Concepts and Events…

Please introduce yourself with a short bio

My name is Oluwatosin Elizabeth Afunleyin (Mrs). I'm the CEO of Gracelight Concepts and Events. I studied Mathematics Education in University of Lagos (Unilag), Nigeria. I'm married to Mr Caleb Kazeem Afunleyin. I formally worked as a Mathematics teacher in Kings College Lagos. And I'm a passionate Events Decorator.

As an entrepreneur, why did you choose this path of creating your own company?

Creating my own company as always been my wish because it gives an opportunity to create jobs for people and help in the development of the country economy.

How did you discover Founders Live?

I discovered Founders Live through a friend

Why do you feel others will benefit from Founders Live as well?

Founders Live has a lot of opportunities that has been created to help startup businesses which many can benefit from.

What have you enjoyed most about the Founders Live Prime Time Pitch Challenge?

Please describe your company or project you are currently building and why?

Gracelight Concepts and Events is a company that deals with Events decorations, events planning and more.

The company is built to solve the challenge of the clients been disappointed by decorators and to build a trustworthy and reliable business, it's also built to meet the needs of people by creating an exceptional event decorations at affordable rates to help preserve memories, create remarkable entertainment experience and high quality services.

What is your vision? Go out 5 years, what does the world look like with your product or service in it?

Before becoming a decorator, I was a Mathematics teacher with a big plan to make Education an impactful and enjoyable one for both students, teachers, parents and the community as a whole. There was also a plan to help none privileged children to be an achievers and many more. So after gotten into Events, those plans are still my major goal and achieving them and becoming one of the prominent known decorator will be my major breakthrough in the Events world in the next 5 years.

What ONE thing do you need help with the most, and what do you want to ask from the Founders Live community?

Majorly I want the Founder Live community to help us access a company vehicle that can be used in transporting decorations materials to Events venues.

I will also need some materials like flowers, green carpet/grasses and center pieces.

Identify three qualities that when combined make a great founder.

The qualities are: Integrity, creativity and quality service delivery.

Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. This very important in any business, every clients want an event decorator or event planner that can be trusted and reliable.

Creativity is the ability to form something new and valuable and as an events decorator, one must be able to create different decorations for different occasions

Quality service delivery is the ability to meet customer's needs.

These three things are very important to grow events company.

What areas do find most challenging?

As a rookie founder, my major areas I find most challenging are:

• Building brand awareness

• Securing funding without affecting the goals of the company

• Hiring the right person

• Knowing my competitors

Connect with Oluwatosin Afunleyin