Nollywood actress Ini Edo has a long history of acting, earning money, saving money, and making investments. Ini Edo has made many business decisions outside from acting, and one of those decisions was to get right into a hotel, restaurant, bar, and lounge venture named Mimz Bar & Lounge. That enterprise, which was located in the center of Lekki, was a dismal failure.
Ini Edo discussed it candidly in a recent interview with Cool FM, answering questions like if she makes money from movies, whether women make more money in Nollywood than males, and more. This are the words of Ini Edo.
“Do movies actually make money? Do you actually make money from movies, be honest?”
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INI EDO: To be honest, I mean if you think back a few years, like 10, 15 years ago, when I was shooting movies like back to back, I could do like two, three films in a week. Considering average income earners in Nigeria, if you earn like 2 million naira per film or 1.5 million per film, I’m talking about like 15 years ago, and then you’re consistent on it and you’re doing it. I mean that’s all I was doing for years. And of course you’re able to save money. And saving money means for me, cuz I’m using myself as an example. What that meant for me was that I started doing investment really quick. I started buying real estate, buying properties, and just literally saving and investing just understanding where I was coming from and the fact that look, I didn’t know what my future would hold for me so I just buried myself in the work and I was doing a lot of saving and investing. Then along the line, I decided to diversify into other things. Started some businesses, some would fail, some would succeed. I had this huge drive to be an entrepreneur and to just be independent off movies. When they say do movies make money? It’s relative. How consistent are you? Where are you making the films? What are you doing with the money that you’re making? I can’t equate it to the lifestyle but I can speak for myself.
“Do you think the ladies have it better than the men?”
INI EDO: I don’t think so. Some people just come from a background that allows them know what to do with money. I mean, I come from a certain place so I understand that you can have today and not have tomorrow so what you do with what you have at the moment is what sustains you in the long run. I will speak for myself because I don’t know anybody’s bank account. I started investing in real estate as early as 2003. As at when I moved to Lagos in 2003, I was buying properties in places that I didn’t even know where they were. Most of those properties today are valued at like quadruplet the price.
“What are the businesses you tried that never worked?”
Oh my gosh. The fact that I’m still sitting here is a miracle. I’ve always loved food business, hospitality business, and I will still do it. God knows I will still do it. So I went head on with no experience with no capable hands into this full lifestyle, hotel, lounge, restaurant business in the heart of Lekki and I sort of just delved into it, and it was a colossal failure. I just lost everything. It’s not like that business doesn’t sell, it’s just that I didn’t have enough experience for it, and I didn’t have the right hands to deal with it or handle it for me. What that taught me was just a lot of lessons, and I’m still going to do it again.