{"id":16557,"date":"2026-07-04T14:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T14:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/?p=16557"},"modified":"2026-07-04T14:58:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T14:58:33","slug":"flat-broke-no-fuel-and-a-struggling-startup-how-i-bought-5-litres-of-petrol-on-credit-from-lagos-area-boys-using-the-currency-of-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/flat-broke-no-fuel-and-a-struggling-startup-how-i-bought-5-litres-of-petrol-on-credit-from-lagos-area-boys-using-the-currency-of-respect\/","title":{"rendered":"Flat Broke, No Fuel, and a Struggling Startup: How I Bought 5 Litres of Petrol on Credit from Lagos \"Area Boys\" Using the Currency of Respect."},"content":{"rendered":"

Format:<\/strong> Short Story Manuscript<\/p>\n

The heat of a Lagos afternoon does not just sit in the air; it heavy-presses itself against your skin like a damp, wool blanket. On this particular Tuesday, the city was vibrating at a dangerously high frequency. Fuel scarcity had gripped the metropolis by the throat.<\/p>\n

Outside the locked gates of the Total filling station on the main artery, a queue of vehicles stretched for kilometers\u2014an angry, motionless serpent of steel, exhaust fumes, and frayed tempers. Horns blared in a useless chorus of frustration.<\/p>\n

Inside my rented 2 bedroom bungalow, there was still no electricity from PHCN and my generator outside had just gone silent, its tank bone-dry. Before midnight, I needed to put finishing touches to a 10 page PDF White Paper I was writing for a client, which needed to be uploaded to their website for launching the new Web Marketing System I was developing for them. The CEO had called me few hours earlier, to reconfirm that everything was on track and I had assured him it was so.<\/p>\n

What skipped my mind was that I\u2019d emptied the last 5 liter keg of petrol into the generator, a day earlier, while working on an Excel-Visual Basic coding Pay slip Generator project for a long time Lagos based hospital client!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I needed petrol. Specifically, I needed five liters of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS). But I had absolutely no cash. No money at all on hand. It was around 2004 or 2005, and I was a broke, struggling startup entrepreneur just trying to keep my head above water.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

DOWNLOAD FULL PDF VERSION TO READ THE FULL STORY [No signup is needed.]: Click https:\/\/www.tinyurl.com\/faction-areaboys<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

NB: The PDF also contains a Corporate Team Role-Play Exercise<\/em><\/h3>\n

Exercise Title:<\/strong> The Pipeline Lever Negotiation<\/em><\/p>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To train professional sales, procurement, and accounts teams on how to leverage a verified, uncollected pipeline asset to secure immediate resources when facing completely frozen cash flows or zero immediate budgets.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click www.tinyurl.com\/faction-areaboys<\/a> to download it.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Format: Short Story Manuscript The heat of a Lagos afternoon does not just sit in the air; it heavy-presses itself against your skin like a damp, wool blanket. On this particular Tuesday, the city was vibrating at a dangerously high frequency. Fuel scarcity had gripped the metropolis by the throat. Outside the locked gates of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1339,8,1375,3950,266,3910,1440,996,103],"tags":[3953,3951,3952],"class_list":["post-16557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employeescareer-persons","category-clients","category-entrepreneurs","category-excel-vb-solutions","category-faction","category-my-dn-travel-news","category-no-strings-attached-nsa-web-marketing","category-recommended-websites-articles","category-short-stories","category-writingblogging","tag-and-a-struggling-startup-how-i-bought-5-litres-of-petrol-on-credit-from-lagos-area-boys-using-the-currency-of-respect","tag-flat-broke","tag-no-fuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":63,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783174408.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16557"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16565,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16557\/revisions\/16565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tayosolagbade.com\/sdnuggets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}