•The Story Of The ANIMASHAUN Sisters
Ever
heard of the ‘Luxury Shortlets Abuja’?Well if you haven’t, right now in the FCT, 2 ladies are making the
headlines in a market where men seldom dare .This is the story of the
Animashaun sisters, Bisola and Bukola.
In
the property and hospitality sector presently,they both call the shots and bigtime too so much so they have earned the
sobriquet- Queens of Abuja Shortlets. The story of the Animashaun sisters is
not one of the bed of roses narrative but one of vision , tenacity and belief.
From
Two Beds to Two Hundred Keys,to a thousand across Lagos and Abuja and still
counting ,the sisters have emerged from
the trenches to claim the number one spot in the shortlet hospitality sector.
Bisola
and Bukola didn’t start with marble floors and smart locks.
Bisola
is the extrovert, negotiator, who could talk a Landlord down from 5M to 3.5M in
10 minutes. She handles guests, branding, and Instagram.
Bukola,
who handles the Lagos end, is also a major brain. Introvert and systems person.
The
business -wise sisters knew exactly the missing links in Abuja shortlets
puzzle.For instance ,while other shortlets were giving “generator noise and
cold water”, the twins created strong rules:
24/7
Light: Solar + inverter + backup generator. “No one should sweat in Abuja
heat,” Bisola said.
Bisola
kept a note of every returning guest.
Security
is key to their operation, Biometric doors, estate security briefed, and
personal number for emergencies.
With
all these in place,word spread. CEOs doing 3-day meetings.,couples on short
vacation, diaspora people who were tired of the Abuja expensive hotels became
instant customers.
But
how did the story of these two interesting sisters evolve?
Before
Bisola Animashaun was managing one of the largest shortlet portfolios in
Nigeria, she was delivering cooking gas.
She
started Gasurgently at 21. The idea was simple enough, cooking gas delivered to
your doorstep in Abuja, but the business punished her. Logistics costs kept
eating the margins, and after 3 years of fighting for every single delivery,
she took a decision most entrepreneurs never talk about publicly. She shut it
down.
“People
think the story starts when things work. Mine started when they didn’t,”
“Gasurgently taught me operations, customer service, how to survive when
nothing is going your way. I didn’t know it at the time but I was in training.”
she said recently.
Today,
Bisola and her sister, Bukola run Luxury Shortlets Abuja, with more than 1,000
apartments across Abuja and Lagos. The company has hosted over 10,000 guests,
most of them starting from an Instagram DM or a visit to its website,
luxuryshortlets.com.
Perhaps
remarkable is that the outfit marked its 5th anniversary this July. In 5 years,
the sisters have not taken a single kobo of outside investment.And this is
because the structure of the business is unusual. It simply funds itself.
The
sisters are 50-50 shareholders and they say that arrangement is the reason the
company moves quickly.
“There’s
no boardroom politics when it’s your sister. We disagree, we settle it, we
move,” Bisola said. “Decisions that take other companies a month take us a
phone call.”
In
an industry where trust is scarce, the family setup has turned out to be more
than a nice detail. Guests worry about fake listings. Property owners worry
about damage and unpaid money. A business run by two sisters with a 5-year
track record has become Luxury Shortlets’ strongest selling point.
Young
professionals, diaspora visitors and business travellers who want furnished
apartments with privacy and flexibility are its clients.
Landlords,
for their part, discovered a well-run shortlet could earn far more than a
traditional lease.
Luxury
Shortlets fits that bill. The company verifies every property in its portfolio,
vets guests, and has built its Instagram to a level that now handles thousands
of enquiries every month across two cities, alongside listings on
luxuryshortlets.com.
Both
cities stay busy all year round. But from October, which is the Ember months,
Lagos enters a different gear entirely, and by the December festive season,
demand can multiply as much as tenfold. A standard two-bedroom that goes for
around N150,000 a night, or N250,000 and above at the luxury end, can climb to
N750,000 and even N1 million a night in prime areas like Ikoyi, Victoria Island
and Lekki Phase 1. Prime apartments get booked as much as two months in
advance, and in December many owners insist on stays of two weeks to a full
month.
“December
Lagos is its own economy, “If you’re calling us in November for a December
apartment, you’re already late.” Bisola said.
“We
treat a N50,000-a-night booking with the same seriousness a hotel treats a
corporate account.” That’s the whole secret. It’s not glamorous. It’s
consistency”. Bisola added.
The
Animashaun Rule most people don’t know is:Make people feel like the city
belongs to them, even if it’s just for 3 nights !
Wole Alakija
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