They started and conceived their business ideas on the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) campus during their school days.

From sale of pen drives and braziers Christian Boakye Yiadom and Ebenezer Essuman-Amankwah never gave up their dreams of venturing into business and doing something meaningful with their lives even after school.

The men, who are now co-founders of the popular eatery, Chickenman and Pizzaman, have revealed on Asempa FM’s Ekosi Sen that they started their business in a hostel room.

According to them, they bought a second hand oven and started selling pizza slices on KNUST campus.

“When school resumed in January 2018, I reported to school before my partner. The day he came to school we went to Adum and bought a second hand oven and sent it to our hostel room because we did not have money to rent a shop. So we sent the oven to our hostel and started baking. We used our study table to roll the dough,” Mr Yiadom narrated.

According to them, they failed at doing five different businesses before starting the pizza business on their university campus.

“Before going on vacation, we gave ourselves an assignment because before that idea came we had ventured into a lot of businesses and failed. We did five different businesses on campus and failed.

“At that time, when there are programmes on campus usually ‘item 13’ are meat pie, cake and others. So we decided we wanted to change the face of ‘item 13’.”

Mr Essuman-Amankwah stated that with the help of an angel investor, they have a total of 34 branches in Accra and Kumasi.

He added that they have employed over 600 full-time and part-time staff.

“We started full operation of Chickenman and Pizzaman in January 2020 on KNUST campus. We currently have 11 branches in Kumasi. We have 23 branches in Accra.We have over 600 staff,” he revealed.

Speaking on the topic ‘Building a successful Ghanaian startup’ on the show, the co-founders shared tips on how to start a business.

“Don’t make excuses or accept excuses, be disciplined, get a mentor and choose a good partner.

“Always prepare before the opportunity comes,” he advised.