Sharanya_Warrier
Sharanya Warrier
My Business Training
Iliyasu Aliyu
About Iliyasu Aliyu
Iliyasu Aliyu is a determined and hardworking entrepreneur from Tambari Housing Estate in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
With over six years of experience running a small roadside tea and noodle stand, he dreams of expanding his venture into a full-scale tea and coffee shop called SUHY Tea and Coffee, named after his beloved daughter, Amina.
His vision is to create a peaceful and welcoming space where people can gather, relax, and enjoy quality refreshments. Iliyasu is driven by a passion for the culinary arts and a deep desire to support his wife, daughter, siblings, and the wider community.
Iliyasu Aliyu
Business Goals
At the heart of SUHY Tea and Coffee are the values of hard work, resilience, respect, and customer satisfaction. Iliyasu Aliyu aims to create a safe, welcoming space where people can relax, connect, and feel at home. His business will reflect his commitment to family and community.
He plans to open in a busy area like Central Market in Bauchi, offering tea, noodles, French fries, cakes, chilled drinks, and diabetic-friendly blends.
The shop will feature a front desk, porch seating, a cooking area, calm music, cultural décor, and card payments, serving customers seeking comfort and quality.
Iliyasu Aliyu
Obstacles
With over six years of experience in the tea and noodles business, Iliyasu Aliyu has built strong culinary and customer service skills. He also experience in tailoring and electrical work, which he pursued in his early years to support his family.
He currently manages a small roadside stand with limited tools and seating but maintains excellent service, money management, and record-keeping practices.
Iliyasu’s biggest challenges include limited capital, family obligations, and an unfavorable location. After spending his savings on his wife’s medical care in 2024, his first business collapsed. A small loan helped him restart, but resources remain scarce.
Iliyasu Aliyu
Our Partnership
Iliyasu Aliyu is seeking mentorship, funding, equipment, and business guidance to launch SUHY Tea and Coffee. He hopes to secure a suitable location, freezer, generator, and capital for ingredients and utensils.
In addition to funding, Iliyasu would value learning opportunities to improve his financial tracking and marketing strategies.
Iliyasu dreams of providing his wife with quality healthcare, building a home for his family, and owning reliable transportation. He also hopes to create jobs and offer catering for weddings and meetings, establishing SUHY Tea and Coffee as a trusted brand in Bauchi.
My Grant Proposal Presentation
As part of the International Leadership and Business Internship, I collaborated with top development experts to help grow and strengthen my business partner’s infrastructure.
At the end of the program, my team presented our final proposal to a panel of judges from the Leadership Initiatives Grant Committee. This formal pitch allowed us to apply our entrepreneurial skills, showcase our strategic plan, and advocate for meaningful change in our partner’s business.
Our team was awarded a grant that will fund the implementation of our business partner’s plan, providing life-changing support that will expand operations, improve financial stability, and create new growth opportunities. Over the next year, this grant will help transform the future of their business and improve the quality of life for both the entrepreneur and their community.
My Grant Proposal
Throughout the program, we worked closely with Iliyasu Aliyu to gain a clear understanding of their business goals. Though Iliyasu has leveraged their skills and years of experience to create their business, they face obstacles hindering the expansion of their work.
Guided by their vision, we crafted a proposal detailing the infrastructure materials that would support the growth of their business. We devised a plan that would allow Iliyasu to optimize their business through a new budget and financial tracking system.
This new budget enables Iliyasu to allocate funds toward essential materials and equipment, supporting the optimization of their services. Effective financial tracking will be crucial for managing growing profits and preserving assets, ensuring the business’s long-term growth and stability.
Internship Highlights
Our business development journey began with a one-on-one Zoom meeting with our partner, Iliyasu Aliyu, and our Nigerian project coordinator. This initial conversation laid the foundation for strong collaboration and helped us better understand Iliyasu’s background, family, goals for the business, and the specific challenges they were facing.
Hearing directly from Iliyasu gave us the insight we needed to begin brainstorming practical, personalized solutions. Each morning, our team held focused discussions to refine our ideas, reflect on expert advice from the day before, and adjust our timeline to move our plans forward efficiently.
Throughout the process, on-staff project coordinators and business development experts guided us, helping us ask the right questions and turn our ideas into meaningful, actionable strategies.
I had the unique opportunity to visit the New Zealand Embassy, where I gained insight into the role of diplomacy in fostering strong relationships between New Zealand and the United States.
The embassy functions as a center for international collaboration, working with partner countries and global organizations to address pressing issues such as poverty, gender inequality, and climate change. Through this visit, I learned how diplomats engage in meaningful dialogue and policy development to create sustainable, people-focused solutions.
Officials from the New Zealand Embassy shared how they partner with local communities to identify needs and implement programs that empower individuals and strengthen long-term development. This commitment to community-driven impact inspired my team and me as we worked to develop our own business proposal focused on creating lasting change.
During my visit to the Embassy of Mongolia, I explored how diplomacy shapes international cooperation and development. The experience provided a deeper understanding of the embassy’s role in promoting peace, fostering economic partnerships, and addressing shared global challenges.
Embassy representatives discussed how their work supports cross-cultural exchange, advances policy priorities, and strengthens relationships between Mongolia and the United States. I learned how embassies serve as bridges, connecting governments, communities, and organizations to create innovative solutions for global issues.
This visit broadened my perspective on international leadership and inspired me to think critically about how collaboration, cultural awareness, and strategic planning can drive meaningful progress, principles we applied while developing our business proposal.
Throughout the internship, our team had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with top experts in business and economic development from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. State Department, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
One of the highlights was a session with Carla Brooks, Business and Development Officer at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. She gave us a crash course in marketing and advertising, breaking down the key elements of what makes a campaign actually work. Her insights helped us think bigger and more strategically about how to position our partner’s business for success.
With support from Ms. Brooks and other global leaders, we sharpened our ideas, refined our strategy, and built a powerful pitch deck to present at the end of the week. Their guidance helped us take our business proposal to the next level creating a plan designed not only to launch a venture, but to transform our business partner’s future.