Business Building From Trial and Error With Patrick Mbadiwe of Neighbor's Postal Plus
Patrick Mbadiwe always knew that he’d become an entrepreneur. He explored several business ideas until his wife helped him realize the business that would bring him success was embedded in his DNA.
With the launch of Neighbor’s Postal Plus, a one stop shop for business products and services, Patrick is embracing his trials and errors and using them as leverage to be the solution for the small business community of Cypress, TX, and surrounding areas.
If At First You Don’t Succeed...
Patrick is one of the first business owners I met when I moved here in 2017.
As I was bringing my former business to Texas from New Mexico, I entered Neighbors Postal to inquire about a mailbox. It was then that I first met Patrick who discussed how his postal business has grown to a place where you can actually set up a business, market the business and watch the business grow.
Knowing that Patrick is Nigerian, I had to ask. “Why did you move from Nigeria to the U.S.? And what was it like for you?”
“I moved to New York in 1988,” said Patrick. Unfortunately, I went to New York during the cold weather. And, coming from a tropical hot island, that didn’t work right for me.”
Patrick continued, “My brother lived in Houston. So, I called him up and he said, ‘Come down here. It’s warm here, just like Nigeria.’ So, in 1989 I came to Houston and since ‘89 Houston has been home.”
To kickoff our meet up at his office, he started by telling me how business has always been the center of his life.
“I was born in the family of business.”
My family had a supply chain business and my father had trucks and all those things growing up.” “So, you grew up around transactions, retail, and marketing,” I stated.
“Yeah,” he responded.
“But I listened to everybody that said the corporate world is a safe bet. ”
“So, I went into the corporate world and worked in the oil industry at Shell and I spent 18 years there. But I always had business in the back of my mind. I always wondered, ‘When is this thing going to happen?’”
“Is Neighbor’s Postal Plus the first business you started?” I eagerly asked.
“In college I established a business called Shop Africa. Actually, before Shop Africa I was selling and trading books online because I was in college and books were expensive,” replied Patrick.
Patrick began to break down the operations of his book trading business.
“Books that people used from a previous class, they could trade them in because another student needed the same book, and all those things. But with e-commerce in the early 90’s, there is always someone with the same idea like you, and the competition has always been who has the better coders to scale. Mine was a one man show so it didn’t quite take off. You know, Jeff Bezos started Amazon by selling books.”
“Yes, we all have to start somewhere,” I mentioned. But I was clearly interested in Shop Africa. “So what was Shop Africa?” I asked.
“It was supposed to be a forum for African wear, just like what’s on Amazon today,” said Patrick. But Amazon is more for every product. This one would’ve been specific to Africa.
Because I’m from Nigeria, we wear traditional clothes. My relatives from Nigeria were going to send me all these products. Then, I was going to post them online and market to the African Diaspora here.”
“Very nice. So what happened with Shop Africa?” I asked.
“I created the website shopafrica.com and everything. I’m not a good programmer, so it didn’t quite take off," Patrick responded.
Now, I want to pause for a moment because I want you to understand that Patrick was trying to build a website in a time period before website templates.
The drag and drop templates that we love so much on Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace, and Go Daddy were non-existent. Creating websites involved more coding back then.
“Yeah, it was more coding and I don’t have the coding background,” said Patrick.
“During this time, I jumped into other things. I was jumping everywhere,” he continued while laughing.
“I jumped into Shop Africa then the coding delayed that for years. So when that didn’t take off, I concentrated on my work at Shell.”
When The Corporate World Is Not So Safe After All
Patrick informed me that his educational background includes a B.S. in biology and physical sciences from the University of Houston, and an MBA in Healthcare Administration. “My MBA actually got me working at Shell Health Services,” said Patrick.
“I was a health analyst, so nothing to do with computer codes,” he continued. "I just looked at data and analyzed trends in sickness within the company.
So, I analyzed trends and sent it to management. Management would then put measures in place to help employees have a healthy lifestyle.
One of my biggest achievements was getting management to put gyms in different Shell locations. Now, Shell have gyms in their locations to help reduce obesity. Because of this, people can go to the gym during their lunch time or in the morning.”
“So, this is a good benefit for employees’ health and wellness?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s good for health,” replied Patrick. “It’s good for insurance companies as well. When insurance sees a healthy lifestyle, your insurance rate goes down. And then, healthy mindsets means healthy output or productivity. That’s how they see it in the industry.”
As I was listening to Patrick talk about his corporate job at Shell, I could tell he was doing meaningful work that made an impact on many lives. So I asked, “What made you leave Shell eventually?”
Patrick replied, “In 2015, Shell acquired a big company called BG Group, a British gas company. Within that acquisition came a lot of synergies in work. That’s how my position was eliminated because there were a lot of synergies in my work. It was bound to happen with analytics being taken over by AI.
You know by that time, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming out largely with data. That’s when they found out they don’t really need a lot of human beings to be data analysts anymore.”
Shell laid off thousands of people during the years 2015 and 2016. While he listened to others that told him the corporate world is stable, it’s safe to say that he learned that there is no such thing as job security.
But although Patrick suffered a loss, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in immediately. He moved forward with his life and did something that was familiar to him.
“Looking at it now, I don’t know if it was a setback,” he said.
“It wasn’t really a setback because I told myself, this is what you need to do — get into business again.”
...Try, Try, Again. And Succeed With Neighbor’s Postal Plus
Right away, Patrick put the plans in place to start another business.
“So, me and my wife, we are discussing it. She said, ‘You always said that you come from a family business of supply chain. Why don’t you go into shipping?’”
His wife not only spoke life into Patrick, but she spoke life into their business too.
“I said, ‘Okay, let’s look into it.’”
Even though he didn’t have any formal experience in shipping, he didn’t let this stop him.
“We didn’t have any experience in the shipping industry except the one that I saw my father doing. I spent most of my years as an analyst with Shell. My wife has good customer skills because she’s worked in different customer service areas.”
When did you open here?
I got laid off in January 2016. By August we had this place running.” “Wait, what? August of 2016?” I said while taking off my glasses. I was stunned.
“Yes, the same year, said Patrick. We did our research, build out and everything within the 8 months period.
We didn’t want to waste time. I hate sitting at home. So, I didn’t wanna do that. I was always at the library within that period, researching and looking at things.”
Neighbor’s Postal Plus sits on the corner of Barker Cypress and Longenbaugh and offers a variety of services and products to meet your needs.
Physical and virtual mailbox rentals available for small businesses in Cypress, TX at Neighbor’s Postal Plus.
In addition to packing and shipping, you can find:
Copy and print services
Physical and Virtual Mailboxes
Promotional Products
Greeting Cards and Gifts
Digital Fingerprinting and Notary
Document Shredding
U-Haul rental
Title Loans through TitleMax
And so much more
From cards, supplies, to gifts and more, Neighbor’s Postal Plus is the one stop shop for small business.
Although it’s been three years, I had to ask. “So, where is Neighbor’s Postal Plus headed for the future?” “We’re working on moving from packages to big shipments like freights,” said Patrick.
“That’s a lot of paperwork, right?” I curiously asked.
“If you’re doing ocean freight - especially international ocean freight - you have to have some marine licenses to be able to ship, he responded. “So we are working to get a marine license.
And we are doing a lot of other things online to be a sort of a business center and not just a shipping center. So, we are refocusing our attention and rebranding.”
The MBA comes in handy because I came in business already knowing how to write a business plan. I already knew how to do my financial statement and all those things.
So now all I have to do is say, “Oh yeah, where is that note we had in school. Let me review it again.”
Another thing that helps me is that when I first moved here, I worked at a restaurant as a chef. The ability to multi-task and satisfy customers’ needs all at once and manage multiple aspects of the customer experience helps me in my business today.”
To wrap up our conversation, I wanted to find out if his children would follow in mom and dad’s footsteps.
So I asked, “Do you think your kids will get in business too?”
“That’s the hope, but I want them to find their own path. Something they are passionate about. My son is into basketball, and that is his current passion. He just wants to do basketball.”
For more information and insight, visit Neighbor’s Postal Plus online and stop by the office for a friendly hello. You can also reach Patrick for your business needs at 346-978-5555 or info.neighborspostalplus@gmail.com. And, be sure to stay social and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
