"You have to get up and hustle. Everybody is hustling. Lagos is about hustling."
-Americanah

Lagos is a city of hustlers. From the street hawkers to the tech entrepreneurs to the oil execs, everyone is doing whatever it takes to make things happen. Bending the rules, challenging the status quo, moving in directions unexpected, making the impossible possible.

We want to get stuck in Lagos. Go knocking on doors. Talk to real people, from music to medicine, from the street to the glass ceiling. And share our conversations. 

We’ll be making a documentary on the most hustler of hustlers in Lagos. 

We're for real. This is not a scam. 
Email Scams. Ebola. Corruption. Danger.

Nigeria is misunderstood. 
This is why you won't find Amazon, Paypal or eBay there. 
This is why I couldn't even use my debit card.
This is why there are so few foreign startup investors.

Fear creates barriers. It makes it impossible for the product engineer to buy a Raspberry Pi through Paypal. It creates a stigma around a company whose website ends with .ng. It deprives startups of the much needed funding to scale their businesses in Nigeria and beyond. 

We want to show the world a different Nigeria -- a real Nigeria, a hopeful Nigeria through the lens of everyday hustlers in Lagos. 

Hustling is in our DNA. Nigeria is under our skin
Opportunity it was what moves our blood. We are a family of immigrants -- movers, but also shakers. 

Our parents hustled their way from the Philippines to Nigeria then to the States during the ‘80s. First to Nigeria, to open more doors for themselves, then to the States, to open more doors for us, their daughters. 

We spent our first years in the world in Kano. It’s always stayed with us. They say if you take a sip of the Benue river, you’re likely to come back to Nigeria. 

Fast forward to February. I was lucky to get a travel grant from work to go back -learning and teaching with people who are re-thinking fear, re-thinking culture, re-thinking business. Lagos is a city that makes me feel alive. I met some of the most inspiring people -- from cupcake bakers to angel investors to education entrepreneurs. The people are what make the place. 

I told Joy, my sister and best friend, "We have to go back together. And back with purpose." Nigeria is an amazing place to visit, but I think it's most powerful when you go back with purpose. 

Because Nigeria is largely misunderstood, we decided we want to make a documentary to celebrate the people, the everyday hustlers. 

We've never made a film before. But, we're hustlers with and at heart. We're entrepreneurs, we're activists, we're storytellers.

Joy and I will be co-directing and leading the conversations. Before we touch the ground in Lagos in the spring, we'll be getting introductions, scheduling interviews and meetings, nailing our storytelling style and finalising our key distribution platforms. 

We'll be joined by our talented friend and videographer/photographer Jesse Whiles, who's collaborated with people like the New York Times, Economist, Wallpaper* and INCA Productions. We'll bring on a partner on the ground to help with finding people, interview scheduling and shooting. Once we hit production, we'll collaborate with an editor to bring our conversations to life. 

Check out some of the folks who we've collaborated with and have already inspired us in Lagos. Read Melissa's essay on how Nigeria evolved from fear to inspiration.

So are we just hustling you? So where will the money go to? 

Nigeria is really expensive. It's pretty simple: 
Visa + Plane Tickets = $3000
Accommodations + Food = $6,500
Security: $500
Total: $10,000

We're going to look for corporate sponsors and run another campaign in the spring to cover production and post-production costs, which will total another $10,000.