Bridging African Talent with the World: How Yolre is Revolutionizing Art and Culture

What inspired you to start Yolre Limited?

My name is Ade Olusola Kunmi and I’ve always been inspired by the concept of being my own boss. Since secondary school, I have always been interested in business. My first business was selling perfume shortly after graduating from secondary school in 2006. Since then, I’ve started multiple businesses. This includes food packaging and water production. In 2015, after completing my National Youth Service in Nigeria, I established my first company in Nigeria, Rocace Foods Limited.

Yolre, on the other hand, grew out of my love for arts and culture. So Yolre was inspired by my enthusiasm for business and the arts. It was, however, registered as a corporation when I moved to the United Kingdom.

What problem does your startup solve, and how are you addressing it?

our primary goal is advancing the arts, yolre was established to be a catalyst for change in the creative industry. we recognize unique challenges faced in the arts and culture sectors, we sought to create a platform that not only supports the creative industry but also drives its growth and sustainability.

My company serves as a bridge between African artists and the rest of the globe. We showcase artist works from Nigeria and Africa to the rest of the world through online exhibitions. We also assist real estate developers, homeowners, and businesses in locating the appropriate artworks for the interior decorating of their houses. We also specialize in cultural entertainment and providing cultural entertainment for occasions in Nigeria and the diaspora.

What strategies have helped you attract and retain customers since launching?

One of the techniques I’ve used to attract clients is to promote my business through advertising and content creation. As a startup, the company often rely on Google and social media advertising.

Content creation also plays an important role. Others came through recommendations. So they contacted us, and we were able to retain them as customers by demonstrating a thorough understanding of what we do and an understanding of what they want. Clients feel safer when they know the person they’re dealing with is well-knowledgeable in the industry. Confidence is also important, and these are the personal characteristics that have helped us keep clients. And when it comes to our services, we make sure that our clients are satisfied throughout the process of our dealings, which has helped us to retain them.

What sets your business apart from competitors?

I believe my interest in the arts plays a significant role. Because, aside from making a profit which is one of our goals, I love what I do and am very passionate about it. So it’s a good thing I enjoy business, so why not turn my passion into a business? So my passion for what I do drives me to go above and beyond to delight my customers. Also, my knowledge of arts and culture has been beneficial. I can readily tell and suggest what type of artwork is required for a customer after they tell me their tale or background; I know exactly what type of art piece is required, as well as what the piece should represent and say. This is one of the factors that distinguishes my company from my competition.

How did you fund your startup in the early stages?

I supported my startup with my own finances. Yolre is still in its early stages. And, as the majority of our business is providing services/consultation, our clients offer the budget for what they require, which we then use to do their tasks. As we continue to achieve new milestones, we will undoubtedly seek external money from investors, but for the time being, I feel we are good.

My belief is that as much as we want to progress, we should not rush into something we are not prepared for. I don’t care how long the journey takes; doing things right is far more important to me than doing things quickly.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?

Some of the problems we faced included competing with larger organizations in the industry. I also believe that competition is beneficial, as it forces us to look inward to see how we can do something unique that will set us apart from our competitors. And as we laid out our swot analysis, we realized that our size as a smaller company is not a weakness, but rather a strength. So our strength lies in being a smaller company and a startup; we are very ambitious to the point where we want to impress our clients by ensuring that we do and exceed what the larger companies do because we need our customers to trust us.
Larger corporations may not be as specific and thorough to the ultimate customer of the product. But we can ensure that client happiness is a priority for us, from the moment our customers place an order until it is delivered. We ensure that they have a wonderful customer service experience. We have a lot to prove as a start-up, therefore we go above and above, which has also been our strength.

Can you share a key achievement or milestone you’re particularly proud of?

One of my key achievements is being recognized by the UK government as a leader in the field of arts and culture. This recommendation has enabled me to settle and establish my company in the United Kingdom. So the time it took me in terms of personal development when emigrating to the UK has been significantly less than most.
In just a few years, I’ve been able to launch three businesses in the UK and release music projects for two of my artists through my record label, and the songs have gone viral on social media. I have an online school and we are working for a commencement date of January 2025.

Where do you see your business in the next five years?

In the next five years, I believe we will be a significant participant in the arts, cultural, and entertainment sectors. I am particularly concerned with ensuring that the products we promote and sell are authentically African. The same goes for the artwork, music, and every other thing we do. In the next five years, we hope to have established a thriving learning community through our academy, where African history will be researched and our story shared in our own unique way.

What tools, software, or technology have been essential to your success?

I believe that having a basic understanding of design and how to use social media is important. These are basic abilities that everyone requires, and as simple as they are, they are also critical to any business. Also, my training in business communications at the Hertfordshire Business School has helped a lot.
I am also very talented in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premier Pro. I also have an excellent understanding of website design, which allows me to complete numerous tasks quickly at the start of my business. We also make use of Canva,  because Canva offers pre-designed templates which is faster to use and can be edited to one’s liking. These tools have been essential to our marketing.

 If you could give one piece of advice to your past self when you first started, what would it be?

That will be to continue learning. I discovered that whatever I learned was crucial to my development. As a child, my father would frequently push me to read newspapers, even though I had no idea what I was reading. However, he did say one thing that I remember: pick up any book you find around you and read it, even if it was only a few lines of pages. As a result, I am constantly eager to master new skills.
Everything I’ve learned over the years has served me well in some manner. I have opinions and points of view on a wide range of things, so when I meet someone and they are talking about anything specific, I always have something to say. So, my advice is to keep learning and broadening your knowledge; don’t be closed-minded.

Have you experienced failure in business, and if so, what did you learn from it?

Yes, I have. I founded my first business directly out of secondary school. I was 16 years old at the time, and I sold perfumes on credit to my friends, who happened to be my first clients. Only one paid, and the rest never paid until today. So that was the first business disaster I documented. I was unable to continue because I had not recouped my initial funds. I’ve had other failed enterprises, but I’m constantly learning as I move forward. Those failures taught me what to do and what not to do in business.

What books, podcasts, or resources would you recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs?

The majority of the books I read were in paperback and were quite helpful to me. The books I will recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs are Think Big by Donald Trump, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, The 50th Law by 50 Cent, and 48 Laws of Power by Robert B. Greene, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Other novels I enjoyed were audiobooks, which are available on Spotify. The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, and Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by 50 Cent. I rarely listen to podcasts, with the exception of Jordan Peterson, whom I greatly adore and respect. I also listen to many motivational lectures on Spotify.

What advice would you give to someone just starting their entrepreneurial journey?

I usually give advice based on my personal experience, and I will say this to anyone who is just starting out. Simply do it. There is no use in planning and waiting until everything is perfect; simply start and you will sort it out along the way.

As a startup, you shouldn’t focus too much on writing a business plan since you might be setting yourself up to fail. A business plan provides the business owner the appearance that it must be strictly followed for a business to be successful, and with that mindset, the business owner will be resistant to change when necessary.
However, I believe that as a startup, you must be adaptable. You must be able to adapt your strategy and apply new tricks and methods that were not initially planned. Simply know what you want to do and who you want to target, and leave room for flexibility on how you plan to achieve it. I believe that business plans are best suited for larger organizations that already have a working structure in place.
Another thing I’d like to mention is that anybody coming out of secondary school should start a business and fail. The early years of 16 to 25 are ideal for experimentation. Experiment with a variety of business ideas or skills, learn from your failures. Even if you fail, You will learn. Do not worry too much about whether it will be successful or not; instead, utilize it as a learning experience in understanding business. The experience will be useful at some point in your entrepreneurial journey.

What do you think about Olusola’s Story? Share your thoughts in the comment below.

Founder Profile: Oreoluwa Shonibare

Oreoluwa

Oreoluwa Shonibare is the Co-founder and CEO of WiiCreate; a brand that helps startups and companies source and ship custom branded boxes with the use of technology.

He’s the last born of 3 and a graduate of Mass Communication from Bowen University.

Oreoluwa
Oreoluwa Shonibare
How He Started

The idea of WiiCreate was the dream of Donald Onwochei, a student at Covenant University, who sold t-shirts and other custom merchandise to students in his school.

Oreoluwa was also doing a similar business in his school, and when Donald was about to graduate from university, he put out a tweet that he was looking for a co-founder to build a bigger business with, which Oreoluwa saw on his timeline.

The rest is history.

Obstacles and Future Plans

Funding and Focus were the biggest challenges he had when he started WiiCreate. WiiCreate kicked off with savings of N200,000.

He made sure growth was the backbone of the business and this attracted more funding.

One major thing that helped them overcome the challenges was prioritizing the growth of the business for as long as was needed.

His business goal for the future is to make WiiCreate be the biggest merchandising company in Africa serving thousands of companies across the continent.

Read His Full Story Here: How I Started Wii Create, a branded merch company

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Start with what you have, do not wait for the perfect time. There is no perfect time for starting. Just do it. Test the idea, if it works, scale it. If it doesn’t, check around for competition that is thriving, assess their business, and do some experiments.

Learn more than you earn for as long as possible; it would help you stay ahead of the curve.

You can connect with Oreoluwa on Twitter and Medium.

Learn more about WiiCreate on their website.

Click HERE to read his full story.

Founder Profile: Donald Meckanzy Okaragba

Founder Story

Donald Meckanzy Okaragba is the Co-founder of MeckHealth; a digital health company that’s focused on patient safety and working to reduce medical errors by at least 60%.

He has a background in Mechanical Engineering.

Founder Story
Donald Meckanzy Okaragba
How He Started

Sometime in 2020, Donald visited the hospital as he wasn’t feeling too well. When he got there, they couldn’t find his file, so he had to wait for hours. Eventually, a new file was opened for him.

When it was time for him to see the doctor, the doctor just asked him questions without touching him or taking any blood samples. He then wondered why he had to wait for hours just for the doctor to be able to diagnose him by asking questions.

He then thought to himself to create an app that can assist doctors.

He believed that medical records should already be digitized instead of having paper files that take time to find.

That’s how he birthed the idea of MeckHealth.

Obstacles

For Donald, it’s about mindset.

When he closed their very first deal in a hospital, it was a rainy day. He walked into the hospital and asked to see the medical director, but was told that he was busy and won’t be able to see him till he was done with the patients.

So, he stood waiting for like 5 hours till the medical director stormed out angrily and complained to the nurses for making someone wait that long.

The medical director then asked him if he was sick and Donald said yes. It wasn’t until he got into the medical director’s office that he then pitched his idea.

Eventually, he was able to close the deal. His first deal.

Read His Full Story Here: How MeckHealth Is Reducing Medical Errors In Nigeria

You can connect with Donald on LinkedIn.

Learn more about MeckHealth on their website

Click HERE to read his full story..

Founder Profile: Adewale Adedamola

Damola

Adewale Adedamola is the Founder of Aorthar; a design agency.

Damola is a graduate of Agriculture from the University of Ilorin.

Damola
Adewale Adedamola
How He Started

When Damola started, he wanted Aorthar to be a training hub for the next generation of designers. He wanted to model it like Andela which is for Software Developers.

In his university days, he organized little trainings, and he figured he was good at teaching, hence why he decided to create a brand centered on training people to become designers.

So, he started with two other people – a Developer and a Content Writer.

They then launched their website then.

They started by offering their individual services so as to generate cash to be able to build the hub they were planning to build; so that by the time they generate enough cash, they could then venture into teaching people.

That was the initial plan for starting up Aorthar.

Obstacles

The first challenge he faced was Capital. Another challenge is also Human Resource.

Government Policy is also another challenge for him as there was a time his clientele base consisted of mostly crypto guys, but with the government clamping down on crypto, that has also impacted him.

Read His Full Story Here: How I Started Aorthar, A Design Agency

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

You need plan A, you need plan B, you need plan C.

You need to be very innovative.

You need to keep learning. Learn from people that have failed, not people that have succeeded.

Be courageous; don’t give up; fail; enjoy the chaos.

Don’t be afraid at all, just enjoy the process, you are still very young.

Don’t waste your time; time is very valuable. This is not time to party, this is the time to learn.

You can connect with Damola on Twitter and also his Website.

Check out Aorthar on Twitter and Instagram

Click HERE to read his full story

Founder Profile: Paul Victor Balogun

founder story

Paul Victor Balogun (Pozar) is the Co-founder of Beepsoft; a brand and corporate design agency which he co-founded with Tolulope Hannah Oyinloye on 12th July 2018.

Pozar is a graduate of Agriculture from the University of Ilorin.

founder story
Paul Victor Balogun
How He Started

As an undergraduate, Pozar was into other things like media blogging, web design, and e-commerce. He left some of these due to how demanding it was as a student.

Around 2016, while still in school, he walked his way into graphic design, after which he now later founded Beepsoft in 2018.

Beepsoft is a brand and corporate design agency and has now evolved to add a fashion house under her which deals in wigging services, sales of hairs and also sewing of bespoke female dresses.

Also, they now have Beepsoft Academy, where they train people who are interested in learning graphic design from a beginner’s level.

What motivated him to get started with Beepsoft was his passion for creative design, his desire to see how meaningful design can help brands and businesses, and also discovered what he was meant to do.

Obstacles and Future Plans

According to Pozar, every startup struggles to commit to investment, both time and resources.

This is a challenge he has also faced but he has been able to successfully navigate through this phase.

His goal is for Beepsoft to take over the digital branding space across the globe and also help as many businesses/brands through designs and branding.

He also wants Beepsoft Academy positioned to train and produce excellent designers across the globe.

Read His Full Story Here: How We Aim to Take Over The Digital Branding and Design Space

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Start from somewhere, I repeat start from somewhere but “follow who know road”.

Put God first and also be willing to put in your all to get better daily. No one is an island so don’t be sorry to look up to people or check up on people’s creative works to learn from.

Humility will take nothing from you but will add so much to you.

You can connect with Pozar on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Beepsoft on their website.

Click HERE to read his full story.

Founder Profile: Wisdom Chidozie Ezimah

Founder story

Wisdom Chidozie is the CEO and Founder of BingPay; a mobile payments platform which he started in April 2021.

He’s from Abia State, but resides in Port Harcourt.

What is BingPay All About?

What Wisdom is trig to do is to solve Africa’s payment problem; to allow users to make every kind of payment in just one app.

The products they have at BingPay are to allow users to send money and to also pay for a lot of stuff.  You can buy airtime, data, gift cards, pay for utility bills, etc.

They also offer a virtual card you can use to make purchases for things not listed on BingPay.

Obstacles and Future Plans

The major challenge Wisdom is facing right now is regulations.

He’s working on allowing users to send money in Dollars via cryptocurrency, but he can’t do that because of the CBN ban.

There was also a time when all BingPay accounts got frozen; the banks said they were running so many transactions and were requesting CBN licensing.

In a bid to solve this issue, BingPay partnered with Providus Bank to back them up via licensing as they currently do not have enough resources for it.

One of his business goals is maximizing the wide range of supported countries available on BingPay.

He also hopes to make API available on BingPay for other Fintech firms to be able to use to build amazing products.

Read His Full Story Here: How We Bootstrapped Our Way to $30,000 Transaction Volume in Just 6 Months

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Try to make yourself different a little bit.

Learn more about BingPay on their website.

You can also download the app on Playstore and IOS Store.

Click HERE to read his full story.

Founder Profile: Omotiafe Otuogbai

Omotiafe Otuogbai is an Entrepreneur and he considers himself a creative person. He’s the Founder of Wox Collections; a lifestyle brand that makes comfortable lifestyle products for your everyday activity.

Omotiafe Otuogbai

How He Started

Omotiafe started his business officially in 2019.

Before he started, he worked for 3 years in an entertainment company until they all got laid off. As a result, he had to leave his house as he couldn’t afford the rent anymore. Coupled with this and a terrible break-up, he caved in to depression.

He picked up a reading habit during this period after some experiences with suicidal thoughts. As a suggestion from one of his favorite books, he started visiting the gym to take his mind off things.

While working out, he started to feel the creative juices flowing once again, and so he started my business, Wox Collections.

Obstacles and challenges

In the beginning, his most pressing issue was limited financial ability.

It was so bad that he had to borrow N22,500 from a friend just to start up his business.

He was partly lucky to accumulate a good number of customers as a beginner, but it proved difficult to increase production to meet their growing customers’ needs. This was because they tried to balance the cost of production with their limited finances. And if you’re wondering why they couldn’t have just gotten a loan, it is because of the almost unattainable requirements for a loan in the country.

Even when we were able to significantly increase production, they faced difficulties maintaining their initial quality as they started employing the services of more than one manufacturer.

Another challenge they face is the limited resources available in the country for production. It was difficult to get the exact same raw materials used in production because of the high demand, in contrast to the low supply in the country, and there was almost no machinery to produce them.

His Recommended Books

Read His Full Story Here: From Emotional Heartbreak to Business Breakthrough: How I Started Footwox

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Self-development is key.

Also, don’t let your fears hold you back. Therefore, do not be afraid to take a calculated risk, and even when they fail, take it as a lesson rather than defeat.

Albert Einstein once said,

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”.

 Read his full story here: Click Here

Founder Profile: Tobi Ogunwande

Tobi Ogunwande likes to describe himself as a lover of Film, Tech, and Good Food.

He’s first a filmmaker with a few short films under his belt and then along the line, he fell in love with tech. Ironically, most of his tech endeavors have been geared towards solving film-related problems.

He’s the Co-founder of Preorder Alpha; a Shopify app that enables merchants to sell products that are not immediately available. For example pre-sales, pre-orders, coming soon, etc.

How He Started

Innocent’s first tech product was Hubrif; an online video platform for streaming African short films.

The idea for Hubrif came when he wanted to make his first short film, and he needed to watch other related films, but he got frustrated when he kept stumbling on irrelevant videos on YouTube.

So, he decided to build a home for African short films where anyone would be able to easily access some of the best short films made by Africans anywhere in the world.

His first hurdle was that he had no software engineering skill, so he needed a partner who could complement his skillset; someone that shares the same passion and also have technical skills.

Fortunately, he was able to meet his Co-founder, John Eke, on a tech community platform, so he reached out to him, and they were able to work on Hubrif together.

Due to Hubrif being both their first tech entrepreneurial journey, they made some outstanding mistakes which ultimately led to the death of Hubrif.

After Hubrif, he launched Festivilia: A film festival submission and distribution platform.

Considering that It was built using free no-code tools with just an investment of less than $20 and a running cost of less than $10 monthly, Festivilia generated a revenue of over $15000 in its first year and currently making about $250 MRR. 

He and his partner, John Eke also built a file transfer platform, Midrive Transfer. It was quite successful, but it wasn’t justifiable to keep running it, so it was shut down.

They also built Filmwaiver; a Chrome extension for scouting and applying discount/waiver codes of film festival submission and it’s recognized by the No 1 film festival submission platform in the world Filmfreeway.

Over the years of running these side hustles, one of the lessons he has learned is that it’s extremely hard to scale B2C products in Nigeria. This led them (Tobi and John Eke) to enter into the B2B space with the launch of Preorder Alpha.

They launched about 2 months ago, and have about 3,000 shop owners who have installed and are actively using the app. So that has been his major focus right now.

Obstacles and Challenges

Rising server cost has been a serious challenge. They’ve had to upgrade their servers three times in the last 1 month.

He handles customer support and makes sure customers are responded to swiftly. This in itself is a big challenge due to time zones. For a Shopify SAAS app, it’s very important that when a customer reaches out to you and you are able to respond within 30 minutes to 1 hour.

However, what do you do when a customer in Japan sends an email at 2 am Nigerian time? So, he’s had to adjust his life just to make sure he’s almost always available at any time.

READ ALSO: My Journey to Building Preorder Alpha: A Tool That Helps Shopify Store Owners Pre-Order Items – Tobi Ogunwande

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Don’t dwell too much on your idea, ideas are nothing, execution is everything.

Forget about startup funding, competitors, investors, etc. instead focus on building a scalable product, focus on getting that first customer, that’s what matters.

You can connect with Tobi on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Preorder Alpha on their website.

Founder Profie: Chris Ani

Chris Ani is an insightful teacher, entrepreneur, and author.

He leads a company called Digital Abundance whose mission is to help create wealth in developing nations.

Digital Abundance is a group company, so under Digital Abundance, there is Harmony Exchange, DABA, CryptoLife Capital as a hedge fund, and CryptoHub.

The core industry he’s focused on so far is online education and financial tools.

How He Started

Chris credits his late father as the person who started planting the seeds of entrepreneurship in him.

There was an incident he encountered that involved his late father, and there and then he decided not to be a “salary” person.

That’s where the motivation started.

And as for Digital Abundance, he knew it was time to aggregate all the skills, experiences, and vision he has into a company. So the vision was to disrupt and create a future.

Obstacles and Future Plans

There were times when sales were not coming as they ought to, which in turn affected profits, and that was a challenging period for him.

There were other times too when he encountered losses in trades and customers weren’t coming to patronize while there was also a time when Facebook banned his crypto ads.

These were some of the challenges he faced.

What has made his move on despite these challenges is the fact that he uses every downtime not to pity himself, not to console himself but to encourage himself and push harder.

Chris’ goals for the future are to hit 100 of million people as users on his platform.

For instance, for his hedge fund, he wants it to become a billion-dollar hedge fund that will be managing billions in crypto.

For DABA, they want to colonize the entire African continent with high-income skills and digital education because it is the major tool for poverty eradication and wealth creation.

Read Also: How I Got Motivated to Get Started with Digital Abundance

His Word of Advice to Entrepreneurs

As a leader, as an entrepreneur, learn how to sell because there are times when you will build software and if you can’t sell, you will be stuck.

Learn how to sell, then learn how to build. If you can do the two combined, you will be unstoppable.

You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn.

Founder Profile: Abolore Salami

Salami Abolore is the Founder and CEO of Riby.

Abolore Salami
How He Started

Making our own country and our own continent better was the critical mission that he had.

In 2012, when he was working and earning a salary, he wasn’t clear how people could become financially self-sustainable and that was when the thought of how to make a system that makes it easy for people to create and build wealth became a mission for him.

And that’s how he started.

His core problem has always been how to solve problems that affect a lot of people.

Obstacles and Future Plans

He classifies challenges into 3 main categories; Capital challenge, Talent challenge, and Market forces.

He says those are the 3 challenges everyone faces, and that those have been his 3 key challenges.

Understanding and achieving those 3 have been the beginning of success for him.

Salami’s goals for the future with respect to Riby are to support at least 1 million customers.

Abolore Salami
His Recommended Books

Read His Full Story Here: How I Created Riby After 8 Failed Startups

His Word of Advice to Entrepreneurs

People are too fixated on competition as opposed to fixating on the customer. Competition is not what is really important, your customers and how you are addressing the needs of your customers is I think what is important here.

You can connect with Salami on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Riby on their website.

Founder Profile: Babajide Ipaye

Babajide Ipaye is the Founder and CEO of Keexs; the first innovative and social footwear brand in Africa.

How He Started

Babajide studied microbiology at the University of Lagos. He worked briefly in Port Harcourt for a while, then after he finished his NYSC, he came back to Lagos and did MCSE exams, and that’s what got him involved in IT.

He then got his first major job with a company called Tranter; there, he was being outsourced to different organizations, one of which was Guinness.

While managing all their IT support in Guinness, an opportunity came to work with them directly, so he took it, and that’s what gave him a lot of exposure to world-class best practices.

In 2005, he resigned, then he started a tech company with a friend. He played in the tech space for the next as an entrepreneur.

He got bored and wanted to explore more, but he wasn’t sure of what exactly he wanted to do. But there was one thing Babajide always had, and that’s a shoe size problem.

He’s a size 48 for shoe size, so he had always had problems getting the desired shoe of his size. He had to settle for less-desired shoes most times because that’s what may fit his leg. So, he decided to solve this personal problem.

So, he went to a school in the Netherlands to learn how to make sneakers. After he finished the study, he realized that it was going to be difficult to make his own shoes to his standard at a cheap cost.

He then decided that if he couldn’t make for himself alone because of the cost involved, why not just make for others as well. He made some research, and he realized that there was no sneaker brand in Africa, and that’s when the thought to create the first innovative and social footwear brand in Africa came.

So he made the first designs. He did a Fela Kuti collection which is a combination of about 6 different products but all Fela Kuti-inspired and that’s how Keexs was started on Kickstarted, and in a period of 40 days, they raised $20,000 from preorders from different parts of the world.

And that’s how Keexs started.

Read His Full Story Here: How I Started Keexs, The First Sneakers Brand in Africa – Babajide Ipaye

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

The difference between a great idea and a regular idea is purely execution. How much of your time and initial commitment have you put into that idea to take it from the idea stage?

In entrepreneurship, you realize very quickly that there are a lot of things that you don’t know, and the only way to know is to start it, and then when you start it, you’ll learn from that process.

You can connect with Babajide on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Keexs on their website.

Founder Profile: Ayodele Pamela

Ayodele Pamela is the CEO of O.O Ayodele Nigeria Enterprises; a Poultry and Fish Farm.

She started her farm in 2013 but registered the name in 2015.

How She Started

Formerly, Pamela used to buy catfish and eggs, then she saw a vacant land, and after making inquiries on its availability and price, she bought it, and that’s how she got started with Fish Farming.

When she bought the land, she started breeding fish. Later, someone bought 500 Layer Chicks, but the person wanted to sell 100 out of it, seeing that it was cheap, she bought the 100 chicks.

Since she was only involved in Fishery at that time, she pleaded with someone to help her house the chicks. When the chicks started laying, she began to dash the eggs out.

It was then her husband advised her to monetize it instead of just dashing out the eggs, so she started selling them.

Seeing that this was very profitable too, she built suitable housing for the birds, then moved them there, after which her husband supported her to get 500 birds to add to it.

And that’s how she started with Fishery and Poultry without any prior knowledge about that field.

Obstacles

Rain has always been a major obstacle for her.

For the fishes, it can carry them away; for the birds, the cold will be too much for them.

Getting a loan has also been a major challenge.

Read Her Full Story Here: How I Started Farming With Just 100 Birds and No Knowledge of Agriculture

Her Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you don’t have the time, don’t even bother.

Founder Profile: Damian-Mario Okita

Damian-Mario Okita is a Web Developer, Software Developer, and Tech Enthusiast. He is the Founder of AriariaOnline Marketplace; an indigenous free online marketplace that connects sellers with buyers.

Damian-Mario Okita
How He Started

Damian, a graduate of Computer Science from Temple Gate Polytechnic, Aba, decided to work on changing the way we do business in Nigeria, by building an indigenous free online marketplace that connects sellers with buyers and also enables SMEs and local businesses to gain an online presence and make more sales directly.

He was motivated to get started with AriariaOnline Marketplace to enable business owners, shop owners, artisans, and service providers to leverage the benefits of online awareness and digital marketing advertising to grow their businesses and make more sales online and offline.

Since launch, he and his team have been working tirelessly to get more users on their platforms, and at the moment, they have over 1000 registered users, and over 1000 products and services listed on their platform.

Obstacles and Future Plans

His biggest challenge at the moment is positioning AriariaOnline Marketplace to business owners and sellers.

Another challenge for him is funding and sponsorship which he’s hopeful and sure of overcoming soon.

His goal is for AriariaOnline Marketplace to become the online version of the offline market; to become the largest indigenous online marketplace in Nigeria and Africa.

Read His Full Story Here: How we Aim to Become the Largest Online Marketplace in Nigeria and Africa

His Recommended Books
His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Just start, don’t wait when you have the right tools; other things will fall in place in the long run.

You can connect with Damian on Linkedin and Facebook.

Learn more about AriariaOnline Marketplace on their website.

Founder Profile: Azeez Makinde

Azeez Makinde is a Blogger, Online Entrepreneur, and businessman. He is the Founder and CEO of Naijaloaded; the most visited online platform that delivers hot Nigerian Music, Video, Entertainment Gist, and News Contents on a daily basis to Nigerians Home and Abroad.

Azeez Makinde
How He Started

Makinde started Naijaloaded in the era of free browsing. Internet was so expensive then, so he decided to create Naijaloaded, where people could get access to free, working browsing cheats and tricks.

He usually uses a forum then to get these browsing cheats, but getting these in a forum was stressful because everybody just drops their opinions, so you may get there and see something that’s not working, or start opening multiple pages before you see something that actually works,

So, he took it upon himself that instead of making people waste time going through forums, he should create a blog where he’ll put tested and working browsing cheats.

While the forum was gathering more traffic than Naijaloaded, Naijaloaded was getting more success stories. So, this was how people started to know about Naijaloaded.

When Makinde saw that the era of free browsing was going, he created a music website. He then noticed that the music website was battling with the cheat blog, and since the era of free browsing was going, he decided to cancel the cheat blog and direct the traffic to the music blog.

At that time, when other music websites post a song, people would able to listen to it, but not download it, but he was able to develop a hack that enabled people to be able to download a song on Naijaloaded, not just listen to it only.

It took 3 years for other music websites to know about this, but by then, all their users were already used to Naijaloaded.

And that was how Naijaloaded became an all-round Entertainment platform.

Obstacles

At a point, Naijaloaded had a lot of traffic, but having a reliable to contain it was a big problem. So they had to be working at night when the traffic would have reduced.

But now, they’ve been able to get a reliable server, that even in the afternoon, when the traffic is at its peak, they are still able to post.

As a music platform, Copyright is also a big deal for them.

Also, thinking of what content to write can also be a challenge. As Makinde will say, writing the article isn’t the problem but what to write.

Read His Full Story Here: How I Built Nigeria’s Most Visited Online Platform – Azeez Makinde

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you want to go far, you need to follow your own instincts, not what people will say.

In life, you need to make decisions that will influence your own life, not what people will think about you, because whether you do it or you don’t do it, they’ll still laugh.

You can follow Makinde on Instagram.

Learn more about Naijaloaded on their website.

Founder Profile: Damilola Daniel Nejo

Damilola Daniel Nejo is a Tech Entrepreneur, Digital Marketing Expert, and Content Creator. He is the Founder and Creative Director of Presidential Ideas; a full-on, London-based digital marketing agency that works with entrepreneurs and businesses to put their products and services in front of the right people and turn those people into “engaged customers”.

In 2017, he got endorsed by the UK Government as a world-leading exceptional talent in digital technology for his work in the space and the potential growth his work and brand will bring to the UK digital economy.

Damilola Daniel Nejo is now synonymous with content and digital marketing (paid ads).

Damilola Daniel Nejo
How He Started

Damilola started off as a graphics designer at the age of 19 back in Lagos, Nigeria after he had just graduated from University. He needed to start doing something so as not to be forced to find a job.

So, he chose graphics design and was providing design services to a few people until he stumbled on Fiverr back in 2013. This allowed him to get a constant flow of clients all over the world.

As time went on, he decided to add some skills to his arsenal.

So, he learned how to design websites with WordPress. He didn’t have the time luxury of learning code from scratch, WordPress was an option for him to be able to create high-quality websites without writing a line of code.

He slowly became a one-stop shop for design and branding.

Damilola was inspired to start Presidential Ideas because as a young 19-year-old fresh out of University, he was scared about living that “regular life”. That fear of the “normal and average life” created the entrepreneur in him.

At the moment, he’s more into content creation, digital marketing, and customer acquisition.

Obstacles and Future Plans

Damilola has a stutter, and this was something that could have deterred him from being an entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, there’s always the need to speak to clients, pitch your ideas, and you need to be a good speaker and know how to use words, but this was a challenge to him.

However, instead of hiding behind his speech impediment, he chose to do the opposite. He created videos, made Skype calls with clients; he did things that the average stammered would run from.

His goal for the future revolves around digital education. He has started this via his online university, Nejo University.

He intends to create the most robust digital education platform on various practical digital skills for the consumption of the masses.

His Recommended Books

Read His Ful Story Here: How I Started Off as a Graphics Designer to Getting Endorsed by the UK Government

Awards and Recognitions
  • World-leading exceptional talent in digital technology in 2017 by the UK Government
His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

His simple advice is this:

Don’t do what you love, do what makes money first.

You can connect with Daniel Nejo on Linkedin.

Learn more about Presidential Ideas on their website

Founder Profile: Chidinma Emodi Chukwuemeka

Chidinma Emodi Chukwuemeka is the Co-founder of The Footwear Academy; a footwear hub that enables young people to produce export-standard footwear products through training, access to quality, and affordable raw materials, and job-matching opportunities.

How She Started

Surprisingly, Chidinma’s background is not in shoemaking or fashion.

She has a degree in Zoology from the University of Nigeria. So afterward, she did her one-year NYSC in Akwa Ibom in 2013 and immediately after, got a job in a telecommunications firm, where she worked in the Marketing department. So she started out in marketing and brand building career in the telecommunications industry.

After 2 years, she moved up to a tech company as a digital marketing officer and moved to a research company as head of operations and business development, so she was more into marketing, business development, and branding than shoemaking.

She got introduced to shoemaking by her husband; he wanted to start out a shoe company because he had an interest in it. She had a good interest in marketing, so they put their heads together and started out The Footwear Academy. They started out in July 2017.

Obstacles and Challenges Faced

The apprentice system was a problem because when they started, they thought it would be easy to get some of the existing shoemakers that had spent years in the industry to come in and teach the younger generations, but that didn’t happen, because a lot of the existing shoemakers were really bad shoemakers.

That was a challenge because they started out thinking their business model will be to get trainers, experienced shoemakers to come and train younger people, but that didn’t work out because getting the older generation to come and train was an issue.

They couldn’t understand the dream or vision that they had for the business and that was also an issue, so Chidinma and her husband (Co-founder) had to take it upon ourselves to travel to Italy to learn shoemaking so they could start training people themselves.

Funding was once an issue but they won a couple of grants and that helped as well and then they won the Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon, where they were given $50,000 to develop the footwear industry in Aba, so they moved from Lagos to Aba in 2018 but moved fully in 2019.

Moving from Lagos to Abia state was also another big challenge because, in Lagos, there were people with disposable income that could afford the training at N65,000, but when they moved to Aba, they had to reduce the training cost to N35,000.

They weren’t getting any students for almost a year. But, it was an opportunity to reach out to the government and organizations like the PIND Foundation which they are currently working with to empower those who have an interest in shoemaking but can’t afford the training fee. That’s what is currently happening right now.

Read Her Full Story Here: How we are Disrupting the Landscape of the Footwear Industry in Nigeria

Her Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you are going to build something that is going to last, you have to build slowly, and deeply.

Think about a tree, you have to plant it, water it, keep showing it love, keep being consistent, so you have to know that a tree won’t just spring out in 2 or 3 days or 1 year, some trees will take time to build and spread out its roots underneath the soil, and then start growing, and this is the same for businesses.

A lot of young people are not interested in actually building businesses that are long-lasting; they are not really solving problems anymore.

A lot of people are not thinking about the most basic problems in Nigeria, they are not thinking about solving the things that really exist for the people around them. Young people should look within and think about local problems that they could solve within their capacity, and then grow from there.

You can connect with Chidinma on Linkedin.

Learn more about The Footwear Academy on their website.

Founder Profile: Chidi Nwaogu

Chidi Nwaogu is a serial tech entrepreneur and software developer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Publiseer, a digital publisher for African Creatives, which he launched in the 3rd quarter of 2017, along with his twin brother, Chika Nwaogu.

Konbini described Publiseer as “one of the largest digital publishers in Africa” and was also identified by IFC as one of the startups “that could speed up innovation in Africa”.

He has been described as one of the “Young innovators making Africa great in 2019” and “50 Top Personalities on LinkedIn”.

How He Started

After exiting his second startup company through acquisition, he and his twin brother decided to take a break from tech entrepreneurship to pursue other dreams.

Chidi has always wanted to be a published author, so he wrote a novel titled ‘Odd Family Out’, while his twin who went ahead to pursue a career as a recording artist recorded a studio album titled ‘Higher’.

For me, I have always wanted to be a published author, and my twin pursued a career as a recording artist. I wrote a novel titled ‘Odd Family Out’, and my twin recorded a studio album titled ‘Higher’, and now it was time to monetize our hard work.

It was when his twin brother had challenges receiving the royalties for his album that they got to know that other musicians may also be facing the same problem of monetizing their music. That was how they got the idea for their third and current startup, Publiseer.

Publiseer is a digital content distribution platform that lets independent African writers, musicians, and filmmakers, typically from low-income communities to distribute, promote, protect and monetize their creative works on over 400 well-established digital platforms in 100 countries, at no charge, with just a single click, and we share in the revenue generated from sales of these works.

Obstacles and Future Plans

One of the greatest challenges he faces with Publiseer is Copyright Infringement. Sometimes, some Creatives plagiarize the works of others and upload them for publishing as theirs.

To mitigate this, they (Publiseer) verify the originality of any work they publish, using several tools that ensure the published works are 100% original and free of plagiarism.

Chidi and his team are working to build a larger distribution channel and a more tailored promotional service for their creatives. They are working towards being a full digital media platform for African creatives that handles everything, including strategic planning, marketing, financing, branding, and PR.

His Recommended Books

Read His Full Story Here: How we are Building the largest Digital Content Distribution Platform in Africa

Awards and Recognitions
His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Figure out that one thing you know how to do better than many people you have come across. Now practice that one thing over and over again until you become undoubtedly an expert at it. Now do that thing and get people to pay you for doing it. That’s how successful businesses are created out of our talents or hobbies.

You can connect with Chidi on Linkedin.

Learn more about Publiseer on their Website.

Founder Profile: Ability Elijah

Ability Elijah is a UI/UX Designer. He is the Co-founder of Smuv, a design agency focused on research, strategy, UI/UX, and product development, which was co-launched with Light Nduka, his Co-founder.

How He Started

Elijah dropped out of varsity some years back due to financial constraints, and since then, he has worked on different ideas and launched a few businesses which are now defunct.

He used to run a music distribution business, Caketunes which went bankrupt and was shut down due to a lack of extra capital and inability to raise more cash from investors.

After the failure of Caketunes, he fully made his way into the creative design space, and then earlier this year (2020), he co-launched a Design agency, which goes by the name Smuv Design Agency, with his co-founder, Light Nduka. His passion for perfection is one of the main reasons why he started Smuv.

The core offering of Smuv is design, covering user experience, interface design, and branding, while development comes at the center of the project. Their reason for this is that there are so badly-designed apps with the worst experience in the Nigerian market, so Smuv was created to help curb as many bad designs as possible, install great experiences and then watch as those businesses take a step higher into capturing users, and doubling sales.

Obstacles and Future Plans

Elijah’s biggest challenge so far has been the sacrifices and sleepless nights that come with being an entrepreneur, but he claims this has made him a much stronger individual.

His business goal is for Smuv to be one of the biggest and highly sought-after design agencies in Nigeria and also to expand its staff base.

His Recommended Books

Read His Full Story Here: Behind the growth of Smuv, a creative and design agency

His Word of Advice to New and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you are looking to get started as an entrepreneur, my advice to you is that you are wasting too much time. Just do it! As for those that are new in the business like me. The road is tough but the future is bright. And lastly, networking in any business niche is very key to success.

You can connect with Elijah on Linkedin.

Learn more about Smuv on their Website.