African Tech Journal

Tag: software

  • EndowPay Wants to Make Digital Payments Easier for Nigerians Who Are Often Left Behind

    EndowPay Wants to Make Digital Payments Easier for Nigerians Who Are Often Left Behind

    For some Nigerians, sending money from a phone is a simple process. Open an app, select a beneficiary, enter an amount and confirm the transaction.

    But that experience assumes something that is not always true: that the person using the phone is comfortable navigating a financial app.

    For a market woman who can make a phone call but struggles to navigate a smartphone interface, digital banking can still feel inaccessible. For someone who is semi-literate or more comfortable communicating in a local language, the promise of financial technology can remain just that, a promise.

    This was the gap Okunola Orogun and the team behind EndowPay identified when they began building the fintech in November 2024.

    Rather than creating another payment app aimed primarily at digitally confident users, the company is focused on a different question: what would financial technology look like if it was designed around the people who find existing systems difficult to use? 

    Building for People Who Are Often Overlooked

    The conversation around financial inclusion in Africa has largely focused on bringing the unbanked into the formal financial system.

    But EndowPay believes access to a bank account is only one part of the problem.

    The bigger question is whether people can actually use the technology that gives them access.

    Okunola  describes people who may still depend on their children to operate their phones or walk to a POS terminal to send money to family members. For EndowPay, the existence of smartphones and digital payments should make these processes easier, not introduce another barrier.

    The company is therefore exploring natural-language interactions that allow users to communicate with financial technology in ways that feel more familiar.

    The idea is particularly relevant in a country where language, literacy and digital confidence can vary significantly across communities.

    If someone can make a phone call in their preferred language, Endow Pay believes they should eventually be able to use that same simplicity to carry out financial transactions.

    Making Payments Easier, Not Just Faster

    One of the company’s central arguments is that financial technology should remove friction from everyday transactions.

    The team points to a familiar situation. Imagine driving when a child calls to request ₦2,000 urgently. With a conventional banking app, the parent may need to stop, pick up the phone, open the application and complete the transfer.

    EndowPay is working toward a different experience through Endow Bot, which the company says is planned for rollout in Q4 2026.

    The proposed system would allow users to initiate transactions through a text and voice interaction, both in-app and on most popular instant messengers, supported by authentication layers designed to keep the process secure.

    The company’s focus on speed also extends to transaction processing. According to the team, EndowPay is working to make transactions complete within seconds, while its infrastructure is being designed to reduce the delays that customers often experience when payments fail.

    For Endow Pay, this is closely connected to trust.

    Trust Is Still the Biggest Challenge in Fintech

    Getting people to trust a company with their money is difficult, particularly for a young fintech competing against established financial institutions.

    The team says its approach has been to demonstrate value rather than simply talk about it.

    That includes focusing on transaction speed, customer support and reliability, while working with licensed partners to provide key financial services.

    EndowPay’s CTO says it works with CBN-licensed organisations for several of its services and has partnerships across banking and payment infrastructure. The company also says it has put compliance measures in place around anti-money laundering and data protection.

    The founders believe these relationships are important because trust in financial technology is not built through branding alone. It is built through the infrastructure behind the product and the consistency of the customer experience.

    Growth Built Around Active Users

    Since its alpha launch around September 2025, EndowPay says it has recorded steady user growth.

    But the team is less interested in accumulating large registration numbers than in understanding whether people actually use the product.

    Adebola says a significant majority of its current users are active, while the company has a customer retention team that reaches out to users to understand why they may have stopped using the platform and what could be improved.

    That feedback loop is becoming an important part of the company’s product development.

    The team says its upcoming V2 will further redefine the experience as it continues to build around the original goal of making financial technology more accessible.

    Building Without Chasing Funding

    Unlike many African fintech startups, EndowPay is currently 100% bootstrapped.

    The founders say this is intentional.

    Rather than raising capital and potentially adjusting the company’s direction around investor expectations, they want to build the core product and validate the original vision first.

    Okunola’s position is straightforward: funding should follow value rather than become the reason for building the company.

    The team remains open to investment in the future, but only from partners who understand and support the company’s direction.

    What Comes Next for EndowPay

    The company’s roadmap extends beyond consumer payments.

    According to EndowPay’s CTO, EndowPay is exploring a B2B offering that would allow SMEs to access business tools and maintain better financial records, potentially helping them when seeking financing or managing their operations.

    The team is also looking at cross-border payments, remittance services, virtual cards and cross-border accounts that could make it easier for remote workers and businesses to receive money internationally.

    On the infrastructure side, EndowPay is developing transaction routing technology designed to direct payments through available providers and reduce transaction failures.

    The broader ambition is to make financial technology feel less complicated for the people using it.

    For EndowPay, the opportunity is not simply to become another fintech competing for the same digitally savvy customers.

    It is to rethink how financial technology can work for people who have historically been expected to adapt to the technology, rather than having the technology adapt to them.

    And as Nigeria’s financial ecosystem becomes increasingly digital, that distinction could become increasingly important.

    This article is based on an interview with Okunola Orogun and EndowPay’s team conducted by African Tech Journal.

  • BookAm wants to become the default appointment software for service businesses in Nigeria

    BookAm wants to become the default appointment software for service businesses in Nigeria

    The Nigerian-built booking platform is helping service professionals replace WhatsApp back-and-forth with a simpler way to manage appointments, collect deposits, and keep customers informed. 

    For many service businesses in Nigeria, a booking can begin with a simple WhatsApp message. 

    A customer asks for availability. The business owner checks their schedule, responds, confirms a time, sends payment details, waits for a transfer screenshot, and then manually records the appointment. 

    Then comes another message. 

    And another. 

    As the business grows, so does the number of conversations to manage. 

    For barbers, makeup artists, photographers, tutors, consultants, fitness trainers, salons, and other appointment-based businesses, WhatsApp has become an important part of how they communicate with customers. But it was never designed to be a booking management system. 

    That gap is what BookAm is building around. 

    From WhatsApp conversations to structured bookings BookAm is a booking and payment platform built specifically for Nigerian service businesses. 

    The idea is straightforward: instead of asking customers to message a business every time they want to book, businesses can create a professional booking page that handles the process for them. 

    A business owner can add their services, prices, working hours, and availability. They can then share their personal BookAm booking link through WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, or anywhere else their customers already find them. 

    Customers open the link, choose a service, select an available time, and pay a deposit or the required amount to secure the appointment.

    The booking is then confirmed automatically. 

    For the business owner, the entire process is managed from a single dashboard. 

    The goal is not to replace the conversations businesses have with their customers. It is to remove the repetitive conversations that do not need to happen in the first place. 

    Why the problem matters 

    The problem with manual booking becomes more obvious as a service business gets busier. 

    A business owner may be working with a customer while another person is asking about availability. Someone else may be requesting a price. Another customer may have sent a payment screenshot that needs to be confirmed. 

    Then there are the customers who forget their appointments. 

    For businesses where every appointment represents a limited and valuable time slot, a missed appointment can mean lost revenue that cannot be recovered. 

    BookAm approaches these problems by turning the booking process into a structured workflow. 

    Customers can see the services available, choose a time based on the business’s availability, and make the required payment without waiting for the business owner to respond manually. 

    BookAm also sends automated booking confirmations and appointment reminders through WhatsApp and email, reducing the amount of manual follow-up required from the business. 

    Built around how Nigerian businesses already operate 

    One of BookAm’s biggest design decisions is to avoid forcing service professionals to completely change how they reach customers. 

    Many already have an audience on WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, or other social platforms. BookAm gives them a booking link they can place where their customers already are. 

    There is no mobile app that customers need to download before making an appointment. A customer can simply open the booking page in a browser, select a service and time, and complete the booking. 

    Payments are also designed around the Nigerian market, with customers able to pay through supported local payment methods.

    The platform is built to keep the experience familiar for both sides while making the underlying booking process more structured. 

    More than just a booking link 

    While the booking page is the part customers see, BookAm is designed to give business owners more control behind the scenes. 

    Businesses can manage bookings and customers from a central dashboard, track their booking activity, manage services and availability, and give staff members or branch managers their own access where needed. 

    The platform also includes features such as client management, analytics, QR-based booking, and automated notifications. 

    The idea is to give service businesses the operational structure they need without forcing them into a complicated enterprise system. 

    For a small business owner, the software should feel like something that removes work rather than something that creates more of it. 

    Why Kehinde Durodola built BookAm 

    BookAm was built by Kehinde Durodola, a software engineer who wanted to solve a problem he kept seeing among Nigerian service professionals. 

    For Kehinde, the opportunity was not simply to build another generic scheduling tool. The goal was to build something that understood the realities of the businesses it was serving. 

    That meant thinking about how Nigerian businesses communicate with customers, how they collect payments, how customers discover them, and how important upfront deposits can be for businesses whose income depends on appointments being kept. 

    It also meant building the product around the idea that the business owner should not need to become a technology expert to use it. 

    “BookAm” itself reflects that local approach. The name comes from the Nigerian expression “book am”, meaning “book it”. It is short, familiar, and intentionally local. 

    Starting free 

    BookAm is available for businesses to start using without a monthly subscription.

    The platform operates on a model where businesses can create their booking pages and begin accepting appointments without committing to a recurring software subscription. 

    For an early-stage service business, the goal is to make the first step as easy as possible: create an account, set up services and availability, share the booking link, and start accepting bookings. 

    The company believes that the software should first prove its value to the business before asking the business to make a larger commitment. 

    Building with the businesses, not just for them 

    BookAm officially launched in 2026 and is now onboarding its first set of service businesses across Nigeria. 

    At this stage, the company is focused heavily on conversations with business owners and understanding how they currently manage bookings. 

    Those conversations are already influencing how the product evolves. 

    For Kehinde, launching the software is not the end of the development process. It is the beginning of a much more important phase: seeing how real businesses use it, where they struggle, and what needs to be improved. 

    The long-term ambition is bigger than simply providing another booking link. 

    BookAm wants to become the default appointment software for Nigeria’s service businesses, giving independent professionals and growing service teams the infrastructure to manage bookings, payments, customers, and appointments more professionally. 

    The market is still early. 

    But the problem is already familiar. 

    For thousands of service businesses, the next customer booking may still arrive as a WhatsApp message. 

    BookAm wants to make what happens after that message much simpler.

  • How a University-Era Bookkeeping Business Became TELA, a Business Intelligence Platform for SMEs

    How a University-Era Bookkeeping Business Became TELA, a Business Intelligence Platform for SMEs

    For many small business owners, running a business means juggling sales, payments, invoices, customers, expenses and a long list of daily tasks, often without having a clear picture of what the numbers actually mean.

    This was the problem that led to Tela, a business intelligence platform designed to help small businesses and freelancers not only digitise their operations, but understand what is happening inside their businesses.

    Tela’s journey, however, did not start as a technology company.

    From managing books to building a platform

    Tela’s story began in 2021 when its founder, Adeyemo Damilare, started Rux Finance after graduating from university as a finance graduate. The business helped small businesses manage their finances, organise their books and make sense of their financial activities.

    As the business grew, so did the workload.

    What initially could be managed with manual processes eventually became too much to handle with what the team described as “pen and paper.” That experience became the starting point for a bigger question: what if these processes could be turned into a product?

    Damilare Adeyemo brought in James Dauda , Aaron Daudu and Jumoke Ajayi, who he had known for about 10 years, and together they began working on the idea at a larger scale.

    What emerged was Tela, evolving from a financial management solution into a business intelligence platform for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

    “We went a step further. Not just digitalizing their product or digitalizing their business, but also making it make sense,” the team explained during an interview with African Tech Journal.

    Building around how entrepreneurs actually work

    One of Tela’s early challenges was not necessarily figuring out what features to build, but deciding what should not be built.

    For the team, small businesses already operate within established habits. Many entrepreneurs rely heavily on WhatsApp, conversational selling and other familiar platforms to manage their businesses.

    The challenge was therefore to introduce technology without forcing entrepreneurs to completely change the way they work.

    “It’s easy to build a product with too many features,” the team said. The harder task was figuring out what an entrepreneur actually needs to see, what should be automated, what should be explained and what should be left untouched.

    This led the team to spend time speaking with customers, vendors and other business owners, while conducting market research to understand their behaviours and expectations.

    That approach has continued to shape Tela’s product.

    Moving beyond digitalisation with AI

    Tela initially operated as a web-based product, offering tools such as invoicing, receipts and payment links. The company has since shifted its focus towards its Android and iOS applications, with the Android and iOS app launching recently.

    But the larger shift has been in how Tela thinks about business data.

    Rather than simply showing business owners numbers, the team wants Tela to help them understand those numbers.

    A business owner might know that sales have fallen by 20 percent compared with the previous week. Tela is being built to go beyond presenting that information by helping answer questions such as why sales are falling and what the business owner could do to improve them.

    The team describes this as building Tela on AI rather than simply adding AI as a feature.

    The goal is to turn business data into insights that entrepreneurs can understand in clear language, particularly for business owners who already have numerous responsibilities competing for their attention.

    For Tela, data is therefore not simply something a business collects. It is part of the technology that can drive the business forward.

    Bootstrapping the journey

    The company has also grown without external funding.

    According to the founders, the  co-founders have funded Tela themselves from the beginning and continue to bootstrap the business.

    That has meant building with a lean team and making the most of the resources available to them.

    For James, one of the biggest lessons from the journey has been the resilience required to keep building.

    He described staying together as a team and reaching this stage without external funding as one of the things he is most proud of.

    For a startup still navigating product development, adoption and market expansion, that resilience has become an important part of Tela’s story.

    Partnerships, payments and early traction

    As Tela has evolved, partnerships have also played a role in strengthening the platform.

    The company identified its partnership with Anchor as an important milestone, particularly around payments. The founders said the partnership helped improve payment processing and contributed to better reviews and increased adoption.

    Tela also processes payments for small businesses, and the team says transaction volumes have been increasing.

    More recently, the company introduced a storefront feature that allows small businesses to sell directly through the platform using payment links.

    While the team had not yet begun actively pushing the storefront feature at the time of the interview, it represented another step towards making Tela a more comprehensive platform for businesses.

    The company is also beginning to see adoption of its mobile product. Tela says it has surpassed 1,000 active users on its mobile app within its first three months, with more than 3,000 users overall.

    From business intelligence to an intelligent operating system

    Tela’s ambitions extend beyond its current product.

    The founders want the company to eventually become an intelligent operating system for growing and established businesses.

    That means expanding beyond its current capabilities and adding more of the tools entrepreneurs rely on to operate their businesses, while continuing to use AI to make those tools more intelligent.

    One of the company’s major upcoming products is a standalone sales AI.

    The team is working towards a system that can automate significant parts of the sales process, from payment and customer conversations to fulfilment, with the intention of allowing business owners to focus on the parts of the process that still require their direct involvement.

    The product is expected to be one of Tela’s major milestones over the coming months.

    Looking beyond Nigeria

    Tela’s ambitions are not limited to the Nigerian market.

    The company plans to expand across Nigeria before moving into other West African markets.

    The founders also indicated that they expect to become open to investment as the business grows and the company prepares for its next stage.

    For now, however, Tela remains focused on building the product, understanding its users and proving that AI can do more for small businesses than simply automate tasks.

    Its larger bet is that the next generation of business software should not only record what happened in a business, but help business owners understand why it happened and what they can do next.

    That is the direction Tela is taking as it works towards becoming an intelligent operating system for African businesses.

  • The IT Problem Nobody in Lagos Talks About (And the Company Built to Fix It — Krestkore Solutions

    The IT Problem Nobody in Lagos Talks About (And the Company Built to Fix It — Krestkore Solutions

    If your business has ever dealt with unreliable hardware, different vendors for every IT service, spiralling technology costs, or a team constantly struggling to keep up with tools that were supposed to make work easier, then you have already experienced the problem Krestkore Solutions was built to fix.

    These are not edge cases. They are the everyday reality for thousands of businesses across Lagos. And at the center of it all is a quiet but expensive issue: fragmented IT systems.

    One vendor handles hardware. Another handles software. A third manages networking. And when something breaks, responsibility becomes unclear. In many cases, businesses are left coordinating between multiple providers who were never designed to work together in the first place.

    Krestkore Solutions Limited was founded in response to this gap.

    The founding team observed a consistent pattern across Lagos businesses. Technology that was meant to improve efficiency was instead slowing operations down. The distance between technical systems and actual business outcomes was too wide, and very few providers were addressing it in a structured, end to end way.

    From that observation, Krestkore was built differently.

    Starting with a core team of engineers, developers, and analysts known internally as the Krestkore Tribe, the company launched with a focus on deep technical execution and a customer first design philosophy. The goal was not to add another IT service provider into the ecosystem, but to collapse the fragmentation entirely.

    Building IT as a Single System, Not Separate Services

    Most IT providers in Nigeria operate in silos. Krestkore’s approach was to eliminate those silos and design technology as a unified system under one accountable structure.

    That system includes hardware procurement, where enterprise grade equipment is sourced and deployed based on operational requirements rather than generic specifications. It includes custom software development, where tools are built around real workflows instead of forcing businesses to adapt to rigid templates.

    It also extends into network installation, ensuring stable, scalable infrastructure for multi location businesses, and corporate training programmes designed to make sure teams can actually use the systems being implemented.

    As the company puts it, the goal is to be “small enough to care about every detail, but skilled enough to handle enterprise level challenges.”

    What Changes When IT Stops Breaking Down

    For clients, the impact is often immediate. Faster response times, fewer operational disruptions, improved coordination across teams, and a general shift from reactive problem solving to stable, predictable systems.

    When technology is properly integrated, businesses stop spending time firefighting and start focusing on execution. The result is not just efficiency, but trust in the systems and in the teams using them.

    Internally, Krestkore applies the same structure to its own operations. The company uses advanced project management systems to coordinate engineering teams, manage supply chains, and track development workflows across multiple functions. In practice, it treats its own operations as a live demonstration of the systems it deploys for clients.

    As the team describes it, “Every time we build an unshakable digital foundation for a client, we are not just growing Krestkore — we are actively empowering tomorrow through innovation.”

    Beyond IT Support: Building for Africa’s Digital Future

    Krestkore’s roadmap is no longer limited to solving fragmented IT systems. The company is expanding into data intelligence, predictive analytics, and emerging technologies such as digital twin systems that help businesses simulate and optimise operations before execution.

    Corporate training programmes are also evolving alongside this expansion, with a stronger focus on preparing teams for more data driven and automated business environments.

    The long term ambition is clear. To become a defining force in Africa’s shift toward digital first operations, where businesses rely on integrated systems rather than disconnected tools and vendors.

    So, Is Your Technology Helping Your Business Grow?

    Krestkore Solutions works with SMEs, enterprises, and corporate teams across Lagos to design and implement end to end technology systems covering hardware, software, networking, and training under one structure.

    For many businesses, the question is no longer whether they have technology in place. It is whether that technology is actually working together or working against them.

    Because in today’s business environment, fragmented systems don’t just slow operations down. They define how far a business can go.

  • Tixdorm Started With a Simple Observation: Event Organizers Were Using Too Many Tools

    Tixdorm Started With a Simple Observation: Event Organizers Were Using Too Many Tools

    If you’ve ever organized an event in Nigeria, you’ve probably experienced this.

    Registrations happen on Google Forms. Payments come through bank transfers. Attendee lists live inside spreadsheets. Updates are sent through WhatsApp. On event day, volunteers manually check names against printed lists while attendees wait in line.

    Individually, each tool works.

    Together, they create unnecessary complexity.

    That was the pattern the founders of Tixdorm kept seeing while attending and working on events across Nigeria. Organizers spent more time coordinating software than creating memorable experiences. Every event seemed to rely on a patchwork of disconnected tools, with no single system tying everything together.

    That observation eventually became the foundation for Tixdorm.

    For years, event technology in Africa has largely focused on ticket sales. Once someone buys a ticket, organizers are often left to manage everything else themselves. Applications, volunteer management, attendee communication, event websites, analytics, check-ins, and post-event reporting typically happen across different platforms.

    The result is a fragmented workflow.

    As events become larger and communities continue growing, this fragmentation becomes increasingly difficult to manage. Organizers aren’t necessarily looking for more software. They’re looking for fewer operational problems.

    The founders believed the opportunity wasn’t to build another ticketing platform.

    It was to build the infrastructure behind modern events.

    That thinking shaped Tixdorm into something broader than ticket sales.

    Today, the platform combines registrations, applications, attendee management, QR code check-ins, communications, analytics, event websites, and developer infrastructure into a single operating system for event organizers.

    One of the company’s biggest milestones has been the introduction of the Tixdorm API.

    Rather than asking organizers to abandon their existing websites or customer experience, the API allows developers and organizations to integrate Tixdorm’s event infrastructure directly into their own platforms. Organizers keep their brand while Tixdorm quietly manages the operational complexity behind the scenes.

    For the team, this represents a shift from building a product to building infrastructure.

    The company was bootstrapped from the beginning, relying on in-house expertise across product design, software development, branding, and community building rather than external funding. Product decisions were shaped less by assumptions and more by conversations with student leaders, creators, conference organizers, brands, and event communities who continued highlighting the operational challenges they faced. Many of the platform’s most valuable features came directly from those conversations rather than internal brainstorming sessions.

    Since launch, Tixdorm has supported campus events, conferences, creator communities, entertainment experiences, and community gatherings across Southwest Nigeria. As adoption has grown, the company has also expanded its role beyond software by helping organizers with marketing, event websites, and attendee engagement.

    The next phase focuses on expansion.

    The company is preparing to grow into Southeast Nigeria through strategic partnerships while continuing to strengthen its developer ecosystem. Long term, the ambition extends beyond individual events.

    Tixdorm wants developers, universities, brands, entertainment companies, communities, and conference organizers to build on top of its infrastructure instead of recreating common event functionality every time.

    As Africa’s events industry continues to mature, the demand for reliable operational infrastructure is likely to grow alongside it.

    For Tixdorm, the future is no longer just about helping people sell tickets.

    It is about becoming part of the infrastructure that powers how events are created, managed, and experienced across Africa.

  • ShawnSMS Becomes Nexar as Nigerian SMS Verification Platform Pushes Toward Super-App Territory

    ShawnSMS Becomes Nexar as Nigerian SMS Verification Platform Pushes Toward Super-App Territory

    ShawnSMS has officially rebranded as Nexar marking its evolution from a niche virtual numbers service into a multi-product ecosystem serving over 100,000+ users.

    For years, ShawnSMS built quiet dominance in Nigeria’s virtual number and SMS verification space, becoming a go-to solution for users needing reliable access to international OTPs. That identity is now being retired as the company aligns its brand with a broader suite of products and a longer-term ambition.

    Alongside the rebrand, operations have fully migrated from shawnsms.com to nexarhq.com. According to the company, the shift reflects not a sudden pivot but years of gradual expansion beyond its original category.

    What started as a single-purpose verification tool has steadily grown into a digital services platform. Nexar now offers virtual numbers across 99+ countries, travel eSIMs, gift card trading, airtime and utility bill payments, social media growth tools, and crypto-to-naira conversions. Each addition, the company says, emerged directly from user demand.

    “Our name ShawnSMS represented where we started,” a company spokesperson told African Tech Journal. “Nexar represents what we have become. Users were already engaging with us like a platform, so the brand needed to reflect that reality.”

    Why this matters

    Nigeria’s digital economy is increasingly shaped by consolidation. Mobile-first users are showing less interest in juggling separate apps for payments, utilities, identity verification, and online transactions. Fintech platforms such as Opay and PalmPay have already demonstrated the strength of bundled services in financial life. Nexar is extending that logic into what it describes as the broader “digital life” stack.

    This includes identity verification, digital goods exchange, communication tools, and financial off-ramps within a single ecosystem rather than scattered platforms.

    One of the more sensitive additions is its crypto-to-naira conversion feature, introduced in a regulatory environment that remains cautious toward crypto activity. Nexar positions this function as a transparent conversion layer rather than a trading platform, aligning it with current Central Bank expectations.

    What changes for existing users

    Practically, nothing. Logins, wallet balances, order history, saved virtual numbers, and payment methods carry over untouched. Old shawnsms.com links now redirect automatically to their nexarhq.com equivalents. The Nexar app is available on both Google Play and the Apple App Store under the new name.

    The bigger shift is brand posture. Nexar is no longer pitching itself as “the SMS company.”  It is pitching itself as infrastructure for online life. Whether the Nigerian market rewards that ambition will depend on whether the platform can keep its original product reliability, the thing that built the 100,000+ user base in the first place, while shipping the next wave of services.

    For now, the company is keeping its message simple. As the rebrand page puts it: new name, same promise.

  • From a Nigerian Kahoot Idea to a Lead Intelligence Platform: The Story Behind Tadlace

    From a Nigerian Kahoot Idea to a Lead Intelligence Platform: The Story Behind Tadlace

    During an event, the founder observed how a simple Kahoot quiz completely changed audience energy. People were engaged, competitive, and fully present. It was not just content consumption, it was participation. That moment triggered a question that would eventually shape the company: what if there was a Nigerian version of Kahoot, built for local engagement and interaction?

    That question became the starting point for Tadlace.

    At the time, the motivation was not heavily business driven. It was more about building something interactive, fun, and different from the wave of fintech products dominating the ecosystem. As a software engineer, the appeal was in the product itself, not necessarily the market category it would eventually fit into. The early vision was simple: create an engaging experience that people actually enjoy using.

    The company started with very limited resources. There was no external funding, no structured team, and no institutional support. It was built by the founders themselves using personal time, technical skills, and a shared belief in the idea. In the early stages, execution depended more on commitment than capital.

    The First Reality Check: Building Is Easier Than Distribution

    Like many early-stage products, Tadlace’s first major challenge was not technology. It was content.

    The platform relied on users creating public quizzes that others could discover and play. Without enough content, the experience quickly felt incomplete. That created a cycle problem. Without users, there was no content. Without content, there were no users.

    Interestingly, competition was not the main pressure point. The larger issue was demand itself. While the product was designed for social, multiplayer engagement, users often defaulted to familiar alternatives like traditional games. The expected level of organic adoption did not materialize in the way the team initially imagined.

    This phase forced a hard realization. Building a product is not the same as building a market.

    Structuring the Chaos: How Tools Changed Execution

    As the product evolved, the team introduced more structure into how they worked. One of the key tools adopted was Linear for product and engineering management. This shift had a noticeable impact on execution.

    Work became more organized. Priorities were clearer. Tasks were tracked more effectively. Instead of scattered development cycles, the team could now operate with better alignment and visibility. This improved coordination directly translated into faster shipping and more consistent iteration.

    More importantly, it allowed the team to experiment faster. Ideas could be tested quickly, user behavior could be observed in real time, and feedback could be used to adjust direction without long delays. That speed of iteration became a critical factor in how the product eventually began to evolve.

    Growth Through Iteration and a Defining Early Milestone

    As Tadlace improved its development cycle, growth started to shift from assumption-driven to feedback-driven. The team began learning directly from user behavior, refining the product based on what people actually engaged with rather than what was originally imagined.

    One of the earliest validation moments came through Lagos Trivia Night, one of the largest trivia events in Nigeria at the time. Tadlace powered the experience, and for the first time, the product was used at real scale in a live environment. That moment served as a strong signal that the platform could support structured, high-volume engagement beyond casual experimentation.

    Alongside organic usage, digital marketing also played a role in expansion. Channels like Instagram ads helped the team reach audiences beyond their immediate network. This allowed them to test different user segments, refine targeting, and understand where the product resonated most strongly.

    Lessons From Building: Distribution Over Everything

    One of the most important lessons from the journey is that go-to-market strategy matters as much as product quality. A strong product without distribution struggles to survive. The real challenge is not just building something valuable, but ensuring it reaches the right users in the right way.

    Another key insight was the importance of validating the problem early. Speaking to customers before writing code helps reduce wasted effort and ensures that what is being built aligns with real demand rather than assumptions. In hindsight, this step would have significantly shaped early decisions.

    The Pivot: From Quizzes to Lead Intelligence

    Tadlace is now in an active phase of evolution.

    The platform is shifting from a simple multiplayer quiz experience into something more structured and commercially driven. Today, Tadlace is being positioned as a tool that turns quizzes into lead qualifying campaigns, allowing businesses to engage users, segment responses, and trigger automated actions based on user inputs.

    This represents a major shift from entertainment-focused interaction to business utility. Instead of quizzes existing purely for engagement, they now serve as structured funnels for understanding and qualifying audiences.

    The Future of Tadlace

    The broader vision is to sit at the intersection of marketing and customer intelligence. As businesses increasingly prioritize engagement-driven acquisition, interactive experiences are becoming more valuable as data collection and segmentation tools.

    Tadlace is positioning itself within that shift. Not just as a quiz platform, but as an infrastructure layer for interactive customer engagement that produces actionable insights.

    What began as a simple idea inspired by a live quiz at an event is now evolving into a platform designed to help businesses better understand and convert their audiences.

    The journey is still ongoing, but the direction is clear. Tadlace is no longer just about quizzes. It is about turning interaction into intelligence.

  • Hult Prize Nigeria Nationals 2026 Celebrates Student Innovation, Crowns Devspace National Winner

    Hult Prize Nigeria Nationals 2026 Celebrates Student Innovation, Crowns Devspace National Winner

    The 2026 edition of the Hult Prize Nigeria National Competition concluded successfully at the University of Lagos on May 9, bringing together some of the country’s brightest student entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and industry leaders in a celebration of innovation and social impact.


    Widely regarded as the world’s largest student social entrepreneurship competition and often described as the “Nobel Prize for Students,” the Hult Prize Foundation challenges university teams to build for-profit ventures that solve pressing global problems.

    Supported by Hult International Business School and the United Nations, the competition awards a grand prize of $1 million USD to the global winner.


    This year’s Nigeria Nationals recorded participation from 44 universities across the country, with 609 startups registered for the competition. Following months of campus programs, mentorship, and selection rounds, only 25 startups advanced to pitch at the national finals in Lagos.


    At the end of an intense pitching session before a panel of judges comprising investors, business executives, and innovation experts, Devspace from Covenant University emerged as the national winner, securing first place and advancing to the next stage of the global competition.


    Blank Book from the University of Ibadan emerged second, while Aquanut, also representing Covenant University, finished in third place.
    The remaining startups that made the Top 8 were Blood Deck from Lead City University, Zisocare and Amana from Bayero University Kano, Skycorv from Kwara State University, and Tropical from the University of Uyo.


    As national winner, Devspace will proceed to the Hult Prize Digital Incubator, an intensive international entrepreneurship acceleration program where selected startups from around the world receive mentorship, strategic business training, investor access, and funding opportunities as they compete for a place at the Global Finals and the
    coveted $1 million USD prize.


    The Hult Prize Nigeria Nationals is more than a competition; it is proof that young Nigerians are capable of building globally relevant solutions to some of society’s most urgent challenges.

    From over 600 registered startups to the exceptional teams that pitched today, we have witnessed the remarkable ingenuity, resilience,
    and ambition that exists within our universities. — Olamide Otasanya, Hult Prize Nigeria National Coordinator


    “On behalf of Hult Prize Nigeria, I congratulate all participating teams and especially Devspace of Covenant University for emerging as our national winner.

    We are proud to see them represent Hult Prize Nigeria


    Nigeria at the Global Accelerator, where they will join outstanding startups from across the world in refining their ventures for global impact. We also celebrate Blank Book, Aquanut, and every finalist whose ideas demonstrate that innovation remains one of Nigeria’s greatest strengths.


    What we witnessed today goes beyond student competition. These young founders are building solutions with the potential to transform industries, create jobs, and improve lives across Africa.

    Hult Prize Nigeria continues to demonstrate the power of investing in youth innovation, and we remain proud to support a platform that is shaping the next generation of African entrepreneurs. — Olubunmi Sobande, Member, Hult Prize Board of Governance

    The event concluded with an award ceremony where winning startups, campus leaders, faculty advisors, volunteers and other outstanding contributors were recognized for their excellence and contributions to the growth of the Hult Prize ecosystem in Nigeria.


    The Nigeria Nationals also attracted venture capitalists, startup ecosystem leaders, corporate executives, university
    representatives, members of the press, and innovation stakeholders from across the country, reinforcing the growing
    importance of youth-led entrepreneurship in driving economic and social transformation.


    Enquiries
    Samuel Olomu
    Head of PR and Communications
    [email protected]

    About Hult Prize Nigeria
    Hult Prize challenges university students to solve pressing global issues through scalable, sustainable social enterprises.

    In Nigeria, we provide a vital platform for future leaders to develop impactful, purpose-driven ventures, fostering a national
    community dedicated to profit with purpose and driving significant socio-economic transformation.

    ■ www.hultprize-ng.com
    ■ linkedin.com/company/hult-prize-nigeria

  • From Checkout to Food Intelligence: Skaap Reaches 2,000 Users Across 9 Countries

    From Checkout to Food Intelligence: Skaap Reaches 2,000 Users Across 9 Countries

    Years ago, while working retail at Lululemon in Canada, he noticed something almost everyone had accepted as normal: long checkout lines. Customers waited. Staff rushed. Stores lost time. Friction was everywhere.

    For many people, it would have remained an annoyance. For Samuel Ayo Oyedemi, it became the seed of Skaap, founded in 2025 and now building at the intersection of AI, retail infrastructure, and nutrition intelligence.

    And what started as a self-checkout idea is quietly becoming something much bigger.

    The Problem Was Never Just Checkout

    Retail, particularly physical retail, has always had an invisible inefficiency tax.

    Consumers waste time in lines, and retailers struggle with store throughput. And increasingly, shoppers are making food decisions with very little understanding of what they are buying.

    Skaap appears to sit at the intersection of all three.

    Its original wedge into the market was mobile self-checkout, allowing users to scan products, pay, and walk out, reducing traditional checkout friction.

    Then Skaap Pivoted Into Something Unexpected: Food Intelligence

    The bigger surprise may be what came next.

    Rather than stop at checkout, Skaap expanded into what it calls Food Intelligence — an AI-powered layer that helps consumers understand what is actually inside the food they consume.

    According to the company, the feature attracted 2,000 users in under five weeks.

    That may sound modest by consumer internet standards. But for a behavior-changing health utility, it is a signal.

    Skaap’s AI analyzes food substances, decodes ingredient labels and helps users understand whether a product aligns with their nutritional profile.

    Take the recent controversy involving Bon Bread, where concerns raised online about bread quality sparked wider debate around preservatives, ingredients and food transparency.

    Whatever side of that debate one sits on, it surfaced a bigger issue: many consumers have questions about what is in everyday products, but often lack tools to interpret labels or verify what they are consuming.

    That is exactly where Skaap’s use case starts to feel timely.

    Instead of relying on speculation or viral discourse, a user could scan a product, decode additives, and make a more informed decision before purchase.

    That moves Skaap beyond convenience and closer to something more foundational: consumer clarity.

    From Lagos Roots to 9 Countries

    Though founded by a Nigerian, Skaap’s ambitions have never been geographically narrow.

    Its Food Intelligence product is already live in nine countries, according to the company, with long-term plans to expand further — including Nigeria.

    And the company has already started attracting editorial attention.

    Recent coverage from Techpoint Africa profiled how Samuel Ayo is taking a Nigerian-inspired retail solution into Canada and the US. (Techpoint Africa)

    The startup has also participated in DMZ, often described as one of Canada’s leading startup programs. (Nigerians in Canada)

    For an early-stage company, those signals matter.

    A Product That Doesn’t Want You to Download Another App

    One subtle but important product choice says a lot about Skaap’s philosophy.

    It is not pushing a traditional mobile app model.

    Instead, the company operates via a Progressive Web App (PWA), allowing users to access the product from the browser and pin it to a home screen.

    What If the Future of Retail Intelligence Is Invisible?

    The most interesting companies often make complexity disappear.

    Skaap seems to be betting that the future of retail and food intelligence should feel ambient — almost invisible.

    And while still early, the contours are becoming visible:

    Connect With Skaap Tech

    Website: https://www.useskaap.com

    Founder LinkedIn: Samuel Oyedemi on LinkedIn

    Editorial Features:

  • The Real Reason Every Startup Pitch Deck Now Has AI in the First Slide

    The Real Reason Every Startup Pitch Deck Now Has AI in the First Slide

    By Tosin Oladokun

    I’ve been reviewing startup pitches lately, and there is a shift that I cannot miss. Two years ago, decks led with the problem being solved, including the customer pain points, market gaps and real user needs. Now, slide one is almost always about AI. “We’re using AI to revolutionise…” “Our AI-powered platform…” “Leveraging artificial intelligence to transform…” My first instinct was to write this off as hype-chasing, another buzzword cycle like blockchain or the metaverse. However, after watching it repeat across dozens of pitches from founders who are clearly not stupid (PhDs, cracked engineers/operators), I think something more structural is going on.

    The surface explanation is that founders put AI on slide one because investors want to see it. Fine, but that doesn’t explain why investors want to see it. The deeper thing is that AI has become shorthand for an answer to the question investors have always cared about most: “How do you scale this without it breaking?” Every scalable business eventually hits the same wall. You need more people to deliver more value, i.e., more customer service reps, more analysts, more operations staff and then the math stops working. AI became the credible answer to that problem, and once it did, it stopped being a feature and became infrastructure.

    The timing matters too. In 2019, machine learning was expensive, complicated, and unreliable for most use cases. You needed specialised teams and massive datasets just to get something mediocre. By 2025, the technology could handle complex decisions with enough accuracy to actually change how a company operates day to day. So founders aren’t just slapping AI onto their decks for decoration — many of the business models that work now genuinely require it to function.

    Founders, though, are missing the point of startup pitching.

    When you build something that works because you figured out regulatory navigation, or you nailed the user experience, or you found a real gap in the market, and then you lead your pitch with “AI-powered platform” – you’ve buried the thing that actually makes it valuable. I’ve seen companies facilitate hundreds of business incorporations not because of some machine learning model, but because they understood how to work with regulatory authorities and make an intimidating process feel simple.

    If those same companies pitched today, I guarantee slide one would say “AI-powered business incorporation.” And that framing would completely miss the point. The better pitch is just: “We solve X problem. Solving it requires doing Y at a massive scale. AI is how we keep the unit economics from falling apart.” That’s a tools-in-service-of-the-mission framing. What we’re getting instead is “We’re an AI company that happens to work in X industry,” which is a fundamentally different claim about what the company is.

    There’s a split coming, and you can already see the edges of it. One camp is companies where AI genuinely is the product — they’re building models, infrastructure, foundational technology.

    Leading with AI makes sense for them because AI is what they sell. The other camp is companies using AI as plumbing to solve real problems in specific industries, and for them, the industry problem should probably come first. Right now, both camps use the same pitch deck template, which muddies what’s actually being built. And most of the AI features being added to products right now aren’t that transformative anyway.

    They’re helpful, they might improve efficiency by 10 or 20 percent, but they’re not the reason the business will succeed or fail. The companies I keep paying attention to are the ones that can tell you what problem they’re solving and why it matters before they ever mention their tech stack.

    When I see a deck leading with AI now, I’ve started asking a simpler question: would this business work without it?

    If the answer is no, I want to understand why. If the answer is yes, I start wondering what they’re not telling me about the actual business and whether AI on slide one is covering for a pitch that doesn’t know what it’s really about.

    Tosin Oladokun is currently pursuing his MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He previously worked as a Senior Product Manager-Technical Intern at Amazon and has built digital products across Nigeria and the United States.