Flashbike began with a vision to make last-mile delivery in Nigeria as simple as ride-hailing. However, despite offering their services for free, the startup failed to scale and struggled with issues such as unreliable third-party providers and a fragmented logistics system.
Rather than shutting down the business, the team decided a pivot was better. Riding on their experience working with MSMEs, they decided to pivot to 1Vault, a super app for small businesses in Nigeria.
"The reason we chose 1Vault was because we saw a need for better bookkeeping and sales for SMEs," Segun Adebirigbe, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of 1Vault says of the pivot.
Capitalising on the MSME opportunity
Micro, small, and medium enterprises are crucial to Nigeria's economy, contributing over 40% of gross domestic product (GDP) and providing 80% of employment.
Despite driving much-needed economic growth, these businesses face a myriad of challenges that limit their ability to grow. For example, registering a business remains fraught with challenges, although recent reforms have simplified the process with businesses often able to complete their registrations within a few days.
Additionally, a significant number of these businesses remain informal. Nearly 90% of the over 40 million MSMEs in the country are informal according to the Moniepoint Informal Economy Report. This informal status also means that many of these businesses lack a verifiable footprint, making it harder for financiers and even the government to offer adequate support.
Alongside these conditions is a growing adoption of digital technology in Nigeria. Over 25 million Nigerians own a smartphone, with many using them for business purposes. WhatsApp and Instagram, for example, have become instrumental to finding and serving customers for many Nigerian businesses.
Unsurprisingly, this development has fuelled startup activity aimed at bringing MSMEs online or helping them get formalised, a trend 1Vault hopes to ride.
Background of the founders
The co-founders’ journey began in 2016 when Babajide Padonu (CEO) and Segun Adebirigbe worked together at an IT firm. In July 2018, Adebirigbe introduced Kola Roberts (COO) to Padonu after they met through a professional connection.
Written by Omoruyi Edoigiawerie, a seasoned startup attorney with over a decade of experience. Learn more.
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All three would go on to start Flashbikes together in 2022 with a mutual friend introducing Femi Adefaka (CTO) to the team just as they considered the pivot to 1Vault. Together, they bring a wealth of experience working in technology and building SMEs in Nigeria and the UK.
The super app for Nigerian small businesses
According to Adebirigbe, 1Vault is a digital platform designed to simplify business operations for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The self-styled “super app,” which can be accessed via a web and mobile app, combines a number of tools and services to achieve this goal.
"If you look at our suite of products as of today, no other fintech has this suite of products. They can have one, two, or three of what we do, but the entire suite that we offer, no fintech has that robustness."
Using 1Vault, registering a business with Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) is made seamless. By helping entrepreneurs formalise their operations, it helps them gain credibility with potential partners and gain access to available government support.
The app also offers accounting solutions helping businesses automate bookkeeping, track inventory and invoices, and ensure compliance with tax laws.
With banking for Nigerian businesses still a complicated process, 1Vault enables businesses to create an account within a minute, which allows them to access services like loans, overdrafts, and savings tools. Entrepreneurs can also manage their finances with features like transaction tracking and goal-oriented savings. While it isn't a fintech, it provides banking services through a partner.
For businesses looking to scale digitally, 1Vault offers an integrated eCommerce solution that allows users to create online stores, manage orders via WhatsApp, and analyse customer behaviour. Furthermore, businesses can manage their social media presence as 1Vault provides services like content creation, advertising, and real-time engagement to increase brand visibility.
Business model and differentiation
The core of 1Vault's revenue model comprises service subscriptions, particularly for features like social media management. While it provides free bookkeeping services to drive user adoption, it monetises with commissions from services such as bill payments and interest rates from loans and overdraft facilities.
With several startups springing up over the past four years to cater to the SME segment, 1Vault faces intense competition.
However, the startup argues that its robust suite of services is unmatched and will enable customers to handle all their business operations on one platform. Similarly, it expects that delivering a stellar customer experience would help it to retain customers.
So far, more than 200 businesses have signed up to the platform, and in October 2024, it launched its bill payment service.
"We switched on transaction services in the last one month and we've processed north of ₦20 million naira since then," Adebirigbe shares.
Challenges, lessons, and plans for the future
With only a few months in the market, Adebirigbe notes that the startup still has to deal with some distrust from MSME owners about using social media and digital tools in their business.
"Some of them don't know that social media can be a tool for business. They probably just go to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and just watch and follow the trends, not knowing that they can actually put their own business on it. I mean, it'll be surprising. They have personal accounts, but they don't know that you can actually use it to drive sales into your SME, and for some that know, they don't know how to go about it," he says.
The team is also taking lessons from its Flashbike experience into 1Vault. One of such lessons is to charge customers as soon as possible for the services they render. With Flashbike, the service was free as it tried to onboard as many users as possible, but it is taking a different approach with 1Vault.
Additionally, it is doubling down on providing a great customer experience, which it says won it a lot of favour with Flashbike’s customers. While it's still early days for the 1Vault team, that hasn't stopped them from dreaming. The startup says it hopes to have 23% of Nigeria's MSMEs — about nine million — using it within three years.
