Founder’s Table

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell. The above quote should be the mantra of every serious entrepreneur. If there’s anyone living that mantra to the fullest, it’s…

Leke Ojikutu is the founder and Chief Technical Officer of VoguePay. VoguePay is a pioneering online payment solution that offer buyers and sellers a secure and easy way to transact business online. Techpoint spent an afternoon with Ojikutu chatting about his journey into tech entrepreneurship and the challenges of running a successful tech business in Nigeria.…

Eyo Bassey is the MD and CEO of PayPorte, a relatively new online retail store in Nigeria that boasts 48-hour delivery time frame. Techpoint spent an afternoon with chatting him about the state and future of eCommerce in Nigeria. Can you let us know a little bit about your educational and professional background My name is Eyo…

It is not everyday you find men venturing into fashion, especially in Nigeria, where it is largely considered a woman’s space. However, two men — Emotu Balogun and Segun Afolahan — have managed to successfully carve a niche for themselves with Traclist, a fashion eCommerce marketplace. Generating revenue in excess of ₦80 million this year…

Femi Akinde is the Founder and CEO of SlimTrader, the startup you probably never heard about until they raised $1 million from Interswitch’s ePayment Growth Fund. At its core, SlimTrader provides the eCommerce infrastructure  for businesses – airlines, hotels SMEs among others – with an online presence. This is probably why the company is not…

If you convened a forum of local entrepreneurs to find out what their biggest challenge doing business was, chances are 9 out of 10 times, the general consensus would be funding. It’s not that there isn’t enough money in the market; there just aren’t enough willing investors within the ecosystem. This situation is exactly what Akinola Jones…

Hotels.ng CEO, Mark Essien, is one of the few successful Nigerian startup founders with a technical background. His online hotels booking and reservation startup recently raised $1.2 million in funding from EchoVC and Omidyar Network. Techpoint caught up with Mark Essien at Hotels.ng’s new office building, where he shared his experiences building the company, from generating…

If you were on a budget but urgently needed to print a few 100 business cards, the traditional way would be to call on your “trusted” Shomolu printer to do the job. This is not without the risk of possible disappointment and, no doubt, extra charges for printing so unprofitable a quantity of business cards at such…

Lagos, a city of over 22 million people, is inevitably plagued by outrageous traffic jams. Beyond the tons of time and productivity being lost everyday on the mean streets of Lagos, businesses and lives are being lost too. But one man -Dele Odufuye – an his team have created a uniquely Nigerian technology solution to help…

In a local  eCommerce industry that appears increasingly saturated, one man has managed to create a niche. He is Lanre Akinlagun, Founder of Drinks.ng. The one time iROKOtv executive started Drinks.ng out of a passion for drinking and as a means of addressing the frustration with getting large quantity of drinks in Nigeria. Techpoint spent an afternoon…

In the wake of the recently concluded General Elections, the average Nigerian citizen is beginning to care more about accountability and transparency of governance. People are expecting more accountability and asking more questions than social and traditional media can handle. Due to its real-time, on-the-go nature, Social Media can be a quite unreliable source of information. Traditional…

With the plethora of job listing sites available online, the average Nigerian job seeker is somewhat spoilt for choice. The bummer is that their sheer number does not necessarily translate to more available jobs – they are mostly all listing the same jobs. Nevertheless, one cannot dismiss the huge role they play in providing job…

Olumide Olusanya is Chief ‘Glootian’ at Gloo.ng, a pioneering online grocery business based in Lagos. Or Sparta, depending on how you choose to see it. You can hardly miss all the references to Sparta strategically placed all around the Gloo.ng office in Lekki, Lagos Island. One particular inscription reads: Heads down; Ignore the noise. Stay…

UPDATE (August 10, 2016): Iyin Aboyeji has exited Andela to co-found Flutterwave, a platform that allows merchants make and receive payments across multiple platforms. An ever ongoing debate around the local tech scene is on the existence or limited availability of highly skilled developers. While most may argue that Nigerian Developers are largely under-skilled, some would opine…

This interview was published in 2015 If you watch a lot of Nigerian movies, or follow the Nigerian internet startup scene, chances are either iROKO or Jason Njoku need no introduction. In 2010, Jason Njoku founded iROKO — an online platform that offers its worldwide audience subscription-based access to stream Nollywood movies (primarily) — with the…

This is interview was published in 2015 Modupe Macaulay is the founder of Capital Square, an industry-agnostic co-working space for entrepreneurs (techie and non-techie alike) situated in the Lekki area of Lagos Island. The computer science grad, turned Copywriter, turned Manager spent some time with Techpoint over the past week to chat about her inspiration and…