Founders Connect

Ebun Okunbanjo is a Serial Entrepreneur. He and his Co-founder both run Thegymclass, Fitness Central, Bento and Ezwash. Bento Africa - the focus of this video is a business solutions company whose flagship product, Pay by Verifi, is a cloud-based salaries and benefits solution that helps businesses do more with less.  

Ebun spoke to me growing up, moving back to Nigeria, starting a business, how he met his co-founder, the scandalous video of 2020 and what Bento is building. This video is totally interesting and very different from most #FoundersConnect Episodes. You should definitely listen to it.

Dami is the co-founder and CEO of Shuttlers, a platform that enables professionals to access efficient shared transportation in Lagos Metropolis. They help transform the stressful time commuting to and from work into a productive, refreshing and relaxing experience.  

With Shuttlers App, Professionals can book a seat on a route, pay for a seat and track the arrival of their shuttle. I had a great time learning about Dami during this interview. 

As customary, we talked about her childhood background, her journey to entrepreneurship, how Shuttlers started, why it was important for her to build this business etc. Dami talked about the challenges of raising money for Shuttlers and how her co-founders left the business at some point.

Ben Eluan along with his friends/co-founders dropped out of university to build Flux. Flux is a crypto remittance startup built to enable individuals and merchants to send and receive money from anywhere in the world. 

In May 2020, Flux got accepted into Pioneer, an accelerator launched by ex-YC partner Daniel Gross. Pioneer gives founders access to funding streams and talent hardly found outside Silicon Valley. After the program, Flux subsequently raised $77,000 pre-seed investment from different investors — Hustle Fund and Mozilla, among others. In March 2021, Flux got accepted into YC.  

I had a quick chat with Ben and we talked all about his journey - ditching classes to code, to freelancing then building an e-commerce platform called Joppa which grew to over 20k users to then dropping out of school to build and scale Flux.

Oluwatomi Solanke is the co-founder and CEO of Trove finance, a micro-investing platform that lets Nigerians invest in publicly traded US, Nigerian and Chinese stocks, government bonds and more. 

Tomi is passionate about new technologies, new ideas and new ways of thinking. He is also a fitness buff and enjoys health-related activities. I sat down with Tomi to learn all about his journey to entrepreneurship. Tomi shared all about the past ventures he built - the ones that failed and didn't, how to met his co-founder, why they started Trove, Trove's traction so far and lots more. 

He has had such an interesting journey and you'd definitely love listening to it.

Tito Ovia is a health tech entrepreneur and public health professional who is driven to improve healthcare quality in Africa. She is the co-founder/Head of Public Sector Growth of Helium Health, a Nigeria-based health tech company that is building the technology infrastructure driving African healthcare.

In this episode, we learn all about Tito's journey to date - growing up in an affluent family, how her plan to study Medicine didn't work out, how she met her co-founders and started Helium Health, what her Dad thought about the idea then, bigs wins, challenges and lessons. 

This interview is the perfect way to start a new season.

Founded in August 2017, Patricia harnesses the power of cryptocurrency to create alternative solutions to financial infrastructure, digital payments and global E-commerce. 

Hanu, the founder and CEO says on Linkedin "I am bootstrapping Patricia to a trillion-dollar valuation, ushering the world into a digital age, doing the most with a strong team, building amazing products that would impact lives, and sharing lollipop moments."  

This episode of #FoundersConnect would easily become your favourite yet. Hanu shares his story - from growing up in Warri to starting and failing 13 businesses while at Uniport and then moving to Lagos and unintentionally starting Patricia.

Kuda is Nigeria's first mobile-only bank licensed by the Central Bank. Kuda is designed for your smartphone, free of ridiculous charges and great at helping you budget, spend smartly and save more. 

Musty Mustapha - the cofounder/CTO of Kuda graduated from university with a first-class degree and a distinction in his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, respectively. 

On this episode, Musty talks about his career and entrepreneurship journey, how Kuda started, the big wins and challenges so far and why Kuda is spending a lot of money on advertising right now

Yanmo Omorogbe is a Co-founder and COO at Bamboo. Before founding Bamboo, she was an Investment Associate at the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM). Bamboo gives unrestricted access to over 3,000 stocks listed on the Nigerian stock exchange and U.S. stock exchanges, right from your mobile phone or computer. 

Yanmo speaks to me about her 'accidental' journey into entrepreneurship, what growing up was like, how running Bamboo has been, their biggest wins and lessons learned.

Chijioke Dozie is the CEO and co-Founder of a $15.8 million VC-backed company, Carbon. Carbon is a leading African Mobile-First Consumer Lending Business and a digital bank.

In this episode, Chijioke shares his story - how Carbon started as One credit in 2012, pivoted to One fi in 2015, then Paylater and now Carbon. He also talks about growing up, schooling abroad and starting a business with his immediate elder brother and more.

In this episode, Yinka Adewale shares his story - how Kudi started as message commerce (Kudi.ai) and pivoted to agent banking after some time, the difficulty they faced raising seed for the business, plans for the future and lessons learned so far. He also shares the story on how he resigned as co-founder/co-CEO and gave up all his shares at a previous startup and much more.