10 Years of Entrepreneurship

10 years of apprenticeship • 10 years of becoming

April 16, 2015 - April 16, 2025

A decade of apprenticeship

On this day 10 years ago, I landed in Lagos with nothing but a head full of ideas, a suitcase, a heart full of uncertainty, and a two-year ultimatum: Make it or break it in Nigeria.

My move back was highly experimental. It was a coin toss between two paths:

1. Move to the U.S.—Take a cushy software engineering job, chase stability, and follow a well-lit path.

2. Move to Lagos—Bet on myself, launch a business, and embrace the unknown.

Lagos won the toss. Or, maybe I chose me.

What began as a two-year experiment has evolved into a decade-long entrepreneurial odyssey that has transformed me in ways I never imagined.

The Irony?

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.

My dad was a serial businessman—he made millions, lost it all, built again, and repeated the cycle. As a kid, I watched the volatility and swore, "I’ll never do this." To me entrepreneurship seemed reckless. Stupid, even.

Guess who’s the “stupid” one now.

How the Bug Bit Me

The truth? Entrepreneurship had already infected my DNA.

My childhood “computer time” came with a catch: drafting emails for Dad, generating invoices, researching vendors, even shadowing him in client meetings. I thought I was gaming the system—trading chores for screen time.

I was wrong.

He wasn’t just delegating tasks; he was training me. Those mundane moments taught me the unglamorous guts of business: attention to detail, negotiation, and how our family put food on the table.

(Someday, if I ever write that memoir, you’ll get the full story—colours of my childhood, triumphs, and all.)

The Crossroads: April 2015

After six formative years in Asia—a period that shaped my adulthood but came with the exhausting weight of being a perpetual foreigner—I stood at a pivotal crossroads. A family tragedy accelerated my decision to leave what had become home. Two paths lay before me:

The Lagos Option:

• Pros: My sisters lived there, offering a safety net of family support and shelter.

• Cons: I'd only briefly visited while in transit.

The American Dream:

• Pros: A love interest, friends, promising financial stability as a software engineer. Having been an exchange student on the East Coast, the idea wasn't entirely foreign.

• Cons: A life of “what-ifs” and dreams deferred

Then something changed. I got accepted into the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s entrepreneurship program—1 of 1,000 selected. The kicker? I submitted my application seconds before the portal closed.

It felt like a sign. A validation. A nudge.

I renewed my U.S. visa…then I booked a one-way ticket to Lagos.

Cultural Rebirth

My first 24 hours in Lagos were solitary and contemplative—my sister and her family were away on holiday, leaving me to navigate this new beginning alone. The culture shock was intense. Despite being Nigerian, Lagos was as foreign to me as it would be to any foreigner/expatriate. I couldn't understand the customs, the pace, or the rationale behind how things operated.

Those initial months forced me to grow exponentially.

• Relearning how to live with family after about a decade of independence.

• Rebuilding relationships with my sisters and parent.

• Making new friends and reconnecting with few old ones.

• Attending every tech/business event I could find on Eventbrite and tech blogs to forge a new network—anything that plugged me into the ecosystem.

I immersed myself completely. Survival demanded it.

Three Ventures, Countless Lessons

Startup 1: A maker-marketplace for African products. Think, Etsy for Africa.

A great idea, great product, terrible timing.

We were too early. Funding dried up. Co-founders left. I pivoted, scraped by, hit cashflow positivity, hit a roadblock where capital injection was key, couldn’t raise funds, my passion had faded—I cared more about the market than our solution. So I shut it down.

(Then came a detour: I joined a consulting firm, rose to GM, and steered it to profitability—just in time for an acquisition. That career detour didn’t speak to my “why”.)

Startup 2: Inventory software for retailers.

Launched and had twenty paying customers within months. Almost got into YC. Then COVID hit. Poof. Our clients vanished overnight. Businesses closed—ours included.

Rebuilding During Chaos

Lockdown forced a reckoning.

For years, I battled with crippling imposter syndrome and covid forced me to confront it. Part of it was due to how things turned out with my first two ventures and also partly because I introduced myself as a technical founder, even though I hadn’t written code in ages. The dissonance ate at me.

The Fix?

1. I relearned coding. Learning Python and Flutter during lockdown helped me reclaim my technical identity and confidence.

2. To reconnect with my “why”, I had to step inward to my core, asking myself hard questions such as:

   1. Why did I come to Nigeria in the first place?

   2. Am I still happy here?

   3. Am I growing—or just surviving?

   4. What am I willing to sacrifice—and for how long?

   5. Is there a happy middle?

   6. What do I really want?

   7. Is this journey really worth the trade offs?

When I shared this struggle online, the response stunned me. Others felt it too. The pandemic had forced us all to confront our “why.”

Finding my North Star: Dukka

Then came Dukka—born in 2021, six years and two failures later.

This wasn’t just another startup. It was the culmination of every lesson, every pivot, every “Aha!” moment that came from getting it wrong first.

This time, I knew: B2B first, B2C later.

A Decade of Achievements

1. Built 3 startups—2 failed.

2. Mentored by billionaires and industry titans.

3. Turned around a consulting firm → acquisition

4. Curated exhibitions with British Council, Patrons MCAA, and across Africa.

5. Became Chief Curator and Director at Patrons MCAA.

6. Founded Art Index Africa (newsletter + BusinessDay column) - Subscribe to Art Index Africa.

7. Built Dukka into a four-year old tech company (January 2025)

8. Joined multiple boards in finance and retail businesses.

9. Launched a newsletter (thank you for reading and subscribing!)

10. Countless other wins too personal to summarise.

10 Brutal Truths I’ve Learned

1. Your first business is tuition. Pay attention.

2. Growth hides in discomfort. Lean in.

3. Progress feels invisible until it doesn’t.

4. Friends outgrow you. You outgrow them. It’s natural.

5. "You’ve changed" is a compliment. Evolution isn’t negotiable.

6. Success is boring. It is daily habits, not grand gestures.

7. Timing > Idea. My first startup proved it.

8. Imposter syndrome doesn’t leave. You just outsmart it.

9. The market tells the truth. Listen or perish.

10. Your "why" is your anchor. Lose it, and you’ll drift.

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The Next Chapter?

I’m considering turning my decade-long experiences and lessons into raw, unfiltered video content:

• no sugarcoating

• no polished success narratives

• just the gritty truth about building

The real talk I wish I knew in my 20s about building in Africa.

If you think this could be valuable, I'd love to hear what aspects of my story might resonate most with you.

Want this? Smash the love button or comment what you would want me to unpack.

Here’s to the next 10 years—may they be wiser, wilder, and worth the ride.

Thank you for reading and being part of my journey. Now, back to work.

Until next time,