Founders Connect

Founders Connect
  • 5.0 (2)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Founders Connect is on a mission to document the stories, journeys and ideologies of leading and emerging African entrepreneurs and operators. The podcast aims to create meaningful insights that can be shared and beneficial to other founders, entrepreneurs, knowledge seekers, consumers and the world in general - targeting a wide variety of audiences.

  1. 1D AGO

    How to Invest Through Inflation, Clear Debt and Still Build Wealth : A Financial Masterclass

    What does it actually cost to build wealth in Nigeria right now — when purchasing power is shrinking, the Naira is under pressure, and the standard financial advice was written for a completely different economy? In this episode of Founders Connect, Tosin Oladokun, founder of Money Africa and one of the continent's most trusted voices in financial literacy, sits down for a candid, wide-ranging conversation that is equal parts masterclass and personal testimony.Tosin reaches over 750,000 people across platforms. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a Mandela Washington Fellow, and the winner of a $100,000 NSIA Prize for Innovation. Jack Ma named her one of Africa's top business heroes. But this conversation is not about the accolades. It is about what she has learned — and had to unlearn — in seven years of building, and what she wants every Nigerian listening to walk away knowing.She starts where most financial conversations refuse to: the mindset. By the age of seven, a child's beliefs about money are already set. That is why people in their 30s and 40s are still trying to unlearn patterns they never chose. Tosin breaks down why 80% of the personal finance journey is psychological — and why she recommends therapy as a genuine asset class, not a luxury. She also introduces the concept of the mastermind group and why the most successful people you know did not build their networks by accident.Then she gets into the frameworks. She walks through the four CNBC-researched paths to wealth — saver-investors, dreamers, climbers, and the exceptional 1% — and explains why the most guaranteed path is one that most people dismiss. She gives the actual numbers: $50 a month from your 20s at 10% per annum compounds to a million dollars by retirement. Investing 20,000 Naira a month does the same in Naira terms — which is also exactly why she insists that every Nigerian must hold a portion of their investments in USD.She breaks down the S&P 500 in plain language — what it is, how it works, why a cocktail of 500 companies across sectors is the safest starting point for most investors — and explains the single biggest mistake she sees people make with it: selling too early. She talks about the portfolio that performs best according to research. The answer is dead people. Because they cannot touch their investments.The conversation gets personal when she talks about the health challenge she stepped away from work to address — something most people on the outside never saw. She speaks about what it taught her about delegation, about trust, about putting yourself first as an entrepreneur. She also gets brutally honest about the funding gap for women in business, and reveals that in 2023 alone, her team applied to 116 opportunities and heard back from six. Her response was not to wait for the table to be set. It was to build her own funding pipeline.She talks about when not to invest — the season of life when building your skill matters more than saving. She gives practical advice on managing debt alongside investing, the 50-30-20 rule and why it breaks down in an inflationary Nigerian economy, and why gradual habit change always beats going cold turkey. She also settles the real estate versus S&P 500 debate — with a clear answer for first-time investors.And she closes with the one thing she wants every young Nigerian to remember: optimism is a financial asset. Not blind optimism. Deliberate, working, delusional-where-necessary optimism — because the mind that believes it can find the opportunity will find it.This is one of the most practically useful money conversations we have ever had on Founders Connect. Whether you are just starting out, rebuilding, or trying to figure out what to do next — this one is for you.🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss conversations like this.

    1 hr

  2. APR 27

    Grief, Growth and $4.4M: What Five Years of Showing Up Really Looks Like for a Nigerian Founder

    Kelvin saves his name in people's phones as "Kelvin Bumpa." Not as a stunt. Not as a branding exercise. It is just what happens when you spend five years pouring yourself so completely into something that the line between you and the thing you are building stops making sense.In this episode of Founders Connect, Kelvin, co-founder and CEO of Bumpa Nigeria's commerce operating system, sits down to talk through what five years of building actually feels like from the inside. Not the metrics version. The real version. The version where you are managing a team of 70, carrying the weight of $4.4 million raised, showing up every single day with high energy, and doing it all after losing the person who built it with you.In 2019, he met Iyin Aboyeji. A few conversations about what it means to actually build something and that part of Kelvin that had been dormant since shutting down Voice App in his final year woke back up. He resigned without a plan, walked into CcHub, and started working with founders. Then lockdown hit. TJ reached out. They released what would become Bumpa in a matter of days and had close to a thousand customers almost immediately.By 2021, Bumpa had officially launched. By the time of this conversation, over 100,000 businesses are using the platform across Nigeria, with Kenya just beginning.But the story of the last five years is not just about growth numbers. It is about what Kelvin calls the pressure - the pressure to prove that it can still work after TJ passed. The pressure to carry the normal day-to-day without showing weakness. The pressure to keep showing up for a team that was also grieving, for a co-founder's family watching to see what becomes of what he built, and for 100,000 business owners who depend on the platform every day.He talks about what fundraising actually looks like under the hood, not 200 nos and then a yes, but months of back-and-forth conversations, investor calls stacked on top of product work, lead rounds that take three extra months to close, and the peculiar loneliness of doing all of that with a small team while trying to stay close to the product at the same time. He talks about why he personally took over Bumpa's social media presence after watching an influencer deliver a soulless, scripted video about a brand he had spent years building. He talks about why he shoots his content in one take, lets his team handle the rest, and what that discipline has done for how people perceive Bumpa in the market.He also lays out his vision for what commerce in Africa is actually becoming. The fragmentation problem that forces a business owner to open 15 to 20 apps a day just to run their operations, the cross-border trade opportunity that the Africa Free Trade Agreement has so far only managed on paper, and what Bumpa's AI-powered future looks like: a world where a business owner wakes up to a nudge telling them exactly when to run a sale, at what discount, to which customers, and then watches Bumpa execute all of it while they focus on growth.And through all of it, one thing. Keep showing up.That is how Kelvin describes the last five years. Not perfectly. Not without loss. But consistently, stubbornly, showing up — for the business, for the team, for TJ's memory, and for the 100,000 businesses that need Bumpa to keep working.

    1h 24m

  3. APR 22

    Paul Onwuanibe on Building a $150M Empire: The Secret Most African Founders Will Never Know!

    Send money with Sendwave from the US, UK and Canada to Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. Fast and easy. Use the code FoundersConnect when you make your first transfer from the US, UK, or Canada to Nigeria or Kenya — and you'll get $10 or £10 on that transfer when you send a minimum of $10 or £10: https://try.sendwave.com/kjap/nenwbcpdHe received a 7-day eviction notice while on a cruise. What followed was the demolition of over $30 million in assets, $10 million in lost revenue, and the livelihoods of 3,000 people all gone.But this is not a story about loss. It is a story about what happens when someone who has already rebuilt once decides to do it again.Paul Onwuanibe grew up in London dreaming of becoming a dustbin driver. His father had different ideas and shipped him off to boarding school in Nigeria at age 10. That decision set off a chain of events that would take Paul through four master's degrees, a job at a scrappy startup called Regus where he visited 167 countries in six years, and eventually to founding Landmark, one of Africa's most ambitious live, work, and play destinations.He built Landmark's serviced office business from scratch across 14 African cities. Then he sold it to his former boss, Mark Dixon, for over $20 million. He took those proceeds and looked out at a piece of marshland in Lagos and decided to build a city within a city.Then came September 11. Then came the eviction notice. Then came the demolition.And then came the decision to keep going.This conversation covers what it really takes to build across Africa, why entrepreneurship is an extreme sport, what 40 years of street-level business principles actually look like, and how to turn empathy into equity when everything around you falls apart.If you are building something or thinking about starting, this one is for you

    1h 49m

  4. MAR 31

    How Olumide Akintola Built Three Completely Different Business Models for Three African Markets

    What does it actually take to go from walking Ibadan markets in sandals - because your shoe size didn't exist in Nigeria — to scaling a brand to 800,000 customers while spending less than 30% of your marketing budget? That's not a metaphor. That's Olumide Akinsola's actual origin story, and it tells you everything you need to know about how he thinks.Olumide started the way most people in this country start: with nothing except nerve. His first job was as a canvasser — dress corporate, carry a briefcase full of admission forms, walk the whole of Ibadan, and convince total strangers to trust a school nobody had ever heard of. He earned ₦6,005 a month. He wore sandals to the job because no shop in the city stocked his shoe size. And he generated so much demand that the school had to schedule four separate entrance exams to handle the traffic.That chapter set the template for everything that followed: understand what people actually want, go where they are, and earn trust before you ask for anything.In this episode, Olumide breaks down the full arc — from those Ibadan markets to heading marketing at SaveBoda, where he scaled the company to over 800,000 customers while spending under 30% of his allocated marketing budget to get there. He talks about what most people misunderstand about growth: that the little things — walking around, listening, watching what people don't say — often drive results that no paid acquisition campaign ever will.Then QuickBus, where as VP of Growth, he had to build three completely different operational and commercial models for Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya, same goal, wildly different execution, because cultural nuance is not optional. He also explains the counterintuitive moment when he stopped doing marketing entirely — when QuickBus pivoted from marketplace to asset financing company — and why data analytics replaced the entire marketing function.He talks about the years in between: shuttling Ibadan to Lagos every single day for months, sleeping on friends' mattresses on the floor, doing business development at an events company for a woman who flatly refused to honour their payment agreement — and walking away anyway, with receipts. He talks about the early days of Twitter Premier League and how football banter accidentally became his professional network. He talks about the music industry, the A&R work on a song you definitely know, and why his background in entertainment became one of his most underrated sales assets.And now he's building again — as Country Director for Digitax, a B2B SaaS tax compliance business — and he makes the case for why this role is the one that pulls together everything he's done over nearly 20 years: sales, operations, marketing, data, and the patience to build from scratch without the founder title.

    1h 49m
  5. This Investor Who Has Seen 500M+ in Deals Explains Why Startups Shouldn't Take VC | Nichole Yembra

    MAR 10

    This Investor Who Has Seen 500M+ in Deals Explains Why Startups Shouldn't Take VC | Nichole Yembra

    Nichole Yembra is a force of nature in the African tech ecosystem. As a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and an Obama Foundation Leader, she has overseen over $500 million in capital raises and fostered the growth of giants like Flutterwave and Max. In this deep-dive interview on Found Connect, Nichole shares the raw, unfiltered reality of what it takes to build, fail, and scale in Nigeria and beyond.Nichole discusses her transition from a high-flying career at EY in Atlanta and Brazil to becoming the "Chief Problem Solver" in Lagos. She opens up about the "Mamba Mentality" she adopted from Kobe Bryant—a relentless, competitive drive that pushed her to leave her comfort zone and redefine success. She explains why she dropped "loyalty" as a top value after facing a betrayal that forced her to start from scratch, and why she now prioritizes authenticity and curiosity above all else.This conversation goes beyond business metrics. Nichole talks about the physiological nature of emotions, the "cognitive loneliness" of leadership, and the power of female friendships. She breaks down why most businesses are actually not "venture-backable" and provides a masterclass for founders on the importance of timing, execution, and customer money over investor funding. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, an investor, or someone looking for the motivation to "craft your life," this episode is packed with gems.From her early days as a "terrible child" jumping gates in Lagos to building 143—a wellness and Pilates sanctuary—Nichole’s story is one of evolution. Learn how she balances being a mother of twins, a managing partner, and a creative spirit while maintaining a deep sense of gratitude and peace in the chaos of Nigeria. Subscribe to Found Connect for more stories of the founders shaping Africa’s future.Timestamps00:00 - Intro03:38 - Growing up as a creative and competitive child in Lagos06:01 - A childhood lesson on earning money and honesty10:51 - Turning 39 and the legacy of her mother12:11 - Why being in Nigeria is more liberating than the US14:42 - Breaking down core values: Freedom and Authenticity20:43 - The Mamba Mentality: How Kobe Bryant influenced her drive22:54 - The mindset of greatness vs. mediocrity33:25 - Moving back to Nigeria36:34 - Building Greenhouse Lab and the Google partnership37:42 - The truth about raising your first $1M in Africa43:55 - Why Venture Capital often "makes no sense"56:29 - What Chrysalis Capital actually does for companies1:07:02 - Transitioning into the wellness industry with 1431:11:15 - Losing everything and starting over from scratch1:20:47 - The Trust Equation: Competence, Reliability, and Authenticity1:26:19 - The importance of ambitious female friendships

    1h 31m
  6. She left Oil & Gas at 40 With No Business Experience to build a Billion-Naira Empire

    MAR 9

    She left Oil & Gas at 40 With No Business Experience to build a Billion-Naira Empire

    What does it actually take to build a business that lasts 25 years in Nigeria — through recessions, exchange rate crashes, COVID, counterfeit competitors, and a rapidly changing economy? Mrs. Temilola Adepetun has the answer, and it is not what most people expect.This episode of Founders Connect is one of the most layered and honest conversations about what entrepreneurship really looks like over the long term. Temilola breaks down exactly how she validated a business idea in her head before there was internet, how she dragged inventory through the streets of New York in winter with stiff hands and no nails left just to keep the business stocked, and how she survived two major competitors rising up to take her market — not by going to war with them, but by refusing to compromise on quality until her customers came back to her on their own.She talks about the real cost of growing too fast, the discipline of growing organically, and why staying focused on your lane in the early years is one of the most underrated business decisions a founder can make. She walks through what it took to go from being the sole operator of a seasonal business to building a head office, hiring a COO thirteen years in, doubling revenue within two years of that hire, and then using that momentum to attract private equity. She explains what due diligence actually looked like for a brick-and-mortar business and why the most powerful thing she ever did was bank every single naira she made and keep audited records from day one.She also shares her mental model for leaving corporate life, the Yoruba philosophy that shaped her decision to take the leap, how she read the market before anyone else saw it, and the specific mindset shift that helped her see a seasonal business not as a limitation but as a puzzle to solve. And she opens up about succession planning, the deliberate decision to pass operational control to a younger leader whose values aligned with hers, and why she believes that letting other people in — truly in — is the most important thing a founder can do to make their business outlast them.If you have ever wondered whether it is too late to start, whether a simple idea can become something serious, whether a non-tech business can scale, attract capital, and compete globally, this episode is the answer. Do not miss it.Timestamps:00:00 - Intro02:21 - Walking the Runway at Lagos Fashion Week at 6506:06 - What It Really Takes to Run a Business for 25 Years09:14 - The Solution-Oriented Mindset That Saved the Business11:23 - Was It Risky to Start a Business at 40 With a Family?20:52 - On Mistakes: The Estate That Fought Back & Lessons in Cutting Losses24:05 - Recruitment Errors, Internal Fraud & Trusting the Wrong People25:42 - Balancing a Business, Travel & Three Sons28:45 - Parenting Lessons for Female Founders: What Actually Works33:57 - On Integrity: Why Honesty Is a Business Strategy, Not Just a Value37:27 - Staying Relevant Through Recessions, COVID & Changing Technology41:52 - From Bootstrapping to Private Equity: How the Deal Happened42:56 - The Four Divisions Most People Don't Know About44:28 - UNICEF, Humanitarian Aid & the Year That Made Her First Billion50:05 - How COVID Lockdown Became Their Most Productive Period55:19 - Succession Planning1:00:13 - Two Life Lessons She Learned the Hard Way1:01:37 - What She Loves (and What Surprised Her) About Getting Older1:08:42 - One Word to Describe Her Life Journey1:10:00 - Final Thoughts: On Faith, Conviction & Minimizing Regret1:15:30 - Closing: On Legacy, Succession & What the Business Is Really ForFollow Founders Connect for more conversations with the builders, operators, and entrepreneurs shaping the African business landscape.

    1h 16m
  7. Samuel Okwuada on building Healthtech in Nigeria and the Challenges that come with it

    FEB 22

    Samuel Okwuada on building Healthtech in Nigeria and the Challenges that come with it

    Samuel Okwuada sold his first software company for hundreds of thousands of dollars at 17 while studying pharmacy in the UK. Today, he runs Remedial Health, a YCombinator-backed Nigerian Healthtech startup that has raised over 50 million dollars, employs 450 people, operates 100 vehicles across three Nigerian cities, and delivers 100 million medicines annually to thousands of pharmacies and hospitals across Africa. But the journey from bedroom coder to healthcare logistics pioneer was anything but straightforward.You'll hear how Samuel started Remedial Health as healthtech without the tech, literally taking WhatsApp orders and scrambling to fulfill them manually before building the actual platform. He reveals why he would never build this company again, not even in his wildest dreams, despite raising over 50 million dollars and achieving massive scale. The operational nightmares of running what feels like running a city, managing 450 people from motor boys to engineers, dealing with law enforcement extortion on every delivery route, watching a truck carrying 50 million naira worth of medicine flip over on terrible roads just an hour after celebrating a major government contract.Samuel breaks down the real cost of building in Nigeria, explaining why Remedial Health is actually two businesses in one because you cannot outsource pharmaceutical logistics in a country with no dedicated cold chain infrastructure. This conversation goes deep into founder mental health, with Samuel candidly sharing how he oscillates between feeling invincible and wanting to quit every single day, how he manages burnout by binge-watching entire Netflix series in one sitting every two weeks, and why he stopped celebrating wins too much so failures don't hit as hard. He reveals the leadership lesson that changed everything when he crashed and burned trying to do everything himself, learning to throw new hires into the deep end and stay out of their way.For aspiring founders, Samuel shares tactical advice on raising venture capital as an African founder, explaining why you need to solve locally relevant problems that have proven models in developed markets so investors can see the vision, why resilience means taking countless rejections without taking them personally, and how to increase your surface area for luck by putting yourself in positions where opportunities can find you. He discusses the myth that startup journeys get easier with scale, the truth being you just face different problems whether it's having enough money in the bank or dealing with regulatory raids on your warehouses.The interview includes rapid-fire insights on honesty as his non-negotiable value, doing good while making profit in healthcare, why he would choose fundraising over bootstrapping despite the trade-offs, his leadership style of staying out of the way, early mornings with coffee as his productivity hack, and why if Remedial Health hits a billion dollar valuation he would only take one month off because more than that and he probably wouldn't come back to the company.Whether you're a founder navigating the chaos of African tech, an investor trying to understand the operational realities of frontier markets, or someone curious about what it really takes to digitize a traditional industry in Nigeria, this conversation delivers unfiltered truth about building at scale in challenging environments. Samuel doesn't sugarcoat the pain, the setbacks, or the moments where quitting felt like the rational choice. But he also shows why stubborn builders who refuse to give up eventually figure it out, one impossible problem at a time.This episode is sponsored by ObiexHQ

    1h 39m
  8. How to Benjamin Dada Built A Media Company While Climbing Corporate Ladders

    FEB 16

    How to Benjamin Dada Built A Media Company While Climbing Corporate Ladders

    What is it like to build one of Africa's leading tech media platforms while also moving up in the corporate fintech world? Benjamin Dada, founder of Condia (formerly benjamindada.com), joins us to share his story of balancing two careers, facing identity challenges, and making tough choices between passion and profit.Benjamin’s path has been far from ordinary. He got into tech journalism by chance after tweeting at Bella Roase , and has since become a well-known voice in African fintech. He talks openly about growing Condia to reach over a million readers each year, all while holding full-time roles at companies like Softcom, Stitch, and Moniepoint. He also shares what it’s like to be seen only as a media person, even though he’s also an experienced product manager, partnerships lead, and fintech operator.In this honest conversation, Benjamin talks about the challenges of building in public, why he decided to rebrand from Benjamindada.com to Condia after six years, and how he managed employee turnover while bootstrapping. He also explains why he hasn’t raised funding, even as competitors grow with venture capital. Benjamin shares his views on why media businesses in Africa often struggle financially, what he’s learned from being both an employer and an employee, and why he thinks all fintech companies will eventually focus on remittances.You’ll hear practical advice on handling corporate politics when you have a public profile, why talented team members sometimes leave, and how founders can get media coverage. Benjamin also talks about what it takes to keep journalistic integrity while working in the industry you report on. He shares his thoughts on being a generalist versus a specialist, why he chose a corporate career over media for quicker financial rewards, and the cross-border payments trend he nearly started a company around.This isn’t a typical founder interview. It’s a lesson in juggling priorities, building with limited resources, staying independent in a world full of venture-backed companies, and figuring out your identity when you don’t fit into one category. Whether you’re a founder learning about media, a journalist building your own platform, or someone managing more than one career, this conversation will make you rethink what success and identity mean, and what it takes to truly own your story.Benjamin shares frameworks on outcome-focused work versus activity, the importance of high agency in both startups and corporate environments, practical advice on building personal brands for founders, and why exchange programs between media and startups might solve the ongoing tension between the two ecosystems. He also discusses his proudest moments covering stories like the NSA protests, major fintech regulatory changes, and investigative pieces that earned citations from Financial Times and TechCrunch.Some of the main topics include moving through the fintech world from payments to cross-border remittances, understanding IMTO licenses and payment service provider rules, handling large-scale forex trading, creating content marketing strategies that boost email open rates, managing products in enterprise fintech, and exploring the less visible sides of African tech media.If you’ve ever wanted to know how to build two careers at once, keep your editorial independence while working in the same industry, or turn a personal blog into a well-known media brand without outside funding, this conversation has answers you won’t find anywhere else.

    1h 22m
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Ratings & Reviews

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out of 5
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About

Founders Connect is on a mission to document the stories, journeys and ideologies of leading and emerging African entrepreneurs and operators. The podcast aims to create meaningful insights that can be shared and beneficial to other founders, entrepreneurs, knowledge seekers, consumers and the world in general - targeting a wide variety of audiences.

Information

  • Creator
    Founders Connect
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    110
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Founders Connect
  • Show Website
    Founders Connect

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