From instinct to impact

A founder came to me with a gut feeling.He believed small businesses in Nigeria were being held back by broken digital payments. He had conviction — but conviction alone isn’t enough to raise capital, rally a team, or build the right product. He needed clarity. He needed proof. He needed leverage.

So we set out to build it.

To move from instinct to insight, we packed our bags and went to Nigeria. There was no desk research from afar and no abstract theorising. Just real businesses, real money, and real lives. We built a working prototype that could send and receive actual payments, then put it directly into people’s hands.We listened carefully. We watched how transactions really happened. We paid attention to the friction between intent and action. At first, we believed digital payments were too unreliable and cumbersome to serve small businesses properly. And yes, they weren’t perfect. But that wasn’t the real problem.

What we found changed the direction entirely. Digital payments were already being used, despite their flaws. The real friction was cash flow. Small businesses weren’t struggling to transact — they were struggling to grow. Stock purchases were delayed. Opportunities were missed. Expansion stalled. What they needed wasn’t just better transactions. They needed access to working capital. They needed fuel.

That insight reshaped everything.

We shifted our focus from fixing payments to unlocking growth. Instead of building another payment tool in a crowded market, we designed an integrated financial platform — one that used transaction data to unlock revenue-based lending. Payments became the engine, but working capital became the opportunity.

The redesign centred on trust and simplicity. Creditworthiness was assessed invisibly through real transaction data, eliminating mountains of paperwork. Loan access was embedded directly within the payment flow, making funding contextual and immediate rather than bureaucratic and intimidating. Clear education and transparent terms were woven into the experience to build confidence, not confusion.

Then we returned to the field. Retailers, wholesalers, and service providers across Lagos tested the revised product. We refined it in real time. We iterated where it mattered.

With validated insights and a defensible business model, we shaped the investor narrative around proof rather than projection. The story wasn’t built on hype or aspirational slides. It was grounded in lived experience, a scalable financial engine, and a differentiated value proposition anchored in real need.The result was decisive. Investment was secured. Momentum was unlocked. Solve moved from concept to funded venture with a clear product-market fit and a path to scale.

Now the focus is execution: launching a robust, user-first platform, building the team locally in Nigeria, and growing responsibly. Solve is no longer just a fintech idea. It is positioned as a growth partner for small businesses. And it all began with a plane ticket, a working prototype, and the humility to discover we were wrong.