African startups seeking sustainable growth and continental scale must prioritise solving local consumer problems instead of replicating business models from other markets, industry leaders said on Thursday during a panel discussion at the UBA Business Series, stressing that understanding customer behaviour is the foundation of successful technology-driven innovation.
The speakers, drawn from venture capital, food technology and the creative economy, shared practical insights on how businesses can use consumer feedback to develop technology solutions that address Africa’s unique realities.
The panel, themed “Building for Africa’s Realities: Turning Consumer Feedback into Technology-Driven Solutions,” brought together Ashim Egunjobi, Managing Partner at Octerra Capital, Femi Aluko, co-founder and CEO of Chowdeck, and M.I. Abaga, a songwriter and technology advocate.
The speakers, drawn from venture capital, food technology and the creative economy, shared practical insights on how businesses can use consumer feedback to develop technology solutions that address Africa’s unique realities.
Speaking during the session, Aluko said one of the biggest lessons Chowdeck has learned is that African consumers cannot be treated as a single market, noting that understanding customer behaviour enabled the company to build products and services that resonate with different segments of users.
“When Chowdeck first started, everyone said the market was already crowded,” he says. Instead of attempting to replicate existing business models, he says the company focused on understanding why many Nigerians were still not ordering food online and built its operations around solving those challenges.
“We realised very quickly all markets are not the same,” Aluko says.
He explains that while some customers place a premium on receiving their meals as quickly as possible, others are willing to wait longer if it means paying less, underscoring the importance of designing products around customer priorities rather than assumptions.
“For some people, their biggest priority is getting their meals really fast. Some people are happy waiting an extra 10 or 15 minutes if it means the meal is cheaper. These are different markets,” he says.
According to Aluko, customer data also revealed distinct spending patterns throughout the month, with many Nigerians changing their purchasing habits as their income levels fluctuate.
He says customers often begin the month ordering premium meals before gradually shifting to more affordable options in subsequent weeks, a behavioural trend that informed Chowdeck’s pricing strategy, logistics planning and restaurant partnerships.
Those insights, he says, reinforced the importance of continuously listening to customers and adapting products to meet changing realities.
Aluko also recounted how Chowdeck entered Nigeria’s competitive food delivery market despite widespread scepticism that the sector was already saturated.
“When Chowdeck first started, everyone said the market was already crowded,” he says. Instead of attempting to replicate existing business models, he says the company focused on understanding why many Nigerians were still not ordering food online and built its operations around solving those challenges.
A major part of that strategy involved improving delivery speed. Rather than accepting delivery windows of several hours, Chowdeck invested heavily in logistics and operational efficiency to deliver meals within minutes, an approach that quickly differentiated the company and fuelled its early growth.
According to Aluko, operational discipline became one of Chowdeck’s strongest competitive advantages because it addressed one of the biggest frustrations experienced by customers.
For M.I. Abaga, the same customer-centred philosophy should guide innovation in Africa’s rapidly expanding creative economy, where technology should exist to simplify processes instead of becoming the primary focus.
For M.I. Abaga, the same customer-centred philosophy should guide innovation in Africa’s rapidly expanding creative economy, where technology should exist to simplify processes instead of becoming the primary focus.
Reflecting on his experience building solutions for creators, he says he initially assumed creatives and businesses primarily needed a technology platform to transact before discovering that what users truly wanted was a solution to their everyday challenges.
“As soon as I figured out that tech could take away the difficult parts of transacting between creators and businesses, I thought both sides wanted a platform where they could transact,” Abaga says.
“But I came to find out that they just want their problem solved. It’s more like relationships and hardcore agency, and then the tech can sit and make that transaction easier.”
Abaga also highlighted the growing role of artificial intelligence in transforming the creative industry, describing AI as an opportunity to amplify creativity rather than replace it.
“I do however believe that AI will allow the most special creators to become even more special,” he says.
He notes that AI is already helping musicians, filmmakers and content creators reduce production costs, automate repetitive administrative tasks and accelerate creative workflows.
From music production and video editing to rights registration, proposal writing and business development, he says AI allows creators to spend less time on routine work and more time producing original content.
Beyond improving efficiency, Abaga argues that AI presents an opportunity for Nigeria and the rest of Africa to participate more actively in the global creative economy.
“The creative industry is two trillion dollars and it’s projected to get to three trillion dollars really quickly,” he says. He challenges African innovators to explore how young people across the continent can leverage AI to provide services such as subtitling, colour grading, sound design, script editing and other digital creative solutions for global markets.
According to him, Africa’s creativity remains one of its greatest competitive advantages, but creators must embrace emerging technologies quickly enough to remain globally competitive.
Abaga also points to a major shift in the digital economy, where creators are increasingly becoming media platforms in their own right. “The change we’re witnessing now is that audiences are going to be completely democratised,” he says. “Davido becomes NTA. Burna Boy becomes Silverbird.”
He says this evolution creates new opportunities for businesses to connect directly with highly targeted audiences while creating demand for new infrastructure and technology that supports creators.
Providing an investor’s perspective, Egunjobi says successful startups are built not only on innovative ideas but on founders who possess the resilience, adaptability and understanding needed to solve real market problems.
According to her, investors must determine whether entrepreneurs genuinely understand their target customers or are relying on assumptions drawn from a small circle of friends and family. “The question really is how big is the market for this? Is there a product-market fit for this? Who is really the consumer for this product?”
“Without the founder, there’s really no business,” Egunjobi says.
She explains that Octerra Capital prioritises founder quality, business model viability and product-market fit over polished presentations or ambitious ideas.
According to her, investors must determine whether entrepreneurs genuinely understand their target customers or are relying on assumptions drawn from a small circle of friends and family. “The question really is how big is the market for this? Is there a product-market fit for this? Who is really the consumer for this product?”
Egunjobi adds that venture capital firms also evaluate broader market conditions, including economic and political realities, before making investment decisions, particularly for startups seeking to expand across Africa.
Collectively, the speakers argued that Africa’s innovation ecosystem is entering a new phase where technology alone is no longer enough to guarantee success. Instead, they say founders must build products around local consumer realities, continuously refine solutions through customer feedback and leverage technologies such as artificial intelligence to solve practical problems that can scale across the continent.
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