Yemi Olalekan is the cofounder of Pennylender, a fin-tech start-up that deals in online lending and financial literacy.
Yemi was inspired to establish this business out of her quest to be financially independent and to deepen financial inclusion and penetration in the country. The entrepreneur says her desire to be an inspiration to the younger generation was also a serious motivating factor.
“We wanted to improve financial inclusion in the country and make financial services freely and easily accessible to the under-served population. Our focus is helping the hardworking but low income earners and small business owners to take care of their cash flow shortfalls,” she tells Start-Up Digest.
The young entrepreneur alongside Olayinka Olonode cofounded the business with their personal savings, an amount that was then spent on designing their website.
After some period of time, Yemi and her cofounder pitched their business idea to some potential investors who found it viable and later pumped money into the it.
Since starting, the business has grown tremendously as market acceptance for its products and services has been fantastic, says Yemi.
Also, the business has continued to sign on new customers on daily basis with feedback on excellent customers’ satisfaction rising by the day.
Answering questions on the challenges the business is facing, Yemi says that getting the right employees for the business remains her biggest challenging.
She notes that that getting young graduates that are ambitious and trainable at first recruitment is quite difficult. It takes her and the partner several recruitments exercises to find the right people, which is increasing the firm’s spending on recruitment.
Apart from getting the right people, the young entrepreneur says that the country’s huge infrastructural gaps have remained a challenge to her business. According to her, poor power supply has continued to impact negatively on the business, hurting margins while raising operational costs.
She calls on the Federal Government to bridge the huge infrastructural gaps, saying that it will help increase the survival rate of start-ups in the country.
Yemi believes that Nigeria has innovative and creative entrepreneurs but are hugely limited by infrastructure gaps and the environment.
She urges the government to assist technology-based businesses, saying that technology has the potential to jump start the country’s economic growth and development.
She argues that Nigerians should have access to cheap and quality data while calling for the establishment of more incubation hubs and technology labs for young tech entrepreneurs in the country.
“We also need many small business technology labs and incubation hubs where young entrepreneurs can have access to start-up tools and systems to bootstrap their start-ups. This is very pivotal,” she says.
The mass communicator-turned-entrepreneur says Pennylender has remained in business owing to its ability to cover the gaps in the financial service sector. “We are still in business because we focus on the market niches most financial services providers have left unserved.”
She notes that technology has the potential to diversify the Nigerian economy away from oil, saying it remains the only enabler of every other sector in the economy to perform optimally.
“Nigeria needs to take a cue from some of these countries that have used technology to grow their economies. We should not only have conferences and conversations about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, but we should institutionalise it and allow it to take root from primary to through post university/polytechnic study.
“STEM education in itself will not deliver the results but we must also create a supportive, enabling environment and market to build, practise, experiment and commercialise technology,” Yemi further says.
Speaking on the business expansion plan, she says that Pennylender.com plans to expand into other Africa countries and replicate the Nigerian model all across the continent.
Asked what his advice is to other entrepreneurs, Yemi saya, “You will lose your vitality, you will get tired and this is absolutely normal. Your strength and motivation must come from the goals you have before you, from the customers and clients who depend on your solutions. So keep your eyes on your goals always.”
“Never stop learning; starting and growing a business will take all kinds of education. That is self study, formal education and street education. Trust and believe in the people who work for or with you. Take care of them and they will in turn take care of the business,” she adds.
Josephine Okojie
