Omowunmi Omoseyindemi, co-founder of FastRyders, a startup revolutionizing last-mile logistics by delivering seamless and efficient solutions. With a passion for innovation and creating exceptional customer experiences, she is transforming the logistics space while driving operational excellence.
Omowunmi’s commitment to environmental sustainability is deeply rooted in her academic background, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Management.
Omowunmi Omoseyindemi shared with Today Africa about her entrepreneurial journey.
What prompted a biochemist with a master’s in environmental management, to become a co-founder of a logistics brand?
My background is very funny because I wanted to actually study medicine. However, I didn’t get medicine. I got biochemistry instead. And I had the thought that since I already had biochemistry, you know that thing that they tell you that once you have 5.0, you’ll be able to cross and change the medicine and all of those things.
But by the time you get in, I think adults would show their face and not many people have that zeal to be able to go back to medicine. It was during that time I realized that I’m not sure this medical line is for me.
So I need somebody who lives from a home where everybody is well-read. So you don’t have any other choice other than to finish what you started. Because for us in my family, part of the upbringing that we had is that when you start something you need to actually see it finish.
Like going to school and ensuring that you come out with your certificate. Now, I was in biochemistry, not like I wasn’t a smart student or not like I wasn’t a sound student. I was but I think I was just rebelling because I didn’t like the course.
I was just struggling like at some point you like it, some points I like, oh my god what am I doing here? Anyways, while I was doing that I had the opportunity to work with different brands as a student ambassador.
So I knew from that time that I was going to be very enterprising. I worked as a student ambassador. I think I worked for Nokia first. And I did some other gigs in school and I was earning money.
Now as a student you’re earning money. But it doesn’t mean that what you’re earning is going to buy you designers and the likes. I went to Unilag, University of Lagos. The market most students go to is Yaba market to buy stuff.
So whenever I go to the Yaba market and I buy stuff, like footwear especially, even if I go with people, they are always surprised at how I was able to spot the good footwear and they are unable to spot the good footwear?
I’ll buy really nice footwear. I had a Ghanaian come into our hostel to advertise Ankara slippers. So with my little savings, I got some from her and I started selling to other students in school. Along the line all of these things affected me, affected my academics. So I had like an extra year.
I had a spillover for a semester. Now during that spillover, I knew that, okay, it’s time to sit up. It’s already bad that you’re not going to graduate with your classmates, but it doesn’t mean that that’s the end of the world or end of the road for you.
So what did I do? I Interned at a digital marketing firm and I learned a little bit about digital marketing at the time. I think it was Contagious but I can’t remember the other acronyms, but it was contagious media.
Then I also worked somewhere else where they do dredging, college, and some other things during my extra year. Because when you have just one course per semester to do, you have all the time in the world. And the class is not every day.
Then along the line, I just said, you know what? Maybe I should even learn how to make shoes. Since people always like the shoes that I buy, why don’t I learn how to make shoes? So I started learning how to make shoes. I also read very well, so I’m sure that I passed and I graduated.
And I went for my convocation and you know it’s not easy that you’re not convocating with your mates. I don’t know how but our convocation picture went really viral. Anyways, I learned how to make shoes. and during my service I was very fortunate to stay with a family member.
So I was able to save up all of my allawee. I was able to save up all of my allawee and I was able to kick start my own shoe making business. So I started making shoes for my customers and all of that. Now along the line I got a job and I was able to just juggle the two since the shoe making business, I had people working for me.
Then after work, I joined them to ensure that the product met standard. But I always had issues with deliveries, having to use third party logistics all the time. Then at some point I got scammed by a customer. Because the customer wanted to pay on delivery.
This was I think 2019 or 2020 I really cannot remember. So this is a period when logistics was just booming and most of the riders, they can be very impatient. They can carry like 50 packages at once and want to deliver and they don’t tend to care about the businesses that they’re delivering for.
I gave them a special instruction and they didn’t feel it was a struggle. They did something else. So the customer gave us an address to deliver to. I gave them that address to deliver to. And in between somebody somewhere sort of like the lady called them and changed the address and he didn’t think it was okay to inform me, the business owner.
So the rider met up with the lady and handed the package to her and you know he didn’t try to confirm whether I’d received my payment or not. The lady took the package she didn’t pay for. She blocked me and that was it. I couldn’t get my money back.
With this incident I said that other businesses cannot suffer the same fate that I’m suffering. So I did a crowdfunding with family and friends and I started my own dispatch company with one bike. Because of my job, I did my MSc in environmental management because it’s in line with the job I currently do.
I started my masters in environmental management to go in line with my job while still running a small logistics business and my shoe making business. Along the line, I did a mentorship class. I wrote a book, you know, a book on self-development that is entwined with shoe making business.
It wasn’t the best of books because that book was written in six weeks. It wasn’t the best idea, but yeah, it was just something that I did, even though I’m currently working on the second version of the book. But based on work, I’ve not been able to publish the revised edition of the book.
Anyways, during the time I met someone who said, you have a bike, okay, I’m building a platform that’s like the Uber platform. And I said, that I’ve always also thought about the idea of connecting businesses to dispatch companies and they’re able to track and as at the time, Uber was not doing logistics.
They were just doing rideshare. My co-founder and I, we started FastRyders together and we started as an aggregation platform. But based on the fact that I have run a small-scale logistic business, I kind of understood these riders because I was having a churn rate of riders like a rider will work for me for like a month or two.
And he’s already misbehaving. You can’t understand this behavior. So I now realize it’s a Nigerian factor in the sense that most people who live below the food chain. Like the lower class, they just have this mentality, like not all of them,
But the majority of them feel that where they are working that they are not well paid. So they kind of look for ways to cut corners. So they will use your time to do runs. They will use your time to do side gig while making your customers suffer.
And we also saw that play out when we were aggregating. So we realized that most of the writers that were on our platform were actually working for similar businesses, but they were using our platform and other platforms to cut corners.
We did an in-depth research and we saw that most of these people actually want a sense of belonging. They don’t just want to be people who are just riding bikes and delivering stuff without having something tangible to hold on at the end of it.
Because you know they can get into accidents, they can lose their lives, they can lose a limb and they’ll not be able to walk again. So we just said okay you know what after several interviews we realized a lot of them actually want to own and start their own business. That way we knew that they wanted to thrive they wanted to become entrepreneurs
But the entry level into the industry is not something that they had. So we saw that businesses were losing money. The people who own the bike were losing money because the riders were using platforms to cut corners whereby people who have the businesses were losing and riders were trying to have a sense of independence in terms of financial freedom and being able to have something to live for.
Because the cost of buying a bike by themselves was very expensive. So we started the asset financing model whereby we get them the assets and we give them the tools to work. And now they’re able to become self-sufficient, while also empowering businesses to grow faster.
Most businesses end up not selling to their customers, maybe the cost of logistics or maybe not able to find the right logistics partner. So they won’t be able to take some orders per time and all of that. So that’s how we started in order to ensure that most logistic businesses, e-commerce businesses, social commerce businesses are able to thrive.
That was why we were able to build our platform and we started. So we empowered logistics professionals with training, with assets, and all of that. We empower businesses too, with tools to be able to manage their logistic businesses.
And we also empowered nine to five people who actually have small scale businesses that they are running through a warehousing model. Then we also empowered existing logistic businesses with the tools to manage their fleet. So they’re able to control their fleet.
They have a system in place where they can manage their customers, where they can manage their riders. So everything is one in all. That’s what we do and that’s how we do it.
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How do you build systems and processes that allow your businesses to run with or without you?
First of all, we have a platform that works. And while we were employing we were able to employ the right set of employees and through frequent training and all that. So we’ve been able to build the system in place. And I have a co-founder, so I’m not the only one working. There’s a synergy. It’s not only me and everybody has their own tier of the business that they work on.
Speaking of your co-founders, what convinced you that they were the right people to work with?
I think it was based on friendship, some of us were friends, so we had a relationship parallel. So it just makes things easier. They have an IT background so they have a software development background. I have an entrepreneurship background, they also have the entrepreneurship background as well. So bringing all of these things together just makes everything work.
You said you people are empowering these riders with assets. What kind of assets?
The motorcycles for them and also the platform where they are able to access businesses to work with. The good thing is that with this lease to own, some of them have become businessmen in the sense that some are already on their second cycle, third cycle, and the previous one that they got, they’ve been able to use it to empower somebody else.
That’s like growing the logistics sector one step at a time. We are building the sector one step at a time, and one person cannot do the work alone. As we have several logistics companies, I feel like the amount of people that we have in this place is still not enough to cover up for the growing demand.
You people are helping them with assets like the motorcycle and I’m wondering how you people got the money to be able to buy these assets for them?
We pulled in our savings to start the company and we’ve been growing ever since then. I think the only time since we started in 2021, 2022, we’ve not gotten any external funding. So the only funding that we got was recently, which was last year, we got into the business accelerator by 54 Collectives.
We got a 5k grant and also we won Standard Chartered women in tech cohort 5, which is a 10 million naira grant. But other than that, we’ve been bootstrapping the business from revenue and personnel savings. It just shows that we believe in what we are building and it just shows resilience and trusting in the process.
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What are those strategies that you put in place that help people to bootstrap to where you are today?
Like I said, having the right team and having the right people. And it’s not like we had any novel strategy in place, so to speak. We learnt really hard lessons. Some of the strategies that we had in from really, really hard lessons that we learnt while doing the business. Really, really tough and hard lessons, costly lessons actually.
Since you launched what strategies have helped in attracting and retaining your customers?
It boils down to value and knowing your markets. Knowing what customer A wants, what customer B wants and ensuring that you’re able to give them value. What most customers want is they want value for their money. And being able to give them assurance.
So our mantra is peace of mind and convenience. Peace of mind, convenience and security. Knowing that the reason why they are using it is because of one convenience. They want to feel a sense of security and they want to have peace knowing that their package is safe.
The same thing goes with the riders too. They want peace, knowing that, okay, yes, I have these assets, I’m working for it, it’s going to be my own, I’m going to have financial security. That’s the security.
They know that, yes, that they are secured. It’s still convenient for them to ensure that they’re able to acquire these assets in a very convenient manner. They were also putting in the work, but they know that we got them covered.
How have you been able to navigate the current economic situation of Nigeria as a business?
It’s being able to adapt like every other business. As a business, you need to be able to adapt to the changes in your environment and also be able to put in strategies to cushion those changes when they come so that you don’t die out as a business.
So we’ve been able to adapt and adjust and also communicate with your customers too, because they’re also facing the same thing that you are equally facing. Being able to meet in the middle and understand what is good for both parties will keep you afloat as a business.
What role does tech play in the smooth running of FastRyders?
Tech plays a major role in the sense that you are able to optimize your routes when you’re taking packages. You’re able to optimize your route, real life tracking. Also tech plays a role in security for us, to ensure that packages are delivered to the right person. Tech plays a very major role in the efficiency of our business. And also being able to monitor and put controls in places as well.
How is your business doing today and what does the future look like for FastRyders?
We are doing very great and we are okay as a business. We are also striving hard to ensure that we keep growing. So what does the future hold for us? We would also like to pivot as well into electric motorcycles as well, and also expand our fleets beyond motorcycles to other kinds of vehicles, and also expand out of Lagos and to other states. And we want to achieve this through collaborations and partnerships.
What kind of collaboration and partnerships?
Logistics is very wide. And like I said, one person cannot do the work alone. It takes collaboration to be able to achieve more in that space. I think I saw a write-up the other day about people trying to replicate or rebuild what somebody is already building where they can actually collaborate with an already existing framework.
We are currently talking with companies like SmartParcle for possible collaborations because one person cannot do the job alone. We’d all still have to come together to ensure the smooth training.
So let’s take for instance international brands, when they set up, they end up still using the local brands within to ensure the smoothness of the operations. So yes, there’s room for collaboration in this space to ensure growth that we all want.
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What was the key lesson that you learned in your journey as an entrepreneur?
It’s not like you will not see shege, you will see shege. But having the gift of men, people who are of value to you and who you can also give value back to. You cannot underestimate the power of mentorship and the power of networking as well.
Because you never can tell the person you meet at one conference or the other might be the person holding the key to the door of where you’re going to. So I can not under-emphasize the work that partnership has to play, the work that mentorship has to play and also the work that resilience has to play.
Because you also have to show workings as well. You also have to show that you are capable of the opportunities that come your way. You also have to keep trying. Like you can put in 150 applications in a year and you might get zero callbacks, but keep trying.
And you never know, people are watching you, so don’t say because you’re not seeing results now, you want to give up or you want to stop. Just keep trying and also knowing when to pivot.
Know when something is not working and try to refine and retune your solutions to fit the needs of the people. And also customers are equally as important as your employees are also important as well.
What advice would you give to others, especially women who want to start their business?
The advice I would give would be different from the one of a woman who has a family and all of that. So I just think for women they should stay fearless. Don’t put yourself down. Don’t think that you are too small to achieve something because you’re a woman. You are more than enough and you’ll be shocked at the amount of talent that is deposited within you if you put it to use. So just start. You don’t have to wait for everything to be perfect for you to start.
To find out more contact Omowunmi Omoseyindemi, co-founder of FastRyders via:
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