At today’s U-Law Black Friday-themed event, “From Local Genius to Global Demand: Powering Startups with Innovation, Funding, and Market Access”, Shuttlers Co-Founder Akachukwu Okafor shared an eye-opening fireside chat.
Moderated by Pamela Onah, the session, titled “Building Big in Naija: Behind the Scenes of a Scaling Success Story”, revisited how Shuttlers has helped thousands of Lagos workers survive the city’s demanding commute.
Okafor expatiated the startup’s survival instincts and the realities of building a transport-tech business in Nigeria’s unpredictable environment.
A Business Built From a Chevron Internship Shock
Recounting Shuttlers’ beginnings, Okafor explained how the idea originated from co-founder Damilola Olokesusi’s early experience at Chevron. She enjoyed the stability of corporate staff buses during her internship, but once it ended, the challenges of public transport hit hard.
That led to the foundational question; Why shouldn’t other companies enjoy the same quality of staff mobility without owning buses?
He said, “Perhaps there could be a way that companies can benefit from the value that comes with providing a relationship, but why not necessarily incurring the overhead?”
By 2019, both founders aligned, and in 2020 they began building technology systems to scale a problem everyone recognised but no one had solved.
Nigeria’s Challenges: Drivers, Fleet Partners and the Disarray of Transport
On the toughest part of Shuttlers’ growth journey, which Okafor revealed as supply-side instability, he said: “We’re selling reliability,” he noted, “but to make it work in an environment like ours, it’s just difficult.”
Shuttlers built an entire operational framework from scratch, onboarding tests, performance monitoring, back-office processes, psychometric assessments, marshals for high-capacity buses, and real-time trip management. Redundancies were added everywhere because the business could fail in seconds.
Mobility, he stressed, is politically sensitive. “You can’t do it without understanding the plans of the government or the laws that exist,” he warned.
In Lagos, Shuttlers even co-created its regulatory category with the Ministry of Transportation.
Fundraising: Showing Investors You Understand the Nigerian Problem
Shuttlers raised $1.6m in 2021 and $4m in 2023, but Okafor made one thing clear; the money was won on operational discipline, not pitch decks.
Investors wanted proof of order in a famously disorderly sector. So the founders demonstrated the seven-stakeholder ecosystem, clear unit economics, and the ability to track every vehicle, driver, partner, and passenger activity end-to-end.
For him, honesty and realism were important: “You have to be grounded in reality… but you also have to be an optimist.”
He emphasised founder-investor fit, choosing investors who understand real-sector problems, not just technology.
When Tinubu Announced Fuel Subsidy Removal — “A Crazy Week”
On inauguration day, when the President declared “subsidy is gone”, Shuttlers faced immediate problems:
- Fleet partners panicked about high fuel prices.
- Corporate clients insisted on two weeks’ notice for any price change.
- Drivers threatened to abandon routes.
Shuttlers responded by securing bulk fuel ahead of market shocks. “We went to filling stations… and loaded them with upfront money so that they’ll be able to give us fuel when we need it.”
That move stabilised partners long enough to renegotiate with corporate clients. Having strong legal contracts, including force majeure, prevented business-crippling issues.
“That was a crazy week. Sleepless nights,” he recalled.
Building for the Long Term: Hiring, Systems and Staying Grounded
On how founders can build sustainably without burning out, Okafor admitted it’s still a learning curve. His biggest regret? Hiring too quickly in the early years.
He said founders must design roles clearly, assign measurable KPIs, and avoid the fantasy that “the right hire will magically solve everything.”
He explained how Shuttlers now operates with precise ratios: how many operations staff per number of trips, how customer service scales with demand, and how to predict problems before they occur.
Advice to Founders: Nigeria Is the Competition
“The biggest competition that you have in Nigeria, the sheer fact that it’s unorganised. Anything can come from anywhere, that’s your competition.”
Only founders with the stamina for constant uncertainty can survive.
The One National Reform He Wants
At the U-Law Black Friday event, Okafor was asked the one thing he’d like to change. He said that would be to create a national registry for commercial drivers, with clear identity, history, and penalties: “So that any problem you see today will not be inherited by the next generation.”
On Pricing, Profitability and Scaling with Debt
Shuttlers aims to remain affordable while becoming gross-margin positive. The real capital burden is the vehicles, which the company does not own. To grow its fleet beyond the current 457 vehicles, Shuttlers is now working with debt financiers to fund asset acquisition for its top-performing partners.
Managing Dispatch Riders: Incentives, Telemetry and Zero Tolerance for Indiscipline
Okafor also advised founders running dispatch-dependent businesses. He pressed on three things:
- Use incentives tied to performance.
- Invest in telemetry to track behaviour.
- Remove riders who break rules like switching off devices or deviating from routes.
At the U-Law Black Friday event, Okafor explained further, “The cost of not getting it right is much more expensive.”
Nigeria’s business terrain is not for the faint-hearted, but with structure, honesty, deep operational discipline and relentless problem-solving, it is still possible to build big in the country.
