Moderated by Pamela Onah, senior associate at U-Law, 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: Entropy 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.

However, Lagos is still the most prominent African city on the list and Nigeria’s single representative in the global top 100. 

The commercial hub scored 11.226 on the Index and recorded annual ecosystem growth of +14.7%, healthy growth by many measures, yet not enough to stop the slide in rank. 

At national level, Nigeria now sits 66th globally; the country recorded $176.4m in startup funding in 2024, has two unicorns, and counts 57 Y Combinator startups, but national ecosystem growth is +5.4%, and Nigeria slipped two places overall. 

Fintech is still the engine. The country “tops Africa’s unicorn charts” and the report reveals names you already know: Moniepoint and Flutterwave, both listed as unicorns and flagged among Lagos’ notable ecosystem champions (SB Scores: Moniepoint 669; Flutterwave 640). Nonetheless, the Index shows fintech’s success is concentrated: Lagos accounts for the vast majority of Nigeria’s startup growth. 

In simple terms, Lagos tops other cities across Nigeria. StartupBlink finds Lagos’s ecosystem is 11.8 times larger than Abuja’s, illustrating how national performance hinges on one city.

Abuja did, however, post extraordinary growth this cycle, climbing into the global top 400 at 399th with annual growth above 50%, the only Nigerian city to record a global climb in 2025. 

Other regional cities show mixed fortunes as Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt and a newly listed Ilorin appear in the top 1,000 but most recorded declines. 

There is momentum — and there are gaps. Lagos benefits from a dense support network: Lagos Angel Network, Growth Capital Fund, Ventures Platform and Greenhouse Capital all play visible roles, while non-profits such as FATE Foundation provide training and mentoring. 

The federal architecture has started to respond: the Nigerian Startup Act, a National Council for Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and a Startup Investment Seed Fund are now on the books. The government has also struck a public-private arrangement with JICA to seed a new fund. These steps matter; they show policy finally following promise. 

Infrastructure and capital remain the choke points. The report flags a shortage of financing options, low purchasing power, and a practical disconnect between Lagos and other local ecosystems. 

It notes that Nigeria’s internet quality has improved, Starlink came in during 2023, and that NigComSat’s 2024 accelerator has begun to seed activity in space and satellite technologies (20 startups were selected for intensive spacetech mentorship). Still, the broader infrastructure deficit and limited local capital markets hold back scaling. 

What this means for founders and investors

Lagos is still the gateway. If you are scaling a fintech or consumer startup with innovation across West Africa, Lagos offers the customers, talent and networks you need. 

But I’d caution founders to plan for friction; payments, purchasing power limitations and uneven support outside Lagos are real risks. The Index suggests diversification of hubs inside Nigeria must be a priority if the country wants comprehensive, resilient growth. 

A few immediate implications for policymakers and ecosystem builders (drawn from the report):

• Invest in road-and-digital infrastructure outside Lagos to reduce the games-of chance that currently shape who succeeds. 
• Scale financing instruments that target growth (not just seed), and encourage closer ties between Lagos capital and provincial startups.
• Sustain public-private programmes (like the JICA fund and NigComSat accelerator) that move beyond pilot stage into long-term commitments.

To close, the StartupBlink Index 2025 shows that Lagos is Africa’s headline startup ecosystem and Nigeria’s growth engine. However, the nation’s overall ranking and the concentration of success in one city expose strategic fragilities. 

If investors leverage Lagos as a launchpad, and aggressively invest in the next tier of cities, Nigerian entrepreneurship becomes broad, durable and not just Lagos-dependent.