Nigerian Startup Helps African Businesses Go Global

Uke Enun gambled his university tuition on an online store in 2018 and watched it fail spectacularly. The abandoned shopping carts piled up because international payment methods simply wouldn't work from Nigeria. That expensive lesson planted a question he couldn't shake: why is selling across borders from Africa so impossibly hard?

Two years later during COVID lockdowns, Enun turned that frustration into GoNomads. The business consultancy helps African companies expand into new markets by handling the messy parts: licenses, banking setups, payment processing, and legal structures that typically stop cross-border trade before it starts.

The path from idea to paying customer took brutal patience. Enun spent all of 2020 researching the real blockers keeping African businesses local. He mapped every problem before touching any solution.

When GoNomads relaunched in September 2021 after an initial failure, the sales came painfully slow. Customers said yes in demos, then vanished. It took two full months to close the first paying deal.

His co-founders came from unlikely places. Esther Airemionkhale joined during a gap year with nothing to lose. Liberty Oyugboh had been giving Enun free feedback online for months before they met at a conference, ditched the opening speech, and built their first working product in seven days.

The early days tested everything. For months, whatever revenue came in went straight to payroll, leaving nothing for growth. When they couldn't make full payment in June 2022, they asked the team for three months. They fixed it in one.

The team made a critical mistake running two companies simultaneously. After six months juggling GoNomads and a separate fintech tool for freelancers, they shut down the side project in August 2023. That same month became their best ever, with deals tripling or quadrupling normal volume.

The Ripple Effect

A 2023 partnership with Payoneer gave GoNomads the credibility boost it desperately needed. The integration meant clients could now receive payments in nine currencies from over 3,000 global marketplaces, transforming the pitch from promise to proven infrastructure.

What started as one student's failed tuition gamble has become a bridge for African businesses blocked from global markets. Four years in, GoNomads proves the question Enun couldn't shake had an answer worth building.

The company that helps others go global finally found its own footing by staying focused on solving one problem exceptionally well.