From AkureBased to NaijaBased — how a city experiment became a national platform
The story of how listening to our users led us to expand from two city-specific websites into a unified national directory covering the whole of Nigeria.
It started with a simple idea
In late 2023, Nicholas Olaniyi had a straightforward observation: local businesses in Akure had no real digital presence. Not a bad one — no presence at all. No website, no Google listing, nothing.
AkureBased.fun was the answer. A simple, clean directory. Just: here are the businesses in Akure, here's what they do, here's how to contact them.
The response we didn't expect
Within weeks, the same pattern repeated in Ibadan. IbadanBased.fun went live. Both grew faster than expected. But the messages we started receiving changed everything.
Can you do this for Enugu? We need this in Abuja. When is Kano getting one?
We quickly realised that building a separate platform for every Nigerian city was not viable. Thirty-six states, hundreds of cities.
The merge that created NaijaBased
The decision to build NaijaBased.fun was made in early 2024. Rather than city-by-city expansion, we would build one platform with city-based filtering at its core.
Everything AkureBased and IbadanBased had done was preserved. But instead of being locked to one city, the platform would cover all of Nigeria. A user in Lagos sees Lagos. A user in Akure sees Akure. Same platform, same database, same codebase.
The businesses listed on the original city platforms were migrated over. Day one of NaijaBased, we already had a foundation of real, verified listings.
Two thousand businesses later
NaijaBased has now crossed 2,000 businesses across Nigeria. Catering, construction, accounting, events, fitness, retail, logistics — sectors we expected and several we didn't.
The platform that started as a small experiment to help Akure businesses get found online has become something much bigger. But the core idea hasn't changed at all.
Local businesses deserve to be found. Technology should make that easier, not harder. Community is worth building.