Meet Fisayo Oludare of Advancio Interactive, Winner of Startup Istanbul

Advancio Interactive was recently named the overall winner of Startup Istanbul. The Fintech Startup defeated 100 other startups from 62 countries from different parts of the world. Fisayo Oludare, the founder of Advancio Interactive represented his company at the event. Oludare tells Innovation Village about his experience at Startup Istanbul and much more.

Can you tell us about Advancio Interactive?
Advancio Interactive is a technology-driven ideas and innovation company founded in Nigeria, to develop cutting-edge technologies that would support Africa’s economic rise.

What is the motivation for establishing your startup?
We have always been passionate about helping Africa solve some of her problems and we identified the major one as financial access. So, we decided to setup up a technology company that will combine technology to provide financial access to more Africans

Advancio Interactive was recently named the winner of Startup Istanbul. Can you share your experience with us?
The feeling is not describable as we haven’t even been an incorporated company for up to 1 year. We are a just very happy to have represented Nigeria amongst the 21,000 applicants and chosen 100 from 65 countries.

How will you describe the business so far? And how has the reception being like?
The business has been good because even though we are a startup, we have been able to get the attention of some of the big-name players in our industry and get a number of high profile clients to work with us.

How were you able to source for funds to run your business?
We haven’t sourced for funds to run the business, this has solely been a bootstrapped business in which the founders have brought everything the business needed.

What are the challenges you encountered in setting up your business?
To be honest, we haven’t encountered any challenges setting up a business, the major reason is that we are a technology company and we don’t need a lot of resources to start

A word for intending young Nigerian entrepreneurs?
If you want to start a business, take 6 months to read about other businesses, read about running a business then create your prototype, test it, validate it before launching your business. Some ideas may be good but they might not be solving a big enough problem that will make people pay for it.