Entrepreneurship, as Omowunmi Omoseyindemi discovered, is not merely about having a brilliant idea; it is about resilience, adaptability, and a relentless pursuit of solutions. As the Co-Founder of FastRyders and the Creative Director and CEO of DYDYSHOES, Omowunmi has navigated the unforgiving terrain of business, transforming obstacles into opportunities with an instinctive drive that few possess.
Her name resonates with the raw, untamed spirit of Nigerian entrepreneurship, she is not a product of polished boardrooms, but rather, a crucible of lived experience. Her narrative, a tapestry woven from serendipitous detours and hard-won lessons, is a testament to the resilience required to thrive in Africa’s frenetic business landscape.
“It’s actually not easy trying to merge entrepreneurship and also a 9-to-5,” she admits, a candid acknowledgment of the relentless juggling act that defines her reality.
A Legacy Forged in Enterprise
Omowunmi’s entrepreneurial journey was written long before she even realized it. “I think I sort of picked it up from my parents and my grandparents,” she says, recalling her childhood influences. Her grandmother, a formidable market-woman, and her father, a medical professional who owned his clinic and businesses, laid the foundation for a commercial mindset that would later define her career.
Despite this heritage, she initially charted a different course. Her story begins with a dream deferred. “The dream was to study medicine,” she says. But fate intervened. After an unsuccessful attempt to secure a place in medical school, she settled for biochemistry, a twist of fate she describes as “I don’t know whether it’s fate,” she muses. “I don’t know what to call it.”
In retrospect, that twist of destiny may have been the greatest blessing. University was not just an academic pursuit but a crash course in business. While pursuing her studies, she got a student ambassador/influencer gig for Nokia, Coke Studio, Palm Chat, and many more accumulating both experience and a substantial income.
“Along the line, I started getting gigs as a student to work with various brands,” she recalls, highlighting her early forays into the world of commerce. This period of brand ambassadorship, while lucrative, lacked direction. “I didn’t know what to channel the money into,” she admits, until she realized her passion for footwear.
The Accidental Entrepreneur
Omowunmi ‘s love for shoes bordered on obsession. “I can use my last money to buy footwear,” she confesses. On one occasion, she purchased unique slippers from a Ghanaian trader and sold them to her peers. A business was born. However, juggling entrepreneurship with academia proved costly. “I failed,” she says bluntly. “You cannot do too many things at the same time,” she concedes, a stark reminder of the perils of overextension.
Academic setbacks meant she had a gap year before graduation. Rather than wallow, she sought knowledge. She interned at a digital marketing school, then at a logistics company specializing in diesel and crude oil transportation. But the real game-changer was yet to come.
“I had time, so I went to learn how to make shoes,” she says. That decision would prove pivotal.
From Sole to Soul: The Birth of DYDYSHOES
Armed with shoemaking skills, Omowunmi launched DYDYSHOES, crafting and delivering bespoke footwear. Yet, logistics quickly became a nightmare. “Delivering to my customers was very, very hectic,” she says. Third-party couriers were unreliable, slow, and impossible to track. The breaking point came when a customer exploited these inefficiencies to scam her. “It was a pay-on-delivery transaction,” she recalls. “She took the package, and she didn’t pay.” The loss was painful, but the lesson invaluable.
Recognizing that her struggles were not unique, Omowunmi took matters into her own hands. She raised funds from family and friends to purchase a single-dispatch bike. That single bike became a lifeline—not just for her business, but for other small enterprises facing similar logistical woes. “Being somebody who likes to find solutions for people, I had a coach at the time who said, ‘You have a bike, why not do more?”
The FastRyders Revolution
Timing, as they say, is everything. Around the time Omowunmi acquired her first bike, a policy shift in Nigeria banned commercial passenger bikes, devastating an entire industry. But where others saw crisis, she saw opportunity. “These people can actually convert these bikes to dispatch bikes,” she thought.
With her co-founders Babajide Alao and Tunde Oyewande, they launched FastRyders, a platform aggregating logistics businesses, enabling dispatch riders to connect seamlessly with customers. What started as a simple dispatch service quickly evolved into something far more sophisticated. “We started our own business. And the aim was just to aggregate logistics businesses,” she explains. “We realized the last-mile delivery problem was deeper than we thought.”
Through deep market research, they uncovered a fundamental issue: most riders were not business owners but employees of struggling logistics firms. Overworked, underpaid, and often unreliable, they contributed to the industry’s poor reputation. “People don’t have access to demand to stand on their own,” Omowunmi explains. “We needed to change that.”
FastRyders is a logistics technology company specializing in tailored digital solutions that enhance last-mile delivery efficiency. Beyond asset financing, the company provides businesses with automation, integration, and real-time tracking tools to optimize logistics operations.
A key component of FastRyders’ ecosystem is the Merchant Platform, a fully customizable solution that enables seamless logistics integration. Through API connectivity, e-commerce platforms can automate order fulfillment, track deliveries in real time, and enhance the customer experience. The platform features intelligent dispatching, allowing businesses to assign orders dynamically based on rider proximity, package size, and delivery priority.
For enterprises managing large-scale logistics operations, FastRyders offers workflow automation tools that streamline dispatch processes, invoicing, and customer notifications. These features minimize manual intervention, reduce errors, and improve delivery turnaround times. Additionally, the platform’s payment integration capabilities facilitate seamless transaction tracking, enabling businesses to manage cash-on-delivery settlements and digital payments within a unified dashboard.
The company also incorporates asset tracking capabilities for in-house vehicles and riders, enhancing operational visibility and security. Through strategic partnerships with leading telematics providers, FastRyders integrates GPS tracking and geo-fencing to monitor asset movement, strengthen security, and improve fleet efficiency.
“Clients can track deliveries, request dispatch, and even calculate how much they are spending on logistics,” Omowunmi explains.
By combining logistics expertise with advanced technology, FastRyders empowers businesses to scale effectively while maintaining cost-efficient, streamlined, and highly optimized last-mile delivery operations for online vendors, small businesses, and established logistics firms alike.
Empowering the Underserved
Rather than merely hiring more riders, FastRyders introduced a radical approach—an asset-financing programme that gave aspiring dispatch riders the tools to become business owners. “We started an access-to-management programme where we did a mindset shift,” she says. They provided training, financial education, and the means to own bikes, allowing riders to gradually pay off their assets.
The impact was profound. Many of these riders—previously dismissed as low-income earners—became financially independent. “Some of these guys have finished paying off their first asset and are now on their second cycle, empowering others,” Omowunmi says with pride. The ripple effect was undeniable.
This shift in focus transformed FastRyders from a mere aggregation platform into a social enterprise. “My biggest achievement is being able to give to assist people who are financially deficient to becoming self-sufficient,” she declares. “Like being able to give them a sense of belonging that irrespective of their class, you can contribute actively to the development of the economy.”
A Leadership Built on Adaptability
Despite her meteoric rise, Omowunmi remains pragmatic about leadership. “I’m still figuring it out,” she admits. A firm believer in emotional intelligence, she blends problem-solving with empathy, adaptability, and when necessary, authoritarian decisiveness. “You need different leadership styles to drive a team.”
“But being empathetic, know when to use emotional intelligence sometimes, trying to also be a problem solver,” she explains. “And there are some times that I can be authoritarian as well. But you need to be able to have different methods of leadership to be able to drive the team.”
Her biggest lesson? Humility and continuous learning. “You cannot know everything,” she states. “You should be open to learning—from anybody.” Networking, she emphasizes, is crucial. “Closed mouths don’t get fed. Sometimes, just speaking to the right person opens doors you’ve been knocking on for years.”
Looking Ahead
Omowunmi envisions FastRyders expanding beyond Nigeria, particularly into other African countries one after another, where logistical bottlenecks remain a critical issue. Partnerships, she believes, will be key to scaling operations and refining the model for different markets.
Looking ahead, FastRyders aims to expand into “electric motorcycles” and extend its reach to other African countries. “We’re also hoping to expand to other African countries. But to do that, we need to fine-tune some things,” she admits.
For her, success is not just about profit—it is about impact. “My biggest achievement is showing people, especially those considered to be at the bottom of the food chain, that they are active contributors to the economy.” She beams with pride at the knowledge that men and women who once struggled to make ends meet are now thriving entrepreneurs in their own right.
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is simple: “You don’t have to have everything together before you start.” “You need to create value,” she stresses, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs. “Peace of mind, convenience, and security” are the values that drive FastRyders.
In a continent where poverty and inequality persist, Omowunmi is proving that entrepreneurship can be a powerful equalizer. “Helping men put food on their table, helping them fend for their families—it’s fulfilling beyond words.”
From a single bike to a thriving logistics empire and a shoe business, Omowunmi Omoseyindemi’s story is not just about business. It is about vision, resilience, and an unyielding belief that solutions exist, even in the most unlikely of places.
