What does it actually
take to build ?

We asked people building products, businesses and research projects across Nigeria what it takes to start—and what helps them keep going.

Explore the findings

01. Builders Demography

Who are the
builders?

Women are building but why so few in the picture?
Women accounted for 18% of active builders in our survey. Whose ideas, experiences and solutions get represented when participation is this uneven?
The finding raises questions about who enters the ecosystem and the opportunities available to them.
Are Nigeria’s builders still in school?
47.6% of surveyed builders identified as students, sometimes alongside employment or other work. 85.8% were aged 18–34.
For many, the building journey is beginning while education, work and career decisions are still unfolding.
Is Lagos the best place to build or simply the most visible?
The South West accounted for 42.6% of active builders, the largest regional group in this research. Yet 57.6% of revenue-stage builders with a known Nigerian zone lived outside the South West.
The survey cannot establish the best location to build. It does show why the story needs to extend beyond the most familiar cluster.
How much can a small team really do?
80.9% worked alone or in teams of fewer than five. And 91.5% had been building for three years or less.
Small teams. Early journeys. What conditions are they stepping into?

02. Building in Nigeria

Does Nigeria help you build or make
you build around it?

Can you believe in the opportunity and still struggle to keep going?

44.8% of respondents agreed that Nigeria enables their venture to thrive.

Among those builders, 67.5% had never raised funding.

Recognising an opportunity and having the resources to pursue it are different parts of the journey.

What does it cost just to keep building?

Among the Nigerian factors affecting their work :-

Before the next customer or funding round, there is still a working day to finance

Can you build for Nigeria from somewhere else?

No: 24.4%
Would consider relocating: 51.4%
Maybe: 24.2%

Building a venture and exploring opportunities abroad can exist within the same plan.

What would make staying and growing from Nigeria compelling?

03. Building with AI

If everyone has AI, who has the advantage?

Has AI become part of the team?

9 out of 10 surveyed builders use AI

Among these users, 74.1% used it daily. For an ecosystem of small teams, that puts AI inside the everyday work of building.

Is everyone coding—or is everyone researching?

Among AI-using builders:

The AI story reaches across the tasks a venture needs to get through.

Would you trust what you use every day?

Rated their trust in AI outputs at 3 or below out of 5.

Using AI frequently still leaves the builder responsible for deciding whether its output is good enough.

04. The Builder’s Ecosystem

Everyone says “ecosystem”. What actually reaches the builder?

Can entrepreneurship be taught without somewhere to practise it?

But only 35.6% rated their campus entrepreneurship culture at 4 or 5 out of 5.

What connects classroom exposure to practical opportunities to build?

What would help you grow?

When asked to rank what they needed most to grow, builders put these needs first:

How well does the support available match the next problem a builder needs to solve?

05. Banking on the Builder

Builders need capital. What else do they need from a bank?

Who pays while the business finds its feet?

71.7% had never raised funding

Among builders who had raised funding:

The survey does not establish how many applied for loans. It raises a question about which financial products fit these ventures.

You’ve raised money. Why do you still need funding?

55.2% still ranked it as their first growth need

What would make you leave your bank?

90.7% said they would switch for a product designed specifically for them.

Their requests included:

Builders want help with the work around the money too: opening an account, collecting payments and connecting financial services to their products.

06. The Builder’s Index

How would we know building is getting better?

For 2026, we have a starting point: 54.0 out of 100. The Builder’s Index brings together five aspects of the building experience. Future editions will help show where conditions, support and progress are changing—and where another year has passed without enough movement.

07. Building for the Future

By 2030, what will count as success?

35.1%
mentioned AI or automation in their expectations for 2030
Their answers imagined technology supporting business operations and extending what small teams could attempt.
15.7%
mentioned global reach or international relevance in their expectations for 2030
Builders imagined serving international customers and creating products other markets would adopt.
78.5%
selected founding their own business as a five-year ambition
The ambition is visible. The report explores the conditions that could help people turn it into sustainable work.
One South South respondent offered a different possibility:
“The unicorn stops being the unit of ambition.”
Their answer imagined smaller, revenue-generating ventures growing through services and profitability.