What started as a side hustle trading gift cards and Bitcoin back in Agege, Lagos has now grown into a business that has processed over $35 million in transactions.

Along the way, I made mistakes, lost money, learned hard lessons, and rebuilt stronger. This is the story of how I built Neezerchain and where we’re heading next.

The Beginning: WhatsApp Deals and a Desire for More

In 2017, I was working a 9-5 job as a Product Specialist and Sales Manager for a tech company in Maryland, Ikeja. It was a good job, better than most fresh graduates could hope for – but I wasn’t fulfilled. I wanted more. I was hungry to build something of my own.

That’s when I became curious about Bitcoin. It felt like something big was coming. A friend of mine would post about trading gift cards and Bitcoin on his WhatsApp status. I reached out to him, and he suggested I could do the same: bring in my own deals, and he’d pay me the naira equivalent.

Within the first month, I made double my monthly salary. It was thrilling. I felt like I had found a new path.

But then – I got burned. I sent him some cards one day, and he stopped replying. Just like that. I had to refund the client with my own money and learn the hard way what it meant to do business online. That incident forced me to source reliable vendors myself, most of whom were Chinese traders at the time.

That was my initiation. And shortly after, I quit my job to focus full-time on this hustle.

Building a Brand: Trust as the Differentiator

The name “Neezerchain” came later — combining “Neezer” (from my middle name, Ebenezer) and “Chain” (as in Blockchain).

I ran Instagram ads through big-name bloggers like Tunde Ednut and Instablog. We even worked with influencers like Poco Lee and Rahman Jago. But more than any ad, it was trust that helped us grow.

We built our name on three things:

• ✅ Instant payments
• ✅ Great customer service
• ✅ Zero tolerance for scams

At a time when the crypto space in Nigeria was flooded with fraud, that simple promise — to actually be honest — helped us grow fast through word-of-mouth. Referrals carried us further than any ad campaign ever could.

Rapid Growth — And Tough Lessons

With growth came more capital — and I began to explore new ideas. Some hit. Some missed badly. Here are a few:

• Neezerlink Travel (2019): A group travel/tour business. Collapsed during COVID lockdowns.
• Neezergreene (2020): A renewable energy play aimed at tackling energy poverty in Nigeria. We made some traction, but the market wasn’t quite ready.
• Coinchain Africa (2020): My biggest, costliest lesson to date.

Coinchain was meant to be our flagship crypto exchange. But I was still new to tech. I outsourced the platform’s development to a dev shop in India — one I found online. That decision cost me heavily.

Despite a promising beta (over 1,200 users, all acquired organically), the platform was buggy, unstable — and then, worst of all, it got hacked. We lost all the ETH on the system.

We refunded all users and shut it down. Quietly. It was painful – financially and emotionally. But it forced me to rethink everything.

Reset: Skill Acquisition and Self-Reliance

I needed more than ambition — I needed skills. So in 2021, I moved to the UK to pursue a Master’s in Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship. I graduated with distinction.

In parallel, I taught myself how to code. How to build. How to manage dev teams properly. I eventually worked as a:

• 🧠 Software Development/Product Manager at a London-based agency
• ⚙️ Technical Project Manager at an NHS Trust

All the while, Neezerchain never died. My cousin Ayo — my right-hand — held things down. He managed our loyal OTC users, maintained the backend ops, and ensured the brand stayed alive.

To this day, we’ve processed over $35 million in tramsaction volume — all from word-of-mouth and organic traffic. We’ve never run paid search ads.

Neezerchain 2.0 — What’s Next

This year marks eight years of building, learning, and surviving. It’s also the start of our next chapter.

Neezerchain is relaunching as a full-cycle software development and brand management company. We now have a proper team of developers, designers, marketers, and builders.

We’re also getting ready to launch Nezora — a new crypto exchange built from scratch for Nigerians and Africans. With rising scams on P2P platforms and many exchanges failing under bear markets, there’s an opportunity to do it better — with speed, safety, and transparency.

We’re not just rebuilding. We’re building for the long term — with the hard-earned lessons of the past and a bold vision for the future.

What’s Coming

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing:

• 🧭 Behind-the-scenes of launching Nezora
• 💸 Details of our pre-seed raise (yes, we’re opening up to investors)
• 🎯 Lessons from 8 years in crypto, tech, and entrepreneurship

If you’ve ever wanted to build something from scratch, or believe in Africa’s crypto future — this is your invitation to follow the journey.

The best is yet to come. 🚀

Need a Tech Partner?

Neezerchain is now a full-cycle tech and brand agency — helping startups, founders, and businesses build everything from MVPs to scale-ready platforms.

Whether it’s a website, mobile app, or custom software build, we’ve got the team to bring your idea to life.

📧 Email us at info@neezerchain.com
📱 WhatsApp: +44 7404 517 286 or +234 817 658 3177