Chowdeck co-founder Femi Aluko has revealed that the idea behind one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing food delivery platforms was born while he was still working at fintech company Paystack, with the decision to leave coming only after early customer demand demonstrated the business had significant growth potential.
Speaking about the company’s origins, Aluko said the inspiration for Chowdeck came in the months following Paystack’s landmark acquisition by Stripe in 2020. At the time, he was preparing for a business trip to Dubai to recruit engineers for Paystack when he contracted COVID-19.
Confined to isolation, he attempted to order food but found reliable delivery options difficult to access. The experience exposed what he believed was a much larger problem within Nigeria’s logistics ecosystem.
“I tried to order food. I realized I couldn’t get food delivered to me,” Aluko said, explaining that the experience convinced him logistics represented a major business opportunity.
From Side Project to Startup
Rather than resign immediately, Aluko began developing Chowdeck while maintaining his role at Paystack.
The startup’s first version was launched as a side project, allowing him and his co-founders to test whether consumers would embrace a new food delivery platform. Initially, the operation was small, with deliveries handled by the founders themselves alongside only two riders.
Although the platform attracted early users, Aluko said he remained uncertain that it could evolve into a venture-scale company.
That perception changed after a series of social media posts dramatically increased public awareness of the platform. Downloads surged almost overnight, creating more demand than the young company could support.
With only a limited number of delivery riders and restaurant partners available, Chowdeck temporarily suspended new user registrations to prevent long delivery times and poor customer experiences. The move underscored one of the fundamental challenges of marketplace businesses: balancing customer demand with supply.
For Aluko, the overwhelming response became a defining moment.
As thousands of prospective customers attempted to join the platform, he concluded that the startup had reached a level of market validation that justified leaving one of Africa’s most successful fintech companies.
Leaving Paystack for a Bigger Opportunity
He recalled informing Paystack Chief Executive Officer Shola Akinlade that he believed Chowdeck represented a much larger opportunity than he had initially imagined, saying he saw the potential to build a company worth billions of dollars.
The decision marked the transition from experimenting with an idea on the side to committing full-time to building what has become one of Nigeria’s leading technology startups.
Reflecting on the experience, Aluko argued that entrepreneurs often discover product-market fit not through internal metrics alone, but through customer behaviour.
According to him, persistent demand, unsolicited interest from people who have not yet used a product and increasing public conversation around a service are among the clearest indicators that a startup is solving a genuine problem.
“I think customers would always tell you when you’ve hit product-market fit,” he said, noting that sustained customer demand ultimately gave him the confidence to pursue Chowdeck full-time.
A Lesson in Calculated Entrepreneurship
Chowdeck has since grown into one of Nigeria’s leading on-demand food delivery platforms, serving thousands of customers while expanding its logistics network across multiple cities.
Aluko’s account offers a rare glimpse into the calculated transition from employee to founder. Rather than leaving a stable career on instinct alone, he waited until customer demand demonstrated that the business had solved a real problem and possessed the potential to scale—an approach that has become an increasingly cited example within Nigeria’s technology ecosystem.
