Edves CEO Dimeji Falana Recalls how his Journey to Tech Superstardom Began

Dimeji Falana was in his first year at the university when he realized he could become a successful tech entrepreneur. Following this realisation, he dedicated time, energy and resources to honing his coding and design skills. About a decade later, his edtech startup, Edves, is playing a huge role in revolutionising the education system in Nigeria and across Africa. In this interview with Business Elites Africa, the young entrepreneur recounts his growth trajectory and gives important business advice to other entrepreneurs. Enjoy the conversation.

BEA: It’s nice to meet you, Sir. Tell us how your journey in tech began.

Dimeji Falana: It all started in early 2007 when I was just a 100-level student at the University of Ilorin. One Saturday, while visiting with my cousin at his hostel, I remember him telling me about one of his professors who was preparing for an inaugural lecture and was in urgent need of help with his PowerPoint presentation. I stepped in and handled the PowerPoint for the professor and he was very impressed.

He later told me that he had never seen a PowerPoint design and display that good before.  His commendation gave me a lot of boost and helped me to realize that I could actually do so much with the skill in terms of making money. So, I started doing exactly that.

Read our full Interview with Dimeji Falana HERE

One of the first major gigs I did afterwards was NTA’s animated logo design. Again, I used PowerPoint to design that logo. Then, I started looking at what other systems I could work with. I began looking into Excel and soon learnt how to add two cells to arrive at a factor or an answer. That gave me the knowledge of logic. And fortunately for me, the lecturers in school taught us a bit of programming. Alongside my budding career, I kept practicing with my Excel. That’s how the whole thing started. And here I am today.

BEA: Tell us how you went from designing and coding to owning an edtech startup.

Dimeji Falana: As I kept working with Excel, I was also thinking of how to use Excel to build a Grade Point Average (GPA) calculator for students. And then by my second year at the university, I went on a 3-month industrial training. I was posted to Oak Computers in Ogba, Lagos.During the three months I spent there, I was moved across all the departments there. This afforded me the opportunity to learn so many new skills. I was also opportune to meet a couple of guys who were really good at programming. They gave me books to read and assigned me lots of projects to review. Before long, I started designing websites using micromedia fireworks and other tools. 

When I returned to the campus after the industrial training, I started noticing lots of website design opportunities for different student organisations…

Read the rest of the Interview with Dimeji Falana HERE