Building Better Startups Starts with Technical Understanding, Says Olaide Alim

Olaide Alim, founder of SnappyExchange and SnappyPay, says startup founders can strengthen their leadership by developing a solid understanding of technology, particularly as Africa’s digital finance, e-commerce and technology sectors continue to evolve.

According to him, while founders do not necessarily have to become software engineers, having technical knowledge enables them to make more informed product decisions, communicate more effectively with development teams, and build businesses that can scale sustainably.

Alim noted that a growing number of startup founders are complementing their business expertise with technical skills to gain deeper product insight and improve execution in an increasingly competitive industry.

For him, that journey included completing a year-long full-stack software engineering programme at New Horizons.

Having launched SnappyExchange in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alim said he enrolled in the programme to better understand the technology behind the products his company has developed over the past five years.

“This journey was not just about receiving certificates,” he said. “As a founder building technology products, I wanted to understand the structure, logic and process behind software development. It has helped me communicate better with developers, ask better product questions, and lead technical conversations with greater clarity.”

He added: “Building a technology company requires more than vision. It requires patience, structure, continuous learning, and a solid understanding of how products work behind the scenes. This programme has been an important part of my growth as a founder.”

The programme covered both front-end and back-end software development, exposing participants to user interface design, application architecture, data flow management, authentication systems, responsive design and user experience engineering.

Founded as a cryptocurrency and gift card trading platform, SnappyExchange has since expanded into a broader digital financial services company.

According to the company, it now serves more than 100,000 users across several African markets and has processed over one million transactions in the five years since its launch.

In November 2025, the company introduced SnappyPay, a digital payments and lifestyle platform designed to address common challenges in Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem, particularly delayed and failed transactions.