The best stories often start in the most unassuming places: University hostels, markets, lecture rooms e.t.c Places where real problems demand real solutions. For example, Ibigbemi Oloruntobi, a physics graduate from the University of Ilorin who came up with the idea of Item7, an eatery that started small in Ilorin and has since grown into a trusted establishment across Nigeria.
These are the stories that matter. They matter not because they disrupt billion dollar industries overnight, but because they document the unglamorous beginnings of ventures and they solve the immediate needs for real people. And it’s particularly more important stories happening in places asides Lagos (that often dominates these stories) like Ibadan and Campuses like the University College Hospital, deserve equal attention.
This is one of those stories.
For Olalekan, it was supposed to be just another day of studying for his second MB exams. Instead, he found himself ill, alone in his room, facing a problem that hundreds of medical students encounter, but few think to actually solve. Lekan needed something from Hamines, a popular supermarket in his campus, but his roommate was away and his coursemates were buried in their own exam preparations.
“I didn’t want to be an inconvenience to my friends at that time because we were prepping for our MB exams,” Lekan recalls. “I thought if I could just have someone that could help me do this, then it would have been easier for me to do that.“
That moment of helplessness became the spark for Errandly, a logistics service that has since completed over 400 errands for UCH students, averaging 25 orders daily with almost 500 members in the community.
Unlike many founders who spend months contemplating on their ideas, Lekan’s transition from frustration to action was quick. “I just thought if there was nobody to do it, why couldn’t I just start?” he says. For someone who admits to having “a lot of ideas in my head” but struggles with executing them due to imposter syndrome, this moment showed a change.
His research revealed that several similar services had existed but had become “non-existent or just didn’t work anymore.” His landscape was clear, or in better terms, it was empty. The question wasn’t whether UCH students needed an errand service. The question was whether Lekan could actually build it.
To understand why Errandly has it’s current traction and resonates such deeply with it’s users, you need to understand the particular way of life in UCH. Ogba, as the campus is commonly called, doesn’t just demand your attention, it devours your hours ravishly in such a way that it leaves very little room for the mundane things in life.
Lekan’s typical day shows this clearly “You have to get up early to go for postings or lectures, which means you have to leave your hostel by around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. and you barely have time to get breakfast, to get things done before you start going for your posting.” He said. The day does not improve when lectures end either. “By the time I get back in the evening I am already tired, unable to cook, unable to basically do anything,” he explains.
UCH’s location creates problems of its own. He distance from main commercial areas in Ibadan and the main University campus, combined with the rigorous nature of ‘Ogba,’ with clinical rotations, ward rounds and pratical sessions that just mean that as a student, you are geographically and temporally trapped. When you are needed in the ward, or stuck in a 3 hour lecture, running soe errands is not just inconvenient, it’s often impossible.
Before Errandly, students relied on informal networks such as favors from friends, logistics companies charging arbitrary prices, or simply doing without. These solutions worked until they didn’t.
These problems are why Lekan’s approach to buildinng Errandly reveals a pragmatism often absent in startup culture’s obsession with perfect launches. He created a whatsapp group to serve as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). “I just thought of the idea and then immediately created a WhatsApp group,” he explains. “And then a day we had to submit some photocopies for our practical in class. And then I thought, okay, I already created this group, why not just start the idea of Errandly from there?” And that served as his first users.
His first marketing strategy was that simple: he volunteered to handle the photocopying for classmates in exchange for them placing their orders through the Errandly group. “That was basically the starting point for Errandly. That was like my first order and I got over 50 orders.“
The mechanics were deliberately simple, students join the group, post what errand they need done along with when they need it and how much they are willing to pay. Runners can then accept the job or negotiate for a higher fee. Once agreed, they coordinate the finer details.
“The way this works is that it’s negotiable,” Lekan explains. “If the person that is interested in taking the errand is not satisfied with the amount you are offering, they can choose to reject it or negotiate for a higher amount.“
What started as a service Lekan originally intended for pickups and drop-offs quickly expanded and became more than what he could dream of. “As time went a few days after few weeks, a week or two after, it sort of made sense that other people were asking for errands that were more than pickups or drop offs.” He said, before adding that he has had errands from people that want to take pictures and don’t have someone or don’t want to bother another person to take pictures. “We’ve had people ask for people to write their assignments for them as well.” He added.
These stories, these numbers show rapid adoption of this service, from the irst batch of 50 photocopying orders to over 400 completed errands in a matter of months with over 500 members in the group and an average of 25 orders coming in daily. Also, Lekan’s decision to start from Whatsapp only shows his resourcefulness as the WhatsApp approach serves multiple purposes. “The WhatsApp serves for two things,” Lekan notes. “One is the MVP. I didn’t spend any money on creating a WhatsApp group and it’s easier. And two, for marketing. So people making orders on the group and people accepting orders when other people are there, they know that this thing definitely works.”
With this approach, every member sees orders being posted and fulfilled in real-time. Trust builds not through branding or promises, but through observable transactions happening in the group chat, day after day.
Upon examining his business model, Errandly currently does not make any money. “For now we are not making any money,” Lekan says without hesitation. The WhatsApp group serves as both product and proof-of-concept, allowing him to validate demand before introducing fees.
But still, he has a clear plan. “We recently had a community meeting where I explained everything about how we plan to make money,” he shares. When Errrandly moves to a website platform, orders below 1,000 naira will incur a 100 naira service charge, while orders above that threshold will be charged 10% of the amount above 1,000 naira.
As should be obvious by now. His model is designed to be affordable whle generating revenue, positioing Errandly as what Lekan calls “the Indrive of delivery services” referencing the ride hailing app tht allows negotiated fares. This negotiable pricing is also central to how Errandly differentiates itself from established players like HeyFood and Chowdeck. “The difference between us and HeyFood when we scale is that one, it’s more local,” Lekan explains, “It aims to serve more local places or vendors.”
This distinction adds to the uniqueness of Errandly. While major delivery platforms focus on popular restaurants and established vendors, Errandly plans to digitize the informal economy that students actually use. “For HeyFood and Chowdeck and others, they mainly serve popular restaurants or popular vendors. For Errandly, we plan to add the very local places that these providers do not cover. For example, the suya guy at UCH. We want to digitize their sales.”
Lekan’s co-founder, Adesokan Emmanuel (commonly known as Femzy), handles the technical side as they work toward the website platform. Together, they’re building what Lekan describes as “a fairly decentralized logistics service” where anyone verified can both request and fulfill errands.
Lekan exists as a ‘medical student entrepreneur’ and this adds a little bit of irony to his school life. While most of his coursemates are focusing on being doctors asides any extracurriculars they might also have, he’s building a business that matters to him more than medicine. “I see myself as an entrepreneur who just happens to be in medical school,” he says, before adding “I’ve always been somebody that is more interested in making money, to be honest, than doing this medical school. Medical school is like a second. It comes second to making money from entrepreneur stuff to me.”
Luckily for him, balancing both has not proven to be as difficult as one might expect, this is largely because Errandly’s current model is “self-run.” “All I need you to do is post your errand on the group and then somebody accepts and then you can negotiate in your DMs,” he explains.
The closed enviroment also helps with it’s somewhat self sufficient model. “Everybody knows everybody. All the numbers on there are like people in within UCH.” In a community where reputation matter and everyone is connected or a least knows each other, fraud becomes less likely. But he has still had sacrifices. “I’ve had to sacrifice few hours of sleep I guess and studying for basically discussing with my co-founder,” Lekan admits, referencing nights spent planning Errandly’s future while preparinng fo his exams.
The response from his community has also been positive “Basically everybody that I’ve told said, oh that sounds like a good idea. That’s something that I definitely need or would at some point need,” he recalls. However, the real test is still a little further along the road. “I expect that by the time we move to the website, then that’s when the real work will have started,” he acknowledges. Physical verification of runners, safety gurantees, payment processing, solving these challenges will transform his working MVP into a scalable business.
But beyond Ogba, Lekan’s ambitions are really high. His visionn includes a social dimension that reflects UCH’s own unique enviroment. “One of the demographics we aim to serve since we started in UCH is patients in UCH,” he explains. “So many times I have come across patients who have no idea where to go within UCH or how to do things in UCH. Probably get a test done, a lab test done, or get drugs, or buy things within UCH.”
His solution addresses both commercial and humanitarian needs, with his plan to make Errandly have a sectionn where patients can have volunteers helping them out. However, that is still far along the road and for now his focus remains completely local. His extension roadmap is methodical: UCH first, then the main UI campus, then other schools in Ibadan and eventually beyond.
“What needs to happen before we can scale? Basically we have milestones that we want to reach because for now we are more comfortable testing in closed conditions,” Lekan explains. “Closed environment gives us a situation we can control and two, it gives us an idea of the things we might face when we eventually scale outside of those closed environments.”
When asked about funding, Lekan is pragmatic. “Currently we are bootstrapping and we are comfortably bootstrapping. So I don’t think that’s much of a problem now.” Capital is not the constraint, understanding the operational challenges is. This smart approach by Lekan prioritizes sustainability over speed, preferrinng thorough testing over rapid growth. And so, “by the time we scale, then those problems, we already know that, okay, this kind of problem might arise, will arise, and then we have checks to mitigate them before a disaster happens or something.”
The story of Errandly is still being written, with it’s website in development and it’s imminent expansion. But perharps that’s what makes this story worth telling right now. In the spac where too many stories are only documented after unnicorn valuatioons or acquisition announcments, Errandly represents a real time case study on how solutions can come from real, extremely relatable problems. For now, UCH students continue their tasking schedules in Ogba, but with one less burden. A simple WhatsApp group solvinng real problems for real people, one errand at a time. Sometimes, that’s exactly how the most important businesses begin.
