Nira Stock

Tell us a little about yourselves

Our names are Richard Tamunotonye, Samuel Sebastine, and Tonyo Waribo (not availablefor this interview).

Richard: I am 25 years old, from Rivers State, and I live in Port Harcourt. I specialise in User Experience (UX) design.

Samuel: I am 18 years old and from Akwa Ibom, but I grew up in Port Harcourt. I am an Illustrator by profession, and I love cultural designs and telling stories using illustration.

What does the start-up do?

Richard: It is a platform that provides visual content for designers, marketers, and brand experts.

What inspired your start-up?

Richard: During one of my UX projects, I needed to get pictures of an African engineer but couldn’t find one online. I have had this challenge a lot of times in the past. Either the pictures cannot be found or they are available but using them goes against copy write laws because you do not know the creator of the designs. I spoke to fellow designers and marketers and discovered that they had a similar challenge. So I started this platform to create a solution for it.

What stage is your start-up at?  

Richard: We are currently producing our platform. We have already created 250 local illustrations which can be seen in Adobe Folio, a stock platform owned by Adobe. I have done some transactions on that platform as well. We have decided to start our personal stock platform though.

Why do you want to start up your business?

Richard: It was a personal decision I took to build my own business and not work for someone else—or an organisation. I have worked with start-ups, government agencies, and organisations in the past. I felt I was not maximising my full potential by working with them. I felt limited and unable to express my ideas and creativity. I decided to branch out and work on my passion.

Why did you apply for the Ken Jnr Award for Innovation?

Richard: I applied because I went through the call for applications and saw the benefits that came with the access to seasoned mentors, free co-work space, and the financial grant. These are solutions to the major challenges we have faced in running the start-up.

What do you hope to do with your business after you graduate from the Hub?

Richard: This idea will not die off after the Incubation Programme. We know that with the help of the programme, we will be able to validate our idea. We will work towards getting our own space. Content creation is a continuous process and so we will continue crafting content and adding it to our platform. Our business model is flexible and enables us to target and provide the right services for our target audience. This has made it easy for us to ensure the flow of revenue—through the sale of our content, subscriptions to our platform, and commissions on specific items. We believe that this will help us generate revenue to sustain the busine

Supporting Nira Stock with the best start…

The Ken Jr Award for Innovation is a 6-month ‘incubation’ programme for aspiring tech entrepreneurs, providing a grant, free work-space and office amenities at the Ken Saro-Wiwa innovation hub, training, mentorship support, and soft skills to four teams of people who have a business idea and minimum viable product that they want to take to market.