Before it became a household name, Fast Buka started as an idea scribbled on a notepad during a long keke ride through Port Harcourt.
Its founder, Tunde Okoro, a software engineer turned entrepreneur, was visiting his grandmother one rainy morning when he noticed something odd: the local market women were still opening their stalls in the storm, covering their goods with tattered nylon and hustling to make sales. He watched a young woman—no older than 22—trying to shield her basket of okro from the downpour while shouting out prices to passing pedestrians.
It hit him.
The resilience was there. The demand was there. The hustle was real. But what was missing?
Digital infrastructure. Access. A bridge.
"What if these market women didn’t have to wait for foot traffic? What if people could find their tomatoes and ugu leaves from home, just like they order pizza in Lekki?" he thought.
That ride was the seed. And it grew fast.
Tunde assembled a small team of young developers and marketers—mostly friends from the university—and together they built the beta version of Fast Buka. The app was crude at first. Only three local markets in Rivers State were onboarded. Payments were by cash on delivery. But the impact was instant.
Vendors who barely made ₦5,000 daily started earning over ₦20,000.
Mothers who couldn’t leave their babies at home began shopping stress-free. Students placed late-night orders for bread and eggs during exam season.
The app's mission quickly evolved from convenience to empowerment.
It wasn’t just about delivering groceries. It was about reshaping informal economies, giving market vendors access to wider audiences, and making sure no one — whether a tech bro in Lagos or a plantain seller in Warri — was left behind in the digital revolution.
Today, Fast Buka is in over 12 Nigerian cities and expanding across West Africa.
And to think... it all started in a keke.