Founder Precious Ikade’s story begins with a Business Administration degree, detours through a multi-level marketing stint, and a ₦1.7 million debt that could’ve ended her career ambitions before they began.
Today, after finding her way into product management, Ikade is building structured, practical pathways to help university graduates discover and follow tech careers without making the kind of mistakes she did.
Lessons from a debt
Following her university graduation in 2018, Ikade says she expected to follow conventional career paths like banking or human resource management. “The reigning thing then was banking. It wasn’t tech,” she says.
But she wanted a different path and threw herself into multi-level marketing (MLM), a controversial entrepreneurship model where independent sales representatives sell products and recruit new distributors to earn commissions. “That was my first time understanding business development,” Ikade says.
She quickly rose to the top of her marketing chain in less than a year. But while she was successful on paper, in reality, she was sinking under the weight of a huge debt.
“I was in debt of ₦1.7 million, that was one of my biggest mountains,” she recalls. “People put their money in the business to buy products in my name, so that I could sell and give them profits.”
What worsened the situation was that her salary at the time, ₦70,000, was barely enough to live on and take care of the debts she was incurring as a marketer. The experience drove her into a depression, leaving her with a sharp awareness of how easy it is to make the wrong career choices when driven by short-term rewards.
“It took me at least a year to finish paying off some debts,” Ikade says. Her parents offered advice and chipped in financially.
The big transition into tech
After paying off her debts, Ikade turned to a former university colleague with her desire to transition into tech. She was introduced to Bode Roberts, CEO of Dataleum, and was invited to a tech event where she picked interest in data analysis, made a few connections, and followed on with some courses.
“That was the start of my tech career,” Ikade says.
A short while later, however, dissatisfied with data analytics, Ikade pivoted to product management, driven by a desire to understand why businesses fail and how technology can help businesses optimise for success. It was a field that connected her business background with her love for strategy, operations, and problem-solving. At the time, a product management masterclass at Utiva cost ₦50,000. For her, the discounted cost was steep but she scraped it together and took the course.
Finding career-fit with Tekbuddy
For Ikade, the move into product was never about chasing hype or money. It was about finding career fit. “You can only flourish in a place where your personality flourishes,” she says. Product management roles played to her natural strengths: communication, operations, and data-informed decision-making.
“Every career path has its own specific role in making a business grow. My vision of where I want to work is one thing, but my personality helps me narrow down the options.”
She also became increasingly critical of the way young graduates rushed into whatever career was trending. Too often she saw young people pour money into courses without first asking whether the role fit their strengths and career aspirations. Ikade wanted to build something that would help graduates make smarter career choices.
That vision birthed Tekbuddy, an organisation she co-founded in 2023 to help graduates enter tech careers with clarity. She describes it as a “whole journey” approach, beginning with career discovery, incorporating skill training, and offering practical job opportunities at the end.
The Career Discovery Bootcamp, which used to take days, has now been compressed into a six-hour assessment powered by AI. The bootcamp teaches how to build basic income and career experience. Once a customer has figured out what tech area they are well suited for, they can undergo a four-month subsidised training program (about ₦20,000 monthly) to build competency and skills for remote work. To make the transition from non-tech roles to tech roles more practical, Ikade encourages participants to take on entry-level roles like virtual assistants or remote support staff while building skills for higher roles.
The process ends with a community handover, where graduates are welcomed into a “career mastermind” group where they receive mentorship, accountability, and ongoing support. Each cohort even takes on a symbolic name, the most recent being “Nova,” marking their first appearance as tech professionals.
Innovation and impact
Ikade’s view of innovation is as blunt as it is practical: “Innovation is impact and experience.” For her, work is innovative when it measurably improves people’s lives, reduces friction, and changes behaviour in lasting ways.
She also believes the Nigerian tech ecosystem must rethink its motivations. Too many people, she argues, enter tech only for money. “If we keep going into tech for money, we are receivers. At what point will we be givers?” For her, true growth in the ecosystem will come from people seeking to contribute value, not just extract earnings.
According to Ikade, Tekbuddy has impacted over 1,000 talents in the past one year and 88.7% of career professionals have seen a positive change in their KPI as a result of integrating Tekbuddy’s intensive curriculum.
On balancing her career with every other thing in her life, Ikade compares everything to balls. “You have to learn how and when to drop some balls. And for me, I drop some balls carefully,” she says.
Looking back, Ikade sees her journey as proof that detours can lead to clarity. The ₦1.7 million debt and depression have all become part of a narrative she now shares with others. Her measure of success is not titles or metrics, but the impact she can create for the next Nigerian graduate who feels lost.
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