From shooting hoops with the NBA Stars to winning the Entrepreneur of the year award at the recently concluded 2015 All Africa Business Leaders Awards (AABLA) the only way to describe Obinna Ekezie’s journey is epic!
Retiring from professional basketball in 2007, after playing for five different NBA teams ( and three different international teams, Obinna moved home to Nigeria to pursue his new dream in the travel industry. He co-founded a travel website in 2008, Zeeptravel.com- the parent company of online ticket reservation service, Wakanow.com.
Using online travel reservation business models used by companies like Expedia, Obinna’s ambitions have always been to revolutionize the way travel reservations are made in Nigeria and eventually, Africa. Wakanow’s traction in the travel space came after it was awarded an exclusive license during the 2010 World Cup as one of the competition’s authorized ticket re-sellers and as they say the rest has been history.
We stumbled on a recent interview with Obinna and found some interesting insights on the pro basketballer turned award winning entrepreneur
On starting Wakanow
“I believe there are few opportunities in life that come ones way. This is a big one and I recognized it from the start. When I was injured in 2005, I started thinking about life after basketball. I was introduced to online travel through a former friend but our venture was not successful and I pretty much lost quite a lot of money but I never gave up. A few years later I returned to Nigeria to visit and I had difficulty booking my flight. Next time I got stuck at the airport going from Lagos to Moscow because I needed a transit visa through frankfurt which I did not have and I could not buy a ticket at the airport. Although I met my wife the next day while buying a new Turkish Airline ticket, I did not find this funny. This is when I realized that there was no online travel company in Nigeria so I said we must do this”.
On staying motivated
“People close to me know that motivation has never been an issue for me for anything that I am passionate about. I think about Wakanow and the travel business 24/7. I want to be successful and I want to make a difference. We are radically changing the way travel is planned and booked in Nigeria and I am happy about that. In terms of challenges, I put everything I had on the line. Fortunately, my father also invested as well as my partner. This is a capital intensive project but I decided to go into it knowing it would be difficult to attract VC’s without showing a viable business”.
We at IBG are saying a huge CONGRATS to Obinna and his team and are excited about the company’s future!
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