The Story
From media to automation — how this was built
01
13 years inside Nigerian business
I started in photography in 2011, right after secondary school. Interned at a photo lab. Bought my first camera. Shot events through university. After graduating, I opened a photography and videography studio in Port Harcourt with my wife Funmilayo. We served clients, built a reputation, and grew the business together. I also trained at Mount Zion Film Academy in film production, scriptwriting, and storytelling.
That time gave me something most people building automation tools do not have — I know what running a small Nigerian business actually costs.
02
COVID forced the pivot. I did not wait.
When COVID hit and events stopped overnight, I did not sit and wait. I pivoted into creating marketing video content for business owners — transferring my scriptwriting background from film into sales content. That became a video agency. We edited videos, wrote scripts, and helped businesses use content to sell. For years we ran that well, with clients on retainer and a team behind me.
03
Then AI changed everything I had built
By late 2023 I could see clearly that the tools our agency depended on were being replaced. Social media managers were becoming editors. The demand for what we did professionally was declining. I made a decision. Go deep on AI and automation or get left behind.
I stepped back from the front of the agency, handed day-to-day client work to my team, and spent the freed time going deep on marketing strategy and AI.
04
The tool-pricing problem
Every platform I found was priced in dollars, built for US businesses, and required stacking five subscriptions just to get the basics working. Nigerian business owners were either paying too much or stitching together tools that were never meant to work with each other.
I kept coming back to the same question: why does a tool built for how Nigerian businesses actually operate not exist?
05
I tested it on my own business first
Before I sold anything to anyone, I ran the automation on Promage Studios — my own photography business. I activated the review system and ran a reactivation campaign to past customers. In under two weeks, the studio went from 117 Google reviews to 168. 51 new reviews. The 4.9-star rating held throughout. I did not ask a single customer manually. The system handled everything.
That is the proof I needed. The profile is still searchable on Google Maps right now.
06
So I built Promage.IO and opened the community
One platform that replaces all the scattered subscriptions — priced in Naira, built around WhatsApp, and adapted from the ground up for how Nigerian businesses and their customers actually communicate.
The community is where I teach it. The platform is what members get access to. Both exist because I needed them first and could not find them anywhere else.