Talking Drum Communications

This week's episode on Founders Connect is a brutal, beautiful reality check for anyone building in Africa. Talking with Samuel made me realise that some of the most successful companies on the continent aren't built on disruption alone; they are built by the sheer stubbornness. Most people see @remedial_health as a high-flying, YC-backed startup that has raised over $50 million. What is less visible is the "bedroom coder" who started at 13, the pharmacy student who sold two software companies in Uni and the founder who spent three years in Nigeria wondering if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. Samuel's journey is defined by a level of operational intensity that most people would find terrifying. He didn't start with a polished platform; he started "healthtech without the tech," taking manual orders on WhatsApp and scrambling to fulfil them. Today, he manages over 450 people, 100 vehicles, and 100 million medicines annually. In Nigeria, Remedial Health (YC W22) Health had to become two businesses in one because you cannot outsource pharmaceutical logistics where cold chain infrastructure doesn't exist. If you want to understand the unfiltered truth about building at scale in a frontier market—the pain, the setbacks, and the resilience—you should watch this. Full conversation on YouTube: youtu.be/tIvkmobS1h8 This episode is sponsored by @ObiexHQ .

Lagosians spend most of their money on pain relievers - Samuel Okwada, co-founder and CEO of Remedial Health - nairametrics.com/2026/01/20/lag…