There was a time when most Nigerian founders were behind the scenes of businesses. Those were days Brands spoke for themselves, while founders stayed invisible.
If you walked into a store or scrolled through Instagram, you probably couldn’t tell who ran the brand, what they looked like, or what they stood for.
But things have changed.
We’re now in the era of Founder-Led Marketing — where the face behind the brand has become the brand itself.
So, What Exactly Is Founder-Led Marketing?
Simply put, founder-led marketing is when a business’s growth strategy revolves around the personality, values, and voice of its founder.
It’s when the founder doesn’t just build the brand — they become part of it.
Think of it as storytelling in motion: every post, tweet, video, or podcast the founder shares reinforces trust, humanises the business, and invites people into their world.
When Tosin Olaseinde began sharing her journey of building Money Africa, she wasn’t doing it for “online validation”. She was simply breaking down what she was learning about money and savings — raw, relatable, and real.
Over time, her voice became her marketing engine. People didn’t just trust Money Africa, they trusted Tosin.
That’s the quiet power of Founder-Led Marketing — when the founder becomes the brand’s storyteller, not its dictator.
In an era where Nigerian consumers are skeptical of faceless brands, founders are discovering that their most powerful growth strategy isn’t just paid ads or influencer collaborations — it’s authentic storytelling from the source.
A 2024 LinkedIn Marketing Report showed that audiences are 3x more likely to engage with content shared by a founder than content shared by a brand page.
Another study by Edelman Trust Barometer found that 64% of consumers say they trust a brand more when they see or hear directly from its founder..
That’s why when Seye Dele, founder of Paid HR, posts those short, humorous videos about hiring, management, and founder struggles, people don’t just laugh — they learn and follow. His personal brand builds visibility for the company.
Or take Fastest Cakes, where the founder openly shares her journey of scaling a bakery from home business to powerhouse brand. That transparency builds community, loyalty, and recall.
That’s the core of founder-led marketing, your story becomes your strategy
But then, there’s the other side of the coin, which is Oga-Led Marketing, it’s a new term popular in Nigeria Marketing, which is totally different from the concept of “Founder-Led Marketing”.
Oga-Led Marketing is when the founder’s involvement becomes the bottleneck.
It’s when the boss turns into the marketing department:
- Every caption, design, or campaign needs their personal approval.
- Campaigns get delayed because “Oga has another strategy.”
- The marketing team spends more time waiting for feedback than executing strategy.
- The founder’s opinions override the data.
On X (Twitter Nigeria), “Oga-led marketing” has become a running joke — but it’s rooted in real frustration.
A marketer tweeted:
“Marketing manager is finding out their company is sponsoring an event on the day of the event, on Instagram”
Another quipped:
“Nigerian companies hire marketing managers then proceed to do oga-led marketing.
Will never cease to amaze me”
It’s funny, until you realise how much growth it costs.
Oga-led marketing thrives on ego-driven decision-making instead of insight-driven strategy.
It creates burnout, kills creativity, and limits scalability because everything revolves around one person’s approval and sometimes major decisions are taken without the involvement of the marketing team..
Recent insights from BusinessDay (2024) show that startups whose founders maintain an active, authentic online presence are 67% more likely to attract partnerships and investor interest than those that remain faceless.
That’s why across LinkedIn, Instagram, and X (Twitter), Nigerian founders are turning their voices into growth vehicles.
They’re building audiences before products, and communities before conversions.
But here’s the fine line — founder visibility must not choke the system.
When the founder insists on controlling every tweet, every photo, every marketing decision, creativity dies.
Teams lose confidence.
And soon, you’ll find brilliant marketers underutilised, demotivated, and looking for the exit door
Oga-led marketing doesn’t just slow campaigns — it weakens morale.
When creative teams know that their ideas will never see daylight without Oga’s stamp, they stop thinking big.
It becomes a culture of compliance, not creativity.
And innovation never thrives in fear.
That’s why the most progressive Nigerian startups are building systems that blend founder visibility with team autonomy.
The founder tells the story; the team amplifies it
How to Build the Balance.
If you’re a founder reading this, here’s how to embrace founder-led marketing while avoiding oga-led habits:
- Be the storyteller, not the stopper.
- Share your journey, but don’t gatekeep your team’s work.
- Build systems, not approval queues.
- Align your team with your vision, then let them execute.
- Lead with insight, not instinct.
- Let data, not personal taste, guide creative choices.
- Invest in personal branding.
- Build your voice online — LinkedIn posts, reels, or newsletters. People buy into people.
- Empower your marketing team.
The best leaders only inspire creativity and they do not try to control it.
In Nigeria’s new business era, visibility is leadership.
But how you use that visibility will decide if your brand becomes a movement or a memory.
Founder-Led Marketing builds trust, connection, and community.
Oga-Led Marketing builds tension, delay, and dependency.
Your audience doesn’t just want your product — they want your story, told with truth and strategy.
So, show up. But don’t show up alone.
Let your team do their work.
Let your story do the selling.
And let your brand grow — beyond you.
If you want to build a business that runs smoothly — without having to manually approve every task or campaign — while empowering your team to do their best work, then you need the right systems in place.
In Bamboe Agency, we’ve the expertise to help you create systems that make them happen and create structures that scale without chaos.
Contact our Marketing expert on WhatsApp
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