Nairaland forum has become an house hold name when it comes to websites in Africa, little wonder why it was ranked as the most visited website in Africa by Forbes, amazing right?
It would interest you to know that the owner of Nairaland Forum is an African and as a matter of fact, a Nigerian. Have you even seen the picture of the owner of Nairaland forum, or you you know who owns the website. Sit tight as we enlighten you.
Oluwaseun Osewa
Oluwaseun Osewa is the founder of Nairaland Forum, he was born 17th March, 1982. Seun is a young programmer and business man from Sango Ota in Ogun State, Nigeria.
Growing up, Seun found pleasure in programming and the internet generally. He finished from the prestigious University of Ile-Ife, where he studied electrical engineering in 1998.Rumour has it that he dropped out and faced his programming dream which made him who he is today.
By 2003, he ventured into web-hosting internet business but luck did not smile on him. After three months, the business died due to the fact that he didn’t have enough capital to carry on. Lucky for him he found a regular job but could not cope after tasting creative freedom. He kept on researching on the internet for two years until he decided to open an online web forum using python programming.
In March 2003, Seun had already created 3 forums, one for students in the higher institution, one for IT discussions and the last one was to cover the emerging GSM industry which he called; the Mobile Nigeria Forum. He did all this with the help of a family friend who helped fund his internet access and also his VPS hosting package of $15 per month because Seun had no capital still. For his mobile forum to be a success, he also had help from people like Mr. John Saga Adams and Mr. Yomi Adegoye.
How Nairaland forum was Created.
Seun noticed that the Mobile Nigeria website was gathering so much traffic even though the focus of the site was centered on telecommunications, he decided to create Nairaland forum, a forum that would cover topics outside tele communications, topics like jokes, romance, politics, and various other categories that would interest his target audience.
During those days prior to when he started, most Nigerian sites were owned and dominated by Nigerians in the United States and United Kingdom. They only covered issues of interests to Nigerians abroad. There was no much competition for Nairaland Forum as he surpassed the likes of other forums like Naijaryders and Talknaija. He felt that such a forum could attract enough traffic and make money from Google adverts.
Oluwaseun Osewa determined that he would make up to sixty thousand (60,000) monthly but to his surprise he made much more than that with the kind of traffic the site gathered. The growth of the site came with its own challenges as Seun had to battle with spammers who flooded the site. Mukina2 a female mod who has been working with him since 2007 amongst other moderators helped Seun in updating the Forum’s front page.
Google banned Nairaland forum from their ad network in 2012 due to the fact that it contained many sexual topics. This made Seun sell his own ads space on the forum. It is a known fact that Nairaland forum earns millions in a month than when it had Google adverts. By 2013,
Forbes listed Seun among the best African successful entrepreneurs under 30.
How much is Nairaland forum worth?
When Nairaland forum used Google ads, Seun was said to be earning as much as N6 million per month but after 2014, he started selling those ads space which fetched him about N4 to N5 million monthly. The Nairaland forum in year 2023 according to hypestat.com is currently worth $5,604,264,32.
As a man who controls so much wealth, you would think that he lives a flamboyant lifestyle but Oluwaseun Osewa of Nairaland Forum is a man who does not like fame and power, he is more of a lowkey lifestyle man. He currently lives in his hometown in Ogun state. He does not even appear like a celebrity even as he owns the largest African online forum.
You might be wondering just like most people wonder whether Seun is a Christian due to his gentle look. According to Wikipedia, he was once a Christian but now an Atheist. He is not married but he has been nominated for series of awards