“Culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you allow”: Day 1-1000 of Haul247

Sehinde Afolayan, founder of logistics platform Haul247, was one of the first founders I interviewed as a journalist for TechCabal. The startup, launched in 2020, had just raised $3million at the time. 

In a space ravaged by big name logistics startups struggling and shuttering, Haul247 has held its own. Afolayan knows the space is tough. He’s been the commodities trader whose goods rotted in storage. He knows what it’s like to feel helpless within a system you depend on, and that first-hand frustration fuels everything Haul247 does.

He tells me Haul247 survived by refusing to treat logistics as a series of disconnected pieces. “It can’t be a standalone,” he says. “You have to make it all talk to each other.” That means connecting warehouses, trucks, and tech so clients actually know where their goods are—something he could only wish for when he faced his own supply chain disasters.

Afolayan is my guest for today’s edition of Day 1-1000, he tells TechCabal how Haul247 has morphed  from solving one man’s supply chain pain to building a logistics operating system for Africa, one real, integrated solution at a time

This is the story of Haul247 as told to TechCabal.

Day 0: Entrepreneur in training

My real journey started long before Haul247—it started at Obafemi Awolowo University (Ile-Ife, Nigeria), where I studied Agriculture. It wasn’t just about learning from textbooks; it was the kind of place where you could get your hands dirty—literally. 

I remember one day, my head of department got an urgent call from the dean while we were in the lab. She was in the middle of artificial insemination work, which involves using a microscope to handle spermatozoa and eggs. She said, “Can you help me with this? I need to quickly go and meet the dean.” I was 20, maybe 21. I was nervous, but also curious.  I’d never done this before. But I did it well—the survival rate was 98%, which was very high. I was a rookie, but I succeeded. She was really impressed. She gave me my first 1,000 fingerlings to rear within the faculty building, which I did. My entrepreneurial journey started there. I realised that if you take responsibility and deliver, people will trust you with more.

But university wasn’t just about grades. This was also where I met my co-founders, Tobi Obasa and Akindele Phillips. We’d become friends for life, but at the time, it was just three young men figuring out life, thinking about what Nigeria could be. No one told us how hard starting a business would be, but the hunger was there. The lessons from those days—taking responsibility, solving real-world problems, working with people—shaped how I thought about entrepreneurship.

After Obafemi Awolowo University, I went on to Lagos Business School for an MBA in 2016. That was another layer—learning not just how to do things, but how to lead, how to grow an organisation. But I always carried the spirit of those university days with me: the curiosity, the hunger, the willingness to own the outcome.

When I jumped into business—first farming, then commodities, and finally logistics—I kept that mindset. If you’d asked me at 20 if I’d be building a logistics company, I’d have said no. But looking back, the roots were always there.

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Day 1-30: Launch and pivot

It starts with a warehouse in Bakori, Katsina State. I’ve paid for 100 metric tons of soybeans. My team and I begin peeling back the layers of sacks—first layer, fine. Second, fine. Third, fine. Then the fourth: the beans have turned to powder. The farmer, a man I’ve built trust with over months, breaks down in front of me. He’s worked so hard, only to lose everything to poor storage. We drive back to Lagos in silence. My mind is racing. “There has to be a better way.” 

That night, I called two college friends. I asked them: “How can we use technology to fix this?” We spent hours talking about post-harvest losses, fragmented supply chains, lack of visibility, and the cost—not just in money, but in broken trust and wasted effort.  It was not about building another trucking app. It was about orchestrating logistics intelligently—connecting warehouses, trucks, and ports so businesses can see, plan, and move goods without the chaos. That’s how Haul247 was born.

We launched, with a focus on aggregating trucks and warehouses. We onboarded thousands—on paper, it looked great. But nothing was happening. Clients weren’t biting. We soon realised that capacity meant nothing without intelligent demand.  

So we pivoted. Now, it’s about aligning supply with real demand. We bake in real-time visibility, predictive planning, and deep integration with clients’ systems. We automate invoicing—no more waiting for waybills to crawl across Lagos. We set a rule: no client with payment terms longer than 14 days. We track receivables like hawks, cutting days by over 50%. 

Day 100-300:  Culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you allow

The first hundred days were a blur. Internally, it was all hands on deck—everyone did everything. I was talking to warehouse owners, truck drivers, clients, suppliers, investors. I was coding, selling, fixing, begging. We were building the plane mid-flight. Our culture also began to mature. We moved from hierarchy to ownership. “Culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you allow,” I tell the team. People began shaping strategy, not just filling roles. Clients noticed—they needed one point of contact, one system, one truth. We were not just a vendor. We were partners.

The grind did not stop. Funding was always tight. Talent, even tighter—this isn’t an industry where you can just post a job and pick from a pile. We had to grow our own.  Then our warehouse manager who’d just been brought in, just getting up to speed, called to say he’s leaving the country. Immediately. That Monday, I didn’t want to leave my bed. There was no quick replacement in this space. We doubled down on internal training, cross-pollinating skills, building capability from scratch.  At the same time, we were automating everything we could—payments, invoicing, tracking. We brought in auditors, set up governance. It was not about optics. We wanted to build something that lasts.

Day 500-800:  Building a plane while flying

We started with warehousing and trucking, then added port operations, trade facilitation, and financing. We were not just digitising logistics—we were turning it into economic infrastructure for the continent. We were building the groundwork for predictive analytics—forecasting, route optimisation, proactive planning. The north star: to be Africa’s logistics operating system.

We owned a warehouse in the south, 3,000 square meters. Goods were scattered, taking up all the space. We brought in vertical stacking. Three months later, revenue tripled on the same footprint. Clients told us they wanted to deal with one vendor, not a dozen who don’t talk to each other. That’s validation.

Day 1000- present day: A long fight

We’re profitable, but it’s been a fight. There was a time when funding was stuck in paperwork. We had to drop clients, turn down business, and be honest about what we could handle. Equity funding is expensive—you’re giving up part of your future. We’ve learned to be lean, to sweat every asset. But when you see your team step up, when they own outcomes, bring new ideas, solve problems you didn’t even see—that’s the real euphoria.

The moment I almost quit? It wasn’t just the talent crunch or the funding drought—though those were brutal. It was the day-to-day grind of explaining to clients why their goods were stuck in a port, or why prices had spiked, or why the system was still broken. There’s a special kind of exhaustion that comes from caring too much, from wanting to fix things faster than the market will let you. But, would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat. Not because it was or is easy. Not because the money’s great. It isn’t—yet. But because the work matters. Because every day, we get to untangle a knot that’s been holding Africa back for decades.

Mark your calendars!  Moonshot by TechCabal is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com

Source: TechCabal | Continue to Full Story…