We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ike Esedebe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ike below.

Ike, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

Seeking Africa was founded on the idea to connect and invest African Diaspora. I believe by economically empowering our business owners we are helping build a promising future for the Diaspora. I chose to primarily focus of African businesses due to the fact that they lack marketing and exposure most of the times. Even on large business directories like Yelp they are not aware of or market a lot of African-owned businesses. In addition to marketing African and Caribbean based business, I also offer a semi-annual scholarship at my Alma Matar the University of North Texas. The scholarship is presented through the African Students Organization on campus. I decided the start this scholarship fund as a way to give back and serve the community. Throughout my time in college I was not aware o many minority scholarship opportunities and the few I knew about had very strict guidelines. So I wanted to create an opportunity that is very accessible and marketed to the students, without such strict application guidelines.

Ike, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ike Esedebe, and I am a 1st generation Nigerian Immigrant. After my family relocated from Nigeria to London, England (where I was born), we finally landed in Dallas, TX, where I primarily grew up. I graduated from the University of North Texas, where I was the President of our African Student Organization. It was there that my interest and curiosity of learning about my Nigerian culture and the African culture as a whole was sparked. I graduated as an Accounting & Finance major, so I have always had a unique interest in Business, Economics, and Entrepreneurship. During my time in undergrad and the initial post-grad years, I constantly would brainstorm how can I combine my love for business/entrepreneurship with my curiosity and passion for African culture? Thus, I came up with the idea of my Business Seeking Africa. Seeking Africa is a Business Directory (similar to Yelp) that primarily focuses on bringing exposure to African and Afro-Caribbean business.

I believe common factors to integrating a culture is through Food, Fashion, and Music. My future goal is to help make African culture a commonplace here in America. I admire how other cultures like the Latin & Hispanics communities, Asian communities, and Middle Eastern communities have a strong presence here is America. It is very common to eat food from those cultures, attend concert or festivals with Artists from those cultures, and wear clothes from those cultures. My goal is to help jumpstart that same type of commonality for African culture here. We are beginning to see the rise of Afrobeats with global artists like Burna Boy. That is a major step to bringing positive exposure to our culture. Making our businesses well-known and welcome people from all walks of life is the next step. Thank you!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Like anything, is has not always been a smooth road. The biggest challenge I have faced was Covid-19. The idea behind the business model is to go to the places of business, meet the owners, and utilize social media to help bring exposure and market the business. During Covid that, of course, wasn’t possible in most places. I also offer a Semiannual Scholarship to the back at my Alma Mater (University of North Texas), so I also was not able to do that during Covid. It did slow things down, but perseverance is key. You learn to roll with the punches and find new ways to survive. The only way to fail is to quit.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lot of the history Africa growing up was either not taught or not taught from an African point of view. I grew up for the most past unaware of the history of where I came from, and only taught about the negative aspects of Africa. In 2017 I was able to visit Nigeria for the first time and it was the most life altering experience. There are very rich parts and there are poor parts, like anywhere else in the world. That experience humanized Africa for me. Going back to Nigeria helped inspire my passion to start this business. I want to help retell the story of Africa, from an African perspective. I feel our story is always told in a negative light and rarely focuses on the positives or the beauty of Africa. I want to help reshape that story and provide other entrepreneurs the platform to help add their perspective and experience to help retell it as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seekafricanow.com
• Instagram: @seekingafrica / @ikeesedebe
• Youtube: seekingafrica
• Other: tiktok: @seekingafrica