Every Unanswered Message Is a Lost Sale

Every startup starts with a problem that refuses to go away.

For me, that problem was surprisingly simple: people who are ready to buy often never get a response.

Over the past year, I spoke with small business owners across Nigeria. Different industries, different products, but the same story kept coming up.

Customers would send a DM, a WhatsApp message, leave a comment asking for the price, or even call. Then life happened. The business owner got busy, forgot to reply, or simply couldn’t keep up with the volume of conversations.

By the time they remembered, the customer had already bought from someone else.

I know this because I’ve experienced it myself.

I’ve made enquiries on Instagram, WhatsApp and even Jiji that were never answered. Some of those conversations are still sitting there today, unanswered months later.

During my research, I also noticed something else.

Under countless social media posts were comments like:

“Price?”

“How can I order?”

“Available?”

“Please check your DM.”

Many of them never received a reply.

These weren’t just comments.

They were sales opportunities.

And every unanswered conversation represented revenue walking away.

When I asked businesses about their biggest challenge with selling on social media, another theme emerged: trust.

Customers expect quick responses. When they don’t get one, confidence drops. People assume the business isn’t serious, isn’t available, or simply doesn’t care.

The reality is usually different.

Most small businesses aren’t ignoring customers on purpose.

They’re overwhelmed.

Today they’re selling across WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, phone calls, and online marketplaces—all at the same time. Keeping track of every conversation manually is almost impossible.

That’s why I started building Viyn.

Not to replace the human behind the business.

But to make sure businesses never lose customers simply because someone forgot to reply, missed a comment, or couldn’t keep up with conversations happening across multiple channels.

Why now?

Social commerce is no longer the future—it’s already how millions of Africans buy and sell.

Nigeria alone has tens of millions of social media users, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook among the primary channels businesses use to reach customers. Across Africa, social platforms have become digital marketplaces where discovery, conversation and payment increasingly happen in the same customer journey.

Yet while the way people buy has changed, the tools many businesses use to manage those conversations haven’t.

The gap between customer expectations and a business’s ability to respond has never been bigger.

I believe that gap is worth solving.

Why me?

I’m a frontend engineer at Meltwater, where I’ve had the opportunity to build products in the social technology space and see firsthand how technology shapes customer engagement and buying behaviour. I’ve also worked on outreach and messaging systems that helped businesses and organisations connect with prospects at scale.

Before that, at FrontDoor, I built products for real-time customer support and sales, where I saw firsthand how difficult it was for businesses to keep up with customer conversations and turn enquiries into sales.

But my connection to selling started long before my career in tech.

Growing up, my mum ran a small business. As a kid, I would carry her wares to the front of our church after service and sell them to members as they walked out.

Looking back, that experience taught me something I still believe today:

Selling isn’t just about having a great product.

It’s about being present when someone is ready to buy.

That’s the problem I’m solving with Viyn.

And I’m just getting started.