Few founders dare to take on the challenge of preserving Africa’s linguistic heritage. Anthony Otaigbe is one of them. When I first stumbled on Izesan!’s Instagram ad, I paused. Here was someone promising to do for African languages what Duolingo did for Spanish and French. Anthony Otaigbe, founder of edtech platform Izesan!, was one of the first founders I interviewed as a journalist for TechCabal.
Two years after our first interview, Otaigbe joins the call from his car, sunlight filtering through the windows and casting a warm glow on his beige kaftan. He sits upright, with a distinctive blonde hair and beard. Even through the pixelated video, his passion for Izesan! and its evolution since our last conversation is hard to miss.
Otaigbe, who hails from Esan, a local community in the southern Nigerian state of Edo, was raised and brought up in the US and could not speak his indigenous language. Otaigbe would sit silent at family meetings unable to join in or grasp what was being said around him.
“I couldn’t relate to my siblings. I was the only one who didn’t understand,” he said.
“Learning my own language was very difficult because there were really no resources out there,” he said. “I had to make Herculean efforts just to learn what I felt I should have known since childhood.”
Otaigbe would go the extra mile to learn his indigenous language. “I reached out to my parents, uncles, and aunts, asking them questions. I even went as far as calling my grandfather in the village, just to try and talk to him and ask questions and learn more,” Otaigbe said when we first spoke two years earlier.
But not everyone is as determined to learn their native language as Otaigbe was. “So I felt it might be easier for my contemporaries if an app was there to learn these languages.”
So Otaigbe tried to build one . Not just for himself but for a whole generation of diasporan Nigerians who’d grown up fluent in French, Spanish, and survival, but mute in their own mother tongues.
So Izesan! was born. He built a mobile app that taught African languages, starting with Esan. No VC capital. No advisors. Just one person trying to stitch their identity back together—with code.
Izesan! started off with the Esan language and grew to teach 15 different African languages including Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa, Igbo, Zulu, Fulfulde, Xhosa, Jamaican Creole, Kanuri, Tiv, and Nigerian Pidgin, amongst others. The app offers interactive lessons using flashcards and other exercises to teach users how to speak different African languages.
Day 1-1000:A free app. A flood of downloads. And a deafening silence
Otaigbe had reached out to a group of developers in faraway Pakistan, and together, they built what would become the Izesan! app. When they launched it in 2019, it was completely free—a gift to the world, especially to Nigerian diaspora communities hungry for reconnection. Downloads surged. But beneath the surface, cracks quickly began to show.
“People downloaded it, yes. But they didn’t stay. Retention was terrible,” he recalls.
Making the app free came with its own problems. People felt entitled to endless fixes and improvements. “People expected perfection. But they didn’t want to pay. I updated that app endlessly—for nothing.”
Every day, Otaigbe fielded complaints about features, bugs, and quality. He poured his own money into endless updates, trying to keep users happy. Three years went by. Still, not a dollar in revenue.
As a journalist, I’ve often questioned the real promise of edtech startups focused on teaching African languages. It’s clear they primarily serve a diaspora audience—people with more discretionary income than most living on the continent. But beyond nostalgia and cultural connection, what tangible benefits does learning your native language provide? Unlike Duolingo, where English dominates because it unlocks jobs and opportunities for immigrants, the draw of African language apps is rarely about necessity, raising the question of how sustainable these platforms can be when the primary driver is identity, not utility.
“You know teaching a language is not the first thing that comes to most people’s minds when you talk about a lucrative business idea,” Otaigbe said on the call. “So it really wasn’t about a business as much as it was more about solving a problem, but at the end of the day you ended up making it a business.”
But reality has a way of intruding. “Because of the society we live in, it’s ruled by economics. So you have to, in order for some idea to be sustainable, there needs to be capital that will drive it.”
In 2022, everything changed. After a disagreement, the backend developer in Pakistan disabled the app. For Otaigbe, it was both a loss and a liberation.
“It was almost a relief. No more complaints. No more freeloaders. I finally had a chance to start again, on my terms.”
Day 1,000-Present Day: The first pivot from diaspora to Nigerian classrooms
By 2022, Otaigbe had moved back to Nigeria for a fresh start at Izesan!.
“I thought to myself, once I bring this app back, it’s going to be monetized. But not only will it be monetized, I’m also going to pivot the customer demographic.”
After three years of analysing user data and digging into research, Otaigbe came to a sobering realization: education and entertainment don’t play by the same rules. “When you think about education, it’s not really something people pursue for fun,” he reflected. “Most people only engage with learning platforms because they have to—whether it’s for career advancement or certification. It’s almost mandatory, a means to increase income potential.”
This insight prompted a pivotal shift: instead of targeting individual learners, Otaigbe began offering Izesan! directly to schools, embedding the platform where language learning is a requirement, not just a nostalgic luxury.
But getting schools on board was tough. Izesan! was pitching to schools at a time when the economy was tough. Nigeria had just devalued its currency by 70%. Some private schools began losing customers; some shut down, while others tightened their budgets.
“The schools weren’t very interested. If they were, the price that we tried to give them, they would always try to break it down to a very ridiculously low price.”
Still, they pushed forward, visiting schools one by one. One day, a modest private school signed up. Then another. And then, validation arrived in full: American International School in Abuja came onboard. More followed: Page Schools, Lordsville Academy, Golden View Montessori, and others in Lagos and Abuja.
During the shift from B2C to B2B, Izesan! experimented with a range of new approaches—from launching podcasts to moving toward web-based learning. The company also had to make tough decisions about staffing.
“When you’re trying to establish a market for your solution, the methods you use will change,” Otaigbe explained. “The needs of the company evolve as it matures and you start to figure out exactly who you’re trying to reach. And as these needs change, so does the staff, because not everyone is flexible or able to adapt to a changing environment.” This shift inevitably led to a reduction in talent as the company adapted to new needs.
B2B was working, but the real money was elsewhere
Private schools were validating the product. But the growth was slow.
Each deal required meeting school administrators, demoing the platform, and waiting for board decisions. In Nigerian private schools, real power often lies with a silent “chairman” or “chairwoman” no one can access.
“The principals loved it. The teachers loved it. But the final call would always be someone I couldn’t meet. And half the time, the deal would just stall.”
That’s when a contact at the Federal Ministry of Education said something that changed everything: “You want to make real impact? Go to the states. Education in Nigeria is localized.”
So Izesan! expanded its focus to include B2G (business to government), pitching its services directly to state ministries of education. The company’s first inroads were in northern states—Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, and Kano—where the need for local language education was especially acute.
With this shift, Izesan! began developing apps to help educators teach in local languages. The team also started co-developing curricula in subjects like math and science and producing textbooks designed for low-tech environments where internet access and electricity are unreliable.
Otaigbe notes that the B2G arm of the business now brings in a significant portion of Izesan!’s revenue. After years of operating in the red, the company finally reached profitability in 2024.
Despite missing out on several grants and accelerator funding—apart from a government grant and support from Zenith Bank’s accelerator—Izesan! remains bootstrapped, with no plans to raise external funding.
Would he do it again? “No I wouldn’t, but I always follow through on my commitments. That’s what discipline is,” Otaigbe noted. “Managing a startup is grueling but bootstrapping is hell on earth.”
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