In 2021, I tried buying something from a vendor on Instagram.

They sent me their WhatsApp number.
We started chatting.
Back and forth.

It took way too long just to place a simple order.

After I finally got what I wanted, I realized something...
the whole process was broken.

So I thought:

"What if small business owners had a website where customers could browse products, place orders,
and pay, without all the stress?"

This is the typical BS story LinkedIn, investors and the corporate world love, but fuck it, I'm not here to suck any investors' or corporate balls.

Hi, my name is Emmanuel Botchway. Not that you care, but I started writing the code for Lave in October 2021. Not because I thought it was a good idea, but because I had to. I completed Mfanstispim Senior High School in 2016 and was still home cause i couldnt afford the university.

In 2019, a friend (Robert) gave me a laptop, and another (Kelly) gave me a phone. That changed everything.
From there, I made a decision to change my finances and attended the YouTube university and started learning programming and landed on a web framework called Laravel.

Here's the truth about making money:

You don't get paid for what you want.
You get paid for solving real problems for real people.
So if you think about it, you have to think of other people's problems, solve their problems, and then they pay you. Only after they pay you can you go solve your problems.

In short, Entrepreneurship is about obsessing over other peoples problems first before yours.

Simple in theory.
Hard in execution.

From October 2021 to March 2026,
I built Lave as the only employee (officially launched in May 2022).

No team.
No shortcuts.
Just figuring things out every single day.

Just for full transparency, Lave is my 2nd startup. The first was a failure (but who knows, because of the experience learned from Lave, I may relaunch it. You never know, fingers crossed. Lol).

We are finally at a position where we have paying customers and real traction. Enough to start building a team. It seems like just yesterday when every end of the month I would always beg my hosting providers to extend our billing because we couldn't pay server bills to keep the site running.
Lol... fun times.

So after so many years of building this thing alone, in 2026 thanks to God and you, these amazing users, I can finally say we are here, and I'm finally not alone.

I finally have a team to help me take this to the moon. 🚀

Lave, a product owned by Nulave Ltd was launched in May 2022 from a simple truth: selling online in Africa shouldn't be complicated. From struggling to close orders in WhatsApp to juggling payments and delivery options, entrepreneurs across the continent face real friction trying to grow their businesses.

What started as a tool for creating simple product pages has grown into a powerful all-in-one platform. Today, Lave helps thousands of sellers manage orders, launch online stores, receive payments, run ads, and much more - all without writing a single line of code.

Our mission is bold but simple: to power the next generation of African businesses. We believe in creators, side hustlers, small teams, and the ambitious few building their future one sale at a time.