Across Africa, digital finance has transformed the way people earn, save, and transact. Yet for all the innovation shaping the fintech landscape, millions of users still encounter unnecessary complexity when accessing and using their digital assets. For Kayode Faturoti, Co-Founder and Chief Errand Officer of Breet, this gap represented more than a technological challenge. It was an opportunity to rethink how financial services should work for everyday people.
Rather than building another cryptocurrency platform filled with technical features and trading tools, Kayode Faturoti set out to solve a far more practical problem: making digital money as easy to spend as it is to earn. Guided by a philosophy of simplicity, customer-centric innovation, and disciplined execution, he has helped build one of Africa’s most trusted crypto payment platforms while proving that sustainable businesses can be created without external funding.
Today, Breet serves hundreds of thousands of users across Africa, processes billions in transaction value, and is steadily evolving into financial infrastructure that powers other businesses. Behind this growth is a leader whose success has been shaped not by chasing rapid expansion, but by consistently removing obstacles for customers, empowering his team, and building with long-term purpose.
Making digital finance work for everyday people
Nigeria is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency markets, ranking second globally in grassroots crypto adoption. With roughly one-third of the population using or holding crypto and receiving approximately $59 billion in crypto value within a single year, he recognized a major gap in the ecosystem. During the NFT boom of 2021, while crypto ownership was rising rapidly, converting digital assets into spendable local currency remained a frustrating challenge.
After witnessing someone close to him struggle for hours to cash out NFT earnings through a peer-to-peer platform, facing low offers, unresponsive buyers, and unnecessary stress, he realized the process was fundamentally broken. At the time, the available options were either slow, manual, and unsafe P2P transactions or complex exchanges designed for traders rather than everyday users.
Driven by this insight, he co-founded Breet to make cryptocurrency easily spendable for ordinary users through a simple, seamless experience. Under his leadership, the company eliminated unnecessary complexity and became the first platform in Africa to fully automate crypto off-ramping, transforming what was once a manual process into instant, automated settlement and making digital assets far more accessible for everyday financial use.
Constraints into competitive advantage
Building a fintech company is rarely inexpensive, particularly when instant settlements require substantial liquidity. Yet one of the defining aspects of Breet’s journey is that it was built without external investment. Relying solely on personal savings, without investor backing, pitch decks, or fundraising efforts, created significant pressure in a business where maintaining liquidity is essential for enabling instant customer settlements. For nearly eighteen months, balancing liquidity requirements while sustaining daily operations demanded careful financial discipline. During this period, the leader and the co-founder chose not to draw salaries for approximately three years, demonstrating their long-term commitment to the company’s vision.
Rather than viewing limited resources as a setback, the leader adopted a disciplined approach by keeping operational costs low, minimizing marketing expenses, and driving growth organically through content and SEO instead of paid advertising. Around the fifteenth month, revenue gradually replaced personal savings as the primary source of funding, marking a significant turning point in the company’s journey. This experience reinforced the leader’s belief that financial constraints can cultivate stronger business fundamentals. By building a profitable, self-funded organization with sustainable margins from the very beginning, the leader established the resilience and discipline that continue to define Breet’s success today.
From freelancing independently to leading high-impact teams
The journey from freelancer to entrepreneurial leader is more than a shift in business—it is a transformation in mindset, responsibility, and personal growth. By stepping beyond his comfort zone, he evolved from working independently to leading people, driving organizations, and embracing leadership as a continuous learning process.
Before your leadership journey:
- Freelancer at heart, not yet a founder
- Gigs in, work outsourced
- No one to manage, no direct responsibility
- Comfortable behind the screen
- Simple and low-stakes
After your leadership journey:
- Leading real teams across real companies
- An introvert who had to learn to lead
- On calls for the bulk of most days
- Responsible for people, not just output
- Stretched, and better for it
| Business Overview Team size: 50 Users: 500,000+ across Africa Volume processed: $1 billion+ Transactions: 5 million+ Growth: ~300% in volume, year on year Live markets: Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, expanding across Africa Funding: Profitable and self-funded, no external raise |
Stand out with personality & ease
The two principles distinguish Breet from others in the cryptocurrency space: ease and personality. Inside Breet, product discussions frequently revolve around a deceptively simple question: how can this experience become even easier for the customer? Small improvements matter. Whether reducing a four-step process to two or removing unnecessary decisions from the customer journey, every refinement contributes to a more intuitive experience.
Rather than expecting users to understand blockchain networks, wallet addresses, gas fees, or technical jargon, Breet absorbs those complexities behind the scenes. Customers simply initiate a transaction while sophisticated automation manages the underlying infrastructure.
This philosophy extends beyond technology into the company’s brand identity. Recognizing that cryptocurrency often intimidates first-time users, Kayode Faturoti intentionally positioned Breet as approachable, conversational, and easy to navigate. By combining technical excellence with an engaging user experience, the company has made digital finance more accessible to a wider audience. Behind this simplicity lies powerful infrastructure. Breet’s automated settlement engine now serves not only individual consumers but also businesses through its API platform, enabling companies to integrate cryptocurrency payment capabilities without building complex settlement systems themselves. For Kayode Faturoti, exceptional technology should not overwhelm users with sophistication. Instead, it should quietly remove obstacles until the experience feels effortless.
From product to infrastructure
Every growing technology company reaches a moment that fundamentally changes its trajectory. For Breet, that defining milestone came when it evolved from serving individual consumers to becoming financial infrastructure for other businesses. This transition was exemplified through its partnership with Cardtonic, one of Africa’s leading fintech platforms. By integrating Breet’s automated settlement engine, Cardtonic enabled its users to fund stablecoin transactions through infrastructure that quietly handled wallet management, transaction confirmations, currency conversion, and settlement behind the scenes.
The results validated years of investment in automation and reliability. Within the first week of launch alone, the integration processed approximately $100,000 in transaction volume, demonstrating that Breet’s technology could perform under real commercial demand. The momentum continued quickly. Within six months, more than 100 businesses had adopted Breet’s API, positioning the company as an infrastructure partner rather than solely a consumer-facing platform.
Kayode Faturoti acknowledges that serving enterprise clients introduces significantly greater complexity than building consumer applications. Business integrations require deeper technical architecture, stricter compliance requirements, and consistently high reliability because every successful transaction ultimately affects thousands of end users. Successfully navigating this transition has reinforced Breet’s position as one of Africa’s emerging financial infrastructure providers.
Milestones that reflect sustainable growth
Breet’s journey has been defined by innovation, operational discipline, and long-term thinking. Each milestone reflects the company’s commitment to building a secure, profitable, and globally trusted fintech platform without relying on external funding.
1. First in Africa
- First platform in Africa to fully automate crypto off-ramping
2. Sustainable Business Growth
- Surpassed $1 billion in transaction volume
- Nearly 500,000 users worldwide
- Built as a profitable, self-funded company with no external funding
3. Global Compliance & Security
- Registered as a Money Services Business (MSB) with FINTRAC, Canada
- Achieved PCI DSS Certification
- Earned ISO 27001 Certification
4. Industry Leadership
- Published one of Nigeria’s most comprehensive independent P2P crypto research reports
- Launched the Breet Builder Grant to support emerging founders
While these achievements are significant, Kayode Faturoti considers the greatest accomplishment to be building the business with discipline and sustaining its growth entirely through its own revenue.
A business of trust
Trust is the foundation of building a successful crypto business. Breet operates as a non-custodial platform, ensuring users retain control of their crypto instead of entrusting it to the company. Kayode Faturoti has prioritized strong security and regulatory compliance by ensuring the platform is PCI DSS compliant, handles data in accordance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act, and is registered as a Money Services Business with FINTRAC in Canada. Before entering any new market, he ensures regulated services are supported through licensed partners with the required approvals already in place.
He also believes that listening to users is essential to sustainable growth. Through quarterly feedback reviews, he encourages the team to identify friction points and take meaningful action. During one review, a heatmap revealed that users were dropping off when tiered pricing appeared. Although the model generated higher revenue, he supported a user-first discussion that challenged whether the business was being built for the company or its customers. That perspective led the team to replace the tiered pricing structure with a single uniform rate and a small, transparent fee. The change improved the customer experience while ultimately delivering stronger business results.
Leading through service, not status
Few leadership titles capture a philosophy as effectively as Kayode Faturoti’s chosen designation: Chief Errand Officer. While unconventional, the title reflects his belief that leadership exists to serve rather than command. Instead of creating distance between executives and employees, he views his primary responsibility as removing obstacles that prevent others from performing at their best.
His approach emphasizes ideas over hierarchy. Whether an insight comes from a junior engineer or a senior executive matters far less than whether it genuinely improves the business. Strong ideas earn influence through merit rather than job titles. This mindset also shapes how communication takes place within Breet. Kayode Faturoti encourages a writing-first culture, believing that clear writing produces clear thinking and better decision-making than excessive meetings. Documentation, reasoning, and thoughtful analysis form the foundation of collaboration across the organization.
Ownership remains equally important. He deliberately hires talented individuals capable of exceeding his own expertise in their respective fields, empowers them with meaningful responsibility, and measures success through outcomes rather than activity. By fostering accountability, encouraging continuous learning, and removing unnecessary hierarchy, Faturoti has built a culture where innovation emerges naturally from empowered teams rather than top-down directives. For him, leadership is not defined by authority. It is measured by how effectively a leader enables others to succeed.
A day in Kayode Faturoti’s life
Every day is shaped by a balance of focused execution, team collaboration, and family commitments. From uninterrupted morning work to late-night deep thinking, the routine reflects a leader who prioritizes both business impact and personal responsibilities.
#TO BE DESIGNED AS INFOGRAPHICS#
Early Morning (7:30 AM – 9:00 AM)
- Wake up with daughter
- Read books together
- Complete morning workout
Start of Workday (9:30 AM)
- Start the workday
- Get a three-hour head start before the Nigeria team comes online
Midday (9:30 AM – 12:00 PM)
- Complete focused work
- Clear team blockers first
- Prioritize the most urgent tasks
Afternoon to Evening (12:00 PM – 8:00 PM)
- Attend meetings
- Calendar-driven team discussions
Evening (8:00 PM – 9:00 PM)
- Daughter’s bath time
- Doomscroll to unwind
Night / Wind-down (10:00 PM Onwards)
- Return to deep, uninterrupted work
2:00–3:00 AM
- Wrap up longer strategic tasks
- Go to sleep
Opportunities that extend beyond business growth
Beyond building Breet, he is committed to creating opportunities for others. Through the Breet Builder Grant, Kayode Faturoti supports early-stage fintech and crypto founders with a $10,000 equity-free grant, free access to Breet’s API, and a live pitch stage at the Africa Technology Expo in Lagos. He also led the publication of the State of P2P in Nigeria, original research based on more than 100 live trades and 20,000 tweets, enabling the industry to discuss safety with data-driven insights.
Breet’s API has become infrastructure on which other founders can build without reinventing crypto settlement. He also shares his insights on product, distribution, and building sustainable companies through Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Entrepreneur.com, and his personal Substack. Through Breet Cares, a portion of the company’s monthly revenue supports education, feeding, healthcare, and community development projects.
Balancing AI innovation with security and trust
Kayode Faturoti believes the biggest opportunity lies in automation moving from the back office to the front line. AI already enables fraud detection, compliance checks, and customer support at a speed and scale beyond human capability, and he expects it to become even more effective and affordable. For a company built on automation like Breet, he sees this evolution as a powerful advantage.
At the same time, he recognizes the challenge that comes with that opportunity. The same AI that accelerates business operations also empowers bad actors. He points to the growing rise in hacks, breaches, deepfakes, synthetic identities, and automated scams, driven by AI’s ability to uncover vulnerabilities faster than teams can respond. To stay ahead, he ensures Breet treats automation as a core discipline rather than an added feature while continually investing in the critical layers of security and redundancy that users may never see but always rely on.
An open letter to every aspiring entrepreneur
Dear Aspiring Entrepreneurs,
Fall in love with the problem and the customer, not the funding round. Your product is only your current best guess, and a raise is a debt against a promise you now have to keep. Solve something real, charge for it early, and let the results give you a confidence no pep talk can.
The biggest lesson my journey has taught me is that discipline beats hype, time and time again. You can build a company by cutting your coat according to your cloth, and that constraint will make you stronger. Through Breet, I hope to prove that it is possible to build serious, lasting, world-class financial infrastructure from Africa, on your own terms, without waiting for anyone’s capital or permission.
Warm regards,
Kayode Faturoti
Co-Founder & Chief Errand Officer
Breet (Inbreetic Technologies Limited)
Leading africa’s financial transformation through simplicity, discipline, and purpose
- True Leadership Begins by Solving Real Customer Problems, Not Chasing Market Trends
- Financial Discipline and Sustainable Execution Can Build Stronger Businesses Than External Funding Alone
- The Best Leaders Simplify Complexity to Create Effortless Customer Experiences at Scale
- Servant Leadership, Team Empowerment, and Ownership Build High-Performing Organizations
- Creating Industry-Wide Impact Means Building an Ecosystem That Empowers Others to Grow
| Quick Takes | |
| One tool or app | Notion |
| One quote | “Companies should be run by good ideas, not hierarchy.” |
| One piece of advice | Start before you feel ready, charge before you feel comfortable, and let real customers teach you the rest. |
| One book | Same as Ever by Morgan Housel. |
