Two founders, a design practice and a governance background.
Savvy Bee is built in Abuja. We spend as much time in classrooms and ministry offices as we do in the product, because the money habits we are building for already exist — they just run on group chats and cash.
Omotunwase Osinaike
A designer and product builder. Trained in architectural engineering and design management, then in design at Central Saint Martins, which is where the habit of designing a system before drawing a screen comes from.
Leads product, design and the intelligence layer. Most of what Savvy Bee looks like came out of watching people try to use an earlier version of it and getting the answer wrong.
Musa Umar Yar'adua
A development researcher in the final year of a PhD in sustainable development, with a first degree spanning business management and international relations.
Runs operations and the institutional side of the company. Deep working knowledge of how Nigeria is actually governed, which is what makes it possible to reach organised groups — cooperatives, affinity groups, school systems — rather than buying installs one at a time.
We test in the room, not in a spreadsheet.
Three pieces of work that shaped the product. None of them is a commercial agreement, and we describe them as what they were: a pilot, and conversations.
A classroom pilot that changed the product
Working with the Katsina State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, we ran a prototype pilot with primary and secondary students, testing financial literacy technology in a live classroom.
The finding was uncomfortable and useful: learners found the education interesting but did not want money taught in the abstract. They wanted it applied to their own money. That is the reason Savvy Bee is an intelligence and execution layer attached to real accounts, rather than an advice app.
Meetings on the Nigeria for Women Project
We have met with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development to discuss the Nigeria for Women Project and how women’s affinity groups — existing, trusted, community savings groups — might be onboarded as groups rather than as individuals.
These were exploratory conversations. Nothing has been signed, and we are not claiming otherwise. What they gave us was the shape of the Hive: a circle that keeps its own register, schedule and rotation.
Sitting down with TAJBank
We have met with TAJBank to discuss non-interest savings and how a Shariah-compliant option would work inside the product — separate capsules, no interest accrual, and a clear label so nobody has to guess.
Also exploratory. It is on the roadmap because a large part of the market we are building for will not use a product that only offers interest-bearing savings.
The product is further along than the story.
Join the private beta and see it rather than read about it.