Selar: The Innovative Nigerian E-commerce Platform Empowering Creators
Selar, a Nigerian startup, is an innovative e-commerce platform designed to empower creators by enabling them to showcase and sell their digital products.
In addition, it offers a dynamic affiliate network and its latest feature, Showlove, allows creators to receive direct feedback from their fans.
Founded in 2016 by Douglas Kendyson while working at Paystack, Selar initially started as a simple MVP designed to enable anyone to sell small digital products such as e-books, music, and courses.
Over the years, Selar has significantly evolved to meet the market's need for a user-friendly platform that allows anyone to sell digital products online quickly and efficiently. According to Kendyson, with Selar, anyone can create a digital storefront and start selling in under five minutes.
With its intuitive interface and robust features, Selar has established itself as a top platform for monetizing knowledge and skills in the digital domain.
Selar is a bootstrapped company that has primarily self-funded its operations, in addition to receiving a $5,000 grant from the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2018 and a $50,000 grant from the Job Tech Alliance acceleration program this year.
The adoption has been impressive. Initially, growth was slow as Selar refined its platform and understood user needs. However, in 2020, a significant surge occurred due to its user-friendly interface and seamless cross-border payments. Selar continues to build on this momentum, constantly improving to meet the changing needs of its customers.
Selar is currently active in around 15 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Senegal, and plans to expand to other African countries soon. The platform also supports creators in Europe and the United States. Recently, Selar expanded to Kenya, one of its largest markets in East Africa.
