As digital services continue to multiply across Africa, Gracious Kolawole believes the industry’s biggest challenge is no longer innovation. It’s complexity.
The Chief Executive Officer of Nexar Digital Services Limited says that while new products continue to enter the market, users are increasingly left managing multiple platforms, accounts, and applications just to complete everyday digital tasks.
For him, the future of digital products isn’t about creating more apps. It’s about creating better experiences.
That belief has shaped Nexar’s growth over the past year. Rather than developing separate applications for each service, the company has focused on bringing virtual numbers, eSIMs, gift cards, bill payments, airtime and data top-ups, crypto services, and social media solutions into a single connected platform.
Kolawole describes the approach with a philosophy borrowed from architecture: less is more.
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“It’s a principle that reminds us that simplicity creates better experiences,” he says. “For us, ‘less is more’ isn’t about offering fewer services. It’s about asking users to do less. Less switching between apps. Less managing different accounts. Less friction.”
According to him, the decision wasn’t driven by a desire to expand Nexar’s product catalogue. It came from observing how customers actually used digital services.
“Our users weren’t using these products independently,” he explains. “Someone buying a virtual number today might need an eSIM tomorrow or a gift card for an international subscription. Those journeys are connected, so we believed the experience should be connected too.”
That thinking has become a defining part of Nexar’s product strategy.
Instead of treating every customer need as an opportunity to launch another standalone application, the company has focused on building one ecosystem where related services work together seamlessly.
Kolawole believes this approach reflects a broader shift taking place across Africa’s technology ecosystem.
“As more people work remotely, build businesses online and access global platforms, they don’t want more digital tools. They want fewer barriers,” he says. “Technology should reduce complexity, not create it.”
For him, leadership in technology is becoming less about launching the next feature and more about making existing experiences feel effortless.
“The products may continue to grow,” he says, “but the experience should become simpler. That’s the standard we continue to build toward.”
As Nexar continues to expand, Kolawole says the company’s focus remains unchanged: designing digital experiences that feel connected, intuitive, and built around how people actually live and work online.
“In the end,” he says, “people don’t measure products by how many features they have. They remember how easy they were to use.”
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