About
Built where the shops are
Most of Nigeria's small businesses run on WhatsApp, a phone number and trust. It works, right up until it doesn't: the customer who never turns up, the order lost in a thread, the account number sent to a stranger who then goes quiet.
Zova is one link that handles the awkward parts. The booking, the deposit, the stock count, the receipt, the message that says it's ready. Nothing about how somebody already works, only the parts that were costing them money.
Why it exists
A Saturday, as it actually goes
None of that is a business problem. It is a missing infrastructure problem - a deposit, a stock count, a payment that verifies itself, a record. Every larger shop in the world already has these, and none of them are hard. They were just never built for a shop that runs from one phone.
What it is
A page, a payment, and a paper trail
Not a website builder and not a wallet. Four things that already happen in a WhatsApp thread, made to happen properly.
One link, your whole shop
Your services and your goods on one page with your own name on it. Share it in a bio, a status, a DM. Nobody installs anything.
Bookings that hold themselves
Your hours decide what is offered. The slot is held while they pay a deposit and released if they don't, so two people can't take the same time.
Money that verifies itself
They pay on the page. It either went through or it didn't, and you find out before the goods leave the counter - not from a screenshot.
Everything on WhatsApp
Confirmations, ready-for-collection, cancellations, receipts. Where both of you already are, rather than an email nobody opens.
Three things we don't bend on
We never hold your money
Payments split at source and settle into your own bank account. There is no Zova balance, nothing to withdraw and nobody to chase for it.
One price, said out loud
A percentage per sale, capped, with no monthly fee on the free plan and nothing hidden. Every sale shows exactly what reached your bank.
Built for a phone on a bad network
Most sellers here run their business from one device, often on patchy data. If it isn't fast on that, it isn't finished.
Who it's for
If you sell it, do it, or make it
Zova started as booking software and stopped being that quickly. A barber takes appointments, a food vendor sells plates, a tailor does both - and a tool that only understands one of those is a tool half the street cannot use.
Barbers and salons
Deposits that stop no-shows, and hours that decide what is bookable
Food vendors
Today's menu on and off in a tap, with stock that runs down as orders land
Wear and accessories sellers
Sizes and colours with their own stock counts, so nothing oversells
Makeup artists
One price at your studio, another at theirs, with travel priced in
Photographers
Custom quotes for jobs that were never going to fit a fixed price
Bakers and made-to-order
Take the order and the deposit now, make it for the date they picked
Founder
Samuel Oguntimehin
Founder and engineer · Nigeria
Samuel leads Zova end to end, from the payment splits to the storefront themes. It started with a familiar sight: talented people running real businesses out of a chat thread, losing an afternoon to a customer who was never coming, or taking a transfer on faith and hoping.
The bet behind Zova is that these businesses don't need to be taught how to sell. They need the boring infrastructure everyone else already has - a page, a deposit, a receipt, a record - without a monthly fee, a laptop or a developer.
What's next
Watch Out!
The company
Zova is a product of NEXXI TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED, registered in Nigeria (RC 9766120) and based in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. Payments are processed by Paystack.
Zova is not a bank and does not hold customer funds. Every payment is split at source and settled directly to the seller's own bank account.