Chinedu Echeruo is a technology history maker. The company he founded, HopStop.com, is a household name in many urban cities throughout the world including, more than 100 US cities, London, Paris, Moscow, Sidney and Wellington, New Zealand, just to name a few.
HopStop is one of the leading pedestrian navigation services, providing door-to-door walking, biking, transit, taxi and hourly car rental directions to city residents and tourists. As of last fall, the company topped more than 2 million app downloads, and now only six months later they just rocketed past 3 million total app downloads. It is the #7 ranked iPhone app in the free Navigation category at TopAppCharts.com. HopStop is also innovating yet again by tackling the challenge of providing it’s users with real-time transit information at scale via a new crowdsourced service that’s set to launch in it’s iPhone app in early April.
The investment banker with an MBA from Harvard started HopStop in 2005, focusing on New York, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC. Â Echeruo also launched Tripology.com, a website that connects consumers with travel agents. No longer CEO at HopStop, Echeruo has returned to the investment side of things and manages principal investing and private equity business for Constant Capital, a West African-based investment company.
Black Enterprise spoke with Echeruo about building a digital company that has staying power, preparing your company for growth, and why you should consider investing in tech companies in Africa:
Produced by Marcia Wade Talbert; Videography by Kenneth Meeks; Editing by Deven Clarke