In 2013, when I first moved back to Nigeria to start my second business, Fora, one name kept coming up in several discussions as someone I needed to meet. Bunmi Akinyemiju.

You see, at the time, Bunmi had already started a business called Edutech that had begun the long and arduous process of doing what I sought to do with For a: use online distance education to help young Nigerian professionals get professional degrees and certifications from Nigerian Universities that would help them advance in their careers.

From our first meeting in Protea Ikeja, I have been in awe of Bunmi Akinyemiju and what his close partnership with Kunmi Demuren has enabled the duo accomplish with Venture Garden Group (VGG) the parent company under which Edutech operates.

This year, Bunmi and Kunmi’s VGG was the Nigerian startup community’s best-kept secret success. Earlier this year VGG raised $20 million from Convergence Capital in what is widely recognized as one of the largest foreign investments in an early stage indigenous Nigerian technology company.

For those of us living under a rock, VGG provides technology and services to address reconciliation and payment processing inefficiencies across several industry verticals including financial services, education, aviation, power, downstream oil and gas, cyber security and government. I like to think of them as an indigenous Rocket Internet with a group of technology enabled businesses solving very big fintech problems for enterprise and government at scale.

Now there is what is what is most inspiring about this particular Venture: our local startup community has previously believed that such large-scale investment could only accrue to international teams. But VGG has proven through this born and bred Naija duo that what previously seemed impossible has now been done.

Perhaps a person of the year piece isn’t the right forum for this but they are important because of what they stand for hundreds who will be them, and so I would love to take this opportunity to share three lessons I have gleaned from the incredible success of Bunmi and Kunmi.

First, entrepreneurs need to pick a big worthy problem to solve. Bunmi and Kunmi could have made good morning going after way easier problems with copycat solutions like becoming the 100th Ecommerce store or the 10th Uber. However they picked problems that were super difficult to solve. Building technology ventures in aerospace, education and oil and gas is a very arduous and difficult process because of the intense regulation and stakeholder management required in these sectors. However Bunmi and Kunmi were not scared by how difficult these problems were to solve. Infact, they were inspired by the immense opportunities in these sectors to forge on.

Second, if you want to eventually achieve scale, you must be patient and learn to work well with the stakeholders who matter most: in this case, government and business. I personally learnt this lesson at Fora when we tried to do what Edutech was doing. Unlike Edutech, we did not succeed because amongst other constraints we did not have the patience to understand how to work with the University authorities and government regulators. Kunmi and Bunmi have mastered the art of productively engaging government and enterprise to solve large technology and payment pain points and continue to be successful as a result.

Third, when you get to the top share your success with the community. Bunmi and Kunbi as some of the most prolific angel investors I know in Nigeria. Besides the very successful ventures under the Venture Garden Group they have incubated and funded many other successful ventures like Suregifts, Cashenvoy, Talentbase and Prepclass.

They were also a major investor in Co-creation Hub’s new 1 billion naira Growth Capital Fund alongside Omidyar and Bank of Industry. It is inspiring to see them give back to the ecosystem and I believe their eagerness to share their success with our community will continue to fuel their future success.

Bunmi, Kunbi, you make us deeply proud. You must keep inspiring us.

*Aboyeji is co-founder of Andela

Kolapo Olapoju