Seyifunmi left her law degree for fintech; now she is making loans more accessible to everyone

Not every law student ends up in a courtroom. Some end up on movie sets, like Funke Akindele. Others end up on stage, like Folarin Falana (Falz). And some, like Seyifunmi, go into the fintech space as a product manager to build systems that make loans and credit more accessible to everyone.

Then, there is Seyifunmi Olafioye, the Nigerian female lawyer who left her law degree for a professional career in tech as a product manager.

In 2021, Seyifunmi finished her law degree at the University of Lagos. By September 2022, she had been called to the bar. On paper, the path was clear: law school, bar, legal career. A straight line. But somewhere in the middle of that straight line, she developed an interest in how products work, how people use them, and why some systems work smoothly while others frustrate everyone involved.

In an interview with Technext, Seyifunmi affirmed that her journey into product management started with curiosity and a strong love for problem-solving. She was originally a lawyer, but even then, she was always the person who couldn’t just accept things as they were. 

She kept asking questions like, “Why does this process work this way?” and “How can we make this better?” That instinct to improve things followed her everywhere.

While in school, she got an apprenticeship as a Frontend developer at Africa Agility. This role enabled her to partner with Product Owners to refine and prioritise the product backlog, ensuring alignment with business goals and customer needs.

Seyifunmi also facilitated daily scrum meetings and managed development sprints, driving a 25% increase in team productivity and consistently meeting product milestones on time. 

“My first defining moment was the day I decided to fully commit to the fintech space. I remember it clearly. I told myself, This is what I want to do. It will be hard, but I can do hard things. And from that point, I stopped treating it like a casual interest and started treating it like a real transition,” she said.

Then, she went all in with extensive research into what product management actually required, what skills she needed to build, how to position herself, and what steps she needed to take next. 

She started creating a transition plan immediately. One big goal she set for herself was landing an internship or an opportunity that would give her real experience. And it worked. About a month later, she landed her first PM role.

In 2020, she got a part-time remote job role as a product manager at Cashflaskes and an externship as a product manager for an international company until 2022. Later in 2022, she landed a full-time job in this same role at Fusion Intelligence Technologies.

Seyifunmi Olafioye

At Fusion, she conducted extensive market research and customer interviews to validate B2B Product-market fit, resulting in a target market segment identified with a potential market size of $16 million.

She didn’t stop there, she joined Renmoney as a product manager too in 2024 after using 2 years at Fusion. She left in February 2025 and joined SeedFi, another financial service company, as a product manager to date.

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How Seyifunmi rebuilt her confidence

One of the most challenging parts of Seyifunmi’s journey was stepping into product management from a non-traditional background and quickly realising that there was no slow lane to catch up.

It wasn’t just a new role; it was an entirely different world from what she was used to as a lawyer.

“I went from a background where I was confident and experienced into environments where technical depth mattered, and I had to rebuild that confidence from scratch. There were moments where it felt like everyone else had a head start, and I was learning in real time while still expected to deliver,” she said.

This phase taught her something important about herself:

“I’m highly adaptable. I don’t panic when I don’t know something; I get curious. I ask better questions, I learn fast, and I keep moving. Over time, I realised my strength isn’t in knowing everything upfront, it’s in turning ambiguity into direction, and direction into delivery,” she said.

This mindset now shapes how she approaches decision-making.

For Seyifunmi, every product decision goes beyond features or functionality; it is about shaping people’s experiences. She grounds herself in context by asking the right questions: who the decision is for, what problem truly needs solving, and what the consequences could be if things go wrong.

Another decision that significantly shaped her career was choosing to build in public.

About three years ago, she started The Product Notebook Newsletter as a way to document her growth. What began as a personal learning tool soon evolved into a valuable resource for other product managers and a strong pillar of her credibility.

Making loans accessible to everyone

Launching her first product marked a defining moment in Seyifunmi’s journey. While she had contributed to building products before, owning one fully, from ideation to launch, was a completely different experience. 

“I remember thinking, even if this makes life better for just one person, even in a small way, that’s meaningful. And that mindset changed how I saw and still approach product work. It stopped being just about shipping features and became about building solutions that genuinely improve people’s lives,” she said.

Since then, Seyifunmi has gone on to build both B2B and B2C products across different industries, with a strong focus on fintech. At the heart of her work is a problem she cares deeply about: access to credit.

However, one major problem she is most focused on solving is access to credit. From the people who need the money, and the lenders who need the right infrastructure to give it sustainably.

“When you work closely with credit/loan products, you start to see a pattern. On the customer side, it’s rarely about luxury spending. It’s the salary earner who just needs breathing room until payday. It’s the small business owner who has demand but needs working capital to restock. It’s someone doing everything right, but one emergency or delayed payment throws their finances off balance. That’s why access to credit really matters,” Seyifunmi said.

At the same time, she understands the challenges on the other side. Lending is not difficult because lenders are unwilling, but because the systems supporting them are often inadequate. 

From fraud risks to inconsistent data and operational inefficiencies, many lenders are forced to rely on expensive foreign tools that do not fully align with local realities.

“Without strong infrastructure, lenders are constantly fighting battles they shouldn’t have to fight: bad actors gaming the system, fraud, inconsistent data, repayment risk, and operational gaps. And in many cases, they’re forced to rely on expensive foreign tools, paying thousands of dollars for software that wasn’t designed for our realities or the way our markets behave,” Seyifunmi said.

Reflecting on her journey, Seyifunmi believes that success in tech is not about having everything figured out from the start. What truly matters is curiosity, consistency, and the courage to keep going, even when things feel uncertain.

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