A few months ago, if someone told me I'd be spending hours collecting business information, coordinates, and city data, I probably wouldn't have believed them.
My name is Oscar I. Awowari, also known online as Oscar Lee.
I'm currently a Public Health student in Nigeria.
My brother, Elvis Awowari, is a software developer and entrepreneur who leads the technical side of our projects.
Together, we're building LeeX.
The Conversation That Started It
One day I asked a simple question:
Why is it so difficult to discover everything that exists within a city?
Businesses are relatively easy to find.
But what about:
- Event venues?
- Public infrastructure?
- Parks?
- Markets?
- Stadiums?
- Universities?
- Monuments?
- Transportation hubs?
The information exists somewhere.
The problem is that it's scattered.
That's when the idea for LeeX started taking shape.
What We're Building
LeeX is an attempt to create a structured digital layer for cities.
Instead of focusing only on businesses, we organize three major categories:
- Businesses
- Events
- Infrastructure
Our vision is that every meaningful location should have a digital identity.
Not just a map pin.
A real profile containing useful information.
Why This Is Hard
When people think about startups, they often think about coding.
Ironically, coding isn't the hardest part of LeeX.
Data is.
A discovery platform with 100 listings isn't very useful.
A discovery platform with 50,000 listings is a completely different product.
That realization changed how we think about growth.
Instead of focusing on downloads first, we're focusing on building the foundation.
Two Brothers, Different Roles
One thing I enjoy about this journey is that my brother and I approach problems differently.
I spend most of my time thinking about:
- Product vision
- User behavior
- Discovery systems
- Growth strategy
- City intelligence
Elvis focuses on:
- Platform architecture
- Backend systems
- Technical scalability
- Infrastructure decisions
- Development workflows
Those perspectives often lead to interesting debates.
Many of our best ideas come from challenging each other's assumptions.
Why We're Sharing Publicly
Most startup stories are told after success.
We're documenting ours while we're still figuring things out.
Maybe LeeX becomes a major platform.
Maybe it doesn't.
Either way, the lessons learned while building it will be valuable.
For now, we're continuing to build, collect data, test ideas, and learn.
If you're working on local discovery, mapping, GIS, location intelligence, or startup products, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What would you prioritize first: users or data?
Top comments (0)