018: Turning Safe Sex into a Business in Nigeria with Florida Uzoaru

Young African Entrepreneur

Florida Uzoaru is the founder/CEO of Slide Safe, Nigeria’s first STI self-testing kit delivery service. You can connect with her @dasexlady on Facebook and @slidesafeng on Twitter and Instagram. You can also find her on LinkedIn @Florida Uzoaru. Despite coming from a commercially minded Nigerian family, Florida grew up hating sales. For her, it was like begging. In her 20s, she entered the public health profession and became passionate about promoting safe sex in Nigeria. While Nigeria has one of the world’ highest rates of HIV infection, only 10% of the population actually gets tested. Frustrated with the approach of NGOs, which failed to tackle the problem on the ground, she came up with the idea for Slide Safe –an online service that delivers self-testing kits for HIV, hepatitis B, and other sexually transmitted infections as well as contraceptives. But, she was reluctant to publicly promote her business. She thought she could be a behind-the-scene founder. After all, she grew up hating sales. But, she finally told herself to “stop running away” from taking on a public role as founder of Slide Safe. Since then, Florida has become a fierce and vocal advocate of her business and adopting safe sex practices in Nigeria. Florida speaks candidly about her many pivots during her entrepreneurial journey as well as the difficulties she faced while refining the messaging of Slide Safe. (Its original name was Sex in a Box but that didn’t go down well in conservative Nigeria.) She also talks about her experiences at the CC Hub and Tony Elumelu accelerator programs, the nuanced challenges of being a female entrepreneur, and why subscription services just don’t work in Nigeria. Without further do, here’s my conversation with Florida Uzoaru.