From hostel room to global finance: The journey of 22-year-old founder Eronmonsele
Eronmonsele Aigbiluese, popularly known as Erons, is an outstanding builder who has achieved in his early twenties what takes most engineers decades.
Born in Abuja in 2002, this Edo State indigene developed a social platform that scaled to more than 100,000 monthly active users.
While still an undergraduate, he joined an American technology company as a software engineer and co-founded Ultra Technologies, a fintech startup working to bridge the gap between digital and traditional finance.
The story of his newest venture, TickHQ, a product studio where he is building tools for developers and businesses, began in a university hostel.
While studying Computer Science at the University of Abuja in 2021, Erons noticed how much his peers enjoyed receiving anonymous messages from friends.
He created Druz, an app that let them collect those messages and share the results, while making it fun and easy to invite others. The app spread organically. Within weeks of launching, Druz had grown to more than 100,000 users.
The explosive growth brought its own challenges. The app struggled under heavy traffic and became a target for online attacks. Erons had to learn, very quickly, how to keep it running. He rebuilt the backend systems and strengthened security until the platform could handle the load comfortably.
“Druz was my real education. It taught me how to keep users engaged, how to think about revenue, and how to build an app that works for hundreds of thousands of people at once. No classroom could have given me that,” he said.
With time, his work soon drew attention beyond the shores of Nigeria. That same year, while still a student, he was hired as a software engineer by Luxor, an American technology company.
He has worked on products used by customers around the world and led the development of several key tools. The role gave him valuable insight into how global technology companies are built and operated.
Yet Erons never stopped being a founder. In late 2023, he co-founded Ultra Technologies with his partner, Thankgod Izime, to bridge the gap between digital and traditional finance.
The company is now registered as a money services business with Canadian financial authorities, enabling it to offer compliant financial services across borders.
Its first product, UltraApp, is expected to launch soon. The mobile app will allow everyday users to buy, sell, and hold digital currencies with ease, moving seamlessly between local money and digital assets in just a few simple steps.
As co-founder and chief technology officer, Erons built the early versions of the app himself before bringing on additional engineers. The team is now applying the finishing touches ahead of its public release.
“For many people, money still stops at the border,” he said. “We started Ultra Technologies because we believe it should not. You should be able to hold your money digitally and use it anywhere, as easily as cash.”
“Everything I have built has been leading here,” he adds. “Druz taught me how to grow a product. Luxor taught me how to build properly. Ultra Technologies is where all of those lessons come together.”
Looking ahead, Erons believes money will one day move as freely as information, and that software will increasingly act on people’s behalf. He plans to keep building for that future.
From a hostel room in Abuja to building tools for global finance, Erons’ journey is proof that bold ideas, executed with speed and resilience, can scale from campus virality to international impact.
