Showroom.ng

Furniture marketplace.

Epitaph

“Here lies Showroom.ng. It connected Nigerian furniture makers with buyers for a commission. A seven-figure seed came in, but a thin team and slow execution undid it in under two years. The pieces never fit together.”

Overview

Born: 2014 (Year)
Died: August 2016 (Month)
Lifespan: 3 years
Fate: Shut down
Headquarters: 🇳🇬 Nigeria
Category: E-commerce & Retail, Services & Marketplaces
Stage at death: Seed
Primary cause: Execution
Contributing causes: Funding or runway, Founder or team

Death certificate

Timeline

December 2014Seed funding
Showroom.ng raises a seven-figure seed round
2015Launch
Sheriff Shittu launches the furniture marketplace platform
August 2016Shutdown announced
Founder announces closure, citing execution failures

Autopsy report

Why did Showroom.ng shut down?

Showroom.ng, a Lagos furniture marketplace founded by ex-Konga staffer Sheriff Shittu that raised a seven-figure seed round in December 2014, shut down at the end of August 2016 after less than two years. The founder attributed the failure to poor execution rather than the wrong market or product.

What Showroom.ng attempted

Showroom.ng was an online marketplace connecting Nigerian furniture makers and carpenters with buyers, taking a commission on sales, with an ambition to help up to 100,000 carpenters build wealth by 2020.

What worked

Secured a seven-figure seed round in December 2014, and founder Sheriff Shittu said the business performed "fairly well" for a period before problems compounded.

Early warning signs

Shittu cited weak domain expertise, slow execution, an inadequately skilled team, insufficient capitalization, and poor decision-making as issues that built up before "everything started crashing."

What happened

After raising seed funding in December 2014 and building a commission-based furniture marketplace, Showroom.ng grew for a period but was undermined by team and execution problems; founder Sheriff Shittu announced the company's closure at the end of August 2016, listing a dozen reasons rooted in poor execution.

Lessons for future builders

The right market and product still fail without domain expertise, a skilled team, and enough capital to execute. Staff for the operational hard parts and fund realistically before scaling, since execution — not the idea — is usually what breaks first.