MINE 1000 – First-of-its-kind national initiative aims to document 1,000 real entrepreneurial stories every year across all 36 states and 24 industries, building a permanent digital archive that investors, policymakers, and researchers have long said Nigeria is missing.
LAGOS, NIGERIA — April 20, 2026 — Naijapreneur.com, Nigeria’s long-running voice of entrepreneurship, has officially launched MINE 1000 (Made In Nigeria Entrepreneurs 1000) — a bold national initiative that sets out to profile 1,000 Nigerian small business owners every year and convert their stories into the country’s most comprehensive, publicly accessible entrepreneur database.
The project is powered by M.I.N.E Media Ltd., the parent company behind naijapreneur.com, and led by its founder, Tito Philips, a longtime champion of Nigerian entrepreneurship who has spent over 16 years building naijapreneur.com into a trusted platform for founders, investors, and small business operators.
MINE 1000 addresses what Philips describes as one of Nigeria’s most costly blind spots: the near-complete absence of structured, searchable, national-scale data on the millions of small business owners who quietly drive the real economy.
“Nigeria’s entrepreneurial spirit is one of our greatest untapped national assets,” Philips said. “Across cities, campuses, and communities, millions of small business owners are quietly building, innovating, and creating value — often without recognition, documentation, or visibility. MINE 1000 exists to change that. We are not just telling success stories. We are building the infrastructure for an entirely new conversation about Nigerian business.”
MINE 1000: A NATIONAL ARCHIVE, NOT JUST A FEATURE LIST
Unlike typical “top entrepreneur” lists, MINE 1000 is engineered as a long-term national infrastructure project. Each profile captures over 180 structured data points spanning origin story, startup capital, growth trajectory, challenges, breakthrough moments, current operations, impact, and future plans.
Across one annual cycle, the project will:
- Document 1,000 entrepreneur profiles
- Cover 24 target industries
- Reach all 36 states of the federation
- Culminate in the selection of 100 award winners across 12 special categories
- Generate between 120,000 and 180,000 data points annually
- Remain a free public archive, permanently accessible online
“This is the first time anyone has attempted something of this scale in Nigeria,” Philips added. “Our goal is to build something like Crunchbase — but built for Nigeria, by Nigerians, with the depth of storytelling that global platforms often miss. Investors, banks, DFIs, NGOs, multinationals, policymakers — everyone needs this data. It has never existed in one place. Until now.”
THE MINE AWARDS — 12 CATEGORIES, ONE GRAND PRIZE
At the close of each annual cycle, the top 100 stories from the MINE 1000 cohort will be celebrated at a prestigious national awards ceremony.
The 12 award categories include the;
- MINE 1000 Grand Prize,
- Innovator of the Year,
- Job Creator of the Year,
- Women-Led Business of the Year,
- Youth Entrepreneur of the Year,
- Social Impact Award,
- Export Champion,
- Manufacturer of the Year,
- Rural Enterprise Award,
- Service Excellence Award,
- Judges’ Special Recognition, and the publicly voted
- People’s Choice Award.
The awards are designed both to celebrate excellence and to direct institutional attention — funding, partnerships, grants, and procurement opportunities — toward founders who would otherwise remain invisible to the formal economy.
EARLY SPOTLIGHTS ALREADY LIVE
The first spotlight stories in the MINE 1000 Class of 2026 are already published on naijapreneur.com, including:
- Marvellous Bolarinwa — the 23-year-old founder of Nailedit by Maran, who built a growing beauty brand from her mother’s sitting room with just ₦45,000.
- Eloho Zoe Tanho-Attah — who turned down a direct corporate recruitment offer despite her first-class degree to build aeea Design Company, now a 14-year-old performance ecosystem spanning fashion, technology, and education.
- Kehinde Ajose — the former entertainment editor who founded Visibility Solutions Media Ltd. in 2018 with no startup capital, now a leading voice in Nigerian media visibility and the author of Media Money and Donjazzyfied.
Each featured entrepreneur receives a professionally produced magazine-style profile, permanent archive listing, and access to the growing MINE network.
WHY IT MATTERS
“For too long, Nigerian entrepreneurship has been told through borrowed lenses and imported frameworks,” Philips said. “We envision a Nigeria where every aspiring entrepreneur can find a story they relate to, every successful entrepreneur has their legacy documented, every investor can discover the next big thing, every policymaker understands the real economy — and every young person believes ‘I can do this too.’ That is what MINE 1000 is for.”
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Nigerian small business owners and founders can apply to be featured in the MINE 1000 Class of 2026 through one of three tiers:
- Basic Feature (Text Profile + Archive) — ₦50,000
- Executive Feature (Video Documentary) — ₦150,000
- Enterprise Feature (Text + Video + Priority placement) — ₦200,000
All featured entrepreneurs are automatically considered for the Top 100 MINE Awards, gain access to verified business networking opportunities, and secure a permanent digital legacy on Nigeria’s most comprehensive entrepreneur archive.
Only 1,000 spots are available per annual cycle. Applications for the Class of 2026 are open now.
Apply or learn more at: www.naijapreneur.com/MINE1000 Email: MINE1000@naijapreneur.com
ABOUT MINE 1000
MINE 1000 (Made In Nigeria Entrepreneurs 1000) is a national initiative to document 1,000 Nigerian entrepreneurial stories every year, building a permanent, publicly accessible digital archive of the country’s small business economy. The project spans all 36 states and 24 target industries, and culminates in an annual awards ceremony celebrating the top 100 stories of the year.
ABOUT NAIJAPRENEUR.COM
Naijapreneur.com is Nigeria’s voice of entrepreneurship — a long-running digital platform covering news, spotlights, strategy, and original reporting on the small business economy. Founded by Tito Philips and operated by M.I.N.E Media Ltd., the platform has profiled and championed Nigerian entrepreneurs for over 16 years, and today reaches founders, investors, and operators across the country and the diaspora.
ABOUT M.I.N.E MEDIA LTD.
M.I.N.E Media Ltd. is the parent company behind naijapreneur.com and the operational entity driving the MINE 1000 project. The company is committed to leveraging entrepreneurship as a vehicle for national development and transforming how Nigerian business is seen — by the world, and by Nigerians themselves.
