₦airaland Forum

One of the hardest parts of travelling to a new city is not necessarily getting there. It is figuring out what the city actually has to offer once you arrive.

Before travelling, you can spend hours searching for restaurants, attractions, hotels, events and places people recommend. You save posts, open maps, read reviews and ask people for suggestions. Even after all that preparation, you can still arrive and realise that you only know the handful of places that appeared in your search results.

That's an interesting problem for LeeX to solve.

Imagine arriving in a city you've never visited before and opening LeeX. Instead of starting with a blank search box and having to know exactly what you're looking for, you could begin by exploring the city itself. See places around your hotel. Discover restaurants, attractions, businesses, entertainment spots and events. Find interesting locations that weren't necessarily on your original itinerary.

Then you could go deeper.

You find a particular landmark and discover what's Nearby. You find a large venue and explore what is Within it. You see a Moment from someone experiencing a place and suddenly realise there's somewhere you want to visit that wasn't in your travel plan.

That is the type of experience I think could make travelling feel different.

A tourist doesn't always know the right search terms. They don't necessarily know the neighbourhoods, local businesses or hidden spots. They may not even know what they should be looking for. Sometimes the best travel experiences happen because you randomly discover something you weren't planning to see.

LeeX could make that accidental discovery easier to achieve.

And the interesting thing is that the same platform doesn't have to stop being useful when the trip ends. A visitor can discover places while travelling, while residents can continue discovering their own city. A tourist might discover a restaurant through a Moment, while a local might discover that same restaurant because it is nearby. Someone attending an event can discover businesses around the venue. Someone visiting a hotel can explore what exists around it.

So the platform isn't necessarily “a tourist app.”

Tourism is simply one situation where the problem becomes very obvious.

When you're in an unfamiliar city, you realise how much you don't know.

But even when you're at home, you probably don't know your city as well as you think you do.

That's why I find the LeeX idea interesting: the same discovery infrastructure can serve the visitor who knows nothing about a city and the resident who thinks they already know everything about it.

The tourist comes looking for the city.

The resident discovers more of their own city.

LeeX is built around making both experiences easier.

The internet has made it easier than ever to find information, but finding something worth experiencing in the real world can still feel surprisingly difficult. There are places people walk past every day without knowing what they offer, businesses that never appear in someone's feed, events that people discover too late, and interesting experiences that spread through disconnected conversations.

LeeX is being built with the idea that discovering the physical world should be easier, richer and more connected.

The LeeX Wishlist is the early stage of that journey. It gives people an opportunity to express their interest in the platform before the beta becomes available more broadly. Rather than waiting until everything is finished and then discovering LeeX for the first time, people on the Wishlist can follow the project from its earlier stage and be among those watching it develop.

At its foundation, LeeX is about discovering places. But a place is rarely just a name, address and photograph. What makes a location interesting is everything connected to it: the businesses operating there, the people visiting, activities taking place, events happening, things nearby and experiences being shared. LeeX is being designed to bring more of these connections into one discovery environment.

This means someone doesn't necessarily have to know exactly what they are searching for. They could simply explore their surroundings and discover somewhere new. They could be looking for somewhere to spend an afternoon, checking what is happening nearby, exploring an unfamiliar part of a city or looking at a location they already know and discovering something else connected to it.

The social component makes the concept even more dynamic. Moments are intended to connect people's experiences with the places where those experiences happen. Instead of seeing the physical world as a collection of static listings, users can eventually encounter the human activity taking place around those locations.

There is also a broader geographic layer to the experience. Nearby can help users discover what surrounds them, while Within is designed to help explore what exists inside or is directly connected to a particular location. Together with listings, events and Moments, these layers contribute to the idea of a more connected physical-world discovery experience.

The LeeX Wishlist is therefore not simply about getting a notification when an application launches. It is an early signal from people who are interested in the direction of the product. As the beta develops, the people who join early can become part of the initial audience experiencing and evaluating the platform.

For the team, this stage also creates an opportunity to learn. Building a product around real-world discovery involves many assumptions about how people search, explore, save, share and return to places. Those assumptions need to meet real behaviour. The beta will help reveal which parts of the experience people naturally find useful and where the product needs to improve.

The ambition is not to make another platform that people open only because they were told to. The goal is to create something that can eventually become useful whenever someone is curious about the world around them.

Where should I go?

What's happening around me?

What else is at this location?

What interesting places have I not discovered yet?

What are people experiencing right now?

These are ordinary questions, but they represent a large part of how people interact with their cities and surroundings.

LeeX is being built around those questions.

The Wishlist is simply the first step toward making that vision available to more people.

LeeX — Explore. Connect.

There is a lot happening around us that people never discover. A new restaurant opens in a neighbourhood, an event is taking place a few streets away, an interesting business is operating inside a larger location, or people are sharing experiences from somewhere that others have never considered visiting. Often, the information exists, but it is scattered across different platforms and different forms of content.

LeeX is being built to bring more of these discoveries together.

The LeeX Wishlist is the early-access stage for people who are interested in the platform and want to be connected to its development before the wider launch. It is an opportunity to get on the list early, learn about what LeeX is building and be among the people waiting to experience the beta as the product becomes available.

The idea behind LeeX goes beyond simply finding a business on a map. The platform is being designed around the things people actually do with places. People discover somewhere, become interested in it, see what is happening around it, explore other places nearby, find activities and events, save locations they want to visit and share experiences with others. LeeX brings these different parts of discovery into the same environment.

A major part of the vision is making places more alive online. A listing does not have to remain a static page containing an address, opening hours and a few photographs. It can become a point where people discover information, activity and experiences connected to that location. This is where features such as Moments, Nearby and Within become important to the broader LeeX concept.

For someone exploring a city, the experience could begin without a specific destination in mind. They may simply want to see something interesting. They could discover a place through its listing, notice something happening nearby, explore another location, find an event or come across a Moment shared by someone else. The discovery can continue naturally instead of ending after finding a single search result.

The same idea works from the other direction. Someone might already know where they want to go. Instead of stopping at the basic information about that location, LeeX is intended to help them understand the environment surrounding it and discover other relevant things connected to it.

This creates a different relationship between people and places. The platform isn't only about where something is located. It is also about what can be discovered there, around it and through the people interacting with it.

The Wishlist therefore represents more than a conventional product notification list. It is the first public step into the LeeX ecosystem. Before the full platform becomes widely available, people can register their interest and follow the journey from the early beta stage.

For the team building LeeX, this stage is equally important. A product like this cannot be completely designed from assumptions. Real users have to interact with it. Their behaviour, feedback and discoveries will help reveal which experiences are most valuable and where the platform needs to improve.

The ambition is to eventually make LeeX useful across different kinds of places and different reasons for going somewhere. It could be discovering somewhere new in your city, finding an event, exploring businesses, looking around a neighbourhood, seeing what people are experiencing or simply finding something worth visiting.

That is the larger idea behind the LeeX Wishlist.

Before the world gets the full LeeX experience, there is a first group waiting to enter it.

LeeX Beta Wishlist — Explore. Connect.

Over the past few months, I've been working on an idea called LeeX, and we're now getting closer to putting the first version in front of real users. The LeeX Beta waitlist is being opened for people who want to follow the project early and potentially become part of the first group of users to experience what we're building. LeeX is not simply another social media platform, and it is not intended to be just another directory of businesses and places. The idea is to create a social discovery platform built around the physical world — the places people visit, the businesses they interact with, the events happening around them, and the experiences people have in those places.

Think about how people currently discover places. Someone might see a restaurant on Instagram, search for it on Google Maps, find an event through a flyer or WhatsApp, discover a new location through TikTok, or simply hear about a place from a friend. The information is scattered across different platforms and often disconnected from the actual physical environment. LeeX is being built around the idea that discovering the physical world can be more connected, visual and social. Instead of only asking what a place is, LeeX is designed to help people discover what is around it, what is happening there, what can be found within it, and what other people are experiencing.

At the centre of this idea are real-world listings. Restaurants, hotels, cinemas, landmarks, businesses, events, entertainment locations, infrastructure and other interesting places can become part of the LeeX ecosystem. From there, different layers of discovery can connect together. A person can discover a place, explore what is nearby, see what is happening around it, discover other things within the location and eventually interact with the place and its surrounding activity. The goal is to make the physical world feel more discoverable through one connected experience.

Another important part of LeeX is the social layer. Moments are intended to give people a way to share activity and experiences connected to the real world. Instead of social media being completely separated from physical locations, LeeX is being designed around the relationship between people and places. Someone visits somewhere interesting, shares a Moment, another person discovers that place through the Moment, saves it, visits later and potentially creates their own Moment. Over time, these interactions can create a continuously evolving picture of what is happening around different places.

The platform is also being designed with discovery in mind. Nearby can help people understand what is around their current location, while Within is intended to help users explore activity, businesses, events and other interesting things associated with a particular location. These concepts are part of a larger vision: making LeeX a place where people can discover not only individual locations, but the relationships between locations, people, activities and experiences.

We're starting with the fundamentals rather than pretending everything has already been built at massive scale. The early phase is about creating a useful foundation of real-world listings, testing the experience with actual users and learning what people naturally do when they have access to this type of discovery platform. The LeeX Beta will therefore be an important stage because it moves the project from an idea that has been discussed and designed into something that people can actually use.

The waitlist itself is also more than just a notification form. It is the beginning of the public introduction to LeeX. People joining early will be able to learn about what we're building, follow the development and potentially become part of the early community around the platform. We're also using this stage to introduce the broader vision behind LeeX, including the problem we're trying to solve, the people building it and the direction we're taking the product.

There is still a lot to build. LeeX is an ambitious idea, and building a platform around the physical world comes with significant technical, data and execution challenges. We are not pretending otherwise. The goal is to build it progressively, test assumptions with real people, identify what works, remove what doesn't and keep improving the product as the ecosystem grows.

Ultimately, the vision is simple to explain even though the technology behind it may become complex: make discovering the real world more social. There are millions of places, businesses, events and experiences around us every day, and LeeX is being built to help people discover more of them and connect with the activity surrounding them.

The LeeX Beta Waitlist is the first step toward that vision. If you're interested in discovering new places, finding things happening around you, exploring your city or simply curious about what we're building, you can join the early community and watch LeeX develop from its beta stage.

LeeX — Explore. Connect.

Search is something we do every day. We type a business name, a service, a place or an event and expect an answer. But city discovery can be much more than returning a matching name. A city contains relationships between places, businesses, events and infrastructure, and understanding those relationships can make discovery far more useful. This is part of the larger vision being developed by Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX.

The idea behind the LeeX Discovery Engine is connected to this broader challenge. Instead of treating every location as an isolated result, LeeX is being built around a more structured understanding of city information. Oscar Awowari sees an opportunity to move from simply searching for places toward discovering what exists within a city and how different pieces of that city relate to one another.

This is why the foundation being developed through LeeX Beta matters. Businesses, events, infrastructure and locations provide the underlying information from which a stronger discovery experience can be built. Oscar Awowari and the LeeX team are focused on establishing that foundation before the larger intelligence possibilities of LeeX can fully emerge.

Imagine asking a discovery system about a particular area and getting more than a list of names. Imagine being able to explore the businesses around a location, discover events connected to that area and understand the surrounding city context. That is the kind of broader possibility that makes a discovery engine different from a conventional directory.

For Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, the goal is ultimately to make city information more connected and useful to the people trying to navigate and understand their cities.

The LeeX Discovery Engine is therefore not just about finding a place.

It is about building toward a system that can help people discover the city around that place.

When people think about finding a place online, Google Maps is often one of the first tools that comes to mind. It has become an important part of how people navigate and locate businesses, streets and destinations. But Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, believes there is another question worth asking: what happens when the goal is not simply to find a place, but to truly discover a city?

The distinction is important. Maps are primarily associated with navigation and locating places. City discovery can involve a much broader experience—understanding businesses, events, infrastructure and the different things happening within a city. Oscar Awowari is building LeeX around this broader concept, with the idea that location information can become part of a connected ecosystem rather than simply a point on a map.

This does not mean LeeX is trying to replace every function of a map. Instead, Oscar Awowari and the LeeX team are exploring a different layer of the problem: how can people discover what a city has to offer in a more structured and connected way? A business can be connected to an event, an event to a venue, and a venue to the wider area around it. These relationships are part of how people actually experience cities.

That thinking is reflected in LeeX Beta, where businesses, events and infrastructure form important parts of the foundation. For Oscar Awowari, building this foundation is necessary if the larger vision of a city discovery ecosystem is going to become possible.

Google Maps helps answer, “Where is it?”

LeeX is exploring a broader question: “What is here, what is happening here, and how does it connect to the city around it?”

For Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, that difference is at the heart of the LeeX vision.

The future of location technology may not be about choosing between maps and discovery.

It may be about making discovery itself smarter.

When people think about finding a place online, Google Maps is often one of the first tools that comes to mind. It has become an important part of how people navigate and locate businesses, streets and destinations. But Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, believes there is another question worth asking: what happens when the goal is not simply to find a place, but to truly discover a city?

The distinction is important. Maps are primarily associated with navigation and locating places. City discovery can involve a much broader experience—understanding businesses, events, infrastructure and the different things happening within a city. Oscar Awowari is building LeeX around this broader concept, with the idea that location information can become part of a connected ecosystem rather than simply a point on a map.

This does not mean LeeX is trying to replace every function of a map. Instead, Oscar Awowari and the LeeX team are exploring a different layer of the problem: how can people discover what a city has to offer in a more structured and connected way? A business can be connected to an event, an event to a venue, and a venue to the wider area around it. These relationships are part of how people actually experience cities.

That thinking is reflected in LeeX Beta, where businesses, events and infrastructure form important parts of the foundation. For Oscar Awowari, building this foundation is necessary if the larger vision of a city discovery ecosystem is going to become possible.

Google Maps helps answer, “Where is it?”

LeeX is exploring a broader question: “What is here, what is happening here, and how does it connect to the city around it?”

For Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, that difference is at the heart of the LeeX vision.

The future of location technology may not be about choosing between maps and discovery.

It may be about making discovery itself smarter.

When people hear the word “discovery,” they may immediately think about searching for a restaurant, finding a hotel, locating a business or checking what is happening around them. But a city is much bigger than any single search. A city is made up of businesses, events, infrastructure, communities and countless places that people interact with every day. This is the thinking behind the idea of a city discovery ecosystem being explored by Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX.

A city discovery ecosystem is about connecting these different parts of a city so that people can discover and understand what exists around them more easily. Instead of treating a business, an event or a location as isolated pieces of information, the goal is to create a more connected picture of the city. For Oscar Awowari, this distinction is important because discovering a city should not stop at finding an address. The information surrounding that place can be just as valuable.

Think about a new resident arriving in Port Harcourt. They may want to find a restaurant, discover an event happening that weekend, locate a useful service, understand what businesses operate in a particular area or simply learn what is around them. Today, that information can be spread across different platforms. Oscar Awowari believes there is an opportunity to bring these pieces closer together through LeeX.

This is where LeeX Beta comes in. The Beta is focused on building the foundation for this ecosystem, with businesses, events and infrastructure forming important parts of the picture. Rather than trying to immediately solve every aspect of city discovery, Oscar Awowari and the LeeX team are working toward a structured foundation that can make location information more useful and connected over time.

The bigger idea is simple: a city should be discoverable as a whole, not just searchable one location at a time. Oscar Awowari, Founder and CEO of LeeX, is building around that idea—creating a foundation where the different pieces of a city can eventually work together to make discovery more natural.

Perhaps the future of local discovery is not another list of places. Perhaps it is understanding the city itself.

That is what a city discovery ecosystem is about.

Why Every Major Platform Starts With A Beta

When people hear the word "beta," they often assume it simply means an unfinished product. In reality, a beta stage is one of the most important phases in the life of a technology platform. Before becoming globally recognized products, many of today's largest technology companies spent years testing ideas, refining systems and learning from real users. The beta stage is where ambition meets reality. It is where vision begins to prove itself.

This is why the concept of LeeX Beta is interesting. Even if someone has never met Oscar Awowari, never spoken to the LeeX team, and knows nothing about the people behind the project, the idea itself raises an important question: what if cities were easier to discover? That question alone is worth exploring because it addresses a challenge that millions of people experience every day. We live in cities filled with businesses, events, opportunities and infrastructure, yet much of what exists around us remains surprisingly difficult to find.

Many people assume that because maps exist, the discovery problem has already been solved. But finding a location and discovering a place are not always the same thing. A map can tell you where something is. It cannot always tell you what is worth discovering, what is new, what is relevant to your interests, or what opportunities exist around you. That gap between information and discovery is where ideas like LeeX begin to matter.

The reason major platforms start with a beta is simple: understanding the real problem is more important than making bold claims. A vision may sound exciting on paper, but cities are complex. People search differently. Businesses struggle with visibility in different ways. Events attract audiences through different channels. Infrastructure serves different communities. A beta stage allows a platform to learn these realities before attempting large-scale expansion.

From that perspective, LeeX Beta is not interesting because it is an early version of a product. It is interesting because it represents a test of an idea. Can a city be organized in a way that makes discovery easier? Can businesses become more visible? Can events become easier to find? Can infrastructure become more understandable? These are practical questions with practical implications for everyday life.

What makes the idea more compelling is that the problem extends beyond a single city. Whether someone lives in Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abuja, London, New York or Tokyo, the challenge remains similar. Cities contain vast amounts of information, but much of that information is fragmented. Businesses are spread across different platforms. Events are advertised in different places. Infrastructure information is often disconnected from the rest of the urban ecosystem. The result is that people frequently miss opportunities that already exist around them.

Throughout history, technology has often succeeded by making complexity simpler. Search engines organized information. Social networks organized relationships. Navigation platforms organized routes and locations. The broader vision behind LeeX appears to be organizing discoverability itself. Not merely helping people find places they already know, but helping them uncover places, opportunities and experiences they may never have known existed.

This is one reason every major platform starts with a beta. Large visions require small beginnings. Before a platform can transform an industry, it must first understand the people it hopes to serve. Before it can build intelligence systems, it must first build information systems. Before it can scale globally, it must first prove value locally.

Whether LeeX ultimately becomes a major platform is a question that only time can answer. However, the logic behind starting with LeeX Beta is clear. If the future of cities involves better discovery, better visibility and better organization of information, then testing those ideas in a beta environment is not just sensible—it is necessary.

Perhaps the most important lesson from technology history is that transformative platforms rarely begin as finished products. They begin as experiments. They begin as questions. They begin with people asking whether a better way exists. In that sense, LeeX Beta represents more than an early-stage platform. It represents the first attempt to answer a question that affects cities everywhere:

What if discovering the world around us was as easy as searching the internet?

That is why every major platform starts with a beta. Not because the vision is small, but because the vision is too important to build without learning first.