How Loveth Chukwu is making crypto accounting seamless with Counti

Onyinye Okonkwo
“I set out to create this solution with the aim of building an application that is tailored for the blockchain sector…”

Loveth Chukwu didn’t know much about the blockchain space (including the very popular cryptocurrency) at the onset. But, while offering financial advisory services with Morgate, she had several clients who had businesses in the blockchain space and made a lot of revenue.

“Sorting out their blockchain accounts was often a mess. The accounting was always very tacky”, she told me. The desire to not only simplify but automate blockchain accounting would lead Loveth to build a solution to this effect. 

Loveth Chukwu speaks to Technext about her Journey into tech, her motivation for building a blockchain accounting solution, Counti and much more in this edition of women in tech

How it started

Loveth has always been in the financial space, she earned her first degree in banking and finance from the University of Uyo and her MBA in financial Technology which she tells me she decided to do to enable her to get a better understanding of the fintech space. 

“I got an MBA in fintech because I wanted to get an in-depth understanding of how fintech companies work, the nitty gritty. I wanted to go deeper, to understand the tech that powers fintech, so that I would have better standing to run another tech startup I may start”. 

Before venturing into the blockchain space, Loveth founded Morgate financial services in 2018 with its core services being automating accounting for small and medium businesses.

While running Moorgate, she realized most of her revenue came from blockchain companies. And, this made her really curious. How were they able to make so much money? She also realized that their accounting system was quite different and complicated. 

After she got the knowledge she needed from her MBA, Loveth’s curiosity led her to go into the blockchain space and she began trading crypto. She started by doing a lot of trades because she really wanted to have first-hand experience of how it all worked.

Loveth Chukwu
Loveth Chukwu

While trading, she wanted to track and calculate her transaction to ascertain if she had made a profit or loss, and then she realized that there was no accounting software in the blockchain space to do that. 

Founding Counti Solutions

Realizing there was no accounting software to help calculate blockchain transactions, Loveth resorted to using excel but it didn’t give the desired result. She told me that “it came out very tacky and I didn’t find any solution so I resolved to build this solution myself.”

Loveth got the idea to build a solution that other people can pay for from a pain point. That was how she got the idea for Counti. 

“People would come to me and ask me to teach them to use the excel method I was using for my crypto accounts and I began to teach people how to use it for a fee. Even at that, I would still get requests from people asking me to help them out or if there is s software they could just plug in to do the calculations.”

Although Counti is live, Loveth tells me that the app is going through the Alpha testing stage and is only available on the android PlayStore. The testing is private and only available to private crypto communities at the moment for just a few months.

She adds that the solution has been created with everyone in the blockchain space in mind:

“I set out to create this solution with the aim of building an application that is tailored for the blockchain sector. So, if you are in crypto, if you are in NFT, if you’re a trader, a market maker, if you own a coin, a token, everything blockchain literally, so long as you are there to make money then you will always want to track what you have done if you have made profit or loss”, she says. 

Challenges 

Loveth does not mince words when asked about challenges as a woman in tech. She tells me that the challenges have been enormous. Top of the list for her is the challenge of working with tech talents, especially working with Nigerian tech talents. 

“I decided to use Nigerian tech talents to build Countio. I learnt that many Nigerian tech talents are still in the growing stages. I experienced a lot of uncouth behaviour, and incivility, Many are very money-driven and there is also the part of them intentionally delaying the work because they know they will be paid by the end of the month.”

Loveth Chukwu
Loveth Chukwu

Memorable moments

Loveth tells me her most memorable moment has been getting accepted into the first stage of YCombinator (YC), a venture capitalist platform, with Counti being the only startup in that cohort providing solutions in the Blockchain accounting sector. 

Also, having the first part of the product presented at YC was very memorable for Loveth, as sort of validated what she and her team is doing. Also, making it to the funding stage is a big deal for her. She reveals that they are waiting to hear announcements of the startups that would be backed by YC, soonest. 

Advice for women in tech

“A lot more women need to come into the tech space as the gap is still too much”, is Loveth’s piece of advice to women in tech.

“Many women in Nigeria are mostly in UI/UX but in the core programming areas like frontend and backend, you find very few women in these spaces. So I would advise women to challenge themselves to learn the hard things as it makes them emboldened to present themselves to whatever opportunity is available”.

Looking forward

Loveth has a very big dream for the future:

“I look forward to Counti becoming a very strong brand that is used across the board in the crypto community. When anyone is thinking of an accounting app in crypto it has to be Counti. I also hope to be able to mentor women, especially in the tech space to see that there are a lot of possibilities and help them develop capacity by actively practising their skills”.

– Loveth Chukwu

Read also: https://technext24.com/2022/09/14/ada-nduka-women-community-she-code-africa/


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