From SEO Setback to Smart Solution: How a Google Deranking Inspired Africa’s All-in-One Ticketing Startup

In 2017, a major shakeup hit the digital landscape. Google’s new ranking policies quietly sidelined thousands of African websites—mostly due to outdated coding, lack of SSL, broken HTML, and sluggish page loads. Among those affected were numerous event platforms, many of which failed to recover.
But for Calabar-based tech innovators Emmanuel and Gracious Ekunke, this disruption planted a different seed.
Fast forward to 2020, the brothers launched Demfati, a sleek, user-first event and ticketing platform built with empathy and efficiency at its core. Interestingly, “Demfati” is derived from The Empathy, signaling the platform’s mission to understand user challenges and offer a simple, integrated solution.
Initially incubated under the name Ocoms in 2017, the platform shifted from career services to a full-suite ecosystem for event managers and organizers. Demfati now powers everything from event discovery and cinema bookings to online forms, campus voting, and real-time ticketing—all from one dashboard.
Unlike traditional platforms that overwhelm users with disconnected tools, Demfati simplifies it: organisers create, promote, and sell tickets; attendees engage via chatbots on WhatsApp, Messenger, or Telegram. Every feature—from custom mini-sites to instant analytics—is designed to deliver speed and ease.
Built without external funding, Demfati has quietly scaled with over 20,000 tickets sold, 100,000+ votes processed, and growing adoption across Nigerian universities and festivals, including the Cross River State University, the University of Calabar, and the annual GAMEIT9JA festival.
The revenue model is simple: an 8% fee on ticket sales, a discounted 6% for partnered events, and zero charges for free events. It’s a clean, transparent approach that matches the brand’s grassroots values.
At a time when most platforms chase complexity, Demfati bets on clarity—and it’s working. What started as a response to a Google deranking is now emerging as one of Nigeria’s most intuitive digital infrastructure tools for community-driven events.