Founder of NiceThings
Yuhala Darren Tuma
A second-year student at Polytechnique Yaoundé (ENSPY), he built VariantFlow, Tayeb and NiceThings.
He knew how to build. Getting known was the hard part.
His story
Yuhala Darren Tuma is a second-year student at the National Advanced School of Engineering of Yaoundé (ENSPY, known as Polytechnique Yaoundé). Alongside his studies, he builds apps.
On his GitHub, the first public project dates from November 2025. Less than a year later, there are more than fifteen.
Among them: VariantFlow, which generates product variants and SKUs for Shopify stores. Tayeb, a logistics platform. Surety, which holds the money from a sale in escrow until buyer and seller both agree. Trust, which turns market traders' notebooks into a record a lender can check line by line.
Those projects taught him one thing: building was not his real problem. Marketing was. An app nobody has heard of helps nobody, however well it is made.
With NiceThings he does both. The guide is on its fifth version, and he makes it known himself: a free guide to where to eat, go out and unwind in Cameroon, one city and one good place at a time.
Do you run a place, is an address missing, or do you simply want to talk about the project? Write to him.
What he believes
Cameroon is not perfect. It is immense.
People often say that nothing works in Cameroon. He does not pretend all is well: he lives the country's imperfections like everyone else.
But he refuses two things: to be ashamed of it, and to spend his time looking for someone to blame. Passing the blame around has never moved anyone forward.
This country has already shown what it can do when someone decides to move forward in spite of the hurdles.
Ibrahim Njoya
King of the Bamoun, he gave his people a script to keep their history.
Rudolf Douala Manga Bell
He led the resistance when his people were to be driven from their land.
Ruben Um Nyobè
The “Mpodol”, the one who carries his people's word, took Cameroon's cause to the United Nations in 1952.
Manu Dibango
He wrote “Soul Makossa” in 1972, on the B-side of a single. The track conquered the United States.
Roger Milla
In 1990, with him, Cameroon became the first African country in a World Cup quarter-final. He was 38.
Françoise Mbango Etone
Born in Yaoundé, Olympic triple jump champion in 2004 and 2008.
Francis Ngannou
Born in Batié, UFC heavyweight champion in 2021.
Arthur Zang
An engineer trained at Polytechnique Yaoundé, he created the CardioPad, so that a cardiologist can read an electrocardiogram from a distance.
None of them waited for everything to be perfect. That is what he tries to do, at his own scale, with NiceThings: walk through the hurdles one by one, and make the country a little easier to live in and a little more beautiful to discover, for everyone in it.
The facts quoted come from each person's Wikipedia article.
How he works
- 01Cameroon firstThe guide is organised the way people live here: by neighbourhood, by dish, by time of day.
- 02Invent nothingEvery listing says where its information comes from: a visit by the team, a public source or the open map.
- 03Respect authorsNo photo is copied: each one comes from the team, from a visitor, or from an author who allows reuse and is credited.
- 04Check before publishingWhat visitors send waits to be read before it appears.
NiceThings today
- places listed
- 3,217
- cities in Cameroon
- 20
- neighbourhoods covered
- 141
How we work
We tell you where the information comes from
Every listing shows its source: checked on site by the team, suggested by a visitor then reviewed, or taken from the collaborative OpenStreetMap. No fake reviews, no invented prices.
Free, no account
Open the site and go. Your saved places stay on your phone, and nothing is sold.
Owners are in control
A restaurant, bar or hotel can claim its listing for free and keep its hours, prices and photos up to date.
Articles by Yuhala Darren Tuma
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