Finding Your True North
How to Start-Up: Don’t fall in love with your idea.
We hear this a little too often. But what does it really boil down to?
According to a study done by serial entrepreneur and founder of IdeaLab Bill Gross, the success of a startup is always determined by a number of variables, and one that always steals the show is the timing. The study suggests that timing accounts for 42% of startup success. This means that the market research phase of a startup is as good as figuring out how timely your idea could be.
Like any other eager young person looking to kick start their career, I was lucky to stumble upon a gold mine. Well, I didn’t know it at the time, because I was onboarded to a project when it was at the peak of the market research phase. A phase characterized by a walk in the dark, feelings of doubt, and unmet expectations. I still recall the email outreach process; building a list of 400 SMEs, sending bulk emails, and receiving responses from just 2%, all turning out to be negative feedback. Dark days those ones(Sighs in disbelief)
Salary Sasa was the name of the product I was assigned when I joined the Innovation Fellowship Program at Impact Africa Network, a startup studio that provides twelve-month fellowships to talented college graduates, providing them with the opportunity to work on well-vetted ideas, with like-minded peers, under the guidance of a strong leadership team and mentor network. The goal of the program is to build entrepreneurial capacity, while at the same time developing fundamentally sound, early-stage startups.
The used to be ‘Salary Sasa’ has now evolved into SeamlessHQ; a HR software aimed at providing HR solutions for Modern-day companies. Our vision is to not just to provide HR solutions, but to cover the entire ecosystem and venture into compliance, credibility, banking, and integrations. A one-stop-shop for running an organization seamlessly.
My first month was like swimming in a deep ocean without a floater and with knowledge of one style of survival; a developer with zero skills in market research. I was catching up, getting the flow of things, and learning the dos and don’ts. While in this process of settling in and getting to understand the market, COVID struck! Just like everyone else, my team and I had to adjust to the changes that came with it.
I went from figuring out things in the office to figuring out things from the couch in that tiny sitting room area. This too came with its fair share of challenges. From the frustrating internet connectivity that had me taking numerous trips to the rooftop to get a good connection, to finding the balance between work and life. I also recall struggling with getting stuff done on my own; needing that constant interaction with my teammates, which unfortunately had to be virtual. Luckily over time, we came to find the right structure for work, with daily standups being our breakfast. I can confidently say that we are working much more effectively now.
As mentioned earlier, it was a task finding my place as a developer in the market research stage. I would get nervous sitting across from our CEO in the office, with the fear that he would see through my uncertainty. To my surprise, I was countered by more support than I could imagine. I recall the day Mark Karake summoned me at his desk and asked, “What do you want Mercy?” I took that opportunity to talk about my interest in developing apps. He then went on to give me assurance, “We haven’t ventured into that space yet but let’s figure this out together, just hold on, you will find your place,’ he said. This was a timely affirmation in the midst of all my uncertainty. Right now every time I hear Mark preach about having a mobile approach for each of our products, my inner child smiles.
We are getting closer to our vision, the famous 10.10.10, where we get to build 10 scale-ups, that provide 10,000 jobs, with a combined value of $10billion.
Step by step, I got the hang of things, started enjoying the research process, and gathered lots of insights. I started looking forward to the conversations with different HR professionals. I can attest this to consistency, practice, and the right attitude.
My highlight was a conversation we had with a HR professional from South Africa. In this conversation, the other party kept going on and on about the HR space, and you could clearly see their passion, but at the same time, you could feel imposter syndrome kicking in. ‘Do we really know enough in this sector? What gives us the audacity to pursue it?’ I left the call feeling overloaded with information that I barely related with. But now, looking at my notes in hindsight, all I see is insights after insights. Surprisingly, we have actually implemented some and others are in our pipeline.
The research phase is an important asset in developing a product and the presence of a developer is even more important. It’s from the hundreds of research phone calls and meetings that we discovered the significance of a mobile application in our product. It was at this point that I was re-born, I re-kindled my purpose. I saw my passion arise, I was aligning to the vision finally. SeamlessHQ now has a mobile application as part of the product.
The mobile app acts as an employee self-service portal. The aim of the app is to help employees better engage with the organization and they can do this through the following ways
- Self-onboarding — where employees can upload their own documents and data required by the administration or HR side hence making employees own their own data which is a good thing for data privacy.
- Accessing various services — apply for leave from the comfort of their phones, request salary advance, access to their payslips, and track expenses.
The vision of the app is to help organizations track the experience of employees from pre-onboarding to the offboarding stage, and how they can use this information to track talent management; talent acquisition and talent retaining, resulting in a seamless experience for both employees and organizations.
Slowly I have moved from the developer cocoon that I have been hiding in and ventured into different departments; confessing that as the best decision I made in Q3.
Most importantly, I recently got to test my baby, our app with the SeamlessHQ team, my 3 mentors, 10 internal IAN users, and 3 Seamless community members. Although the product is not fully into production, sharing the app with fresh eyes, getting it installed in different android versions, and running without saying ‘unfortunately the app has stopped ‘ is my small win. Can’t wait to venture into the iOS version of the app to cater to the ‘kuomokad’ employees. Flutter here I come, make room for the Kotlin girl.
Community
SeamlessHQ provides a platform for HR professionals to network, learn and share knowledge. We are here to bring the HR space into the 21st century, provide solutions and world-class support.
Growth! Growth! Growth! Did I mention from just an idea to the struggling research phases we spun to software that caters to the admin side on the web, employee-side on mobile, and even built a community of HR professionals? One of a kind in the IAN space. Yes, we are doing it all one process at a time, the people-centric way.
SeamlessHQ is a startup channeled by Impact Africa Network which is a non profit startup studio on a mission to ensure young talented Africans can participate in the digital transformation of Africa as creators and owners. I am a beneficiary of the fellowship program, to help other youths in Africa change the ecosystem by being of something bigger than themselves.
For $30 a month, you can join our micro donations program . Help us unleash human potential by supporting the cause today. I am a testimony of exposure is the best gift you could get to kickstart your career.
