The Middletrust Brand Story, How it all started
A couple of years ago, I was still an active freelancer outsourcing my web development skills, it felt fulfilling helping people transform a vague idea in their head into a fully working product. I was making regular coins, to say the least, life was good (or at least I thought it was).
But there was an issue that kept popping up, too regular for comfort, I was losing almost as much as I was earning. How was I losing money?
- It took a while to notice that a lot of people would engage a freelancer knowing full well that they don’t have the money that would serve as payment for his service. They could pay some part of the agreed fee and not pay the rest, in some cases they may not pay at all.
- After the agreed service has been provided, some clients were just unreluctant to pay, just because they think they can get away with it (they often do)
As a freelancer or service provider, What do you do in such a scenario? Well, look at the options available to you.
- Get law enforcement involved in the matter, this has proven effective in some cases. However there is a caveat, you may have to spend some cash to keep the law enforcement unit motivated.
- If you signed a formal contract with the client, you could consider pursuing legal actions against this client. It may take some time and money, but you would likely get a favorable verdict that compels the client to pay you.
- Lay a generational curse on the client (one of the options available to most Africans)
- Let it go, and move on.
Sadly most African freelancers go with the 3rd and 4th option, the first two options are not advisable unless the amount involved is reasonably large.
If you think this is a problem peculiar to Africa, think again. A Study made by PayPal suggests that this could be a global issue. However, a few companies have been able to completely solve this problem, the likes of Fiverr, Upwork, Trulancer have adopted an escrow model of payment that requires clients to make full payment for the service after agreeing on terms with the freelancer. This way, freelancers can work knowing that payment is guaranteed when they fulfill their end of the contract. Cool, Right?
Working on the above-mentioned platform is not very satisfying for most freelancers because of the huge chunk of the earnings they have to give up as commission for the service that these platforms provide, you may have to give up as much as 20%. Cool, we can see how much value this payment system offers but do these platforms work for all kinds of services? I could be an artisan, maybe a plumber who is tired of being used by clients who do not want to pay, but I can’t use Fiverr, I’m an electrician who hates losing money to clients who are insincere but sadly Upwork will not accept to list me on their platform.
This problem even goes beyond freelancers, some clients have been on the receiving end of the ax, this happens when the freelancer disappears (like Willie Willie) after receiving part or full payment. At other times, you could pay a self-acclaimed artist for a portrait of Beyonce and get something that looks a little like Beyonce and a lot like Speed Darlington, and all hell could break loose if you ask for a redo or a refund. There are so many pain points revolving around currently available payment solutions, while they focus on user-friendliness, customer data security, and transfer speed, little or nothing is being done to make sure that the initial agreement leading to the payment is completed without much friction.
Is there a solution? Hmmmmm, Yes there is. The concept of escrow is perhaps as old as man, a trusted Third-party who has no allegiance to either of the parties involved in the transaction who ensures that both sides comply with their agreement before releasing payment to the seller or returning payment to the buyer if the seller doesn’t comply. This is perhaps the only feasible way to ensure total compliance in our everyday transactions.
So What Did We Do?
After being defrauded and shortchanged on several occasions, losing a couple of millions (in Naira, of course. I’m not sure I know how a million dollars look like) in 2018, I officially retired from freelancing and discussed with my friend turned brother Peter (Now Co-Founder), rather than complain and do nothing, we decided to build a solution to help individuals and businesses effectively solve this problem and this marked the birth of Middletrust. Somewhere along the line Dipesh Mishra (our CTO who makes me feel like I know nothing about programming) got into the picture and we started building the technology from the ground up, a couple of months later software engineer and Ex-Andelan Runor Adjekpiyede joined us in the journey. 14 months and 9 partners later, we launched Middletrust, the ultimate escrow solution built to help people pay anyone, anywhere, anytime without the risk of being defrauded.
It’s been quite a journey, and there’s still so much to do. Special thanks go to Startupbootcamp who invited us to our first-ever pitch competition, Zachariah George who gave good advice during the 2019 fast track event held in Lagos, The Pirate Summit who invited us to walk the plank in Cologne Germany 2019, Startup Istanbul, Ycombinator Startup School for the priceless knowledge and insights shared, Amazon Web Services who have supported us with cloud credits worth close to $20,000, Tom Jackson of Disrupt-Africa who gave us our first media exposure, Flutterwave whose fine payment API has reduced our workload so far, Kwamu Danladi of Ince Consulting Ltd, Dorothy Obozua, the list goes on and on, we wouldn’t have gotten this far without you all.
Barely 3 months after we kicked off operations, we have helped Nigerians secure transactions worth over 26 million naira (not bad, right?) For maximum payment protection and seamless transacting experience, use Middletrust. Sign up on middletrust.com and start closing your deals with confidence.
