Three Friends, One Frustration
Wanjiku Njoroge, David Otieno, and James Mwangi met in 2017 during a computer science lecture at the University of Nairobi. They graduated in 2019, took corporate jobs in Nairobi, and within two years were all miserable for the same reason: HR software in African companies was stuck in 2005. Wanjiku worked at a bank where payroll took three days using Excel. Otieno's employer used a South African HR tool that did not support KRA tax codes. Mwangi's company tracked leave on paper. In November 2021, the three quit their jobs on the same day and started building TalentAxis in Otieno's apartment in Kilimani. Their combined savings: KES 1.2 million. Their combined experience with HR software pain: six years.
The Co-Founder Agreement That Saved Our Friendship
Before writing a single line of code, the three friends drafted a co-founder agreement — a decision that saved their relationship. They split equity equally at 33.3% each, with a 1% pool for early employees. More importantly, they defined roles with ruthless clarity: Wanjiku as CEO and product, Otieno as CTO, Mwangi as COO and sales. No overlapping decisions. No democratic votes on operational matters. When you are building with friends, ambiguity kills companies. That agreement was worth more than any code we ever wrote. It also included a vesting clause — four years, one-year cliff — which prevented a nightmare scenario if any of them wanted to leave early.
Six Months to Launch, Six Customers
The MVP took six months. They built a payroll engine that handled KRA, NSSF, and NHIF deductions automatically, plus leave management and basic employee records. They launched in May 2022 with a beta price of KES 3,000 per month for companies under 50 employees. The first six customers were companies their friends worked at. Revenue: KES 18,000 a month. Humbling? Yes. But those six companies gave feedback that shaped the entire product. One HR manager told Wanjiku that the leave management feature was useless unless employees could request leave from their phones. Another pointed out that Kenyan companies needed support for casual workers with different tax treatment. Every complaint was a gift.
The Payroll Bug That Nearly Killed Us
In August 2022, a payroll calculation error affected 11 companies. NSSF deductions were wrong for employees in the upper tax bracket. Three companies threatened legal action. Otieno worked 72 hours straight to fix the bug and rebuild the calculation engine. They personally called every affected company, apologised, and offered three months free. Two companies left anyway. The experience changed how they thought about reliability — payroll is not a feature, it is a promise. Every cent must be correct. They hired a dedicated QA engineer in September 2022, their fourth employee, before they could truly afford one. That hire cost them KES 85,000 a month they did not have, but the alternative — another payroll error — would have been catastrophic.
The Nairobi vs Lagos Decision
By early 2023, TalentAxis had 40 customers in Kenya. The question was: expand to Lagos or double down on Nairobi? They chose Lagos for one reason — Nigeria has 10x the addressable market. Mwangi moved to Lagos in March 2023 with KES 800,000 in savings. He lived in a shared apartment in Yaba and spent three months learning the Nigerian payroll landscape — PAYE, Pension, NSITF, and ITF. The Nigerian version launched in June 2023 with a single pilot customer. By December 2023, they had 28 Nigerian customers. The lesson: localisation in African markets is not translation — it is rebuilding compliance from scratch. Every deduction, every tax code, every statutory contribution was different.
The South African Leap
In 2024, a South African venture firm offered $500K in pre-seed funding contingent on launching in Johannesburg. They accepted, and South Africa launched in Q2 2024. But the South African market was different in ways they did not expect. Companies expected integrations with SARS eFiling, Bankserv, and existing ERP systems. The sales cycle was 3x longer than Kenya. They hired two local sales reps and a compliance officer. By Q4 2024, South Africa contributed 15% of revenue — smaller than hoped, but growing 25% quarter over quarter. The funding also came with board observer rights, which took getting used to after two years of making decisions over WhatsApp.
Where TalentAxis Stands Today
As of February 2026, TalentAxis serves 1,400 companies: 720 in Kenya, 460 in Nigeria, and 220 in South Africa. Annual recurring revenue is $1.8M. The team has grown to 47 people across three offices. Payroll accuracy sits at 99.97%, and they process payroll for over 85,000 employees every month. They raised a $2.2M seed round in September 2025 at an $11M valuation. The three founders still have their weekly Sunday call — a habit from the Kilimani apartment days that keeps them honest with each other.
Lessons From Three Founders Who Almost Stopped Being Friends
Building with friends is the hardest thing any of us has done. The advice we give every cofounding team: write your agreement before you write your code. Define roles so clearly it feels awkward. Accept that one of you will have to move cities — Mwangi spent eight months away from his wife for the Lagos launch. And remember that the best thing about having three co-founders is that when one of you breaks, the other two can carry the load. There were months when Otieno carried the entire technical burden while Wanjiku dealt with a family illness. That is the real value of a founding team — not shared skills, but shared weight.
| Metric | May 2022 | Dec 2023 | Feb 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customers | 6 | 78 | 1,400 |
| MRR | KES 18K | $38K | $150K |
| Team size | 3 | 12 | 47 |
| Markets | 1 (Kenya) | 2 (Kenya, Nigeria) | 3 (+ South Africa) |
| Payroll accuracy | 94% | 99.1% | 99.97% |
