James Ngugi shares practical lessons from scaling HimaHR across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somalia, and beyond – and what it takes to build pan-African technology
When we started building HimaHR, our ambition was simple: create a human resource management system that worked for Kenyan businesses. We didn’t set out to operate in 8 countries. But once you solve a real problem well, borders become more permeable than you’d expect.
Today, HimaHR serves over 20,000 employees across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, and beyond. Getting here taught us lessons that any African builder thinking about scale should consider.
Start with Depth, Not Breadth
The temptation when building across Africa is to launch everywhere at once. The continent has 54 countries and over a billion people – surely the opportunity is in reaching all of them?
We learned the opposite. Our Kenyan operations gave us the foundation to expand. We understood the compliance requirements, the payroll complexities, the user expectations. Only when we had depth did breadth make sense.
Each new country we entered, we treated as its own market requiring local understanding. Rwandan labour law differs from Kenyan. Somali business customs have their own logic. Rushing expansion without localisation is a recipe for shallow presence and quick exits.
“Each new country we entered, we treated as its own market requiring local understanding.”
Infrastructure Varies More Than You Think
In Nairobi, we take internet connectivity for granted. 4G is everywhere. Most businesses have some form of broadband. Our assumptions about how users would access HimaHR were shaped by this reality.
Then we expanded to Somalia. Internet is expensive and often unreliable. Power outages are common. Suddenly, features we considered essential became barriers to adoption. We had to rethink everything: offline capabilities, data compression, mobile-first interfaces that worked on basic smartphones.
This forced adaptation made our product better everywhere. The optimisations for challenging environments improved performance even in markets with excellent infrastructure.
Trust Crosses Borders Through Relationships
Pan-African business is built on relationships. Our expansion to each new market came through existing clients who had operations there, or partners who vouched for us based on our Kenyan work.
Cold outreach rarely works in East Africa. But a warm introduction from a trusted contact opens doors immediately. This is why serving your initial market exceptionally well matters – those satisfied clients become your expansion engine.
We’ve found that African business leaders prefer working with African technology companies who understand their context. The shared understanding of operating in challenging environments creates an immediate connection that foreign competitors often lack.
The Africa Opportunity is Real
There’s a reason global investors are paying attention to African technology. The problems are significant, the markets are growing, and mobile-first adoption creates leapfrog opportunities. But capitalising on this requires respecting the complexity.
Africa isn’t one market – it’s dozens of markets with shared characteristics and distinct differences. Building across borders requires patience, localisation, and deep respect for each context. Get this right, and the opportunity is immense. Rush it, and you’ll learn expensive lessons. We’re still learning, eight countries in.
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