Nairobi — Peter Muchemi’s passion has always been to help firms ease their work through digital.
It is a passion he has always nurtured in himself, ever since he was young.
His dream became a reality when he studied Computer Science at the University where he honed his software skills.
When he was done with his studies, he was lucky to be employed by Consumer Insight as an intern and then by Software Technologies Limited, among others.
“So, it’s at Eclectics International, where I’ve got so much experience when it comes to programming and payment systems, not just here in Kenya but also outside the country,” he tells Capital Business at his Nairobi office.
Having gained enough experience, he started Faidi HR, a payroll and HR company, in 2020. The company was formerly known as Crew HR.
“We basically help small and medium enterprises automate their manual payroll and HR processes,” he explains.
“So, we started back in the year 2020, and by then the company was called Crew HR, but mid-last year we rebranded to Faidi HR, after we got an investment from a US investor called Sprintex,” he confirms.
The startup’s log-in module allows an individual consultant or company to facilitates payroll processing, pay slips, and report generation for different clients under one account.
So, why did he start the firm?
It was the firms that he was working with that inspired him to start the company.
He saw a gap where payroll and HR services were being rendered manually, with some transactions taking a long time to finalize.
“And I met a friend of mine, and we agreed to do research on what the gaps were in the sector, and we realized we had so many others.”
He says he invested Sh400,000 into the business, which came from personal savings as well as from friends.
“When we started, we had so many challenges, and one of them was capital, so we relied on our own savings,” he narrates.
“I remember I had saved quite some amount of money that I used to fund the operations of the company. So capital was the biggest challenge and is still the biggest challenge right now for any business based in Africa.”
His inspiring innovation has attracted big brands such as KLM, Air France, Renegade Air, and Lima, among others, as clients.
“But luckily we got some early adopters who are like FIDA Kenya, one of the largest NGOs in Kenya,” he says.
“And it’s true that we now use such claims as a reference, and now we have trust from companies like even Air France….,” Muchemi adds.
While the company started with between 20 and 30 firms, this has now grown to more than 150.
“But since mid-June last year, our company portfolio has more than doubled, and we expect that number to also triple.”
Faidi services are categorized into three areas, such as Basic, Standard and Premium.
“So basic, you’d pay 120 shillings per employee, so you have 10 employees.” That is 1200 per month, which translates to about 12,000 per year.
“So the premium cup package comes with advanced modules like performance and appraisal projects, and that ranges from 200 to 300 Kenya shillings per employee,” he says.
“So again, it’s still very affordable, and you can even choose and customize which features you want and which you don’t want. And the advantage is our platform can integrate with other systems; probably you have a biometrics solution and you wanted to integrate with ours.”
However, one of the biggest challenges they were facing was that customers were skeptical of the solution.
“One of the hindrances to getting clients was a lack of trust because we are, you know, proposing customers use a solution that is based on the cloud. So that means they have to put their data on the cloud.”
“And you’re proposing this to big companies, established companies that are more than 20 years old. So they were a little bit skeptical about whether we could trust these young people to manage our data. So that was one of the biggest challenges.”