The practical question that started PeoplePulse

For many growing businesses in Nigeria, managing people often starts informally. Leave requests happen over WhatsApp, employee information is stored in spreadsheets, and performance conversations happen as needed. These processes may work for a small team, but as businesses grow, recruitment increases, payroll becomes more complex and keeping track of employee information becomes harder.

For many SMEs, however, the transition from informal people management to structured HR does not happen at the same pace as the growth of the business.

It was a pattern Adetoun Adele-Muraina and Adetola Abolarinwa, founders of PeoplePulse Africa, encountered repeatedly through their work at Bridgemead Consulting, where they supported growing businesses across recruitment, payroll, performance management and broader HR processes. 

Working directly with founders and business leaders gave them a close view of the realities behind managing growing teams. Many of the businesses they worked with wanted to create better workplaces and establish stronger internal processes, but were still relying on spreadsheets, WhatsApp and disconnected tools to manage critical employee information.

“We kept seeing similar challenges across different businesses. The teams were growing, but many of the processes for managing people were still manual. At some point, we realised we were helping businesses solve different versions of the same problem,” said Adetola.

The challenge was not necessarily a lack of intent; it was often a lack of infrastructure that they found was not unique to one organisation.

Across different businesses, Adetoun and Adetola encountered variations of the same challenge, and many of the HR technology solutions available to them did not necessarily fit where they were in their growth journey.

Some platforms were designed primarily for larger organisations with established HR departments and bigger budgets. Others addressed only individual parts of the employee lifecycle, leaving businesses to combine several tools to manage recruitment, payroll, performance, employee records and other essential processes.

For a small business without a large HR team, adopting technology could therefore create another layer of complexity rather than solve it.

“We knew that whatever we built had to reflect how these businesses actually operate. In many cases, HR responsibilities are shared between the founder, an administrator, an operations manager or a very small HR team. The technology had to be simple enough for them to use, affordable and relevant to their reality,” said Adetoun. 

That experience raised a practical question for the two founders: if they were repeatedly helping businesses solve the same people-management challenges manually, could technology help them solve those challenges at scale? 

That question became the starting point for PeoplePulse Africa, an HR technology platform designed to help SMEs establish stronger people systems without requiring the infrastructure of a large organisation. This meant building around three realities: accessibility, affordability, and relevance.

That focus reflects a broader shift in how growing businesses are beginning to see HR, less as an administrative burden and more as a foundation for scale. 

PeoplePulse Africa has participated in programmes within the wider business and technology ecosystem, including the Providus Bank SME Programme and the Village Capital x Standard Chartered Women in Tech Accelerator 2026. PeoplePulse is also currently participating in a founder programme by Antler Africa, a venture capital firm.

As PeoplePulse moves into its next phase, the focus is on reaching more growing businesses across Nigeria and beyond, while continuing to build for the realities of Africa’s evolving workforce.

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