🔍 BTS: Building Africa's 1st verified salary benchmarking platform

Cindy Adem
Mar 23
3 min read

What if we could provide African companies with verified comp data?

*A simple, search-based landing page was an important choice for me.*

P.S There's a product Demo at the bottom of this page- but the read is worth it, I promise.

The Backdrop

When I first looked at the raw data Pariti had been collecting on compensation across African startups, my first thought wasn’t, “Wow, we could charge for this.”

It was: “This should already exist.”

Recruiters were struggling. Startups were making offers with crossed fingers. Talent was walking; or worse, never showing up in the first place. And sitting quietly in our backend was exactly the kind of insight they needed to do better.

What we had wasn’t a product yet. But it had the bones of one.

The Challenge

This wasn’t just about pulling together a dashboard. My job was to:

Translate raw, internal data into a polished external product
Design it in a way that made teams feel empowered—not exposed
Frame the tool’s value so companies didn’t see it as a way to “pay less,” but as a way to build trust and keep their best people

The mission was clear:

Give startups confidence in what they’re offering—without giving them a reason to cheapen it.

The Build

I started with one question:

What would this look like if we got startups to go: "shut up and take my money!"

From there, the build unfolded across three key dimensions:

1. Shaping the Product from the Ground Up

The data existed; but it wasn’t usable. I worked closely with our engineering and data science team to define the structure, filters, and logic that would make it feel intuitive and actionable.

Designed the product interface around real recruiter workflows, not abstract reporting
Scoped the MVP to balance utility with speed: clean benchmark data by role, level, and location
Insisted on clarity over complexity; we weren’t building a spreadsheet, we were building confidence. Because our product was data- folks needed to be able to trust that data.

2. Driving Strategic Messaging (and Protecting the Soul of the Product)

It was important to our team that we do not frame this as a “cost-saving” tool for frugal companies as that was against our ethos of fair, transparent compensation for African professionals.

We framed the messaging around:

Retention (“What if you could avoid unnecessary back-and-forth in comp conversations?”)
Competitiveness (“Would you lose your top candidate over $100?”)
Trust (“Your team will stay when they believe the remuneration process is fair.”)

I wrote (and rewrote) the product copy, positioning blurbs, and internal one-pagers to make sure we never lost the human angle. This wasn’t just numbers on a screen for me; it was about making better choices for real people.

3. Orchestrating Cross-Functional Execution

I sat at the center of data, design, and growth; pulling the different threads across the org to keep things aligned. Highlights:

Pulled in our internal recruiter team, and external head of HRs at our target startup companies to test early prototypes and flag what didn’t land
Worked with the design team to keep the interface lightweight, useful, and friendly to non-technical users
Partnered with marketing to validate which pricing models and CTAs generated the most meaningful interest
Created a robust go-to-market strategy that had us onboarding 200 users within the first 48 hours.

Together, we ran small, low-risk experiments:

Who wanted us more: pre-series A or series A+ startups?
Gauging appetite for credits vs subscriptions
Experimenting with waitlist-style rollouts to build intrigue

What We Shipped

✅ Phase 1 MVP: role-based, filterable compensation benchmarks
✅ Clean, modern interface built to support decision-making, not just browsing
✅ Messaging that made hiring managers feel smarter and more strategic, not frugal
✅ 576 recruiters and startup founders who use it to calibrate real offers 3 months down the line.

What I’m Proud Of

This wasn’t about building a tool. It was about building trust. And for me, it just wasn't about the tech; it included championing transparency around how much data we collected, and where we collected it from. I also insisted on a fair, open, data privacy policy that is easy to read and understand; not drowning in legalese.

I helped transform something internal and inert into a living product that real users now depend on to make better compensation calls. I advocated for the soul of the product and the data protection of our users. And I kept the team focused on outcomes, not just shipping features.