Nigerian startup Natterbase is connecting African software developers with clients from all over the world, and helping those clients track the progress made on their outsourced tasks.
Founded in 2017 by Prince Isaac, Natterbase, like illustrious competitor Andela, describes itself as a talent accelerator, connecting companies with software developers.
“We do this using a proprietary product management tool that helps us track the speed, accuracy, working hours and work rate of a software developer, giving companies full visibility into our developer’s activities,” Isaac told Disrupt Africa.
“In order to ensure quality, our platform integrates into our software developers working environments to track their activities, and we use the data to provide detailed analysis for our clients managing these developers.”
Natterbase was formed in response to what Isaac considered a “stretching gap” between talented developers and companies looking for them. The startup solves this problem by creating a global, value-based marketplace of software developers.
“The scarcity of software developer is not because software developers are not available, it is because there is a geographic limitation that separates talents from remote areas with little or no tech hubs from companies in tech hubs,” said Isaac.
This is already a busy space, Andela aside, but Natterbase is competing strongly. It has secured angel funding, worked with over 50 companies, and already generated revenues of over US$130,000 by taking a percentage of payments secured by developers through its platform. It has big plans for the next year.
“We are currently operating in the African tech ecosystem, but we intend on expanding in 2019. We currently have some clients from London and Berlin,” Isaac said.
The major challenge the startup has faced so far, he said was creating world-class software developers.
“Developers can be good, but there are certain standards required to work with top tech companies,” he said.
“What we have done is to work with online training platforms such as Treehouse and Udacity in training our developers and making them well equipped to work with companies from anywhere and of various sizes.”
