Case Study

GetPaid Boosts the African Digital Economy

Industry

Marketplace, IT & Services

Location

Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania

Use cases

Stellar for Payments

About

This is GetPaid

GetPaid is a marketplace and community platform for tech companies, digital platforms and digital professionals to connect with each other in Africa. Digital professionals, such as freelancers, creators and traders, are able to work for customers, directly or in-directly via platforms, around the world and earn money by selling their skills, time, expertise or work. Leveraging Stellar anchor ClickPesa, GetPaid enables digital professionals to receive payments through various fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

Challenge

Low Supply, High Demand

Top technical talent is difficult to find due to low supply and high demand, and many companies worldwide are unable to hire at the rate their business and revenue are scaling, leading to unsustainable growth. The logical solution would be to tap into a fresh talent pool, such as the young adults in Africa who compose a large part of the continent’s workforce. Access to affordable laptops and the internet has opened up new opportunities for knowledge, jobs, and wealth for this burgeoning demographic of digital professionals. However, they are often limited by their ability to market themselves, unable to connect with the very companies seeking their skills and expertise.

We envisioned a place where digital professionals in Africa can participate at full-length in the global digital economy. The most common known opportunity on the internet is making money through freelancing, but opportunities online and Web3 are rapidly increasing. Thanks to the Stellar network, GetPaid is making these opportunities accessible and opening new revenue streams for digital professionals in Africa.

Richard Lema, Co-founder (Strategy And Customer Acquisition), GetPaid

Solution

Bringing Digital Professionals and Companies Together

GetPaid, a web-based app powered by payments platform ClickPesa, took on the mission of bringing digital professionals and companies together by providing a platform where both parties can connect and exchange value. Companies in need of talent can either share job opportunities with the GetPaid team to be posted or directly reach out to vetted digital professionals. In turn, digital professionals can apply to the job postings directly and work with overseas clients. In addition, digital professionals can use the GetPaid platform to receive payments from digital freelancing, gig, e-commerce, crypto and gaming platforms supporting crypto payouts.

Pivotal to GetPaid’s development is technology that could facilitate cost-efficient and fast payments, value storage, and asset exchange – all use cases the Stellar network is optimized for.

A Simple User Experience on Top of the Stellar Network

All user activity on GetPaid happens real-time on the Stellar network, leveraging ClickPesa’s anchor services through best practices outlined in open-source Stellar Ecosystem Proposals – specifically, SEP-6, SEP-9, SEP-10, and SEP-12. However, that activity is hidden under GetPaid’s simple UI/UX, giving users a friendly and approachable user experience while making use of the Stellar network’s cutting-edge technology.
For each user that creates an account on GetPaid, a Stellar network-enabled wallet is created. Companies that use GetPaid to find professionals to fulfill their job postings will be required to pay via the platform.
On the other side, digital professionals will receive payment through their own wallets or freelancing, freelancing, gig, e-commerce, crypto and gaming platforms. They can either choose to keep their earnings in the wallet, use them to purchase learning & development courses, or cash out into mobile money, their bank account, or a crypto exchange.

Multiple Asset Support and Payment Methods

To provide greater flexibility through the Stellar network and its ecosystem, GetPaid supports several payment methods, accepting payments in multiple fiat and crypto currencies through anchors like Clickpesa. When a user makes a deposit into their account via various types of fiat and crypto, the funds are automatically converted into USDC.
GetPaid supports USDC on the Stellar network and lumens (XLM), both of which are supported by various exchanges and platforms that enable users to access an even greater variety of cryptocurrencies.

Payment Speed, Transparency, and Low Fees

Facilitating cross-border payment between two parties through traditional financial institutions can take days, even weeks, before it arrives at its intended destination. On the Stellar network, payments settle in a matter of seconds – no matter who’s sending or receiving them, where they’re from or going, or how much is being sent.
To process hundreds and thousands of transactions for their customers, GetPaid needed a cost-friendly solution to keep the cost for their customers low. Transaction fees on the Stellar network are less than a fraction of a US cent.

Results

Attract Awareness

Winning Stellar Community Fund Round 9 has helped GetPaid attract greater awareness from potential clients and momentum moving forward when planning for the future. There is high demand from digital professionals for learning materials that allow them to further upskill and features that enable them to do more with their money than just receiving payments. By eventually empowering users with the means to create lessons, exchange assets with one another, and network, GetPaid will transform into a hub for digital professionals in Africa to gather and form a self-sustaining community.

7,500

Applicants

1,250

Vetted Digital Professionals

96

Jobs Executed

The Stellar network is what made GetPaid possible. The network's technology and connected ecosystem allowed us to make our vision reality and go live with a solution in a significantly shorter time to market than we could dream of. GetPaid is a perfect example of what is possible with the Stellar network.

Rick Groothuizen, Co-founder (Product and Finance), GetPaid

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