Starting a retail business in Lagos, Nigeria is one thing. Starting one that sells online, runs a physical store, manages inventory, handles returns, and keeps customers happy across every touchpoint, all at the same time, from day one, is another challenge entirely.
Huncho Gadgets came into the market with the right product proposition: quality phones and gadgets at prices that made sense for everyday Nigerian buyers. The demand was there. The ambition was there. What wasn't there yet was the operational foundation to hold it all together.
Huncho launched without a functioning team in place. No sales staff to move products. No operations staff to handle the orders, returns, and shipping that come with running both a physical store and an online channel simultaneously. And no systems to track any of it.
For Huncho leadership, the priority was clear: get the right people in, get them working, and make sure the business didn't collapse under its own early momentum. But recruiting, onboarding, managing, and paying staff while simultaneously trying to run a new retail operation is a lot for any founding team to carry alone.
They needed someone to take that weight off and not just someone to point them in the right direction, but actually do it with them.
Scalein stepped in as a true operational partner, not a service provider that drops off a report and leaves.
The engagement started with recruitment, sourcing, and placing the right people across sales and operations. Sales staff who could speak knowledgeably about devices, engage customers without being pushy, and close confidently, whether the customer was walking into the store or messaging online. Operations staff who could handle the behind-the-scenes work that determines whether a customer comes back.
But Scalein didn't stop at placement. For the first few months, Scalein managed the team entirely, handling staff oversight, performance, and payroll on Huncho's behalf. This gave Adeola and the leadership team the breathing room to focus on building the business while someone qualified was holding the people's side together.
Only once the team was settled, trained, and running with consistency did Scalein hand operations back to Huncho, which provided a smooth transition into a recruitment-only relationship as the business found its footing.
Alongside the people's work, Scalein implemented Zoho Books for Huncho's inventory and accounting management as an authorised Zoho solution provider, giving the business real-time visibility into stock levels, movement, and financials from day one.
Most startups spend their first year firefighting and fixing problems they didn't anticipate, and paying for decisions made too fast. Huncho didn't have to. By the time Scalein stepped back from day-to-day management, Huncho had recruited and trained a team, a functional sales and operations structure, a payroll system that had been running without friction, and an inventory setup that gave their leadership actual visibility into the business.
That's the difference between launching and launching properly.