Why We Built Modem Pay: The Story Behind Our Vision

“You don’t build for applause. You build because something is broken, and staying silent about it would hurt more than trying.”

We didn’t plan to build a payment company.
We weren’t chasing some trend or buzzword.

Modem Pay was born out of frustration, and the kind of love you only have for a place you refuse to give up on.

---

Where it really began

It wasn’t a eureka moment. There was no spotlight.
It was a simple realization after months of running in circles:

“Accepting payments in Gambia is hard. Painfully hard.”

If you're a business owner trying to go digital, you know the struggle.

Want to sell online? You’ll likely get told:

• “Use a WhatsApp number.”

• “Send your QMoney manually.”

• “Tell the customer to send a screenshot.”

Every transaction feels like an act of faith. Every payment, a headache.

That’s not how modern businesses should operate.

We were developers. We thought we could integrate mobile money APIs ourselves. But then came the silos, the red tape, the lack of documentation, the absence of sandbox environments, and the eerie silence after emails to payment providers.

“This shouldn’t be this hard.”

We started thinking:
Why hasn’t anyone fixed this?
And then the real question:
Why don’t we fix it?

---

The vision: not just digital payments, but digital dignity

What we’re building isn’t just infrastructure.
It’s dignity. It’s an agency. It’s confidence.

Modem Pay exists so that a hairdresser in Serrekunda can take deposits online.
So that a school in Bakau can collect tuition without chaos.
So that a startup developer can focus on building their dream product, not stitching together payment hacks.

We want the average Gambian to trust digital tools, because they were made with them in mind.

That’s our north star.

---

From sketchbook to codebase

We started from scratch.

We designed a dashboard so clean and intuitive that your auntie, who sells Abaya, could use it, without calling you every 5 minutes.

We built:

• Payment links so you can get paid without a website.

• A developer portal so you can plug Modem Pay into your apps.

• An order management system so you can track what’s selling and what’s not.

• Webhooks and transfer APIs so even betting platforms could go live with us.

And we didn’t stop there.
We’ve integrated Wave. We’ve gone live with QMoney and AfriMoney.
And we’ve built it all to be fast, secure, and local-first.

Because this is ours.

---

Built for Gambia. Backed by grit.

We didn’t raise a million dollars.
We raised our heads after hearing “no” far too many times.

We didn’t have a startup accelerator.
We had sleepless nights, patchy internet, and wild ambition.

We didn’t have everything figured out.
But we had each other, and a vision that wouldn’t let go of us.

Modem Pay is our answer to the voices that said:

• “This can’t work here.”

• “You’re dreaming too big.”

• “Gambia’s not ready.”

We think Gambia’s more than ready.
And we’re showing up, every day, to prove it.

---

To the believers (and the skeptics, too)

If you’ve supported us, signed up, or even just clicked around our dashboard, thank you. You’re part of the movement now.

If you’re still watching from the sidelines, unsure if this is for real, we get it. But we’re not stopping.

This isn’t a project.
It’s a mission.

And we’ll keep building until Modem Pay is the default, the way every business gets paid, every developer builds, and every Gambian transacts.

You deserve tools made with you in mind.
We’re here to deliver them, with love, code, and consistency.

—

Signed,
Caleb Okpara & Modou Jallow
Founders of Modem Pay