The Layoff: Ada’s Battle for Survival at TaraPay

Last year, around this same time in October, I wrote about the chaos that hit the fintech startup TaraPay when salaries were delayed. It was a piece that drew hundreds of reactions — from tech bros who could relate to the struggle of startup uncertainties, to everyday Nigerians who knew exactly what it meant when “HR says salaries will be delayed.”FLASH BACK >>> [Salary Delay: The Ripple Effect](<a class="tc-blue external-link" href="https://www.twocents.space/insight/salary-delay-the-ripple-effect-927/)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.twocents.space/insight/salary-del...</a>That was the beginning of the storm.But what came after the storm was even tougher. --- The Memo That Shook TaraPay (Again) By April, TaraPay had just begun to find its footing again. Salaries were back to normal, office morale was recovering, and people were starting to smile during Monday standups. It almost felt like peace had returned — until one Tuesday morning when an email dropped like a thunderclap from the sky. Subject: “Organizational Restructuring and Workforce Optimization.”<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/Gemini_Generated_Image_1h1lv21h1lv21h1l.png"/>In the Nigerian corporate world, that line needs no translation. It simply means “oga don tire to dey pay people wey no get client.” TaraPay was downsizing. The official reason? “Market realities and a need to streamline operations.” The real reason? Money no dey. By the end of that week, over two-thirds of the staff were gone. Some wept. Some laughed out of disbelief. Some simply carried their desktop plants and said, “It is well.” Amidst the chaos, Ada — the same Ada whose story I told last year — was among the lucky four retained in her department. Lucky, yes. But as she would soon find out, luck can be a tricky thing. --- A New Kind of Employment The new arrangement sounded fancy at first: “Performance-based pay structure to encourage innovation and ownership.” In plain English, it meant: “You will no longer collect salary unless you bring money into the company.” TaraPay had turned its remaining staff into unofficial marketers. Developers, designers, product managers — all were now required to source clients and earn commissions from every transaction processed. Ada stared at the memo like it was a prank. She had spent her whole career writing code, not cold-calling business owners. Yet here she was, suddenly expected to sell fintech solutions to salon owners, mechanics, and small logistics firms. It was either adapt or join the growing army of ex-TaraPay staff flooding LinkedIn with “Open to Work” posts. --- Ada, The Accidental Marketer The first few weeks were brutal. Ada woke up earlier than usual, not to debug software, but to prepare sales pitches. She created PowerPoint slides, chased leads, and sent polite follow-up emails that no one responded to. Her first big outing was at a small business fair in Ikeja. While other exhibitors had colourful banners and marketing budgets, Ada stood there with a printed flyer that read, “Go Digital with TaraPay.” A trader approached her booth and asked, “Madam, if I use your thing, will my POS stop hanging?” She smiled weakly. “We are working on that,” she said — the same way the government says “We are working on power supply.” It was a humbling experience. The same Ada who once deployed backend systems was now explaining payment gateways to shop owners who just wanted stable network and fast credit alerts. --- When Bills Refused to Wait Commissions trickled in — slowly, painfully. Some months, she earned enough to cover rent. Other months, she juggled between sending partial payments to her landlord and borrowing “urgent 2k” from friends. Her mother’s medical bills didn’t understand the phrase “commission-based structure.” Her younger brother’s school fees didn’t wait for “client onboarding.” At night, Ada moonlighted as a freelance developer, taking on small contracts on Upwork and Fiverr just to stay afloat. Sleep became optional. Weekends turned into catch-up workdays. Even coffee began to pity her. --- The Emotional Overdraft The financial stress soon evolved into emotional fatigue. Ada, once cheerful and full of ideas, became quieter. Her WhatsApp status — once a stream of memes and funny dev jokes — turned blank. Her colleagues noticed the change. Everyone was just… surviving.The TaraPay office that once buzzed with music now felt like an empty warehouse of dreams and overdue bills. Yet, Ada refused to quit. Somehow, in between frustration and fatigue, she began to get better at her new “marketing life.” She attended free webinars, networked at tech events, and slowly built a small list of clients who trusted her. Her commissions grew — modestly, but steadily. For the first time in months, she could breathe again. --- Finding Strength in the Struggle One rainy Friday, Ada sat in a danfo, drenched and exhausted after meeting a potential client. As she stared through the fogged-up window, she couldn’t help but laugh — not the happy kind, but the type that comes when life humbles you completely. In a strange way, TaraPay’s chaos had reshaped her. She had become more than just a developer — she was now a negotiator, a problem solver, a marketer, and most importantly, a survivor. She had discovered that sometimes, life takes away your comfort zone to show you your capacity. --- The Lesson Beneath the Hustle When TaraPay finally stabilized again, investors began to trickle back. There were talks of restoring salaries and rehiring old staff. But Ada had already evolved. She no longer saw herself as just an employee. She had learned the hardest lesson of the corporate world — never build your entire peace around a paycheck. Ada stayed with TaraPay, not because it was easy, but because she had learned how to swim in turbulent waters. Her story, much like that of many young Nigerians in startups today, is not just about delayed salaries or layoffs — it’s about resilience. About learning to hustle, adapt, and still smile when the danfo splashes muddy water on your neatly ironed trousers. --- Epilogue: The Code Still Runs A year later, when Ada looks back at that fateful memo, she doesn’t feel bitterness — just gratitude. Because even when the paychecks stopped coming, her courage didn’t. She kept coding, kept hustling, and kept believing. And maybe that’s the real startup spirit — not in the fancy office, not in the round of funding, but in the quiet determination of people like Ada who refuse to give up even when the system crashes. Because in the end, like every good developer knows — the code must still run.

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