Mona High Friends Build Intelligen Platform for Jamaican Entrepreneurs

Three men who once shared classrooms at Mona High School are getting ready to roll out Intelligen, a digital service they say can make business ownership in Jamaica simpler, cheaper and less daunting for operators of small enterprises.

The venture was created by longtime friends Negash Francis, Ganesh Nactie and Daniel Jarrett. Their platform is being built to bring several core business tasks into one easier system, among them company registration.

According to the founders, the concept grew out of their own attempts to build and manage businesses locally. They said Jamaica’s administrative processes can be expensive and difficult for entrepreneurs to work through.

“We’ve all had experience with business before and realised that many of the processes are unnecessarily difficult for small business owners,” Francis, Intelligen’s chief operating officer, told the Jamaica Observer. “What we wanted to do was simplify everything — from registration to taxes, accounting, HR [human resources] and marketing.”

Intelligen is intended to take dense paperwork and formal procedures and turn them into plain questions that users can answer step by step. After the information is entered, the system prepares the necessary documents and assists business owners in keeping up with deadlines, compliance duties, reminders and alerts.

The platform also includes artificial intelligence features for companies that need help with their online visibility. Users will be able to produce branded social media posts, develop promotional material and handle parts of their digital presence in one place.

Nactie, whose work includes social development and crime-prevention efforts, said the deeper aim is to remove hurdles that stop people from moving forward with business ideas.

“We want to make it easier for people to focus on growing their businesses rather than struggling with paperwork and processes,” he said.

Although Intelligen is a new technology project, the relationship among the founders goes back more than 10 years. Francis, Nactie and Jarrett met at Mona High, stayed close during their secondary-school years and later followed different career routes while keeping a shared interest in enterprise, technology and solving practical problems.

Jarrett, the company’s marketing and communications director, said the business is grounded not only in software but also in the confidence the three have built in one another. A photo from their school days shows Jarrett on the left with Nactie after their first quiz match while they were students at Mona High.

“We’ve known each other since grade seven,” Jarrett told the Sunday Observer. “We went through high school together, built trust in each other, and learned each other’s strengths. That foundation is what made this possible.”

The founders bring different experiences to the company. Francis, who was raised in rural St Andrew and went to Red Hills Primary School, is now employed in financial services. Nactie has a master’s degree in chemistry and works on initiatives designed to reduce youth participation in crime and violence. Jarrett, from Trench Town, has developed his career across sports media, marketing and project management.

Their duties in the company reflect those backgrounds. Francis is responsible for strategy and product development, Nactie manages administration and operations, and Jarrett leads marketing and communications.

Intelligen is expected to start with beta testing among about 100 businesses. During that stage, entrepreneurs will be able to access the service free of charge while the team collects feedback and improves the product.

The founders are aiming at Jamaica’s large community of small and medium-sized businesses, which they say still lacks reasonably priced tools for managing day-to-day business obligations.

Francis acknowledged that bigger technology firms may one day compete in the same area, but said the immediate goal is to create something useful for local business owners.

“Our priority right now is creating something that works well for Jamaican businesses,” he said. “If we build a strong product, the users will come.”

The team said its idea of success goes beyond income or subscriber counts. They want Intelligen to help more Jamaicans register, operate and expand lasting businesses.

As the launch approaches, Francis, Nactie and Jarrett are relying on technology, knowledge of the Jamaican market and a friendship formed at school to tackle some of the routine problems entrepreneurs face and support a stronger business environment across the country.