I grew up in Nairobi before moving for university, and I kept hearing the same story from family and friends in the diaspora - renting or buying property back home almost always meant going through agents you couldn't verify, paying fees that ate into the deal, and having no way to confirm a listing was real before wiring money from thousands of miles away. Tuzama was built to close that gap: a platform where landlords and tenants deal directly, with verified listings and no agent markup, so people trying to invest or find a place back home don't have to rely on a stranger's word. It started as a straightforward listings site, but a lot of the real work turned out to be trust infrastructure rather than features - building out a Privacy Policy compliant with Kenya's Data Protection Act, Terms of Service, and a Safety & Trust page so users had something concrete to check before engaging with a listing. Go-to-market shifted too - early on I assumed agencies would be the main channel, so I did direct outreach to Kenyan real estate agencies, but I've been leaning more into the diaspora angle since that's the audience the platform was really built to serve.

Tuzama

Easiest way to get a home in Kenya.

Easiest way to get a home in Kenya.