# S01E06 · Cilliers Geldenhuys — Co-Founder of AllWage <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ETgBfvmNoE" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="uv-poster" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_ETgBfvmNoE/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Cilliers Geldenhuys on The Useful Podcast Episode 6" loading="lazy" /></a> Cilliers Geldenhuys is a co-founder of [AllWage](https://www.allwage.com) (formerly Agrigistics), a workforce management and payroll platform built for businesses with wage workers across South Africa. He met co-founders Luke Kroon and Johan Ferreira in the same university residence, and after a detour through mining and monitoring farm equipment, the three of them built a company that now profitably supports roughly fifty thousand wage workers, six years in, without ever taking a large funding round. In this founder-to-founder conversation, Gokul and Cilliers get into "ghost workers," a wage-theft pattern most people outside South Africa have never heard of, why AllWage read Crossing the Chasm and picked construction as its beachhead industry, why the company shows its entire team the full financials, why activation rather than the product is the hardest problem they have left to solve, and why they have deliberately stayed bootstrapped and profitable instead of chasing a big raise. ## Listen <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li><span class="uv-label">Watch</span><a class="uv-ico uv-yt" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ETgBfvmNoE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a></li> <li><span class="uv-label">Show</span><a class="uv-ico uv-sp" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Useful Podcast on Spotify</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/theusefulpod" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@theusefulpod on X</a></li> </ul> <a class="uv-btn" href="https://useful.ventures/podcast/cilliers-geldenhuys-allwage/transcript">Read the full transcript</a> ## Key facts <ul class="uv-facts"> <li><span class="uv-k">Episode</span>The Useful Podcast, Season 1, Episode 6</li> <li><span class="uv-k">Guest</span>Cilliers Geldenhuys, Co-Founder of AllWage</li> <li><span class="uv-k">Host</span>Gokul Bala, co-founder of Useful Ventures</li> <li><span class="uv-k">Company</span><a href="https://www.allwage.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AllWage</a>, a workforce management and payroll platform for wage workers in South Africa</li> <li><span class="uv-k">Topics</span>Ghost workers and wage theft, bootstrapping vs. venture capital, radical financial transparency, choosing a beachhead industry, AI and activation</li> <li><span class="uv-k">Length</span>About 57 minutes · Published August 2026</li> </ul> ## Guest <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li><span class="uv-label">Cilliers</span><a class="uv-ico uv-li" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cilliers-geldenhuys-213106144/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a></li> <li><span class="uv-label">AllWage</span><a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/allwage_com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@allwage_com)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-play" href="https://www.allwage.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allwage.com</a></li> <li><span class="uv-label">Host</span><a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/GokulsVision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gokul Bala on X (@GokulsVision)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/gokuls.vision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@gokuls.vision)</a></li> </ul> ## Key insights **Ghost workers are a wage-theft pattern born from disconnection.** On rural sites with no internet or power, a worker adds a friend to the attendance register; because the office is too disconnected to notice, the name lands on payroll and stays there for months. AllWage closes the gap between site and office with facial recognition, RFID, and GPS-fenced clocking so a name can't appear on the register without a person behind it. **Bootstrapped and profitable beats funded and fast.** AllWage started with the founders living off bread and milk for a year before the company could pay them. Six years later it is profitable across roughly fifty thousand wage workers and has turned down venture capital, because Cilliers and his co-founders would rather keep the strategy — and the company — than trade it for speed. **One outside investor was worth more than his check.** Cilliers met an angel investor, Philip, by chance at a backpackers' in the Eastern Cape. Philip still meets the founders almost every week and helped them decide when to raise and when not to — advice Cilliers says mattered more than the capital itself. **Radical transparency keeps a team pointed at one number.** AllWage shows its entire team the full financials, an idea borrowed from Philip. Everyone sees what's working, what isn't, and why — which makes prioritization conversations far easier and, in six years, has never backfired. **Crossing the Chasm turned a scattered pitch into a beachhead.** Early on, AllWage tried to serve every problem every client raised and struggled to scale. Reading Crossing the Chasm pushed them to pick one industry — construction — and rebuild their ads, site visits, and case studies around it before expanding back out to agriculture and manufacturing. **Activation, not the product, is the hardest problem left.** AllWage's toughest unsolved challenge isn't building features — it's getting a client off pen and paper and onto a live system fast enough that they feel the value before they lose patience. Cilliers says most of the team's time now goes into client conversations, not building. ## About AllWage [AllWage](https://www.allwage.com) is a workforce management and payroll platform for businesses with wage workers in South Africa, built by Cilliers Geldenhuys, Luke Kroon, and Johan Ferreira, who met living in the same university residence. The company started as Agrigistics, first monitoring mining equipment and then farm workers, before pivoting into time and attendance, payroll, WhatsApp-based communication, and HR — the four legs it runs on today. AllWage now supports roughly fifty thousand wage workers across construction, agriculture, and manufacturing businesses of twenty-five to six hundred employees, is profitable, and has never raised a large funding round. Learn more at [allwage.com](https://www.allwage.com). ## FAQ <div class="uv-faq"> ### Who is Cilliers Geldenhuys? Cilliers Geldenhuys is a co-founder of AllWage, a workforce management and payroll platform for wage workers in South Africa. He studied industrial engineering, met co-founders Luke Kroon and Johan Ferreira in a university residence, and worked in mining before the three of them started the company together. He is based in Johannesburg. ### What is AllWage? AllWage (formerly Agrigistics) is a workforce management and payroll platform for businesses with wage workers in South Africa. It combines flexible time and attendance clocking — RFID wristbands, facial recognition, and WhatsApp — with payroll, employee communication, and HR, and currently supports roughly fifty thousand wage workers across construction, agriculture, and manufacturing. ### What are "ghost workers" and how does AllWage solve the problem? "Ghost workers" are people who end up on a company's payroll without actually working there — often because a site is disconnected enough from head office that a friend can be added to a paper attendance register unnoticed. AllWage solves this with facial recognition, RFID wristbands, and GPS-fenced clocking, so a worker can't be paid without a real, verified person clocking in. ### Why did AllWage stay bootstrapped instead of raising venture capital? Cilliers and his co-founders worry that a large VC round would come with pressure to follow investor advice that isn't necessarily right for the business, and would dilute their control of the strategy. AllWage grew slowly on its own revenue and one angel investor's backing, reached profitability, and has kept full decision-making power as a result. ### Why does AllWage share its full financials with the whole team? The practice came from their angel investor, Philip, who told them transparency helps a team rally around one number. AllWage now reviews the numbers with the whole team on a regular cadence, so everyone understands what's working, what isn't, and why the company is focused on a given priority. ### Why did AllWage choose construction as its beachhead industry? After reading Crossing the Chasm, AllWage recognized it was spreading itself too thin trying to solve every problem every early client raised. It picked construction as a beachhead, rebuilt its marketing, site visits, and case studies around that one industry, landed a marquee enterprise client there, and is now using that proof to win the rest of the market. ### What is The Useful Podcast? The Useful Podcast is a series of founder-to-founder conversations from Useful Ventures, hosted by Gokul Bala. Each episode digs past the highlight reel into the actual work of building a company. This is Season 1, Episode 6. </div> ## Related * [[podcast]] is the full Useful Podcast index. * [[manifesto]] is how we see the world and how we work. * [[notes]] is where we write about the world we see coming. * [AllWage](https://www.allwage.com) · [The Useful Podcast on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheUsefulPodcast) · [@theusefulpod on X](https://x.com/theusefulpod) Back to [[podcast]].