From Setback to Startup: How Thabiso Mntshali Is Building a Safer Marketplace for Human Skills

When Thabiso Mntshali lost the funding that was supposed to take him to university, the future he had carefully imagined disappeared almost overnight. Rather than allow that setback to define him, he returned home and began teaching himself about technology and business.

Several failed ideas later, that uncertain period would lead him to build Xperoc—a South African service marketplace designed to make skilled professionals easier to find, verify and hire safely.

An entrepreneurial instinct from childhood

Born and raised in Richards Bay, South Africa, Thabiso was brought up by his mother after losing his father as an infant. From an early age, he was intensely curious about how things worked and drawn to the possibility of building something that could make a difference.

His entrepreneurial instincts appeared long before he knew what to call them.

While in primary school, he lent small amounts of money to classmates and neighbours and charged interest. The money was not the most exciting part for him; what fascinated him was watching something small grow.

By high school, Thabiso was earning money by helping other students with homework, assignments and projects. He also discovered a natural interest in accounting and technology. By the time he completed Grade 12, he was convinced that entrepreneurship was the only path he wanted to pursue.

“I had a burning desire to be involved in things that could change the world,” he says. “Even at a young age, entrepreneurship was already showing up in how I thought and what I did.”

The setback that changed his direction

Thabiso was accepted to study Economics at North West University alongside his cousin. He also secured a bursary that would cover his tuition and other expenses.

For the first time, he could see a clear road ahead.

Then, without a clear explanation, the funding was withdrawn.

He repeatedly tried to understand what had happened and find another way to continue, but eventually he had no choice but to leave the university and return home.

It could have been the moment everything fell apart. Instead, it became the beginning of something else.

Back home, Thabiso immersed himself in the two subjects that had always interested him: technology and business. His first attempt at creating an app lasted only a month before he abandoned it. His second attempt failed too. With money running low, he began trading cryptocurrency and stocks to support himself while he continued learning and experimenting.

The failures were frustrating, but they were also preparing him to recognise a much larger opportunity.

Seeing the danger behind the digital opportunity

In the middle of 2025, Thabiso read an article about how smartphones and internet access were making it easier for individuals and businesses to earn money online.

But while others might have focused only on the opportunity, he saw the danger accompanying it.

More people were offering and searching for services online, but the system still depended heavily on trusting strangers. Clients could be defrauded, skilled professionals could remain invisible, and payments could be disputed without any meaningful protection.

Thabiso imagined an elderly woman in a South African township searching online for a plumber and falling victim to fraud. He thought about a talented event planner in a small town who lacked the connections or visibility needed to reach a property management company in an affluent suburb.

On one side were people who urgently needed reliable services. On the other were capable professionals who could not reach them. Between both groups was a gap in trust, access and infrastructure.

That gap became Xperoc.

The company was founded on two convictions: that every deserving service business should have an opportunity to be discovered, regardless of location, and that people should be able to find and pay for services without living in fear of being scammed.

Building infrastructure for the services economy

Thabiso describes Xperoc through a simple comparison:

“Uber sells rides. Amazon sells products. Airbnb sells accommodation. Xperoc sells access to human skill—verified and made safe.”

Xperoc is a managed service-ordering marketplace connecting clients with verified local service providers. A client submits a request, and the platform identifies and contacts suitable providers on the client’s behalf. Quotes are returned through the platform, allowing the client to compare options and select a provider.

Payment is made securely into escrow and released only after the client confirms that the work has been completed. If the service is not completed as agreed, the payment is not released.

For plumbers, electricians, caterers, cleaners, tutors, mechanics, event planners and professionals across hundreds of other service categories, Xperoc offers a free digital presence, online bookings, verified customer reviews and built-in visibility through search engines.

The platform also provides business tools such as invoice, quotation and contract generators tailored to the provider’s country and jurisdiction.

For Thabiso, Xperoc is not simply another online directory. He sees it as the infrastructure connecting the fragmented services economy.

“Skilled people should not be invisible,” he says. “Ordinary people deserve to find and pay for services safely, no matter their budget, location or the time of day.”

The reality of building alone

Starting Xperoc was nothing like Thabiso expected.

The company was bootstrapped from its earliest days, forcing him to become its developer, marketer, salesperson, partnership lead, customer researcher and legal researcher—all at the same time.

He spent entire nights fixing individual problems and rebuilding features that did not meet his standards. He believed the platform’s first impression would determine whether people trusted it, so he became deeply involved in its interface, user experience, messaging and overall presentation.

“I refused to let the platform look or feel like a startup that didn’t care,” he explains. “Every element had to be intentional.”

The sacrifices came long before the gains. Passion gradually became something closer to obsession.

Then there were the rejections.

Some people dismissed the idea entirely. Others were rude, and a few were openly cruel. Still, Thabiso kept returning to the work—not because he was unaffected by the criticism, but because abandoning the company felt even more difficult.

“I kept showing up, not because I was fearless, but because I genuinely didn’t know what I would do with my life if I stopped.”

Those early experiences taught him not to treat entrepreneurship as a shortcut to money. Instead, he learned to see his time, energy and capital as investments in solving a meaningful problem.

In his view, the founder’s responsibility is not to chase a quick return but to continually search for the strongest path towards product-market fit—and to evolve whenever the business meets a wall.

Learning to work inside the loneliness

The most difficult part of the journey has not been the product or the fundraising. It has been the loneliness.

Building largely in silence, while surrounded by people who may not understand the vision—or may quietly expect it to fail—created a pressure that accumulated over time. Thabiso recalls mornings when he woke at 2 a.m. and simply sat with the uncertainty.

He does not claim to have completely overcome that feeling.

Instead, he has learned to work inside it.

“What kept me going was the obsession,” he says. “I care more about what I’m building than about what other people think of how long it’s taking.”

The experience has changed him. He describes himself as harder than when he started—not colder, but more resilient. Challenges that might once have stopped him no longer carry the same power.

Mentorship from Innovate Durban has also helped him navigate the journey. Away from the business, he reads widely across history, philosophy and finance, searching for ideas that stretch his thinking.

His personal motto, “Life’s too short to stay mediocre,” has become part of how he approaches both his life and the company.

He has also learned to distinguish genuine opportunities from polite conversations, read people more quickly and protect his energy for work that produces meaningful progress.

Most importantly, he stopped waiting for ideal conditions.

“Ideal conditions have never existed for me and probably never will,” he says. “I build anyway.”

From zero to institutional credibility

Without a large team or significant marketing budget, Xperoc has attracted hundreds of thousands of platform visitors, largely through organic content and deliberate positioning.

But for Thabiso, the company’s progress cannot be measured only in visitor numbers.

Xperoc has received backing from Innovate Durban, engaged with non-governmental organisations and entered active partnership discussions with municipalities. It has also signed partnerships with organisations including The Makers Club and the Difference Makers Youth Club in Charlestown.

He achieved these milestones as a solo founder—writing every email, attending every meeting, delivering every pitch and managing every follow-up himself.

“That is what stands out when I look back,” he says. “Not what Xperoc has become yet, but what it has taken to get here from nothing.”

One of the company’s most effective growth strategies has been combining a strong digital product with physical presence. Thabiso learned that while emails can easily be ignored, walking into an organisation and becoming a recognisable face can completely change the quality of a conversation.

The lesson came after spending weeks in email threads that produced little progress. Showing up in person helped turn abstract outreach into genuine relationships.

Building beyond South Africa

Xperoc is now focused on expanding its provider and client communities across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Bloemfontein, while strengthening its presence in KwaZulu-Natal.

The company is also deepening its engagement with municipalities and working towards formal market-linkage agreements that would connect the platform with established networks of service businesses.

On the product side, a mobile application is in development. Xperoc is improving its escrow-payment infrastructure and developing better analytics to help service providers understand and grow their businesses.

It is also expanding Xmatcher, an AI-powered automation system designed to identify and contact matching service providers more quickly.

Over the next five years, Thabiso wants to take Xperoc beyond South Africa—first across the African continent and eventually into global markets.

He believes the problem is universal. A homeowner in Nairobi searching for a trusted electrician faces a challenge similar to someone in Durban. A cleaner in Ontario may struggle to be discovered and trusted just as a cleaner in Johannesburg does.

Xperoc’s ambition is to become the infrastructure supporting trusted and transparent service exchanges wherever skilled professionals and the people who need them exist.

Protecting human skill in an age of AI

There is an even bigger idea behind Thabiso’s vision.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming knowledge-based work, including writing, coding, design and analysis. However, many physical and skilled services cannot be replaced in the same way.

A plumber must still repair the pipe. An electrician must still handle the wiring. A caregiver must still provide human care, and a chef must still prepare the meal.

Thabiso believes these human skills will become even more important as AI reshapes the wider economy. Xperoc is being built to ensure that the people who possess them are visible, trusted, properly valued and able to earn.

His advice to aspiring founders reflects everything the journey has taught him:

“Build something you would still work on if you knew it would take ten years—because it very well might. If your only motivation is the outcome, the process will destroy you. Fall in love with the problem instead.”

For the young founder who returned home after losing his university funding, the path has been difficult, lonely and uncertain. But it has also created a purpose much bigger than the future he originally imagined.

Thabiso is no longer simply building a marketplace. He is attempting to build a safer economic infrastructure for human skill.

And, as he puts it, Xperoc is nowhere near finished.