01 · Why I Built This
I was the learner this is for
I’ve drawn my whole life, but nobody told me that could be a career. I finished a degree I don’t use today, then spent a year and a half at home, unemployed.
What changed it was moving to Cape Town and working at Red & Yellow as a student advisor. For more than two years I sat with students, many of them needing bursaries, and helped them find their path. I’ll never forget the light that came on when someone finally listened to what they loved and gave them direction.
Then came Watobe, an education startup, and more education work after that. The question stayed the same: what if learners got that help before they had to make the big decision?
02 · Validating the Problem
Is this real, or just my story?
Before designing anything, my co-founder and I tested the assumption. We sized the market, then ran 12 interviews with learners to check that this was a problem they actually face, not just one I had.
The interviews confirmed it: learners were choosing courses that didn’t fit them and applying without understanding the requirements.
03 · Version One
An APS calculator and a list of paths
The first version was practical: an APS calculator and tracker, plus a place to browse courses, careers and study paths. It answered the questions learners asked us, but it only gave them information.
04 · The Hard Part
Doubt
Then we stalled. When you build something this close to your own story, you second-guess it: is this the right thing to build, and why me? For a while, we didn’t move forward.
What got us moving again was remembering why I started. Giving learners information about paths wasn’t the point. The point was what had changed my life: experiencing a path before choosing it.
05 · The Pivot
Information isn’t enough. Let them try it.
We rebuilt Sgela around practice. The APS calculator didn’t disappear: it became track one, getting in. Next to it sits track two, doing the work: real scenarios from inside a career, framed like a client brief.
06 · Designing for Practice
Confidence before commitment
Choose a path
Not every learner wants university. Paths include learnerships and higher certificates as well as degrees, and learners can explore beyond their first pick.
Take on a brief
Each challenge reads like a brief from the job, for example a situation a nurse meets on shift, with a few ways to respond.
Learn why
Pick an answer and Sgela explains why it works, or why it doesn’t. Learners build judgement, not just a score.
Get ready to apply
Alongside the practice, learners see what they need to qualify and which funding options, like bursaries, are open to them.
Come back tomorrow
A short daily challenge, a streak, and two meters: how well the path fits, and how ready they are to apply.
07 · What We’ve Built
A site, a platform and the engine behind it
Since the pivot we’ve built the marketing website, the learner platform with clear paths, and an admin portal that runs it all.
The admin portal is where dates, requirements and every question are managed. It’s also how we work with people who have walked these paths: they help shape real-world scenarios, and nothing reaches a learner until a person approves it.
08 · What’s Next
Deep and narrow
We’ll launch with a few streams done properly, growing the library of scenarios with professionals in each field. Every requirement and deadline stays hand-checked against a cited source.
09 · Takeaway
Build for the person you were
Information tells a learner about a path. Practice tells them whether it’s theirs. Sgela exists so the next learner finds that out before the decision, not years after it.