Why we exist
We watched Nigerian schools manage 500 students with notebooks and WhatsApp groups.
We knew there had to be a better way.
Who this is for
We built this for three people we kept meeting.
The school owner
She is still in the office at 8pm in the last week of term, cross-checking three exercise books against a broadsheet so report cards go out on time. She has done this every term for eleven years. She should be planning next session, not transcribing.
The class teacher
He marks attendance on a loose sheet that goes into a folder nobody opens again. When the principal asks how often a struggling student has actually been in school this term, the honest answer is that nobody knows without an afternoon of counting ticks.
The parent
She has called the school three times this week to ask whether results are out, whether her son was in school on Tuesday, and whether her last payment was received. Each call reaches a different person with a different answer.
BentoSMS exists so the owner leaves before dark, the register means something, and the parent gets her answer without picking up the phone. Everything else is detail.
What we believe
Three things we don’t compromise on.
Practical over perfect
We ship tools schools can use this term, not a grand vision arriving “soon”. If a feature doesn’t save someone time this week, it waits.
Built for the context
Nigerian grading systems, WAEC and NECO realities, WhatsApp-first parents, patchy connectivity — we design for the schools that actually exist here.
Long-term thinking
A school runs for generations. We build software — and relationships — meant to last that long, not to flip at the next funding round.
The founder
Ridhwan Salaudeen
Product Designer & Founder, Bento Development
Ridhwan designs and builds BentoSMS end to end — and answers the WhatsApp support line personally. When a bursar in Abuja finds something confusing, the person who hears about it is the person who can fix it, usually the same week.
That’s deliberate. School software fails when the people building it have never sat in a Nigerian staff room during results week. We have, and we keep going back.
The numbers
What the Alpha Academy Abuja pilot looks like.
24
staff onboarded and working in their portals
77
subjects configured across JSS 1 to SSS 3
1 afternoon
to set up every class in the school
One pilot school today. If you want to be the second, book an inquiry.