
Our Story
Why We Built First
A note from our founder on the problem we set out to solve.
Schools are extraordinary places doing extraordinary work — and most of them are held together by spreadsheets, group chats, and a dozen logins that don’t talk to each other. Every enquiry that slips through, every reminder that gets forgotten, every hour spent reconciling data by hand is time taken away from students.
We built First to change that: one platform that runs the whole school — from the first parent enquiry, through enrolment, attendance, assessment and finance, all the way to the final certificate. No modules to bolt together, no data trapped in silos.
First is built alongside the schools that use it, in the places that need it most. If that sounds like your school, we’d love to hear from you.
Zayne Essop — Founder & CEO
Zayne founded First to give schools the kind of software they’d actually choose to use. He works directly with the schools on the platform, turning their day-to-day realities into the product roadmap.