Sarfo, Olatunde and Hazel developed the app in Ghana, a middle-income nation of about 27 million people. Hazel, chief executive officer and Sarfo, chief product officer are both from Ghana while Olatunde, chief technology officer is from Nigeria. They met in Accra in 2014 while attending the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, which mentors aspiring technology entrepreneurs to set up globally successful companies that create wealth and jobs locally in Africa. Tress came about after Sarfo asked the women in her class if anyone knew the name of a weave she wanted that she had seen online. The three, who were in their mid-20s, got thinking about how much time and effort they spent on their hair, looking for styles and asking strangers where they get theirs done. “I stop people on the street sometimes to ask them where they do their hair, how much it costs or the name of the weave they use. Even my mum – who is in her 60s – she does it, she will take photos of the TV screen and ask where she can have it done. So it's something we do all the time but never thought of how we can use technology to solve it", Hazel tells Refinery29. Together they canvassed more than 100 women from across the continent, asking them if they saw a hairstyle they liked, what were the top three questions they would want to ask about it. They narrowed this down to the name and location of the stylist or salon, the products used and the price range. This formed the base of the app. In its first year, Tress has attracted more than 60,000 users from across Africa, as well as in the UK, US, Caribbean and Europe. It has tapped into a lucrative market with a massive consumer base, Hazel says.