From First Contact to Signed Client: Automating Founders Freedom Africa's Growth Engine

Founders Freedom Africa is an organisation dedicated to empowering African entrepreneurs, providing the tools, resources, and support needed to build and grow their businesses. Their own work depends on being able to move new clients from first enquiry to signed agreement quickly and consistently. Before this project, that pipeline was running almost entirely on memory.

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The Problem

Two parts of the same pipeline just hadn't grown with the business.

Proposals were built from scratch every time ,a blank document, client-specific details written in by hand, then a full manual review to catch anything off. It routinely took several hours per proposal.

Follow-up after a proposal went out had no system behind it. It happened when someone remembered. Leads went cold simply because nobody had circled back.

Onboarding, once a client did say yes, had the same problem in a different form. The experience depended entirely on who was handling it and how busy that week was. Some clients got a prompt welcome and clear next steps. Others waited. Meeting reminders went out inconsistently ,or not at all.

In their own words:

"We always had to create proposals from scratch and review every section to make sure it was fine. Sometimes, potential clients fell through the cracks because we did not have a standard way of following up, and we would forget."

The two problems were connected ,a proposal that got no follow-up and an onboarding that felt inconsistent were both symptoms of the same gap: nothing carried a client from one stage to the next automatically.

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Why It Wasn't a Quick Fix

This wasn't a single automation ,it was two interlocking systems that needed to hand off to each other cleanly. The proposal system had to generate a document and trigger the right follow-up cadence. The onboarding system had to pick up the moment a proposal was accepted and carry the client through discovery, negotiation, and signing ,inside ClickUp, the tool the team was already living in, with no new platform to learn.

Building one without the other would have just moved the dropped-lead problem further down the pipeline.

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What We Built

Phase 1 - Proposal Automation

• Rebuilt their existing proposals into a standardised Google Docs template ,locking in everything that stays the same across clients (structure, legal language, positioning) so only client-specific fields change.
• Built a short Google Form (client info, project details, investment info) that feeds the template directly.
• Connected form to template via Make.com ,a submission auto-generates a fully populated proposal and saves it straight to Drive, ready to send.
• Layered in automated follow-up reminders so every sent proposal gets chased at the right time, without anyone tracking it manually.

Result: proposal creation dropped from several hours to a few minutes, every proposal follows the same structure, and no sent proposal goes unfollowed.

Phase 2 ,Client Onboarding Automation

• Built an automated onboarding flow inside ClickUp, triggered by pipeline stage changes:
  • Intake → automatic welcome email the moment a client is added
  • Discovery meeting scheduled → automated reminder ahead of the call
  • Proposal stage → tracked automatically inside ClickUp, connected directly to the Phase 1 system so the two flows hand off without manual input
  • Negotiation meeting scheduled → automated reminder so clients arrive ready to decide
• All of it running inside ClickUp and Gmail ,no new tools for the team to adopt.

Result: every client gets the same high-quality onboarding regardless of who's managing them or how busy the week is, meeting attendance improved, and the full journey from enquiry to signed agreement runs without anyone manually triggering the next step.

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Why It Kept Going

The proposal system was never meant to be the whole fix ,it was Phase 1 of a larger pipeline. Once it was live, the next gap became obvious: getting accepted proposals into a consistent onboarding flow. That became Phase 2, built to plug directly into what already existed rather than as a separate project.

That's the shape retainer work with Made With Make tends to take ,a first build surfaces the next bottleneck, and the systems get built to connect rather than sit in isolation.

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What This Unlocked

Founders Freedom Africa can now take on more clients without worrying that something in the process gets missed. Proposals go out fast and consistent. Every one gets followed up. First impressions on onboarding are the same regardless of who's handling it. And the whole journey ,first enquiry to signed agreement ,runs without anyone having to remember the next step.

There was also an unexpected insight along the way: building the automation made visible something the team hadn't realised ,their proposals were already far more standardised than they thought. What felt like fully custom work each time was mostly consistent; it just hadn't been formalised.

"Even processes perceived as unique can often be standardised. Recognising and implementing these standards can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness."

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What the Client Said

"Your professionalism, confidence, and knowledge of what you're doing stood out to me."

"You are friendly, honest, and did not give up on ensuring we finished the project, even when we sometimes got busy."

"I enjoyed working with Wambui on automating our proposal process. She is honest, professional, and ensures that she follows through on what she promises. I would definitely recommend working with her."

Joyce Kayima - Founder, Founders Freedom Africa

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Facing something similar?

If leads are falling through the cracks between proposal and signed agreement ,or your onboarding experience depends on who happens to be free that week ,let's talk about what a version of this could look like for your business. let's talk about what a version of this could look like for you