Terms of Service

1. What Ecogru is

Ecogru is a platform that connects skilled professionals with founders who are building startups and businesses across Africa. We help founders find people to hire, and we help professionals find real opportunities to work — based on skill and trust, not who you know.

Ecogru is not an employer of the professionals on the platform, and we are not an employment agency in the traditional sense. We provide the tools — profiles, verification, workspaces, messaging, and payments — that let founders and professionals find each other and work together with confidence. Any work arrangement, contract, or job you agree to through Ecogru is between you and the other party, not with Ecogru itself.

By creating an account and using Ecogru, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree with something here, please don't use the platform, and reach out to us using the contact details at the bottom of this page — we're happy to talk it through.

2. Your responsibilities

Whether you're a professional or a founder, using Ecogru comes with a few basic responsibilities:

• Tell the truth. The information in your profile — your name, skills, experience, business details, and any documents you upload — must be accurate and belong to you.
• Keep your account secure. Don't share your password, and let us know immediately if you think someone else has accessed your account.
• Use Ecogru for its purpose. The platform is for finding real work opportunities and real professionals — not for spam, scams, advertising unrelated products, or collecting people's information for anything outside of Ecogru.
• Respect other people's time. If you're a founder inviting someone to a workspace, or a professional accepting one, follow through. If plans change, say so — don't just go silent.
• Follow the law. You're responsible for making sure your use of Ecogru, and any agreements you make with people you meet here, follow the laws that apply to you.

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account on Ecogru.

3. Professional conduct rules

Ecogru works because people trust each other on it. To protect that trust, everyone using the platform — professionals and founders alike — agrees to:

• Communicate honestly and respectfully, even when disagreements come up.
• Deliver what you say you'll deliver, and communicate early if something is going to be late or different from what was agreed.
• Never ask for or offer payment outside of Ecogru in order to avoid the platform's protections — this puts both sides at risk and is against these terms.
• Never harass, threaten, discriminate against, or abuse anyone on the platform, in a workspace, or in a huddle/call.
• Never misrepresent your identity, your skills, your company, or your intentions.
• Keep workspace conversations, files, and information confidential unless you both agree otherwise.

Founders rate professionals after a workspace wraps up, confirming things like whether work was delivered on time, communication was clear, and whether they'd work with that person again. These honest, skill-based confirmations are what build a professional's reputation on Ecogru — so please rate fairly and factually.

4. The 3-strike system

Ecogru uses a simple, transparent 3-strike system to deal with behaviour that breaks the rules in section 3. We'd rather give people a chance to correct course than punish first — but repeated problems do have consequences.

• Strike 1 — Warning. You'll get a clear message explaining what happened and what needs to change. Most people never get a second strike.
• Strike 2 — Temporary restriction. Your account may be temporarily limited — for example, paused from messaging, joining new workspaces, or appearing in search — while we review what happened.
• Strike 3 — Account suspension. A third confirmed strike results in your account being suspended from Ecogru. In serious cases — fraud, harassment, abuse, or anything illegal — we can suspend an account immediately, without needing to go through all three strikes first.

Strikes are only issued after we've looked into what happened. If you receive a strike and believe it was a mistake, you can appeal it — see the "Dispute resolution" section below for how.

5. Subscription terms

Some features on Ecogru — such as posting workspaces beyond a free limit, advanced search filters, or priority placement for founders — may require a paid subscription plan.

• Subscriptions are billed on a recurring basis (monthly or annually, depending on the plan you choose) until you cancel.
• You can cancel a subscription at any time from your account settings. When you cancel, you'll keep access to paid features until the end of the period you already paid for — we don't cut you off immediately.
• We'll always tell you clearly, before you pay, what a plan includes and what it costs. If we ever change subscription pricing, we'll notify you in advance before it applies to your next billing cycle.
• Free-tier features may change over time as Ecogru grows, but we'll never remove something you've already paid for within a billing period you've paid for.

6. Payment and refund policy

When money moves through Ecogru — whether it's a subscription fee or a payment between a founder and a professional — here's how we handle it:

• Subscription refunds. If you're charged for a subscription in error, or a technical problem on our side caused an incorrect charge, we'll refund it in full. Outside of that, subscription payments are generally non-refundable once the billing period has started, since you've had access to the paid features.
• Work payments. Payments between founders and professionals for work completed are between those two parties. Ecogru is not a bank and does not guarantee payment — but we do provide tools (like workspace records, task tracking, and message history) to help both sides keep a clear, honest record of what was agreed and delivered.
• Disputed charges. If you believe you've been charged incorrectly, contact us within 30 days using the details at the bottom of this page. We'll look into it and respond within a reasonable time.
• No hidden fees. Any fee Ecogru charges will be shown to you clearly before you agree to pay it. We don't add surprise charges.

7. Protecting work in your workspace

Work created inside an Ecogru workspace — documents, designs, code, ideas, and files shared in chat — belongs to whoever created it or whoever it was agreed to belong to, based on the work arrangement between the founder and professional. Ecogru does not claim ownership over anything you create, share, or discuss in a workspace.

• Workspace conversations and files are private to the members of that workspace. We don't read, share, or use them for anything other than providing the service and keeping the platform safe.
• If a founder and professional haven't explicitly agreed on who owns finished work, the general expectation on Ecogru is that ownership transfers to the founder once the professional has been paid in full for that work — but we always recommend agreeing on this clearly at the start of a workspace, in writing, to avoid confusion later.
• Don't share confidential workspace information — ideas, code, business plans — outside of the workspace without permission from the other members.
• The Ecogru platform itself (its design, logo, name, and code) belongs to Ecogru. Using Ecogru doesn't give you rights to any of that.

8. Account termination

You can close your Ecogru account at any time from your account settings. If you'd like help doing this, or want your data removed as well, contact us and we'll take care of it — see our Privacy Policy for how we handle data deletion.

We may suspend or close an account if:

• It reaches strike 3 under our conduct system, or commits a serious violation that skips straight to suspension.
• We find false information, fraud, or impersonation on the account.
• An account has been inactive for a very long period and we need to archive it — we'll always try to notify you first if this is the case.
• We're required to by law.

If your account is closed, any active workspaces you're part of will be affected, so we recommend wrapping up open work and downloading anything you need before closing your account voluntarily.

9. Dispute resolution

Disagreements happen, and most of them can be solved with a simple conversation. Here's how we handle them, from smallest to largest:

• Between you and another user. If there's a disagreement with a founder or professional you're working with, we encourage you to first try to resolve it directly and honestly through your workspace chat. Most issues get solved this way.
• Ecogru support. If you can't reach an agreement, or something has happened that breaks these terms, contact Ecogru support using the details below. We'll review the situation — including workspace records, messages, and any strikes involved — and help mediate a fair outcome.
• Appeals. If you disagree with a decision Ecogru has made about your account (like a strike or suspension), you can appeal by contacting us and explaining why. We'll take a fresh look and respond with our final decision.
• Formal disputes. If a disagreement can't be resolved through the steps above, either side may pursue it through mediation or the appropriate legal process in the professional's or founder's home country, depending on the nature of the dispute.

We built this system to be fair and transparent, not to punish people unnecessarily. If something ever feels unclear or unfair, talk to us — we'd rather sort it out with you than leave you guessing.

Questions about these terms?

Reach out any time at legal@ecogru-africa.com. We keep our answers as plain and direct as this document.

Related reading: our Privacy Policy explains what data we collect and how we protect it.